Divine Imperfections

Five Minute Friday: Grateful

 

Grateful.

 

Grateful takes work.

Grateful is good, but grateful is hard.

 

 

Jaded. That’s easy. 

Frustrated. All the time.

 

Disapointed, yes. 

But grateful?

 

 

For imperfect people.

Crappy days.

Flowers that will soon be dead.

  

A life that is so unbelievably far from what I had hoped.

 

It’s better in a lot of ways, this life I’m leading.

Don't get me wrong.

 

But it doesn’t look at all like I thought it should.

 

My photos are blurry and grainy and poorly lit. 

Not the sort of white and shiny thing it would be easy to promote on Instagram.

  

But does that mean it’s bad?

Does that mean my life is inferior?

'Cause it wouldn't look right in a magazine?

It doesn't look pulled from the "front page" of Pinterest?

 

 

Raw. Unedited.

But something to be grateful for nonetheless.

That's life.

 

That's my life. 

 

Lots of questions these days.

 

Lots of what ifs. 

And why on earths.

 

Frustrations, little and major, come with nearly every turn these days.

 

But still.

  

 

I see a smiley face sticker on the coffee shop wall.

And take a second to actually savor my next sip of latte.

 

And I pause from those pesky voicemails I have to return, to catch my breath first.

To refocus. To re-see.

 

 

 

Things aren’t so bad. 

In fact, life is pretty great.

 

Not always pretty, clean, or enviable. 

But then again, what place does envy have amongst the living?

 

 

Shouldn’t we all be too busy, and too present, in our own blessed lives, to be anything but grateful for the breaths we alone get to breathe? 

Those are my jumbled thoughts from the wire, words that mark a joyful reunion with the Friday free writers.

I really am thanking God for this weekend, 

Weekend Update: Hangin' with our Homies

We're so close to this weekend I can almost taste it.

In the meantime, here's a quick look at what we were up to eight days ago.

 

Hope it helps you get through those last two long work days.

You already know the hubs had a concert this past Saturday, in my hometown of all places. That was super fun.

But what you don't know is how we killed the rest of our weekend.

And boy did we kill it. (That's still a good thing, right?)

 

Here we go!

 

There are no pictures from work last Friday (imagine that!), but I did capture one quick snapshot of my remaining plant babies before we left home.

(So far this spring I've literally killed a cilantro, a rosemary and a basil plant - or two. And... the season is young yet. :/

I have increasingly low hopes, even for the cacti, hence the picture.)

 

Saturday "the boys" and I walked to the nearest (only) coffee shop in town, where they were spotted, which was pretty cool.

 

"Are you that band?" a stranger asked.

 

Why yes, they are that band. :) You know, the one band.

 

Thanks to last-minute packing I spent Saturday afternoon frantically hitting up four-stores trying to hunt down any remaining sweatshirts in Texas.

Eventually success was found at Kohl's.

But really the whole trip was fun, thanks to very good company. (Old friends are the best!)

 

Saturday night after the concert (our first selling shirts by the way - thanks everyone that purchased one!) Mikael and I celebrated the way we usually do after a show.

By eating our weight in Whataburger. (So many regrets. :) )

 

Sunday we spent the day recouping from our wild, crazy weekend (mostly the Whataburger) by leaving the house only once, for a lunch break with our cousins.

This time, we went vegan. Only, because I'm me, I ordered the least healthy options I could find.

 
A white sausage covered burrito, AND a cookies and cream shake (made with almond milk)?

Yup; they were delicious.

And the trip was fun, as always.

 

I've never lived close to my cousins, so it was great inheriting awesome ones through Mikael.

 

And that was last weekend in words.

But I know what you really want is more pictures.

 

So, here's Teddy (my favorite puppy nephew) helping me blog.

I'm thinking he's the cutest assistant I ever did see. 

While we were up to that, what were you guys doing this weekend? Anything fun?

More importantly...

 

What are your big plans come Friday?

 

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Weekend Update: A Fresh Feeling

Weekend Update: A Birthday Bash and Band Practice

Hey Alligators!

Today I overslept, then spent most of the day in my pajamas, with Wife Swap on in the background, making me hope the Mayans are right and the world will end soon. (Toddlers and Tiaras has the same effect on me.)

Then I made the mistake of calling my mom, all sad and stuff. (Poor Mom.) She tried to cheer me up and offer me genuine encouragement, but it's hard to feel good about life with dirty hair I've decided.

 

So I cried. And wiped snot on my shirt. And then I wrote a really long, really dramatic post.

Luckily for you, instead of publishing said post I opted to take a shower.

 

Feeling much more humane, and less stinky, I opened my email and saw there was an Etsy order. (Yay!)

Then I realized walking to the post office to drop off the cuties that sold meant an excuse to stop and get a Pepsi.

And walking back home with a caffeine buzz, I remembered it's Friday.

 

It's really hard to be all mopey and dramatic when it's Friday, and you're sipping a Pepsi, and you made $15-ish dollars on cute little brass figurines that were previously very sad & collecting dust in a box in your living room.

 

So, instead of bumming you out with all the woes of the week, I'm just gonna say, "Have a GREAT weekend."

And "See ya later Gators."

 

Now I can get back to really important stuff, like watching Pride and Prejudice on Oxygen (the scene where they zoom in on the first hand touch just melted my jaded heart), and waiting for Hubby to come home so we can celebrate sale #3, and the fact that we won't need an alarm clock 'til Monday.

 

P.S. If you're interested in totally making my Monday - and helping me become slightly less of a hoarder - check out my Etsy shop.

You might just persuade me to update it over the weekend, and make my Husband eternally grateful that we own slightly less vintage "treasure."  :)

... And Fancyfree

So tonight my sister and I got dolled up (put on something other than sweatpants) and headed out to the theatre (the one closeby with the $1 hotdogs)... and we... had the BEST NIGHT EVER.

Not an exaggeration.

If, like me, you sometimes take life too seriously and just need to relax... I've got a one word solution for you. That word?

FOOTLOOSE!!!

Having never seen the original, I must say, the 2011 version... PRICELESS! Which makes it definitely worth the $12 we paid, $11.75 if you deduct the quarter I found on the carpet afterwards. SCORE!

 

So, where to begin...

Julianne Hough, thank you for making pastor's kids everywhere look like "angels." 'Preciate it much.

And Dennis Quaid. What happened to the likable guy in Let's Give 'Em Something To Talk About? Frequency? Even that movie where you were a teacher/baseball player?

Whatever happened, he did not show up for filming on Footloose. I cry for you.

Of course, speaking of not showing up... can we talk about the lead guy's dancing skills. Just saying?

What... you're super super angry? Good idea! Go gymnastics-itout across a cotton gin. That looks awesome. Really. (This is one of many points in the film where we tried - in vain - to suppress giggles. For other such moments, go see the movie. Really.)

 

Maybe I'm being harsh. But please, can someone, anyone back me up that it was Hi-larious??

I may never wear Levi's again, after watching so many butt shots of thirtyyearolds "teenagers" shaking their things.

Also, I'm less inclined to wanna visit Georgia. Thank you fictional Bomont.

Or heed Andie McDowell's advice when it comes to L'Oreal. ("Good job Ariel.")

 

The one redeeming quality of the movie? The lights in the inevitable dance scene were pretty awesome.

Well, also....

Nope that was pretty much my favorite part. :)

 

In light of girls' night getting off to such a super start we have decided to continue the fun.

Wish us luck; I've never had this much Bacon in my life. I'm not sure it's healthy. ;)

P.S.  Having made it forty minutes into the original, I'm so glad to know who to thank for Pajama Jeans. :)