Hi.

Do you know what this is?
Look carefully.
Examine the photo closely.
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It's a cleared off dining room table.
No, actually it's a CLEANED off table.
Everything was put in it's place... even the Christmas decorations.

I keep walking through the living and dining rooms this evening because they look so inviting.

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Notice anything else?

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I've become my mother.

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In this house I have 6 bookcases all filled with books.

Books are on whatever shelf they fit on height-wise.

I have not filed them according to the dewey decimal system. They are not filed at all. Home Care for Dummies is right next to Outlander which is beside Danielle Steele which is right next to the Bible I got for my 10th birthday. It's like a treasure hunt to find any particular book.

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All that has changed now.

Now? My dining room bookshelves...

... only house black, red, and blue spined books.

Because I'm shallow that way.

Beauty above function.

Always.

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Clint's been putting in mega hours this week, preparing for Northview's Global Connections service (Missions weekend) - including editing his Africa video footage.

Seeing I can't get Max and Drew up for church on Sunday mornings I thought I'd invite them to join me at the Saturday evening service.

Drew came along.

Yay.

Oh my goodness.

I am so proud of that boy of mine.

His contributions to the service were professional and creative.

And the whole evening - SO inspiring.

Wow.

I want to go on another missions trip.

There was this Oma who is taking a team of 12 women to Mexico to 'love on the kids' in an orphanage ... they're going to take them to the waterslides, to Burger King, to a mall to buy them shoes, they're going to help out wherever needed, doing whatever they can.

She says, all humble-like, that she goes on missions trips all over the world and brings her sewing machine along. "I always find something to repair - curtains that are too long, clothes that need patches, skirts that need hemming, bedding that needs to be made."

Her husband is 76. He helps with painting, maintenance, whatever.

This fall they'll be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary and to celebrate they're taking their entire family (children and grandchildren - who are mostly grandsons) to Baja Mexico to build a house for a native family.

Like I said; totally inspiring evening.

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And then we came home, ate sushi and the kids played Rockband:

Three things I'm thankful for:

1. An awesome Friday night. Thank God for friends. Two of us were going to go to dinner and see a movie. And then at 4 o'clock it became three of us. Half an hour later it was four of us and by the time we met at the theatre it was 5 of us.

Know what the best part is about evenings like this?

Not everyone really knew each other. But each of us knew someone.

And it was great.

Because women? Are fabulous.

The movie was Made of Honor. Which was meh, but that certainly didn't matter. The person beside me completely (and oh, I mean, totally) lost it during one scene and her laughter was SO blinkin' infectious that I caught it. And the belly? Oh it jiggled and wiggled for a good 5 minutes while mascara ran down my cheeks.

Women friends? A great invention.

2. It's supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

And tomorrow is Sunday.

But because I went to church tonight, I'm free to go to the beach tomorrow.

I think I could easily get into this Saturday-night-at-church thing.

3. I have a bare n naked dining room table! Do you know how freeing that is? Maybe you'd have to be drowning in clutter to fully appreciate my euphoria.

Shalom.