Day 23: (I know, i'm way behind, but I have catch up drafts i'm working on...) Today I am thankful for my friend Amanda, and friends in general. Yesterday (Friday) was really hectic-among other things, Jenna came down with strep throat and Christian sprained his ankle. I called Amanda and was just telling her all the bad stuff that happened. All of a sudden she says "What are you doing tonight Cari?" "Nothing," I reply. "Why, what are you doing?"
Amanda, sweetness that she is, says "I don't have anything planned tonight, but i'd LOVE to cook you dinner and bring it over!" She actually manages to offer to cook my large family dinner in a wonderfully enthusiastic way. I try to tell her no, it's ok, she shouldn't do that, but she insists, saying "Ok, is 7p.m. good for you? Alright, i'll be there at 7 with dinner."
So, that is how I got to spend all day Saturday just focusing on household things, and not worring about what I would make for dinner and dinner clean up. This was a huge weight off me after the hectic day we had the day before, and I used it to get a lot of stuff done.
Amanda arrived around 7:30, with a large skillet in hand, a ziplock bag with freshly toasted bread, and a package of chocolate covered shortbread cookies. I had offered to rent a movie, and she said she hadn't seen "Little Women" yet, so that's what I got. Amanda whips off the lid of her skillet and says "I know you're gonna LOVE this, because you always LOVE breakfast for dinner! It's a sweet potato scramble!" It had sweet potatoes, cubed wih regular potatoes, fried up with some red bell pepper and a bit of spice, and scrambled eggs. She also brought us freshly toasted wheat bread. Now, i'm not a huge fan of sweet potatoes-I had a pretty bad experience with them when I was a kid and haven't eaten them since-but when somebody brings your whole family free dinner you don't balk at technicalities. I took a large plateful, with toast, and dug in-and it was SUPERB! I'm serious-it was SO good! It made me rethink the whole sweet potato issue-I may try making them for my family now.
We all had dinner, and then we had ice cream and shortbread cookies, and we all hung out in the living room and watched Little Women. The girls made a bed on the living room floor and snuggled up with each other to watch the movie. Partway through, Christian offered to take Autumn upstairs and sit with her in my bed while she fell asleep (it was his great way of getting out of watching the "girlie movie".) He put her to sleep fairly quickly and came back down and actually watched the rest of it with us.
It was SUCH a nice, relaxing night. Just hanging out with loved ones watching a nice movie. I am so grateful for friends like Amanda, who really help me not to feel so overwhelmed sometimes when life can be too much. I say, there is "blood" family, and Church family, and sometimes the church family can be just as good to us (or better in some cases) as our own relatives. I am so thankful for the support and love of close friends, and church family.
