Reflections on the week...

Saturdays are such great days to slow down, relax, reflect on the past week, plan for the coming one plus get a few errands and projects done too. I'm enjoying this beautiful, cool and fall-like weather we're having in Missouri and the hummingbirds are going crazy. They have been at my feeder more in the past week than all summer. Hmmmm...wonder if that means they are getting ready to move on. I hope not...I'm not ready for them to go.

This past week I had two workshops at work. Part of my job is to organize the events we hold and there are many events this year. The two this past week are our biggest of the semester. They both went well overall with only a couple of minor hiccups at each one. Now on to post-workshop details and getting ready for the upcoming events and projects. Academic Year 2009-2010 has officially started for us now.

Kobe got to meet his 3rd grade teacher this week. Initially, he wasn't excited at all when he found out who his teacher was. He was really hoping to have the teacher who taught the scrap booking segment during summer school and she is great. However, when we got up to the classroom and actually met his new teacher and he saw that a few of his friends were in his class, he was much more excited. I'm pleased that she is a teaching veteran with 22 years of experience all in our school district. We also went to visit his teacher from last year and she didn't even recognize him he had grown so much. He loved her and we're both going to miss her but this year holds a lot of promise to be GREAT!

Now, on to the Baseball saga. Kobe was so excited to sign up for Fall Baseball because he loved Spring Baseball. Well, as it turns out he ended up on a team with kids all from another school and he doesn't know anyone and the coach is hardcore (as far as 8 year olds are concerned). He makes them do drills, run laps when they make mistakes and he takes it all very seriously. So seriously that he had practice last night, this morning, Sunday afternoon and Monday evening in addition to the other practices they've already had. The first game is Wednesday evening. All the practices and drills seem a little excessive but we're trying to roll with it. Kobe, however, is not enjoying it and just seems to be tolerating it. He has said he wants to quit. He hasn't even played the first game yet so he can't really judge this season fairly until that happens. I hope this experience doesn't ruin it for him...he is only 8 years old. What to do? What to do? Sometimes this parenting stuff is hard!

The rest of the weekend is mostly going to consist of hanging out, doing laundry, going to baseball practices and reading my new book, Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs. Sounds pretty good to me!

Hope your weekend is a good one.

Extraordinary Women Conference 2009

Just wanted to share with you that I found out today that I won tickets to the Extraordinary Women Conference in Kansas City that is at the end of the month! There is a great lineup of speakers including Stormie Omartian, Candace Cameron Bure (remember D.J. from Full House?), Michelle McKinney Hammond and Angela Thomas. I've wanted to go to this conference for a couple of years and never have made it there.

I follow the conference on Twitter and saw they were having a giveaway...I knew Twitter was good for something!

Have a great day!

The Sunlight Always Comes...

That morning I walked into my kitchen and saw a stream of light coming through one of the windows. “Could it be?”, I thought. You see, we’d had 7 days of rain. Misty Days. Foggy Days. Dreary Days. Not our typical early summer weather. I grabbed my coffee and walked to the back door. I pulled the curtain aside and had to shield my eyes from the intense sunlight. I smiled. I quietly opened the door so as not the wake the others in the house and silently padded outside.

As I looked around, I felt like I had been away from the garden for weeks instead of days. It seemed as if everything had blossomed and grown in the span of those dark days. As I wandered down my stone path, I gazed at the hydrangeas, daylilies and my new rose begonias. Their blooms seemed to be smiling at me with their intense colors of blue, burgundy, orange and yellow.

Around the bend of the path I came upon the hummingbird feeder surrounded by zinnias and cosmos of many colors. I see one little hummer friend perched on the feeder for an early morning treat. This is a bright spot in the garden for sure.

I stop and sit on the stone bench shaded by an old dogwood tree. Blooms already gone for this season and replaced by shiny green leaves. I sit surrounded by beauty. Quiet. Content. I notice the sunlight dancing on a leftover raindrop and I think about how my garden is really a symbol of my life. I started out small like a seed. No real idea of where my life was going. I grew some. Had some setbacks and then recovered. Grew some more and then bloomed right where I needed to be.

Sometimes we have dreary days, weeks and even years in our lives. Then, when we’re not expecting it, the sun peeks in and says, “I’m here, you can come out and play now.”





photos courtesy of flickr.com