Wow! It’s been a full and wonderful week. My calendar looks like it’s been crazy, but it’s been beautiful and lovely and full of moments of great fun. It’s also been full of kindergarten exhaustion, two-year-old tantrums, and grown-up stresses. But even in the hard moments, there are pieces of joy to be found. For these, I am grateful. Here are some things on my mind this week:

1. Make New Friends, but Keep the Old. Yes, I was a Girl Scout, and, yes, I do still love this song. This week, through the magic of Facebook, I found out some old friends of mine were traveling in California and were actually staying relatively close by, so we made plans for dinner on Wednesday night. It was such a wonderful evening catching up with them, getting updates on their children (I babysat for them 20+ years ago), introducing them to our children. (Let me tell you, nothing makes you feel quite so old as when you hear a kid you babysat for just turned 30!) We shared memories and wine and coincidental connections and new stories, and it was just lovely.

AND, this weekend we get to visit with some other friends we’ve known since just after we moved to California. Looking forward to more great stories shared.

2. Invitations to Create. I stumbled on this idea few weeks ago, and it’s becoming one of my new favorite things. After BG is up from nap and BB is home from school, we have a few hours before dinner, so this has been perfect. The idea is you create these little areas – we’re just using the dining room table – with materials arranged in an artful way that draws children into creating. There’s not really a final product in mind, although this particular time there was the idea of making a rocket (got the idea here). Another time we mixed cornstarch and conditioner (yes, the hair kind) to make a yummy-smelling soft dough that mesmerized the kids for over an hour. There’s something about little piles and baskets of materials that draws ME into creating along with them.

3. This quote. This is one hundred percent me. (On a related note, I also learned this week that I am an Otter.)

4. Made me laugh. Guilty of at least 5 of these.

5. But this book by Emily P. Freeman is making me cry, but in the best possible way. It’s about art and life and doing what you were created to do. No matter where I’m reading it – in my bed at night, in the car, at the gym – I start crying. I’ve cried at the gym 3 times this week alone! But it’s beautiful and it’s soul-digging and I think I’ve underlined something on every page. We are all artists, in the daily walking out of our lives, and there is so much inspiration here. In fact, I’m off to read some more right now.

Any fun plans this weekend? Hope it is filled with fun and friends or family, some creativity, and good rest. Thanks for reading!