What I Love

"It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things"...(Donald Miller). At the gym tonight, someone asked me how I like the rain...."I love it," I said. He smiled and said, "I love it too." Sometimes something so simple can be something that we love. Since this is my first fall back in California after 20 years on the East Coast, I am already missing the beauty of the fall colors and the feeling of a crisp, cool October day. Since I cannot bring a Connecticut fall to California, I am allowing myself to enjoy the rain, since it somewhat reminds me of the fall. I didn't realize to what degree weather played on my internal clock. Since the weather has been so continuously warm here, I had been on the go constantly. In Connecticut, when it is warm you enjoy the warm weather as much as you can. The warm weather rarely ends here in California though, so it wasn't until the recent rains, that I realized that I had not slowed down. I love the rain now and I will allow it to be my new fall. I also love the smell of an apple pie baking in the oven. That is another fall memory from Connecticut. In honor of fall and the rain, I have a homemade apple pie baking in the oven right this very moment. Instead of heading to a farm to get the apples however, I went to Trader Joe's. I'm sure the pie will still taste just as delicious. I love living back in California but I do miss a lot of things about the East Coast, especially the very special people I had met there. I love a nice skim Cappuccino and fresh chocolate croissant at a wonderful French cafe here in town. It makes me feel like I'm in France when the French owner, with his French accent comes to the table to take my order. He makes the croissants fresh every morning and they literally melt in your mouth with each delectable bite. I love my kids but I don't love it when they fight and scream. My five year old is going through a screaming phase and those screams are so high pitched that they cut right through you. He sometimes starts first thing in the morning when his older brother taunts him in even the slightest way. If you've never woken up to the sound of a high pitched scream first thing in the morning, consider yourself lucky. I love the movie, "The Family Man" when Nicolas Cage wakes up his first morning as a parent with crying kids in the background and his wife begs him to make strong coffee as soon as possible. That's what it feels like! Thus, I love my morning coffee. I sometimes get a pot brewing before I get the kids off to school then it's off to Starbucks to say hello to the crew there and to get another cup or two. Hey, with the gold Starbucks card, refills are free. You gotta love that, especially if you're an exhausted mommy who was jolted awake by the sounds of repetitive screams. I love my hikes, especially after a morning like I just described. It relaxes me to be on a trail and nature fills me with such peace and serenity. I love the feeling at the end of the day, when I collapse into bed and the pillows and blankets welcome me with a comforting embrace. Of course there is so much more that I love like traveling, road trips, hanging out with friends and the taste and enjoyment of a really good meal. I also love other simple moments like the beautiful birds playing in the fountain outside Starbucks while I was sipping my coffee this morning and the smile on my son's face when I taught an art lesson to his class today. Life is all about the simple moments and those little things that we love. When all of those smells, sights, sounds and feelings are all strung together, they make for wonderful memories that remain with us forever.