Bonjour!

Today I am dreaming of all things French, as my sweet daughter just arrived back home from a business trip to Paris.   Rough business, huh?  Ashley works for Made Goods, a company that manufactures and sells the most gorgeous mirrors and chandeliers to boutiques and designers.  Part of her job is traveling to home shows and her latest trip was to Paris for the annual Maison & Object Trade Show filled with beautiful treasures from around the world.  I tried to get them to take me along as a mirror putter-upper, but these mirrors are way too heavy for me.  Maybe next year I can go along with my Windex bottle and some paper towels!

(I have to make an apology here, I have no idea how to place the sweet little accents over my e's, as is proper in many French words.  I tried to figure it out and could not, so apologies to the French and those of you who speak French for the absence of proper accents on words.  It was really bugging me, but I'm over it now.)

While most of her time there was spent working, Ashley did have time to see some of the sights and apparently she ate very well while she was there.  One of the highlights of her trip was a visit to the world famous La Duree tea salon.

This is a sampling of the pastry counter inside. It almost makes me weep.

This Parisian tea room was founded in 1862 and it was here that the decadent double-decker macaroon was invented.  I have never been to France, but if, rather when I go, this will be what I spend my money on.  I will arrive back at home weighing twenty pounds more than when I left.  Just thinking about croissants and pastries and every other delicious French delicacy is adding pounds as I'm sitting here typing.

Well, Ashley knows her mama well, and she did not leave La Duree empty-handed.

How cute is she, looking so French with her little green bag?

That little bag contained some treasures.  All I can say is - oo la la!

For starters, there were macaroons for her sister, which Rachel was sweet enough to share.  As Rachel described the rose macaroon, "It tastes just like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when they said it was like eating a real flower!" A-maz-ing!  I would show you a picture but we gobbled them up before I could grab my camera.

Now, I know you will be jealous when I describe what Ashley brought back for me.  Because you probably just ate a piece of cold pizza, or a peanut butter sandwich or a cup of yogurt, but sometimes, when you get something real good, you've just got to brag.  I am sorry if I cause you to sin, but here is a sneak peek.  This is just the packaging.

I know, the boxes themselves look good enough to eat!

Before I get to my Laduree goodies, Ashley also visited Fauchon, and bought me a jar of melt-in-your-mouth lavender honey that was delicious on my toast this morning.  Yum!

Now, in the pretty blue box was a jar of Caramel au beurre sale, caramel butter sauce. It is so rich and delicious that I haven't decided what other ingredients are worthy of its presence, so I just keep sticking my finger in the jar and licking it off (don't tell my kids!)

The jar inside the purple box is the piece de resistance.  I was born for these kinds of delicacies.  I should live like this every day.  I could get used to this!

This was not Ashley's first choice.  She had picked up something else, but the all-knowing French saleslady shook her head and said,  "Non!"  She picked up this treat and told Ashley this was the one she must buy.  Like the obedient American she is, Ashley bought it.  That lady knew what she was talking about.

It is called Delice au The Marie-Antoinette.  This incredible delicacy is a spread for toast or bread and is hard to describe, except to say, it tastes just like you would expect Marie-Antoinette to taste - rich, delicious, sweet, citrusy, but a bit tart and exotic.  I have never tasted anything quite like this before. 

It's good to be queen!

Laughter. Prayer. Coffee. Grace.

Steve and I just celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary.  Well, celebrated is a misnomer.  We wished each other a "happy anniversary", split a burger with the kids and talked about celebrating when he gets back from his trip to Dallas, but you get the point.  We have been married for 29 years so just getting here is quite a feat.

In honor of this momentous event, I thought I would write a post about what it takes to make a marriage work.  I figure that after all this time I qualify as a marriage expert.  In fact, after I write this post I'm going to write a book.  I can see it now.  My book will get published.  Gayle will read it and pass it along to Oprah.  She will have me on her show (I better get cracking.  This is her last season!)  I will become world famous and travel internationally sharing my hard-earned wisdom with the masses.

But, alas, Steve will become bitterly jealous of my new-found fame and my children will resent my constant absences.  My life will become a hollow shell and the paparazzi will hound me as I look to reinvent myself and fill the emptiness inside with a constant stream of plastic surgeries until even my children no longer recognize me.

Wow...that was scary!  I think I'll just stick to writing my blog for the sake of my family and my sanity.  I clearly can't handle fame.

