salt grass

we have about an hour before dinner. jon's birfday dinner. he is now 38 - the same age as me!

i'm letting him rest (and snore) on the couch before we have to go, k2 is playing a video game on tv, and i thought i would get on blogger like i've intended to for waaayy too long.

jon took the day off for us to spend together for his birfday (which was yesterday). we had a leisurely morning, then went to oak cliff so he could see some of his old work buddies. he walked through the floor he worked on, shaking hands and getting caught up. he seemed thrilled to get to see everyone again.

six of us went to lunch together at vitto's, an italian restaurant that they'd all been to many times. it was amazing! they had these garlic-saturated rolls that they set out as appetizers that were to die for! i remember when he worked down there and they'd eat at that place for lunch.. i would smell garlic still on his breath when he'd come home that night. but garlic breath is a small and inconsequential price to pay for such a heavenly treat. i had the eggplant parmesan there. i was intrigued by their claim on the menu to add ricotta cheese between layers of eggplant so i had to try it. YUM! i'm so glad i have leftovers!

after lunch i snapped a picture of jon and his friends and gave lindsey my information so we wouldn't lose touch. she's jon's friend but i think she's way cool so i claim her.

then we drove up to whitesboro to visit with jon's aunt while she processed our paperwork for passports. we are going on a cruise to the bahamas in september and we are getting the logistics out of the way now. jon's mom had driven over from kingston so we got to visit with her some, too. it was nice to see them and was truly the highlight of the drive up.

oh yes, the drive. we listened to a book on cd. i had been listening for about a week or so during my short commute and jon just joined in when we got in the car this morning. we're only two discs from the end now. i enjoy the author's writing style and creativity. it is also read by the author which doesn't always work out so well, but she does a good job and we've been enjoying it. some of it made us laugh out loud.

came home to find my boy cat up and around and asking for food - YES! he is finally better after a week of moping around the house slurping snot and feeling all around miserable. poor little man. but he seems to finally be feeling himself again and has dried up significantly.

i called salt grass for 'call ahead seating' because they don't do reservations and we're meeting everyone there at 6:30pm. jon wanted pork chops! i checked out the menu and there are things there i will eat.. i am mostly excited about the range rattlers: "jumbo jalapeños stuffed with whole shrimp & jack cheese, fried to a golden brown." i will be trying them. oh yes. i will.

well, a glance at the clock tells me we should head on out.

happy birfday, my heart, even though it was yesterday! i LOVE you!

clearly

first - some great book recommendations:
the shack. everyone's talking about it and rightly so. it's an awesome piece of fiction that may change how you perceive your relationship with God and who you are in Him.
black. the first in a trilogy about a guy who wakes up in another world whenever he falls asleep here, and wakes up here whenever he falls asleep there. and thrilling adventures ensue in both places. took me no time at all to blast through it and now i'm onto red, the second in the circle.

i've been thinking about marketing and how simple moments of life are captured to make a product or service appealing. like depression pill commercials will show someone opening the blinds on their windows to reveal the sun shining in and the beauty of the outdoors, maybe even their own children playing in the yard. made me think that what they're selling isn't a depression pill at all (well, yes, they ARE, but through selling something else) - but the parts of life that people want. despite how clamorous and busy we work at making our lives, our inner desire is to make things as simple as possible. despite how people rarely say what they mean, we yearn for things to be straightforward.

a model home will sell houses because it is decorated minimally with clean lines and open spaces. there isn't clutter, there aren't overdone walls and furniture. but when we buy the house that it represents we fill it up to overflowing and feel unsettled and wonder what happened.

jon got me a camera for christmas and as i was learning how it worked i started really looking at the pictures i took. and i saw so much beauty in them. they were just so darn simple - my cats taking turns sitting in a box, my nephew peering over a balcony and looking very small, my mom with a bandanna tied around her head and making rocker signs with her hands. they captured real life, real simple fun unencumbered and straightforward life. it's what we find attractive and appealing. it's what sells!

i felt like i was seeing life clearly. the simpler it seemed, the clearer it became. and it was just the way i wanted it. regardless of what our life's efforts appear to betray about us, it really is what we seem to be after.

makes me think about all the hubbub of the career ladder and wall street and titles and prestige. and as crazy as people allow their lives to get, when they want to 'get away', they choose the simple. it seems to be in our very nature. so why aren't we grabbing onto that with both hands and building our lives around that instead? why does it just have to be what holidays are made of? why do we wait for christmas to spend time with family? why do we wait for those two weeks out of the year to stand outdoors and breath in nature? if it pleases us so much, why do we complicate and busy up our lives? are we that mislead and greedy?

i choose to see things clearly.
i choose simple.
i choose life.