~ grateful...every day ~

Last week I found a beautiful, simple grateful post over here and felt somewhat embarrassed about my grudgingly grateful (and somewhat whiny) effort.

I decided to "borrow" the idea and watch for grateful opportunities all week.

Saturday : There are daffodils blooming in our garden already.  So pretty.  No wonder Wordsworth was inspired. 

Sunday : The Doc tried a new recipe (from this month's Real Living magazine) for dinner - Chicken Normandy.  Totally delicious.  Always grateful when I don't have to cook.

Monday : Lily has a new teacher (her first teacher went on long-service leave for 4 weeks and then retired at the end of it so this is the third for the year already).  Apparently she is young, funny, great, cool and really smart.  I'm so very grateful for a renewed buzz in my little girl.

Tuesday : Grateful for the extra snuggles and cuddles a sick little boy loves to give his mummy

Wednesday : A friend dropped a coffee in when she knew I was stuck at home with a sick little one.  And she brought gossip. 

Thursday : Very grateful that the Doc was able to move his day around so he could share the care and I could still do my work for the week.

Friday : Another fabulous new recipe (the lentil soup from the same magazine...this month's Real Life is already covered with cooking spatters) shared with my sister visiting from interstate who we don't get to see nearly often enough. Precious time with family and good food...so much to be grateful for.

I'm linking up with Bron and others over  at Village Voices.

Are you grateful this week?

♥

~ friends ~

I'm still smiling every time I think about the weekend.
Not because the sun was shining.  Not because the in-laws had the children and we got to go to Melbourne alone.
This weekend we caught up with a group of friends we don't see often enough.
And it was great.


We ate.
And we walked.
And we shopped (a little)
And we talked (a lot)
And laughed so much my non existent tummy muscles are aching.


These are special friends
The ones we met after Uni, before kids, in that window of time when we had a little money, a lot of freedom and anything seemed possible.


We holidayed together, played in bad mixed netball teams all together, had parties, bought houses, loved life.  Then we started having babies.  We bought bigger houses.  We walked and beached and holidayed and shared our lives like family.


And then we all moved away.  Felt the pull of family, the need to return home to raise our families.


And so we live far apart.  We don't see each other nearly enough.  We promise to email, to phone, to keep in touch and then find we learn more in the Christmas letter than we knew.  And yet....ten minutes together, everyone talking at once, a few old jokes  and it feels like we've never been apart.


This is the family we chose. 


These are friends for life.


And we promise to do it again soon (maybe)
...but know in our hearts it won't matter how long it is.

♥