Edit, Add, Appreciate

Edit- The only thing that could have made this weekend more perfect would be if C had been here this weekend, but alas the poor boy has classes on Labor Day!

Add- When I asked S what things she really wanted to do or people she really wanted to see on her first weekend home from college, she quickly said that she wanted to spend some time with Amos and Lydia, two little ones she babysits for and is very very close to. So, on Saturday night we had their family over for dinner.

If you don’t know us, you might not know that for about 13 years we have been sharing evening meals with a group of 20+ folks. When it’s our turn to host, we cook a giant meal and set up tables and chairs everywhere and welcome our large extended family home for dinner. Folks bring their own dishes and silverware so that the host for the night only has the dinner prep dishes to do, so each family has a dinner bag that we keep hanging at the door ready to head out. So we do have folks over for dinner, lots of them, but I realized on Saturday how much fun it was to cook and prepare for a meal and set the table and invite folks outside of that regular circle. When my son’s best friend showed up, he slipped into a seat and gave us a nice round 10 which allows for a whole lot more visiting with everyone than with 20. Sooooooooo my goal now is to invite folks to dinner more often- folks we may have never spent time with or not near enough. We’ll see….

Appreicate- The center of my universe is my front porch. I am never happier than when I’ve got porch guests and kids running in the front yard. The kids had already left the table and gone outside Saturday night and the adults were still dallying when one of the kids ran in saying we HAD to come out to see the moon. We ran out and it was indeed as gorgeous as the picture above, and we began beckoning neighbors to join us. If you felt the whole east end of downtown tilt a bit, it was because a crowd of us rushed to one spot to oooohhhhh and ahhhhh over the moon and talk about waxing moons and waning moons and the names of the different full moons. Then we broke off into clusters, and moved from one cluster to another- trying out the zero gravity chair in the back yard, sitting on the glider on the front porch talking about healthcare reform, the best ethnic food restaurants and about Dave’s refurbished antique cider press that will get it’s first run on Labor Day. Neighbors and dogs stopped to visit, kids ripped and ran with my teen girls chasing them, my stand- in son told me stuff about college. Who could ask for more?!