A life full of blessings

This has been birthday weekend in our family, so life's been a little crazy: we celebrated my husband's birthday Friday because we were putting him on an early plane to New Jersey on Saturday (his actual birthday); he's there to celebrate his father's 91st birthday (which was yesterday), but that means he's missing our daughter's birthday (which is today).

Meanwhile our daughter had some celebrating -- and responsibilities -- of her own to take care of; a college roommate flying in late last night, another friend's birthday yesterday, an apartment to rent, jobs to find... So I thought, once she left for Seattle yesterday morning, that I'd have a couple of days to myself.

I decided to just relax and get some me time, so I'd been puttering around, buying canvases and looking for a houseplant, when around 3:30 I began getting this craving for pizza -- a specific pizza, with homemade sausage and whole roasted garlic (yum).  After resisting for about an hour I hopped into the car and drove across the bridge to Bella Luna.  I thought about getting just a piece and hitting the road, but when our daughter's around there are often surprise invasions of hungry young people, so I ordered a whole pizza and sat down to wait.

And who should drive up but another of the actors from that play I spoke of yesterday -- the very actor who had already decided, as I did, to leave the production.  We have NEVER run into each other outside rehearsals, so the timing was particularly surprising: we'd just been emailing about our respective decisions, and I had sent him a pointer to yesterday's blog -- it was still open on his computer when he left to get his slice of pizza.

So I offered to share my pizza with him, and we spent a lovely hour out on the Bella Luna patio, overlooking the water, talking of plays and life and families and faith and politics; such a blessing!  He was a little astonished that I'd bought a whole pizza; I had to explain the unpredictable nature of our household.  When kids are anywhere in the vicinity, leftovers never last long!

And, sure enough, just as I was crawling into bed last night, the phone rang, and it was the birthday girl, explaining that she and the roommate she'd just picked up at the airport (who had to leave on a 5 am plane for Montana this morning) had decided to spend their time here instead of in Seattle.  So I got back out of bed, finished wrapping her presents, and waited up for the girls, who arrived shortly after midnight.  We watched her open presents, and I finally crawled into bed around 1:30, having wished her happy birthday and hugged her college roommate goodbye.

So that was two wonderful surprise blessings -- pizza with a new friend and getting to see my daughter and her roommate.  When I woke this morning, it was to find two more blessings: a note telling me the directors wanted to keep me in the play despite my perceived sense of failure (!) AND a note from an online poetry magazine telling me they loved a video I had submitted and would be publishing it. Plus, amazingly enough, there was still some pizza left!

So it was purely icing on the cake when the dog scratched at the door to go out and I discovered this perfect roseate sunrise -- and I even had my camera with me.  So this blessing I get to share with you: enjoy!