Gratitude on a plate

As I type this, I am sitting in my car looking out at the magnificent Pacific Ocean in my hometown.   There are probably 50 surfers in the water, maybe 60.  In the years I lived here, I never remember seeing this many.  The water is pretty flat, so they aren’t having the best day of it.  But for me, it feels soothing.  The sound of the waves crashing, with an occasional gull, will forever be a heart song for me.  And the smell of salt in the air.  Why is that so good?  It always just smells so clean and fresh to me.  I wish I could bottle it up.  I will have to settle for deep lungfuls while I can.

The truth is, I wasn’t planning on this little respite here.  I live about 45 minutes away from here, but we have a soccer tournament in the next town over today and we have about 2.5 hours to kill between soccer games.  I took my daughter on a tour of hometown haunts, and now we are sitting and just waiting.  I was sort of dreading this part of today.  Stuck too far away to go home, nothing to do.  How silly.  My daughter is drawing and I am typing, all to the sound of the waves and the kids filled with joy and the birds.  Breathing it in.  Truth be told, I needed a little comfort.

This last week and a half I have been single parenting it while my husband is out of the country on an amazing once in a lifetime trip.  If you live anywhere within my real life vicinity, you already know this as I can’t seem to stop telling everyone.  Like I have somehow experienced a tragedy and everyone must know about it!  Suffer in silence was not possible for me this week, I guess.  Charming, I know.  In the midst of this overly dramatic temper tantrum, I had to come to God and ask him to help me turn it around because I was really struggling with the woe is me.  Do you know what I heard back?  “You need to become a singer.”  Now, please don’t worry.  Youtube clips of me singing will not repeat not become part of this blog.  Don’t hit unsubscribe yet.  It was really a call to sing out praise and thankfulness.  It was a call for a song of gratitude and appreciating moments that happen all around even in the midst of struggle.  It didn’t magically become easier though, and this was an important realization for me.  It was more of a mental switch and a reminder to look for things that I can celebrate.  Like the moment sitting here looking at the ocean and breathing deeply.

Or a few other moments to celebrate this past week.  I made some new sweet potato rolls that I am really quite pleased with and should have posted soon.  They turned out a beautiful color and filled my house with the smell of yeast that I love.  They reminded me that Thanksgiving is coming, or you know, could be celebrated any day.  And my giveaway this week–blondies–which are a joy to make and eat.  Or getting to spend the day with just my daughter and watching her play her heart out on the field and gulp down tears after they lost their last game.  Sure it was a tough loss, but her passion was celebration worthy.

And speaking of my giveaway, I guess I better explain that as well.  Listen, I get that I have stretched the bounds of “bread” with a few of my giveaways, loosely interpreting it to include quickbreads that are truly cake.  Well, for the record, this week’s giveaway moves right past a stretch.  I can’t pretend these are bread.  These are bar cookies.  Yep, cookies.  And cookies are definitely not bread.  This week there was a big event at church for all the middle schoolers and high schoolers who are my recipients this week.  It is a day-long extravaganza that is all sorts of fun, and music, church learning, and games.   Hundred and hundreds of teens running around like crazy and the call goes out for cookies to supply the sugar need, and I showed up with…can you picture it?  A loaf of bread?  Me either, so I went ahead and made a large pan of a family favorite, Blondies.  When I dropped my son and the cookies off in the morning at 7:30 am, it was 29 degrees, and there were hundreds of kids basically humming with electricity milling around.  And then there were cheerful volunteers in hats and scarves waiting to check everyone in.  The excitement was literally everywhere in the air.  I am reasoning that these teens will be getting plenty of the bread of life with the speaker and fellowship, so my offering could be a little sweeter this week.  And that is definitely something to celebrate too.