ENCOURAGED IN HEART

Today, as I sat in my comfy private time chair and looked out my window, I reveled as the leaves on the tree outside swayed, in a gentle hula dance.

I thought, “I can’t wait until fall; I love the chilly crisp air and spray of vibrant hues.”

And then I remember saying this past fall, after the beautifully painted leaves dropped to the ground, “I can’t wait untilwinter; I love wearing chunky turtle neck cable sweaters and watching the snow fall.”

And, after the winter we just endured here in Northern Virginia, which was record-breaking snowfalls, it’s easy to remember, “I can’t wait until the spring to get here already. I am SO over shoveling snow (but not the snowball fights)!”

And then spring arrived to both Cal and I sneezing our ever lovin’ brains out where I declared, “Pollen be gone!” and, “I can’t wait until summer’s here already.”

Jake turned EIGHT today. I can’t help but get reflective, particularly on milestone days. I remember saying, “I can’t wait until we have kids.” Which took, in my opinion, far too long and far too many tears to occur; but today I see the bigger purpose from that painful season. Then, at full gestation, in the Virginia heat with cankles (calves+ankles being just one = cankles) eight summers ago, “I can’t wait until this baby gets out!”

Then, tripping over the bulky and endless accessories that babies seem to “need”, the quadruple amount of time required to run a simple errand, the sleepless nights, unshaven legs, nursing bras, plugged milk ducts, baby puke on one (or both) shoulders, “I can’t wait until this baby can talk…feed himself…walk…go to school…etc.”

It’s been an endless vicious cycles of “I can’t wait until’s…”

In my finances, “I can’t wait until we’re out of debt…”

Even in my eating life, “I can’t wait until I can have another slice of cake (while I’m still eating the first piece)” or “I can’t wait until I get to my goal weight.”

I don’t think it’s wrong to look forward to the future, as I believe it’s an essential ingredient to faith. But I do believe solely focusing on the “until” moment, squeezes the nutritious juice out of the orange of my life, and leaves me with just the pulp.

Well, I want to enjoy both the juice and the pulp. My choice of only taking part allows the beauty and essence of today to be stolen. And the most annoying thing of it all was that I signed that permission slip.

What’s your, “I can’t wait until…?”

Don’t be like me.

Squeeze the essence out of today. Savor both the pulp and juice. Look for the beautiful trees doing the hula in your hood. Don’t do the dishes today (that is, unless your house is on the market…then do the dishes!) and choose to savor that you have people in your life – savor that gift without the distraction of one “I can’t wait until…“.

I know one adorable birthday boy that I CAN wait until he gets his driver’s licence. (I’ve seen the child play Wii Mario Kart and drive the track at Disney, I can wait!)

Don’t wait until…be mindful to be in the moment and savor now! I’m off to savor a shower, my awesome church and my birthday boy on our family day!

We’re back from vacation and what a vacation it was! It was one “radical sabbatical” from life!

This was the first time that Jake and Cal have ever been to Disney. We drove down to Florida where I endorsed the 80/20 rule…the Finkster drove 80% while “Miss Daisy” drove 20%.

Poor Finkster…

The time I lacked in the driver’s seat, I made up in word count.

Double poor Finkster…

We managed to locate 47 different states in the license plate game (darn you South Dakota, Hawaii and Rhode Island) -car: as well as visit our buddy, Pedro and the most overly advertised location on I-95!

(My guys in front of Pedro at South of the Border.)

Could we be more tourist-ish-ie?

(Cal and Jake in their petite sombreros.)

I guess that’s a “Yes!”.

Dave’s parents (whom I’ve previously dubbed the King and Queen of Yes) flew in to spend the week with us. Considering my mother-in-law’s aversion to flight travel, it was HUGE! I fully anticipated seeing a drugged version of my mother-in-law post-flight, and when I asked how her flight was, I was delighted to find that she was not slurring her speech and recalled the flight as well as replied something to the effect that, “This pilot actually knew what he was doing….”.

