22 minutes.

my little monkey just went down for a nap and the older kids aren't home from camp yet so that leaves me exactly 22 minutes to blog and start dinner.
so very quickly...

*my gorgeous niece graduated from high school last week.
she's amazing and is going to do such wonderful things with her life.
i can't wait to watch.
i love her so much it hurts.

*my birthday is this week and i'm not too happy about it.
how can it be that i am closer to forty than i am to thirty?
how?
all i want for my birthday is to be tan.
not snooki tan, but a pretty summery golden tan.
terribly vain and shallow, isn't it?
i would also like to have some of julie's strawberry pretzel salad.
it's still my favorite.
and i would also like davis to be here, but hopefully that will be next year's present.
:)

*my mom broke her wrist over a week ago and she's not doing too well.
she goes back to the doc next week to see if she needs surgery.
i'm expecting she will.
will you please pray for her? her name is jackie.
she's my favorite.

*i just thought of something else i would like for my bday.
a personal chef.
still have to start dinner.

*i love this pic of ben.
even though it's only from the neck down.

*the other night, when i was feeling kinda blue, i went upstairs to read before bed.
i ended up opening my 'Jesus Calling' book and after i read the day's passage i hopped over to my bible to read the Scripture references.
turns out it was one of my recent favorites.

Ephesians 1:11 "It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for." (i had underlined and starred already)

and

Ephesians 2:7 "Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It's God's gift from start to finish! We don't play the major role. If we did, we'd probably go around bragging that we'd done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing."

and after i read that, things seemed so much better.
hope you're having a great monday!