May, 2023

This month, I came home to some very bad news about a home repair issue. It was very unsettling and impacted me pretty hard. Although I always remind myself that we are fortunate to even be homeowners and that it's a first-world problem and nothing medical, I was defeated by the setback that my hubby told me about. I've been forming a new habit of listening to the Bible app while walking twice around the soccer fields as a mid-morning and mid-afternoon break, in addition to walking on my lunch break, the result of a little friendly workplace competition with Move Spring. Anyway, on this particular day, the Bible app message seemed to be speaking directly to me, for the first part. I read "God, when I feel saddened by what's happening around me, please show me how I can...."

Wait, what?

"...bring hope, peace, and encouragement to this broken world. You have called me to be Your light-bearer- so please help me do that."

Wait, you mean when I'm feeling sad, I am STILL supposed to be a light for others? Yup. This little, tiny shift in perspective, with taking the focus off myself, helped me beyond measure. As I was walking, I realized that all of these issues with our house are causing exponentially more stress on my husband, and I need to be there for him, even if "being there for him" only means being cheerful and not burdening him with being down myself. Do I know unequivocally and absolutely that everything written in the Bible is true? No. After all, it was written a few hundred years after the fact by man. But I do know that there is wisdom in there that helps set us on the right path to true happiness and, hopefully, a dash of eternity sprinkled in. 

This was an amazing month! I always love May because of my birthday, our girl's birthday, and Mother's Day, combined with the light at the end of the school year tunnel finally visible. We were so proud of Aut, who had been running with Kids Run OC for quite a while. The idea is that they run a marathon, over time, with the last mile completed on race day. She pushed herself but had fun on race day, finally seeing herself as a runner which is near and dear to my hear. We all know that envisioning ourselves as something, such as a runner, is half the battle.

Although our home is nowhere near complete, we were able to get all of the landscaping in our backyard finished, just in time for her Donut Grow Up party!

 

We invited everyone in her class as well as some friends and she had a great turn-out. I could have been stressed about our home not being complete but instead decided that it was kind of nice not having the pressure of also decorating (or even cleaning!) the inside. Because movers came and took everything from our downstairs back in February, it was pretty empty. 

Disappointed by a super small pinata that I ordered on Amazon, we found an awesome, legit pinata shop in Santa Ana where pinatas were giant for the same price. Returning there each year to let them pick one will be our new tradition! They also have a lot of affordable toys (like desk pets!) to fill the pinatas with and heaps of candy. Much to Daddy's dismay, I also loaded it with confetti! In my defense, I was not exactly thinking about the fact that the kids would all be wet from the pool and it would stick to them ... whoops!

Aut decided that it was also Colette's birthday and wanted her to join.

On her actual birthday, we celebrated with family and the Winter's, who came over to swim and have ribs. Grandpa Glennie gave her heaps of gifts - rollerblades, a pikleball set, new game for her Switch and (drumroll please) General Admission to see Ed Sheeran at SoFi stadium in September!