The first day we met up with Disney’s finest artist, my friend since high school and fellow senior class “Most Friendly”, Cody.

Back in high school, Cody dreamed of being an artist for Disney. Today, he is and I’m SO proud of him! Talking to Cody, you’d think it’s no “big deal”, because he’s so humble. So, I’d like to take a second and “show off” my friend of, holy cow, twenty years. Cody’s standing next to just a few of the many Disney products that he drew and designed!

Pretty awesome, huh?

My sweet accountability partner of over six years, Nancy, lives in Florida and drove out with her four adorable sons, and we toured Animal Kingdom together!

The boys had a blast together being the little comedians that they are…

Then Sunday was super special as we were able to spend the entire day with my sister (who also lives in Florida), Karen, my brother-in-law, Bob and three of their five adorable kids. (I’m currently awaiting sister approval to post her children’s faces on the world-wide web or I’d already dazzle ya with their adorable cuteness!) We stayed at the resort, swam and had a family barbecue!

I have to say, that I’ll leave it to the men, to create the trip’s most memorable moments! On the dinosaur ride while in Dinoland,

I found Jake in his most charismatic praise and worship session ever. I looked back to check on him, as my ride partner, Cal, wasn’t digging the ride, it was dark, loud and had dinos popping out,

(Photo from Google.)

to find Jake with both his eyes squeezed tight as he repeatedly shouted out, “God is good…God is good…God is good….God is good.”

I’ve found that it’s difficult to comfort your freaked-out son while laughing hysterically…so, I’m clearly not mother of the year, but rumor has it that I wasn’t even nominated!

Then, as we rode the cars, we were just listening to the instructions to, “Not bump the car in front…” when whiplash occurred for both Jake and I…madman Cal was at the wheel and clearly felt the need for speed!

As if he could see above the wheel or something…

And while we were waiting in the most blessedly refreshing air conditioning, the wild WVU Mountaineer Mania struck…all the men.

Mom and I did not claim them as ours, we pretended that we were a party of two.

But afterwards, we did get Mom and Dad their Christmas card photo for this year,

(Aren’t they adorable!?!)

All the while the Finkster was talking some seriously smooth sexy talk to me. He told me to, “Man up!” Yes, my husband of 13 years told me, his wife, to “Man up!” all because I didn’t want to lose my lunch on roller coasters. So I said, “Fine, I’ll go…” and the troops rejoiced, that is until we hit the ride,

where we found that it was shut down and under repair. I don’t want to say God plays favorites or anything, put I’m pretty sure He likes me more than the Finkster! Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

After doing four long days in the four different Disney parks, Animal Kingdom

Magic Kingdom,

Hollywood Studios,

and Epcot (or the “golf ball” as Cal calls it),

where we did, thank the good Lord, meet Donald the Duck.

And if you think, for even a moment, that I won’t mention Cal’s shirt…a shirt that was procured by the Queen of Yes after we dined at the Rain Forest Cafe, you’re wrong. I just gotta mention it…Cal wanted to be able to see his red-eyed tree frog and saw no reason to have it on his back, so there is a method to his madness…

My in-laws and the Finkster, those West Virginians…they can hang. As for the Jersey girl and her half-bred West Virginians, we cannot.

I needed some lounging by the pool time.

To tell you how tired I was, I didn’t even want coffee, that’s how tired I was…bordering on completely delusional. So we rested up at the pool during the day, and hit the outlets at night. The next day we said goodbye to our beautiful resort living and hit the road.

We spent our last night away from home in beautiful Savannah, Georgia.

Where the Finkster deliberated remaining in Savannah as we approach one street, the street, where he could eat both Five Guys and Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, that are just doors away from each other. He does after all, have to consider how to keep “his condition” at bay…

The boys bulked up just thinking about it!

We savored our “last supper” while on the road,

and are back home safe and sound!