• Got to babysit for my friend Kathy's kids on Friday .... they think I walk on water.
• While babysitting I was checking email at their laptop while the kids watched Madagascar.  And I sat there in the same position so long that my left leg fell completely asleep.  I did not notice this until I got up to help one of the kids and i swear my knee hyper extended and i almost fell down.  One of the kids had to find me a mop to use as a cane to make sure I didn't fall over.
• I got little people hugs.
• I helped frost about 400 cupcakes on Saturday morning that were the alternative to the wedding cake.
• Also got to help decorate the church for the wedding, which ended up being amusing in it's own right.
• Blessed my friend by watching her kids again for a few hours on Saturday and did her dishes, with surprisingly good help from her youngest who is only 2. While wondering if we would have to run for the basement because of the 15-minute interval Tornado Watches that we were having.  (We didn't)
• Got to the wedding and was roped almost immediately into helping put fresh flowers into the bridesmaids hair because nobody else apparently knew how to do it.  Do I know, not really.  But I'm always game to give it a shot.
• Got a couple of great pics during the ceremony.
• Laughed at the bride when the officiant psyched her out by starting her vows with "I swear to do the dishes and laundry ..."
• Laughed again when we found out that no one actually explained the Unity Candle process and the bride and groom didn't know they were supposed to blow out their individual candles.
• Smiled at the deep dip 'first kiss' the groom gave the bride.
• Helped bless the bride and my friend Kari, who was in charge of food, by manning an appetizer table while they set up the food tables.
• Got to smile at a few reasonably good-looking and potentially single men.
• Thoroughly enjoyed watching my friends Tim and Andy dance at the reception.  Gotta say that was the highlight, and there arevideos to prove it.

Right here ....

I am incredibly and deeply blessed. Deep down I know this. Unequivocally. I gave a whole testimony/spiel at church about it a few weeks back. Just a deeply heart-felt thank you to the 4 couples in that building who have become my nearest and dearest. The people who remind me that good marriages can be built to last and that there are good men out there willing to not only accept but love and commit to perfectly average women. I named their names and told my entire church how deeply grateful I am to have these people in my life. That they give me a sense of worth and validation that I don't think I would get from anywhere else. And that their marriages, as average and imperfect as they are, give me reason to continue refusing to settle for whomever shows up next. And that is just one aspect of my blessedness. I've talked before about the many layers of blessings I enjoy and even sometimes ignore for my own selfish ends. Feel free to read archives to find those.

But sometimes when I'm alone, I feel what I lack. Deeply. Usually it's after finishing a really good book or movie, or after putting someone else's babies to sleep, or just on the drive home from good laughs had with a friend. And in those moments I can't seem to push past the melancholy that drapes me. That feeling of lack, not so much loss, but lack. Lack for a last call of the day. Lack of anyone waiting at home in bed. Lack of anyone to notice if you don't come home on time that you may be dead in a ditch before the cops have made that official notification.

I turned 30 a few weeks back. And overall I've been feeling really good about my 30s. But then my friends stop over tonight for awhile with their 5 kids (all under 10 y/o) and as I close the door behind them I hear that ticking. Do you hear it too? No, silly, that's not a bomb and, no, not my old-school analog clocks either. The biological clock telling me I have 10 good child-bearing years left if I'm lucky. And, to be truly realistic only 9 usable ones because even if I met 'Mr. Perfect'* tomorrow I probably still wouldn't get married for about a year. Generally it is a white noise to me that I don't notice, but then those 5 little sets of arms give me hugs and they thank me for letting them come over and one tells me how excited she is that I am going to babysit on Friday ... and suddenly I'm crying. As I type this, tears are rolling down my cheeks. Because I want that chance. I go around my apartment and gather up the stray books they left out and think “I want to be one of those totally crazy mothers who actually revels in being a mother and having children to tidy up after at the end of the day.” And I know it would be crazy if I really could be like that because I've talked to many a mother who will tell you that simply isn't how it is. But they all got married well before me and they all had their kids well before me and they walked a different path. Yes, I know, there will be bad days and days where I am going to hate having all the demands on my time and life and wish I could have this time back; but I want the opportunity. Because my life as it stands now, doesn't allow any opportunity for raising children of my own.

That daddy to these 5 beautiful little ones told me a couple years ago that although he doesn't know me well (he didn't at the time) that between what he does know of me and what his wife has told him he just can't see why I'm not married. And it was one of the sweetest most endearing things a man has EVER said to me. It was said with such grace and compassion that it truly almost brought me to tears at the time. And last night I was at a different friends house and I made some crack about the junk in my trunk (my backside, not my car) or some similar self-depricating joke and he laughed and said “See, I just don't get it. You've got such a sense of humor, I just don't quite get why you can't get a date.” Of course, I responded with “I don't know either!”

Most of the time I blame it on my weight. Because I really would like to believe that regardless of all the claims I hear to the contrary, that the single men my age who are left, really are that shallow. Unfortunately as Lori shared before, too many of them are. But what kind of sad world do we live in where I can't even get a guy to carry on an email conversation for more than 8-10 messages before he, literally, disappears. Simply never responds again.  So, between the shallow guys who just want someone to look fabulous on the couch next to them while they spend their every spare minute gaming and the guys who don't have the faintest idea what they're looking for much less how to commit to it or even how to build it into an actual relationship where commitment would be a reasonable choice, I spend a lot of time wondering and lacking.

I have never advertised this, but I have an agreement with God about dating. Not like a Hail Mary deal kind of thing. Just an agreement that He chooses. He picks and HE puts the fire under the guys behind to ask me out and pursue me. Because in the past, I thought I was doing that and kinda sorta maybe wasn't really and ended up spending 2 and a half years with a poor match. Nice guy, some good times had, but truly a poor match for a life long commitment. So, after the dust from that fallout all settled this was the agreement we came to. I choose not to pursue guys. At all. I simply don't. I won't ask you out. I won't email you unless you responded to my last email. I won't manipulate situations or circumstances to try getting us together. Although I will fully take advantage of opportunities presented. But there is a subtle difference between the two and a very fine line I walk.

But even as I finish writing this and think to myself “what the heck is the point of all that” I try to remind myself that I am blessed. I am loved by many. I am safe and provided for. I have no major baggage to drag around with me. And I can think of at least two people who will read this that will very likely cry when they read that I was crying.  And a few more that will send their hugs and prayers and love my way.

So, I'll sign off ... trying to count the roses instead of the weeds.

(and if you don't konw what that means, so sorry, but too bad.. I just spent 20 minutes looking on the internet for the story and cant find it)