Tag Archives: Weekend

An Invitation To London

Posted in Life Ramblings by

I’ve wanted to be anywhere but here for months now, but it’s risen to an all time high with the arrival of a beautiful gold invitation.  We have been cordially invited to a black tie event in honor of a fabulous woman who has been like a second mother to my husband.  It’s the kind of event that we both feel we should be at, and that we would love to be at.

The problem is that it’s tomorrow night, at the rooftop bar and terrace of a five star hotel, overlooking St. Paul’s cathedral in London.

I really shouldn’t have googled the location… even in a photograph the view is amazing.  And it made it that much harder to admit there’s no way we’re going to be there.  If it was any other weekend, we’d be getting on a plane right now.  We didn’t even talk about the cost… we would have found a way to make it work.  But this  weekend?  We have a trial Monday, we leave for the competition in DC on Tuesday… and even if it wasn’t completely ludicrous to fly across the ocean on Friday just to fly back on Sunday, we knew we’d never pull of next week without the weekend to prepare.  Plus I wouldn’t get on the plane to come back.

London holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first place my husband I traveled to together.  We spent a little over a month there after our first year of law school, living out of the beautiful Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington.  And so I keep thinking of all the things we could be doing there… Having dinner at our favorite little Italian restaurant across the street, getting Ben’s Cookies when we get off the Underground, taking walks past our favorite neighbors at Kensington palace, seeing fabulous shows, walking through Piccadilly…

And now that I’ve throughly tortured myself, it’s time to get back to work.  We’re sending our love to London while we stay here and fight through perhaps the busiest weekend of the year.  And if we survive the trial, we’re off to DC for the rest of next week.  Praying for everything to go smoothly, so that when I return, I can say the worst is behind me.

St. Paul’s Cathedral

St. Paul’s Cathedral

Hyde Park

Hyde Park

Big Ben

A Perfect Weekend And Just The Green Jacket I Needed

Posted in Family, Inspiration, Life Ramblings, Relationships by

It was a wonderful weekend away.  Capped off with just the green jacket playoff I needed.

I just had this feeling all week.  I told Joe that despite our plan to drive back home on Sunday afternoon, I thought we’d be driving home late.  I had this feeling about the Masters this year.  I wasn’t sure who, but I just felt one of my favorites was going to be in contention for this year’s green jacket.  I was right.  We didn’t get home until almost midnight.

If you don’t follow golf, and you don’t know anything about Bubba Watson, his twitter caption would tell you most of what you needed to know: “Christian. Husband. Daddy. Pro Golfer. Owner of General Lee 1.”  The daddy part he just added… he and his wife adopted a baby boy a few weeks ago.  And yes, he owns the Dukes of Hazzard car.  And if you’ve never seen the golf boys video, I’ve attached it for your viewing pleasure.

Why a sports post from a girl who isn’t incredibly sports oriented?  Because I hadn’t felt that kind of excitement and hope in a while.  The whole family in front of the TV. Then on the second playoff hole, he hits it into the trees, and it looks like it’s over.  Everyone’s guessing the best he can do is punch it back out onto the fairway and hope for the other guy to make a mistake.  But Bubba didn’t.  He grabbed his club, and out of the pine needles hit a shot that magically curved right around the trees and landed perfectly on the green.  It was the kind of shot the happens once in a lifetime.  And it happened at the exact right time.

Bubba’s famous for getting flustered and inside his own head.  Guess what, me too.  Maybe that’s why I knew he could do it.  It was Easter, he’s a new daddy… the stars were aligned.  I cried when he won.  His wife was home with the baby, but he wasn’t alone.  His best friends from tour all streamed onto the green to hug him as he cried.  You don’t normally see that in golf.  Not when the guys have been off the course for hours and weren’t in contention.  They should had been long gone.  They weren’t.  That’s the kind of guys we’re talking about. It says a lot about who Bubba is to.

So does his tweet from last night: To God Be The Glory!!! #Masters.  And from this morning: Up early can’t sleep, don’t want to miss any part of being a dad.

I tell you this story because it was apparently a story I needed to see.  It just kind of hit me in a funny way that I can’t explain.  I’ve been stuck in survival mode for so long that it seems like nothing registers anymore.  I haven’t felt my heart get into something for so long… I was refreshing.

So was seeing my family.  I got the mom hug I needed, I got dad’s homemade pizza, and the lamb cake survived frosting without any surgery this year!

AND, I got my sister time.  I pounced and woke her up every morning.  We laughed a lot.  We talked about memories only she and I can share.  We were late for Easter on Sunday because we decided dying eggs like little kids was far more important.  And it was.

I didn’t want to go home.  My husband knew that.  He offered to drive despite his back pain because I think he figured if I had the keys, we’d never make it out of the driveway.  I didn’t want to come back.  39 days seemed too long to be comforting.  I didn’t want to start missing my sister again… missing my family.  It takes more than two days to get sick of each other when there’s months between visits.  I wasn’t ready to go.

But we had to.

As we pulled out of the driveway I got some consolation though.  A beautiful sunset that hung on for the first two hours of our drive.  I believe sunsets are one of God’s ways of reminding us He’s there.  There’s really no reason a sky needs to fill with beautiful color when it sets, but they’re do because He made them that way.  Because He knew they’d leave us in awe, and fill us with hope.  A picture won’t do it justice.  But it was a final blessing on a weekend I so desperately needed.

Focus On The Cupcakes

Posted in Cute Foods, Life Ramblings, Recipes by

Today, I have a huge presentation.

I am not one that gets particularly squirmish about public speaking, but I typically go in a little more prepared than this.  I had intentions of creating note cards with speaking points and  perfectly polished Keynote presentation…

But I’m not sure where my weekend went.  It was Friday night, and then it was Sunday night, and in between I lost a lot of hours. I got a little more sleep than I planned, spent a little more time with my husband than I planned… Finally read Hunger Games. Went shopping. Ran errands.  Did some things that genuinely had to happen.  But these things weren’t on my very detailed schedule for this weekend.  They were on my schedule for when hell freezes over and I actually have time to do the things that keep people sane.

I woke up this morning feeling rested.  I don’t remember when I last didn’t have to pry my eyes open after my fourth alarm, and then coax my body to stay awake with large amounts of caffeine.

But the trade off… I’m not even close to being ready for my week.

So last night, after dinner, when I realized I had about four hours of productivity left, and about 50 hours of things to fill that time, I focused on what was important.

Look, it’s a 30 minute presentation about the article I’m writing on tax policy.  These spring cupcakes have a far better chance of winning me points with my classmates than anything I say during this presentation.  I wouldn’t want to listen to me talk about tax policy for that long.  And the happier they feel, the less they are likely to bombard me with criticism after.  Making me look more convincing.  A win-win.

Wish me luck!