Icing A Cake

Nora had on this today (although this is from last weekend).  Cute, non?

This was a beautiful weekend.  Not perfect.  But I'm learning that beauty isn't always in the perfect times, but in the days where you decide it's unnecessary to get it all right.

From last Sunday, but I LOVE it!

Friday night was the coffee house night at our church and it was great.  I didn't see G for most of the night because he was off with Nora, but we each had some good conversations.  And coffee.  Lots of coffee.

She's discovered she has feet! Doesn't she look like a ballerina stretching?

We met up with friends for a birthday lunch on Saturday and I convinced them to come to the gardens with us.  So we stopped off at the house and I grabbed a quilt and pillows and Nora fell asleep in the car.  We stayed over an hour after they left, only leaving when it looked like the rain was coming in.

But it didn't.  And we ended up grabbing coffee and talking.  Then groceries and to the nursery for herbs and discussing hydrangea bushes (we're re-doing our backyard).  And then racing home in the rain.  We poured the Lillet I'd chilled earlier, sat on the sofa and enjoyed the evening.  A simple salad, more wine, and then G was working on his French while I was in the kitchen listening to French jazz and baking a French cake (see a theme yet?) while wearing a sleeping Nora.

She grabbed a handful of grass and wouldn't let go.

Today G decided we were skipping church because I've been so exhausted lately.  So I got to sleep in for an extra hour and a half while he took Nora.  Because we co-sleep I am rarely without her, even during the night, and so that hour and a half was bliss.  I woke up to coffee being brought to me, and I paid him back by smooching on him and trying on a button down of his.  But more on that later!

Waiting for the icing to set up.

We went shopping.  Grabbed coffee and books at Barnes and Noble.  And then home where I mixed up some shrimp with a grey sea salt and herb mixture to roast for salad.  Roasted potatoes in duck fat and green beans and made prosciutto stuffed mushrooms.  Chopped up a couple pineapples, and settled in with some red wine and a fussy baby.

I'm bone tired.  The kind where your whole body aches, but you're not sleepy.  I have such conflicting thoughts.  I realize I lead an amazingly blessed life.  But some days I don't want it.  Some days I wonder why I've been given this family that drives me nuts and makes me feel so helplessly inadequate.  But the reality is that I love them.  They make each day worth more.  And weekends like this?  Just the icing on the cake.