If you were to pick two people who would be "Most Likely To Succeed" in the marriage department twenty-nine years ago, you would not have picked Steve and I.  To say we were headstrong, selfish, self-absorbed, immature and unprepared would be an understatement.  Steve's sister, Nadine, once commented on how much we fought when we were first married.  Everything, from the toothpaste to the finances was fodder for an all out war.

I was 19 and he was 22.  We were in love.  We were at war.

So, why are we still together, all these years later, in love without the war?

I have spent some time thinking about it and these are my essentials, the things our marriage can't survive without.

LAUGHTER.  I love to laugh.  Not just a light little chuckle, but a deep, snorting makes-my-belly-hurt, brings-tears-to-my-eyes, I-think-I'm-gonna-pee-my-pants kind of laugh.  Steve has told me that there's nothing he likes better than my smile.  There have been many years when the smiles and the laughter have been scarce but it is essential.  I'm sure you've heard it before but it is true - laughter has some serious health benefits.

It's good for our kids to see us laughing together and enjoying each other's company.  We need to be careful, however that the laughter doesn't become teasing at someone else's expense.  I have a hard time with this one.  Sometimes mama "likes to be's bad."

PRAYER.  This is the cornerstone of our marriage, our family and our life.  When there are no answers.  When words fail.  When the pain is too deep.  Pray.

I have prayed as though my life depends upon it because I know it does.  There have also been times when I could not utter a prayer and the words wouldn't come.  That was when I counted on others to pray for me.  We are not alone in the body of Christ, so when you feel you can't pray, call someone who can (you can always call me!)

"The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing."
1 Cor. 12:25:26

COFFEE.  You knew it would be in here, didn't you?  When our oldest daughter Ashley was a little girl, she was asked what her parents fought about the most (now, that's a loaded question!)  Her answer?  Coffee!  For years, Steve would make the coffee so strong only the Turkish would care to drink it - no offense to the Turkish, but I'm not too fond of the way they make their coffee!  I begged him to pleeeeeez consider the fact that there was more than one coffee-drinker in the house and could he please compromise and make the coffee a wee bit easier to digest.

Well, either I've gotten used to stronger coffee or he's making it weaker now, but we seem to have come to a very nice agreement in the coffee-making department because we haven't had that argument for quite a few years.

What is really essential to me about coffee is how it represents slowing down and spending time together.  If we don't make the time for each other we can drift apart and before you know it we are like strangers living under the same roof.  It's hard.  Our lives are busy and it takes a concerted effort to set aside that time to be alone, but it is important.  I realized just recently that I make more effort to spend time with friends than I do to spend time with Steve.  That needs to change.

GRACE.  Where would I be without grace?  God's overwhelming, unending daily grace in my life is a miracle to me.  I have been raised on the words "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me," but I am only now really beginning to understand the full impact of those words.

More and more I realize that, as God's grace has been extended to me, I must freely extend his grace to others.  Sometimes it's easier to extend that grace beyond the four walls of my home but those nearest and dearest to me are the ones that I can daily shower with the grace of God's love.  This is the most precious gift I can give to my husband and the most precious one that he extends to me.

So, those are my four essentials - they are healthy for strengthening any relationship - laughter, prayer, coffee and grace with an extra measure of grace.

Oh yeah, there is one more thing - therapy - lots and lots of therapy.  If you need it, go for it!  We've all got issues!

I'm Back!

Hello friends!  Did you miss me as much as I missed you?

I can't believe I went this long without posting, but I was out of town (Santa, please bring me a laptop!) and dealing with other pressing issues so I hope you have forgiven my absence.  I missed sitting down every day and sharing heart and especially the feedback from my dear readers but was thrilled when I opened my inbox to discover that you have been reading and leaving me little notes and comments even while I've been gone.  I love hearing from you.

My sister and I went on a road trip.  Our decision spur of the moment and we left our children with our very capable husbands.  We hit the highway last Wednesday and headed due north to visit the town of our misspent youth.  We could hardly remember the last time we went as far as the grocery store alone together, so this trip was definitely way overdue.  We debated a real early morning start for about a minute an a half, until we concluded we are not early morning start kind of people, so at 6:30 we stumbled away with our thermos of coffee and Kathy's homemade banana chip muffins.

Freedom!

This is Kathy saying, "Really, you're taking a picture of me in the car now?  This isn't going in your blog is it?"   And I'm saying to her.  "No.  I'll take a better picture of you later."  But I never did, because I was too relaxed and not blogging and having a good time, so I didn't take lots of pictures.  Here is my sister.  She looks cute all the time anyway.

