Gratitude

We did a gratitude meditation at Wellspring on Monday night. It was really great, but hard to narrow it down to a few minutes! The last couple of years, I have become so much more aware of all the things I have to be grateful for.

For instance, yesterday was one of the most perfect days I can remember. I went to work an hour early, got most of the classrooms cleaned up, with no interruptions. Then I met with Rev. Jen, and she approved of my ideas for a youth soul matters group, and is going to get me started with organizing an informal "ministry" group of locals who are in seminary, thinking about it, preparing for MFC, are interning, or are seeking. We also talked a bit about my changing relationships with the church, the staff, my ministers and my friends and she had some helpful things to share about her experience with integration.

It's a fine line between integration and enmeshment, my friends. But I'm parsing it out - I am reducing the number of "hats" that I wear and picking ones that make the most sense - leadership and development; community partnership for school; homeschooling/friends/church.

We also had a nice chat about school and she was very encouraging about me doing it full time. It's nice to have people in my life who see my ability, and also remind me to take care of myself while I'm forging ahead.

After all that, I came home to find that, not only had my oldest daughter done all her chores, kept the littles happy and alive, but had also done a serious boatload of laundry, freeing me up to take my 10 year old for a long bike ride while the littles napped. We had a deliciously light dinner of BBQ sandwiches and salad, and then drove up to Seneca Falls State Park and visited the beach, and one of the coolest playgrounds I've ever seen. They also have a cool sprayground that will be open soon; best of all, it's only 15 minutes from our door. There's miles of paths and fishing.

We had an easy bedtime, I got to watch Benny & Joon, and hang out with my husband for a couple of hours.

Two other funny things to be grateful for:

When Lucy sneezes, she says, "I had a bless you!"

And as Tom was going to work this morning, he kissed the kids goodbye and Jude asked him, "Aren't you going to kiss the girl you love?" (meaning me, of course!)

It looks to be another day to enjoy.