Hooray! Another excuse for a celebration!

Wow! What a crazy couple of weeks we have planned, and I’m not the one who has 6 hours of class from Monday to Thursday of next week! I just got back from spending a few days at my daughter’s house, seeing a movie (If I haven’t mentioned it yet, “The 100 Foot Journey” is excellent) and a concert, with a little R & R in between, and grand furry cuddles thrown in for good measure. Later this week, it will be her turn to travel as we gather to celebrate her <yikes!> twenty-seventh birthday! As we tend to make a big deal about our celebrations, it will be up to me to gather the necessary paraphernalia with which to make things look festive. She has decided that, since she makes the best cakes, she’ll make her own, in her spare time, of course! We came up with a new recipe this week, and her test batch was very tasty, though we both knew that it needed more spices to make it perfect!

My intention this week is to get back on track with my gym workouts, which are even more necessary since she took me to a wonderful Jewish deli for breakfast this morning, and I came home with four Hamentashen, six raspberry rugala and a hot-out-of-the-oven loaf of delicious Jewish rye! Exercise is no longer simply an option (if it ever really was!), but an absolute necessity! But getting out of the house in the morning gives me that extra push I need to also run errands. I’ll just add gathering decorations and shopping for her birthday present to my list! The truth is, I love these joyful errands. It’s right up there with shopping for the Thanksgiving feast which, sadly, will take place without my son-in-law this year as he’s somewhere in the middle of the ocean and won’t be back for several months. We got to talk to him last night, and he sounded pretty down, but then, I would expect him to miss his wife! At least his first deployment is taking place after they celebrated their second anniversary. It could have been worse!

Adversity is simply an opportunity to be creative

My daughter is always up for a challenge and, faced with a possible six week lag before he might receive a package, she’s getting creative about canning holiday goodies so he’ll have at least a taste of home now and then. She already made up about a dozen jars of homemade soup for him. Her first attempt at strawberry jam was amazing, so I’m sure he’ll get some of that too. And it gives her something else to think about as well. Now it’s my turn to come up with a box of stuff to send him that is a combination of useful and amusing without being too large. (When he gave us a tour of his ship, he showed us the living quarters. They might be ample for something the size of, oh, a hamster! But for a human they are more than a little cozy. How else do you fit 5,000 people and I don’t know how many planes and helicopters on a ship that’s smaller than Carnival’s Inspiration which holds about 2000 guests and 900 employees?) I’ve heard the sleeping accommodations referred to as a “rack” and now I understand why! I doubt they even rate a half a star, and these people work really hard!

So I’ll spend the next few days gathering birthday stuff, being creative about things to send to my son-in-law, going to the gym, and with a bit of luck, actually getting some writing or studying about writing in as well! Sounds like a marvelous week to me, especially the part about my daughter coming down!

My gratitudes tonight are:
1. I am grateful for frequent visits with my daughter.
2. I am grateful for homecomings, when my cats just can’t seem to get enough of me!
3. I am grateful for friends who help us celebrate life’s events, both big and small.
4. I am grateful for lessons which seem to come on a daily basis.
5. I am grateful for abundance; motivation, inspiration, dreams, challenges, love, harmony, peace, health and prosperity.

Namaste