So I'm just returning home from the last, yes, last trip to the store for Christmas presents this year. You read it right - today is December 5th and I am all done. I did most of it online before Thanksgiving, but still. I'm pretty proud. Christmas cards mailed; family scrapbook pages done, copied, and mailed; parent gifts mailed; kids and Josh presents done. I'm thrilled. No more crowded stores. No more annoyed, angry old people pushing your cart out of their path. No more standing in checkout lines the length of city blocks. No more sifting through the remains of a display rack in the vain hope of finding something worth buying.
So how will I fill my time you ask? Easy - doing things I love to do. Today, for instance, my darling husband called and asked me to lunch. We were, of course, a threesome with baby Hannah in tow, but it made for a lively mix. Sometimes I'm still taken back by our new lifestyle. In days gone by, if he had an extra hour, it would have been spent downtown in his office catching up on some major project, thankful because that was one less hour spent working over the weekend or late at night. He would not have been able to pop home, grab us girls, and head to Via de la Valle - a lovely street with a view to the beach and loads of tasty restaurants. It seems surreal here sometimes, this California lifestyle. A girl could get used to this.
I think though, that not a day will pass where I will take it for granted. Every day this summer that it didn't rain (which was pretty much every day), I said a prayer of thanks in my heart. Every time we made that five-minute ride to the beach (which was, again, pretty much every day), I said thanks. The many nights when my husband made it home in time for dinner with us, I marveled at our good fortune. This place is truly perfection. We are truly blessed. Life, it has been good to us. It's true what they say - you have to have the bad to appreciate the good. We are living proof of that. And right now life is good - very, very good.
So how will I fill my time you ask? Easy - doing things I love to do. Today, for instance, my darling husband called and asked me to lunch. We were, of course, a threesome with baby Hannah in tow, but it made for a lively mix. Sometimes I'm still taken back by our new lifestyle. In days gone by, if he had an extra hour, it would have been spent downtown in his office catching up on some major project, thankful because that was one less hour spent working over the weekend or late at night. He would not have been able to pop home, grab us girls, and head to Via de la Valle - a lovely street with a view to the beach and loads of tasty restaurants. It seems surreal here sometimes, this California lifestyle. A girl could get used to this.
I think though, that not a day will pass where I will take it for granted. Every day this summer that it didn't rain (which was pretty much every day), I said a prayer of thanks in my heart. Every time we made that five-minute ride to the beach (which was, again, pretty much every day), I said thanks. The many nights when my husband made it home in time for dinner with us, I marveled at our good fortune. This place is truly perfection. We are truly blessed. Life, it has been good to us. It's true what they say - you have to have the bad to appreciate the good. We are living proof of that. And right now life is good - very, very good.
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