Just. Breathe.

Last week was a new experience for my daughter and me. We went on a mission trip to New Orleans with a group from our church. I'd gone on mission trips as a teenager, but this was my first as an adult. Not only was it a different kind of mission, I had a completely different perspective almost 30 years after the last one. Our group of 16 was made up of 12 girls/women and 4 boys/men. It was about a 10-hour drive one way, give or take 14 bathroom stops. The trip was coordinated through MissionLab, out of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. This particular week had about 400 people descending on the city to provide various services. Our group held a Vacation Bible School at an apartment complex, and worked to clear a lot in the Lower 9th Ward. It took me about 4 minutes to find a child I wanted to bring home with me from VBS. Derrick was three, and he pronounces "blue" as "plue." Love. He did not come home with me, in part because Hubby gets another ...

The title is misleading. I don't mean "stuff" like possessions, although some of the stuff below is stuff. (Huh?) I was just thinking about little things that make me smile. So, here's a list of what makes me smile today, in no particular order. 1. Grilled cheese sandwiches . Not fancy, although fancy is fine, too. Just American cheese on wheat bread (crusts ON, please) is fine with me. Hubby taught me the art of putting the butter in the pan instead of on the bread -- makes it crispier -- but I still usually go for the soggier, butterier (is that a word?) style. 2. A clean desk . You'd think I'd work harder to have this, since I love it so much. 3. Word games . Boggle. Twist. Cryptograms. Anything that makes me make words out of other words or letters just makes my day. If you haven't found sporcle.com and you like word and trivia games, be prepared to lose hours. 4. This site . Never fails to make me want to bake or decorate something. 5. Read...

I've not been in a writing mood. Blog topics have swirled around in my head the last couple of weeks, but nothing has really settled as being something I really wanted to spend time actually writing. I think my brain is just tired. We had lightning damage from one of the nasty spring storms in Texas about three weeks ago. Getting new stuff is fun, right? Getting new stuff all at once because nothing is working is not so fun. My house has been a wreck for weeks, and there are boxes everywhere. I'm tired of paperwork, and for a while it seemed like every day something else was discovered that didn't work. Insurance. Glad to have it, really. Deductibles suck. Paying for a roof that we didn't even know was damaged by hail/wind (it's WAY up there! I can't see it!) when we'd much rather take a vacation sucks a lot. So I haven't wanted to do much writing or extra thinking. Throw in a business trip, and it's just much more conducive to sitting my but...

There's nothing quite like a love letter. My daddy used to write me little notes and I never knew how much they meant to me at the time. He had one specific phrase he'd use (no, I'm not going to say it -- it's cheesy and that's why I love it) and I'd get all embarrassed then...but now, the memory just warms my heart.  I realize now that it also made me know that he did the same thing for my mom even if I never saw them. I still have the one he wrote me when we found out we were going to have a baby (he suggested twins). When I traveled out of the country for work when my daughter was about six, I left a series of notes hidden around the house. I think she found them all before I got back and it made the time go much faster for her. And every first day of school warrants a note in her lunch bag. Even now, if I'm gone more than a night or two, I'll often leave a note on a mirror. But there's something different about a love letter -- the one that...

Yesterday was my sister's birthday. I actually mailed her card on time, at least if the Post Office is still working on Saturdays. I just wanted to let her know I'm glad she was born. She's older than me by seven years. That means for a very long time we had pretty much nothing in common. I was just the kid she had to keep an eye on when she was in middle school, and I talked too much (shocking, I know). I was in elementary school when she got married, and in junior high when she had her first child. [That was cool, though, because I got to be an aunt before all my friends.] By the time I graduated high school, she had three kids, a husband, a house...and I went off to college. At some point in college, that adage about age differences mattering less as you get older really became true. Her marriage ended and she moved back to our hometown, while I was the one away. Within a few years, I was married and a mom to two boys. She married a wonderful man exactly one month af...

I just watched a driver go around railroad crossing arms or bars or whatever those things are called. Full Discolosure #1 : I live in a suburb where the railroad tracks are one of the, if not THE, biggest pains for the residents of this area. I've been regularly delayed by 10 minutes, with my maximum trip time extended by over an hour due to the layout and lack of alternate routes to certain places. Going around the barricades is a huge temptation, especially when they are obviously malfunctioning. Full Disclosure #2 : I have a huge fear of trains, or, more accurately, being hit by one. In my first couple of years as a licensed driver, I remember only one set of tracks in my home town and I didn't have to cross them often. But I was plagued by recurring nightmares about them, convinced that this would be how I'd meet my Maker. I hate when those flashing red lights go off because even crossing the tracks BEFORE the bars come down sends me into a panic. So today, I wa...

One of my blogging friends does a Tuesday Ten list (waving furiously at Gini). That's not what this is, but I'm feeling pretty random, so here's a list of stuff for today. There is nothing better than watching people you love have their prayers answered. When those answered prayers are going to result in unbelievable blessings for a baby that doesn't even know it yet -- well, that's just the icing on the cake. My mother cracks me up. She never fails to share some miscellaneous piece of information she heard or saw or got on email that is just hysterical. Here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFWA1A9XFi8 . I'm not political. I won't suddenly become political just because of the news about Bin Laden. I will say I've got a little bit of "the devil you know" anxiety going on. What will al Qaeda feel driven to do to prove they're still a force? Our country has not done and can never do enough to say thank you to the men and wom...