Last Thursday I left town with that guy that I like so much for a little getaway. He had a conference in Santa Barbara and I tagged along...the promise of a beautiful hotel on the beach, hours upon hours of free time while he conferenced and long dinners out with cocktails was pretty enticing.
Dreamy even.
I bummed a bit in the hotel and did a few little excursions on my own...some shopping on State Street (bought myself a super cute sweater) and a visit to the mission. I fielded irate phone calls and texts from work...turns out none of the direct deposits went through and NO ONE got paid like they were supposed to (including me) and even though I had nothing to do with it and couldn't fix it, I still had to deal with it all. day. long.
So basically...I was grumpy. I couldn't find my groove. For the life of me, I couldn't relax.
And then I went to the Monastery of the Poor Clare's. I slipped into Mass (I love me a good Catholic Mass) and as I was sitting there after it was over, I noticed people walking through a little side door with slips of paper in their hands.
They were writing their intentions, their prayers, and taking them to the nuns who would pray for them.
I grabbed a slip of paper, wrote a couple of things down, walked through that little door and handed the nun my paper. She told me that the Poor Clare's would be praying for me, smiled at me (seriously...nuns have the nicest smiles ever) and on I went about my day.
Just knowing that someone was praying for me lightened my step.
That night in the hotel, I started to think about all the little things I wished someone was praying for me. I started a list and filled both sides of a sheet of notebook paper. I wrote and wrote and wrote and the next morning found myself at that little side door again, standing in front of the smiley nun with my scribbly sheet of paper.
I felt I should apologize to her...I mean, I was just there the day before. I didn't want to hog their time with my 68 prayer requests. But the knowledge that someone would pray for me far out weighed the embarrassment of being there a 2nd morning in a row, scribbly paper and all.
I handed my lengthy list to her, thanked her, and went about my day. How nice to know that someone is praying for me (and my boys and my husband and my family and yes, my dog) and that had me thinking...why don't we ask for prayers more often? Why do we wait for the big stuff before asking someone to pray for us?
The rest of our getaway was nice. We had a Europe planning meeting the last morning and lunched with Alex (who was up there for the weekend, too) and his girlfriend before heading back home. We arrived just in time for a party at our house...17 people (my sis in law and her family, their friends and my bro in law and his family...plus my family) eating pizza and drinking wine in the garden on an ordinary Saturday in February about an hour after we walked in the door.
It was fun.
=0)
And now. Let's see. That guy that I like so much is on Spring Break. I'm not, but we'll be able to squeeze in a Disney day at some point...and maybe a breakfast at Snooze. He's going to spruce up the garden and submerge himself in Bach...and maybe, if I can time it just right, do a few honey-do's for me.
It'll be nice to have him around...he can help with that early morning driving, too.
=0)
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