Once upon a decade ago, my older sister and I got a little bit hooked on the soap opera Days of Our Lives. We would crack up at how off-the-chart ridiculous the subject matter was and how overly dramatic John Black's eyebrow expressions were...but we tuned in every day at 1pm never the less. That was just a short-lived season of NBC soaps...growing up CBS soaps were on in the house. To this day, when I go to Florida and sit in my Grandma's living room, I can take about 3 minutes and catch up on what Reva and Josh have been up to in the past decade. Everything changes, but oh, how everything stays the same.

You don't have to watch soaps much to know that when a leading lady throws her arms around the neck of her ex-husband's-evil-but-newly-reformed-twin brother and says, "Life is so wonderful, nothing can ever come between us now!" that trouble is on the horizon (conveniently scheduled during sweeps). It's Rule #1 in soap-land, the minute you utter a joyful expression...it's about to hit the fan.

So I approach this post with a little hesitancy, I'm about to break a big soap-world rule. But since I've been married to the same man for 10 years, both of my kids have the same daddy and David doesn't have an evil twin, I'm optimistic that we'll be fine.

Okay, so here goes...we are having a great week. I know by tomorrow morning I may start a post with the line "I spoke too soon..." but I'm going to throw caution to the wind and stop right now to take a moment to be thankful. Lily has made such a smooth transition to first grade, she's going to bed and waking up easily and she's even letting me fix her hair each day with no complaints (that's a BIG deal!). Sure it's only been 4 days, but 4 days are better than nothing, so pardon me while I do a happy dance! And Luke was so excited when he came home from school Tuesday and can't wait to go back...again with the happy dance. With both kids out of the house Tuesday, I worked around the house like I was getting paid, finished several projects that I'd been putting off and had things in great order when everyone returned home, that's an awesome feeling and it's freed me up to be more playful when the kids are home.

Last but not least, today is day 11 of the Daniel Fast, we've halfway through and it's going really well. I don't want to sound like the biggest cheese puff, but I've seriously felt a renewed sense of joy in preparing meals for my family and out of necessity I've been creative and resourceful, and it's very rewarding. As I've fasted and prayed and focused on things other than myself, God has truly done a work in my own heart and for that I'm thankful. Dinner times at our house had gotten pretty ugly over the past few months. The kids fussing, David calling to say he'd be working late and me staring into the freezer wondering what I should cook. But with the fast, meals require more thought and advance prep so I'm not waiting until the most stressful time of the day to start working on dinner, and it's been good kick in the butt for me.


Load all of this into a week that's topped off by a long holiday weekend, and I am one happy camper.