the vacation before the vacation

As I mentioned before, I spent almost a week in Seattle and Tacoma.  Before I left, however, I spent a wonderful couple of days with one of my very favorite people, Cassie.  She came up from San Diego, and we worked on whittling down our Los Angeles "bucket list."  We definitely made a dent in it, and while doing so managed to enjoy some delicious food, great conversations, and some of the best coffee I have ever had.:o)

Venice canals

 

 Full of gorgeous houses and gardens

 

And (without question) less expensive than traveling to the originals:o)

 Venice beach

My bias is still toward Santa Monica but Venice is absolutely beautiful

Cass learning the cha cha cha at a local park

 A vanilla latte @ Cafe Luxxe

And for non-coffee drinkers there was apricot tea

And (of course) there was a visit to our fave local spot

Santa Monica

Breathtaking

Come again soon Cass! I miss you already.

the miracle of flight

Today I went from here:

To here:

In 4 1/2 hours.  And because my first flight was not until college (and my family frequently drove from Washington to Los Angeles), the novelty of it all was not wasted on me. :o)  It was a wonderful week and one that left me refreshed and ready for the next couple days of work. Now I'm off to bed so that I don't wake up feeling "jet-lagged", but rest assured that photos of my trip will be coming soon!

and now back to days

Well my month of nights is over and I'm back to day shift. And it's a Saturday. And I'm off work! This week I survived what my sister (after having it herself) referred to as the "plague." This particular illness was one that my niece brought home from the nursery and can only be described (for the purposes of this audience:o) as a rather terrible flu. For some reason the immunity to disease that I've collected during my time at the hospital has not extended to pediatric bugs. And not only am I susceptible but I always seem to have a worse version of them than other people do. Curious... But I'm always thankful for illnesses...after the fact. They force me to slow down. To sit (or curl up into the fetal position) on the couch. To read. To watch a movie. And to think.

And as I thought I considered how busy I have been. Then I thought, "But what have I been doing?" A lot of what I've been doing has included fun memories, laughter, and of course my wonderful family. But then I thought of other things. Not necessarily bad things, but things that could have been skipped. Things that failed to maximize that time God has given me or to glorify Him. And I prayed. That God would give me wisdom in all that I do and that I would live each day to the fullest. Not that I need to be busier, but I do need to leave out things like time spent on Facebook or Youtube or any of the other time wasting and unedifying activities I choose to invest my time into. There are plenty of things to fill that time with and I can already think of a few. One is this blog. So here I am seven months later picking it back up again. And now I'm off to see what else the day holds. Thankful for my health but thankful also for all God taught me in this illness.:o)

A Saturday morning of crepes, coffee, and quiet time spent in God's Word.