Week in Review: April 11-17

What a bright beautiful morning I woke up to today. Warm & happy enough to soothe some of my "I hate Monday" glumness. Poor Monday. So many of us have a distaste for her. It's true. I have the same pep-talk with my girls every Sunday night as I tuck them into bed: "After a weekend filled with fun & relaxation, Mondays are hard. It WILL be difficult to wake up tomorrow morning. But we can DO this! We GOT this! Goodnight, girls..." 

After almost a week of feeling sickly, I finally feel the cloud in my head starting to lift. That foggy feeling in your brain is the worst when you're ill. Maybe all of my constant going-going-going the last two weekends was too much. Maybe my body had enough & is now forcing me to rest.

 Two weeks ago I visited the Skagit Valley tulips with my mom for a joint birthday road trip. We took along my dad & my oldest daughter too. We visited RoozenGaarde + Tulip Town. I have been wanting to do this for many years, but kept putting it off. Not this year! I actually wrote it down as a goal for 2016. So I was determined to make it happen.  As we drove around, scouting out where the fields were, I spied a massive blur of red in the distance. And as we approached all that intense color, my breath left me. It is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. Tulips for days. This is where rainbows are made. (I'm pretty sure.) On our road trip, I also had a chance to take the ferry to Guemes Island to visit grandmother's grave for the first time since her memorial service there, almost two years ago. We cleaned up her gravestone, left some potted tulips in her favorite color (purple), & even had a brief moment in the breezy, breezy, chilly day for some beach time, where I hunted for agates & listened to the waves on the rocky shore. My happy tank was refilled. 

The very next weekend I helped drive & chaperone 13 middle school & high school youth to Fine Arts in Bothell, where they performed skits, song, & dance for adjudicators, along with oodles of other church kids across the northwest. It was so much fun getting to be a part of all these youth sharing their gifts & talents. (One of our own even qualified to go to Nationals. So proud!) Spending an entire day surrounded by all that music & art definitely awakened something in me. Bonus: we stayed at Camp Sambica. I love Camp Sambica! A bonfire at the lake shore at sunset was my favorite. Sharing a cabin with crazy girls was another favorite. Oh, & attending church service at Mt. Calvary Christian Center in Seattle was a third favorite. I visited once before &, oh, how I was giddy to go again! You know worship is good when your thighs are on fire.

So, yeah, I'm on the mend after a blurry time away from home. I have been pacifying myself with things like ginger + lemon tea with honey, a heating pad on my achy bones, cozy covers, & lots of doodling & writing in the sketchbook.

I felt well enough yesterday to putter around the house more. I made a fresh double batch of hummus, folded a tiny mound of laundry, & even helped the teenager with vocals for a local production of Annie Get Your Gun. Apparently I'm her voice coach now. I love that she is chasing her dreams. She doesn't care that she's not the best or the greatest. She has found something that makes her heart hum. And that is always my prayer for my girls: whatever it is that makes their heart full of joy, that they would pursue that. She is so much more of a go-getter than I ever was or ever will be. Watching her makes me wish I could re-do my own childhood.

Speaking of childhood, I'm reading Peter Pan aloud to Pazely. I have never read this book. Mr. Darling is more intense in the book than in the Disney movie. And Tinkerbell is more of a foul-mouthed imp than I realized! Sheesh. The girls & I also took a break from the 3rd book in the Wrinkle In Time quintet so I could read aloud "Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children". And, actually, we finished that last night & have started the 2nd book, "Hollow City". Really good books! But there ARE naughty words throughout & some inappropriate phrases. So I get to change things around as I read. 

Well, it's time for me to reheat my cup of tea. (It's my thing.) 

Hope your week is filled with lovely things! 

If you'd like, follow me on Instagram to keep up with my daily doings.