Ponderous

I am rich. I am rich in friends. My friends love me. I love my friends, deeply. I hope they know that. I'm confident they do.

I am encouraged by my friends. Not because I'm been low & they've edified me. We all know that that happens, goodness me. Quite the opposite actually. I love that I have friends that aren't perfect & can come to me, or allow me come to them, while they're broken. They allow me to see them broken. They can (and have) seen me broken. It's not comfy. It's not fun. It can be scary & ugly. There can be tears, uncomfortable silence, uninterpretable glances, awkward smiles, and sometimes insincere smiles. And we continue on as family. Not ignoring the ugly, not condoning the ugly, not even necessarily agreeing on what the ugly is or how it should be treated. But we continue. Loving each other. As true family.

I found it odd that I'm encouraged by my friends' hardships. Sounds a little sick at first. To tell you the truth, I was a little horrified. I didn't get it & have been pondering it for a while. It's not their hardship that encourages me but the fact that I have people that love & trust me enough that they can be real. We can see each other raw, broken & bleeding. That's friendship. That's real family. It's not catching a movie together, or chatting over lunch. Real friendship is powerfully, wonderfully and, at times, incredibly uncomfortably worth every emotion we got.

I expect my friends to grow, change & deepen. They better expect the same from me. I do not take well to ineffective complacentness. They better not tolerate it from me. Does this mean years from now I can't make silly faces, giggle or just plain do a whole lot of nothing with a true friend? Oh please, bring on the silly face making! But I will not be the exact same person 20 years from now that I am today. Buckle up, 'cause some of it's not going to be pretty. God is going to mold me into the woman He desires me to me. I'm going to let Him. It's not all going to be comfy. I trust Him with me. I trust Him with my friends.

I say thank you to my friends: broken, struggling, content, or peaceful. I've got ones that fit in each box. I say thank you to those that are willing to reveal your real self to me. It is encouraging to me that you love and trust me enough with it. I will treat it like the treasure that it is. You are a blessing, no matter the box you're in at the moment.

Well, I'Declair

For months I've planned on forgoing birthday cake and getting the I'Declair at Claim Jumper. Yesterday was the day & six of us went last night to split it. That sucker's HUGE! Of course they still brought out the free slice of birthday mud pie. SOOOOO delicious. None of us had had it before. Seriously, how could you? After a meal at Claim Jumper who has room for dessert? Besides, you gotta get the whole mountain of eclair-y goodness. This was the perfect plan. It was the perfect amount of tasty treat for all of us. I think it was the first time I left there not completely stuffed.

Of course birthday cake was not completely skipped. I had pink cake with the family on Sunday. Yesterday we had chocolate cake & macaroon cake at work. Yum!

Family Time

My family's coming over for dinner tonight. It seems like forever since we've all gotten together. It was in mid-July to celebrate my mom's & greg's birthdays. We had delicious eats at Lucille's. It made me sad last week when Kaisara's dad asked me how my folks were & I had to say, "Fine, I guess. I haven't seen them in a while." That's just studpid! I only live 15 miles away & the best I could do was, "Fine, I guess!" Whatever!

So Daddy wanted to break bread on the most excellent patio table in existance so everyone's coming over for grilled burgers (homemade, not pre-fab hockey pucks), chips, salsa, guacamole, watermelon, salad & some early birthday cake for a little certain someone.

Yeah!

Oh yeah...it's really hot.

All Grow'd Up!

I'm not a baby anymore. I just found out today. To quote The Princess Bride, "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

I went back to SCR today. We're building a WHOLE LOTTA costumes for A Little Night Music. My favorite period, Edwardian. I find out I'm building (and by building, I mean patterning), from scratch, 3 dresses, a corset, drawers, and a robe. Wow, okay. I knew there'd be alot of work and that's the easy stuff? You see, I'm the baby cutter. I get the easy stuff. Not anymore! There's a new baby cutter in town & I've been moved up. (Technically the title is "Junior Cutter" but I think baby cutter's more endearing). Along with the new scary work load I got a little some-in' some-in' in the paycheck department.

Sweet! I'll post pics weeks from now when the show's up.

Glorious

Kaisara & I went to the beach this morning with Kyle & Lydia. It was wonderful. I love the beach. Why don't I go more often? I sit on my towel for maybe five minutes & I can't wait any longer, I gotta get in that water. Somehow it just feeds my soul. Didn't even know it was hungry. I swear going to the beach has healing powers.

All 4 of us got in the water, got out, had lunch, got back in the water. A big ol' wave took me out & nearly took my bathing suit bottoms clean off (that would NOT have been pretty!). Kyle made a comment that every time a wave comes he could hear me laugh. I confirmed it. The water makes me happy. The weather was awesome, the water was great.

What a glorious first half of the day. Now we're showered, groomed & heading over to Dana & Melanie's luau party. They're gonna crack up at Kaisara. He's going with his roots & wearing a lava-lava. Don't worry, he's wearing a shirt!

I'm Getting Things Done, Man!

Let me tell you, I am really enjoying "The Summer of Cate". (btw: in case you didn't know, that's what summer 2007 has been renamed due to the fact I'm no longer at Pageant). I've seen movies. I've had friends over for dinner. I've gone to girls' night. I've baked brownies. I've gone to bridal showers & wedding celebrations and didn't have to leave early. Most importantly, I see my hotty-hubby like every day. Who'da thunk?!

Today is my 2nd day off after finishing R & J at SOC. I'm really glad I took that miracle-in-plain-sight job. It was low key, the people were great & I got to make some neat-o things (I'm awaiting a photo CD from the designer). The shop manager wants to hire me for some other projects (did I already post about that? if so, sorry).

While now being out of work for 2 days I've done tons. Ran a bunch of errands yesterday, almost finished the quilt top for my etsy store, painted the door sashing for the bathroom, laid the contact paper in the vanity & drawers, did & put away I don't know how many loads of laundry, paid the bills, uploaded a few more patterns onto my store (hey, I made another sale too!), did the dishes, shall I go on? I tell you, I'm en fuego!

Tomorrow is fun with Cat, Saturday is Luau party with Dana & Melanie, Sunday is Luau birthday party for my niece & Monday is L.A. with Iris.

Better go, don't wanna loose my momentum!

It's Been a While

Not much going on here. I'm almost done with my job at Shakespeare Orange County (SOC). I've enjoyed my time there. It's much more relaxed and less stressful than SCR. The shop manager wants to hire me for other projects at Chapman so it's nice to have another contact. My last day at SOC will probably be Monday. I don't start at SCR until Tuesday of the following week. A little time off won't be complained about.

I'm heading up to Cat's shop at Cal State San Bernardino on Thursday. She thinks I'm going up to help her with Cyrano. I told her I'm mostly going to hang out :-) I'm sure I'll be able to squeeze both in there. Kaisara's going to take the train up after work & we'll have dinner with all of the Ericksons & we'll only have one car to drive home. I LOVE the train!

I still plan on riding my bike to work once I start at SCR again. I'll carpool with Kaisara to his work & bike from there. It's only 3 miles and it will probably only be one-way so my mileage is going to take a major hit. I'll have to squeeze in other rides elsewhere. Kathy better get her bike rack soon!

Kaiara & I are almost done with the master bath remodel. We started in January but why rush? It's turning out awesome. I've got the first coat of paint on the base boards & crown molding right now. Then all we need is to paint the door molding & a new medicine cabinet. I'll post pics when it's done.

Don't forget to join my race for the cure team or to donate toward my participation!