I’m Blessed

Little Ingrid turned one this last weekend.  She and Solveig are having a party tonight.  Knut and I were up late last night assembling a new puppet theater for them.

We hosted a Christmas party for our small group at church on Saturday, which means my house is unusually clean right now, so I have very little preparation for tonight.  That doesn’t happen very often…or ever.

I have to brave the cold and run to town for some groceries, and then there’s some baking to do.  I’m trying out a new recipe for tonight: strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting.  I’m actually pretty excited about that, and I haven’t been excited about baking in awhile.

We’ve had a stomach bug go through our house, but it appears that we’re finally done taking turns with all of that.

Also, I have some pretty exciting news on the travel horizon.  I get to go with my friend Sonja to the Mom Heart Conference in Colorado next month.  It’s put on by Sally Clarkson from “I Take Joy.” It was one of those God things, where I never imagined that we could go, but the thought wouldn’t leave me, so I started taking steps towards seeing if we could go, just to prove to God that it was actually pretty impossible.

And then God laughed.

Doors started swinging open with no resistance, and one thing after another from cheaper than cheap plane tickets, a husband who pushed for me to attend about 60 seconds after I brought up the topic, to my friend getting time off work to go with me…it all just started falling into place.  So I get a weekend away with a dear friend, and sitting under the teaching of one of my favorite “virtual” mentors whose books I’ve been reading like crazy lately.  This will be in lieu of a quilting retreat I was hoping to go to this spring, but I’m about 100% certain it will be totally worth it.

I’m so blessed.

How has God blessed you this last week?