Faith's big weekend

Sweet Faith graduated from UA this weekend!  She is going to be an awesome nurse.  She is kind, humble, beautiful and smart!  Any medical facility will be lucky to get her, and any patient will be blessed to be cared for by her.  

My sister is the best.  I did not want to drive to AL by myself so she went with me for a sisters weekend.  It was a whirlwind weekend.  We split the drive to AL and spent the night in KY on Thursday night, that way our drive on Friday was shorter.  We spent Friday afternoon with Faith, attended her graduation ceremony on Friday night and drove back to our hotel in Birmingham on Friday night.  On Saturday Kim and I spent the entire day at the pool.  It was heaven!  On Sunday we made the LONG drive back home.  

                                           An added bonus for me that I got to see Jenny!  
 

Birthday brunch

 I say it all the time and if I could shout it from the rooftops I would.  I have the very best girlfriends.  They all bring me great joy.  Yesterday Betsy and Calli took Laura and I out to brunch for our birthdays.  The day itself was dreary and cold and to be honest the weather is wearing me down.  It was a much-needed distraction to spend the morning with these lovely ladies.  

Nick is 16!!!

 Happy 16th Birthday, Nick!  My days of driving kids around is over, just like that.  It's hard to believe.  It feels like the end of an era, probably because it is.  Nick and his buddy, Chase (who turned 16 while in FL with us) went together to get their licenses.  The day was much like it was 16 years ago.  It was chilly and damp.  After Nick got his license his first solo trip was to get his fishing license.  I'm pretty sure we'll rarely see Nick now as he'll be fishing every lake, pond and river this side of the Mississippi.  But this kid.... he's a character.  His greatest gift is how he relates to people. Mike and I often joke that he could make friends with a bear.  During his driver's test yesterday he conversated with his instructor, asking her what training is needed to work at the DMV.  One might have thought he was just making small talk, but Nick told he had always wondered about that, so he asked.  His passion for fishing is evident in everything he does.  I've asked God to bless Nick's love of fishing abundantly and that He use it to glory Him.  I look forward to seeing what Nick does over these next two years.  

For King & Country

For Lauren's birthday my mom got her concert tickets to For King & Country!  Kim and I were thrilled to join her.  It was a great girl's night and awesome music! Lauren is 14 and getting so grown up.  To me it feels like it happened overnight.  

 

Easter

I love it when Easter falls in April.  No doubt this Easter was cold, but we still enjoyed our day together.  Here are my boys before church.  Getting this picture was an Easter miracle!  Me, Mike and our boys went to church together.  It was standing room only at our service.  It was the first Easter with no covid restrictions since 2019.  No one was allowed to gather in 2020 and in 2021 we still had many restrictions, so we stayed home last year and watched online.  It was a blessing to worship in person this year!  

                                                                 Mom and her grands!  

Leslie joined us this year.  She was also kind enough to take mom to her own church.  Mom hadn't gone to church since before the pandemic (March 2020).  It had been 2 1/2 years since she had been in church.  Needless to say she was beyond thrilled to get back to church yesterday.  

 

What I love to do

 As painful as this might be I feel it is necessary.  I'm reading a book entitled, "Life Makeover."  It's not that I feel I need to make over my life.  In fact, I've made a lot of positive changes this year.  I've lost 25 lbs.  I'm doing some form of exercise every day, and I am confident I've made permanent changes to my wellness.  I truly do understand this is my body and it's my job to take care of it.  In order to do that I must feed it well and move.  Thank goodness I've made these changes because on the flip side I am right on the cusp of being an empty nester.  Even though my boys still live with me, they rarely need me and within two weeks Nick will be driving.   I am constantly feeling a shift within myself, to redefine who I am and what it is I want to do with myself as I approach empty nest phase.  My mom has said so many times her favorite age(s) was her 50's.  It is my hope I love them too.  It feels unnatural, however, to focus on myself after years of my boys being my primary focus.  I also believe that things feel odd right now because we are just coming out of a two-year pandemic.  A pandemic that changed everyone in some way, shape or form.  Mentally the pandemic made me lazy.  I quit going to book club.  I quit reading in general.  It's easier and mindless to surf Facebook and Tik Tok.  Sure, I've kept up with my blog and I'm part of a writing group that meets four times per year but it's the only exposure I've had to writing and I love to write.  I was once an extrovert.  No longer.  These days I'm a full-blown introvert.  Since I work from home and my job changed two years ago which no longer requires me to visit my clients has only exacerbated my introversion.  And again, Covid aggravated the situation.  People have been in their homes not wanting to go out for two years.  I find my days and my evenings can get long without much direction or focus.  In no particular order, these are the things and the people I love.   

*I adore my small circle of girlfriends.  I love spending time with them.  It requires no effort for me to get myself mentally ready to see them.  

*I enjoy spending time with Mike.  I am so thankful that we are not having any trouble redefining ourselves as the couple we once were.  

*I am enjoying travel more and more.  That being said I am ALWAYS ready to come home.  

*I love giving gifts.

*I love cocktails.  Just saying. 

*I love Jesus.  I love when the weather changes and I can get out and take walks.  It's my time with Him in prayer and I love it. 

*I love manicures, pedicures and everything in between.  

*I love Mike's cooking.

*I love my boys.  

*I love good weather.  

*I love hosting dinners in my home - gathering people together for good food and conversation.  This is probably what has been most difficult for me since the Ausili's left.  

The weekend

On April 7 Sieb flew to TX to spend the weekend with Mike and Jenny.  I stayed here and basically monitored the comings and goings of Nick.  Again, it's Nick's world, I just live in it.  He doesn't even have his driver's license and yet I rarely see him.  Fishing season has begun and this year he's part of a fishing team.  This weekend he got up at 3:30am to meet his team to fish in a tourney up north.  He never seems to catch much but he doesn't care.  Nick has such energy when it comes to fishing.  Honestly, he has an abundance of energy for just about anything.  See above picture.  After spending his entire weekend fishing, he headed to Chase's house on Sunday afternoon to help them repair a leaking spicket.  I got the above picture from Chase's mom with a caption that read...."This is the mark of true friendship!"  I laughed out loud because it's so true.  Chase is holding Nick's legs while he's headfirst into a hole helping Chase's family repair a spicket.  Again, it's Nick's world, I just live in it.  

Since Mike was gone, I had my girls over to celebrate Sarah's birthday.  I invited her MIL, Anita also.  Anita and Sarah have a special bond and I truly admire their relationship.  We say if we all could have a MIL like Anita and DIL like Sarah!  

I even got my sister to spend the night with me on Saturday.  Here we are before bed with match jams, our sleep masks and Kim's dumb bear.  It was a great weekend.