wednesdays

Wednesdays are dear to me. A lot of good comes to my heart every single Wednesday. I am immeasurably grateful for that. It starts for me when I get to Kellie’s house to pick her up. She started going with me to BSF this year. I didn’t think it could get any better for me until she started coming along. 

We get to stand together and sing old hymns to affirm our faith. And we sit together during the lecture, while we feverishly write notes as Barbara speaks truth and wisdom straight from God’s Word into our hearts. Then we walk out together talking excitedly about the lecture and the discussion and the upcoming lesson. We visit with friends, some new and some women we grew up with teaching us Sunday School as little kids. I take her back to her house and hang out for a bit before I head over to my in-laws house where I meet Andrew for lunch. We hang out and eat and I steal a couple of kisses mid work day before he’s on his way. 

Then Maddie Bell and I hang out on the front lawn under the shade of a big tree and I dive into my BSF lesson for the week. On some Wednesdays I will go and pick Stacey up from school and catch up with her for a bit. And the day is positively perfect to me.

I literally feel as though I am grieving over losing it. We move in a month. I only have one more BSF Wednesday left. One. And it hurts my heart enough to bring tears brimming to the surface every single time I think about it. And depending on where I am when I think about it, I’ll allow them to brim up and over and I get lost in my grief because it’s that kind of heavy. I need to feel it to move on from it. And I know it’s just the beginning of the process.

I know I will still go to BSF. I will still get the same lessons and be in the Word and doing the same study Kellie and many friends are doing in Miami. And I am blessed to have a friend attending the BSF in Orlando. I won’t be alone and I know I’ll make friends. It’s just that the Wednesdays here are so special. And the Wednesdays there will just be different.

I am so grateful for the sweetness of my current Wednesdays. I am so glad I got to have them. I’ll always treasure them and the people I got to share them with.

long weekends

 {This pic is from last Thanksgiving. We didn't get fancy this year.}

I am still reeling over the long weekend. It was positively perfect. What isn’t to love about Thanksgiving and the leftovers? And we did it twice! That’s right. We went to my Uncle’s for the first, official round. Then on Saturday we decided to do it all over again because it was weird not hosting after 4 years of hosting and we wanted in on the fun too. It was delish! I have come to the conclusion that my favorite Thanksgiving meals include homemade goodness from scratch AND a gluten-free menu! Who would have thought!? I am certain that I was the only one on both Thursday and Saturday who was not uncomfortably full, partially because I have found going gluten-free in general has saved me of that plight at every meal and partially because I simply couldn’t eat what everyone else could because I was limited. Come Monday morning the scale said I had lost a pound. What? Lost a pound? That has never happened during Thanksgiving weekend in the history of man, yet the scale does not lie! Did I mention I ate an entire gluten-free pecan pie from Whole Paycheck by myself over the course of 6 days? True story. My body is loving this gluten-free business and my taste buds are happy about it too.

{Never saw that coming!}

The weekend {or week, because we had Maddie for 7 fabulous days} was also wonderful because I had Maddie Bell and Trinity here with me too. And they really enjoyed one another’s company…

We watched the first Christmas movie of the season with the whole family. My littlest sis and her BFF spent the night and we created more inside jokes and laughed a ton. I got wonderful news from a dear friend about her engagement. And we brought home our biggest Christmas tree yet. He is 9 glorious feet tall, 12 years old {I counted the rings at the base of his trunk.}, and we took him right off the truck from North Carolina. And I love him. I have sung, “O Christmas Tree” to him several times already.

My favorite thing about long weekends is that my husband gets to spend them relaxing and hanging out with me. And Trinity. And this weekend Maddy too. And I really, really love that. I hope you're Thanksgiving weekend was just as lovely!

driving buddy

The other day I was hanging out with this sweet girl. She went with me to pick up my hubby for lunch, which is literally just down the street from her house. She was SO happy and I snapped this picture of her and I LOVE it!

girl's best friend

Meet Madeline Bell Thompson.

She is one of the loves of my life! I call her Maddie Bell. She technically belongs to my in-laws, but if anyone ever asks me if I have a dog I totally claim her as my own.  She is the sweetest dog I have ever met. She actually belonged to my hubby’s grandparents and was born and raised in Northern Michigan. Sadly, Andrew’s parents had to take her after his grandparents passed away. It was a really hard adjustment for Maddie. I’ll never forget the car ride to bring her home to Miami in May of 2004. I was instantly smitten with her and she took to me quickly. She was so confused and scared during that time.



2004-our younger years



I always gave her belly rubs and played with her and talked to her, maybe more than I normally would because I knew she was having such a hard time with the loss of Andrew’s grandparents and her original home. I go over to my in-laws as often as I can to see her and have been known to pick her up and bring her over to my house for the day. I love her. She is always so happy to see me and loves to just hang out.  If you know me well at all then you know that I talk about getting a dog ALL.THE.TIME. and one day Andrew will oblige and I will get my very own dog, but the truth is that Maddie will always be the one dog closest to my heart.

Today is her 10^th birthday and yes, we celebrate it with presents and doggy ice cream.



*This picture and the first picture in this post were taken this summer in Manistee, MI where Madeline was born and raised. We brought her back to the lake house and she wanted to get down to the lake to play in the water within 10 minutes of arriving and she remembered her favorite napping spot behind the reading chair.