This is the beginning of our trip, driving through LA, where we expected to hit tons of commuter traffic because we were too lazy to leave earlier, but God smiled down upon us (or everyone else decided to stay home that day) and we sailed through The City of Angels and over the Grapevine, where we stopped at Starbucks (the first of many on this trip), before we headed up the Central Valley.

It was a balmy 102 degrees that first day and hovered around that mark for the next couple of days.  There's nothing like September in California!

Our family moved to the Golden State when I was 14,  Kathy was 12 and our brother Karl was 16.  Our dad was pastoring a church in Modesto, right in the heart of the Central Valley.  It has been over 25 years since we lived in the Central Valley but it still holds a special place in my heart.  The people who live there, live off the land - ranchers, farmers and cattlemen.   They are straightforward people.  If they like you, you're family.  If they don't like you, God help you.

As you come over the Grapevine, the whole Central Valley spreads out before you, stretching in the distance as far as the eye can see.  I love the beauty of the California landscape as rolling hills give way to the flat valley covered with endless varieties of vineyards, rows of corn, tall stalks of artichokes, fields of strawberries and garlic, orchards of apricots, almonds and pistachios and pastures of grazing cattle.  These people make food for the world to eat.

As we drove through the valley, we were scanning through the radio stations and at one time we found no less than eight Christian radio stations in one location.  They don't call this the Bible belt for nothin'!

We finally arrived in Modesto and checked into our hotel room, where they gave us our warm chocolate chip cookies to welcome us.  We put our feet up on the beds and now I'm going to tell on my sister.  I saw it with my own two eyes.  She ate that chocolate chip cookie.  She got chocolate on her fingers and she wiped those dirty fingers on those clean, white sheets.  Next time you are in a hotel room, think about that.  My usually fastidious sister, who would have a fit if her own children did such a thing, was too lazy to get up and go to the sink to wash her hands, so she just dragged her greasy chocolatey fingers right across those crisp sheets and thought, "I'll just sleep on the other side of the bed and let somebody else clean up my mess!"

Our trip to Modesto wasn't all fun and games.  Our parents were already there, working hard cleaning out the contents of a house and we had arrived to give them a hand.  Let me tell you, our parents are in their seventies and they work harder and have more energy than most people half their age.  I don't know how they do it.  Their daughters have a hard time keeping up with them.  Between the working, we enjoyed eating out and reminiscing, thinking back on earlier years and some of the great friends we made way back when.

We were able to connect with a few old friends, some that we hadn't seen since we were in our late teens.  I don't think any of us have aged a bit (that's my story and I'm sticking with it!).  We had a great time catching up, chatting about our families, our kids and life in general.  Where have the years gone?  Here we are with Stephanie and Lance Lemings and Cyndi Sordo McDaniel after a delicious Mexican meal.

The highlight of this trip was reconnecting with my sister.  We have not spent a concentrated amount of time together like this since...I don't remember when we last spent time together like this.  When we were kids, I tormented her (yes - I have apologized - repeatedly!).  When we were teenagers, we hung out together occasionally, but I was seventeen when I left home to go to college and nineteen (gulp!) when I left home for good and got married.  Family, children, husbands, households and life, have kept us pretty busy and when we have been together there has usually been someone else along for the ride.

This time it was just the two of us, alone in the car, driving through the beautiful California landscape with all the time in the world to talk, to laugh and to just be together.  We watched a lame movie in the hotel room, ate beef at Harris Ranch,

stopped to pick "fresh from the farm" produce on the way home and had a real "Jesus Take the Wheel" moment that kept us laughing for a good 45 minutes - actually, we're still laughing about it.

I knew this before but I discovered it all over again.  There is nothing like a sister - someone who has known you forever - who knows the good, the bad and the ugly and loves you in spite of, or because of it.  Someone who you can call in the middle of the day or the middle of the night, who will recognize your voice even when you are a sobbing, blubbering mess.  Someone who thinks of the same stupid 70's songs at the same time you do.  Someone who your kids can go to when they don't want to talk to mom.

I have been blessed with an incredible sister and even thought I missed writing my little posts, I wouldn't trade my time away for anything!  I did learn one more important lesson.  Kathy is really bossy and thinks she knows everything, but I can love her enough to nod and agree.

I must be the best sister ever!