To Be Known Is to Be Loved.
“The wonder of teaching is watching caterpillars become butterflies.”
The season of love is upon us and soon the arrangements for bridal showers are coming together. Planning evenings for these such events can be rather awkward and time consuming, the problem being that everyone has ideas and are worried about sharing them. However, when the time was right, a few of the females that partake in youth activities gathered at C’s house to plan an evening of bridal showering. It was quite the illustrious affair with cucumbers and spread on rye bread and specialty coffee drinks. For the first time in my rather “lengthy” bridal shower planning career, the whole thing was thought through and examined in under an hour. The food and decorations and invites and all the in between was decided upon quickly and with much laughter. The rest of the evening was spent gossiping and talking about important life-changing events that are in some of the females futures.
Now came the evening of the set up. Once again, we gathered at C’s house to set up this aforementioned bridal festivity. We arranged the chairs and setup all the candles in their respective holders. We filled picnic baskets with flowers, put bows on doorknobs, and washed an unending parade of tea cups for our hot tea station. Now it was a little past nine o’clock and our tummy’s were rather hungry with the thought of the food we must prepare the next evening. “I’m going to Wendy’s and you all can join me if you want!” It was universally agreed upon. What better way to end the evening than freezing our fingers off eating baconator fries and nuggets in the 36° weather since the restaurant dining room was closing.
The night of the bridal “spritz” came and went without a singular serious problem. We did forget to light the candles before people arrived and the hot water for the tea took some time to boil. There were so many gifts that the food line got started soon after 8:45 as we wanted the honoree to eat first. There were also a few breathing exercises that happened before the program since fear was kicking in. The girls did amazing and all in all it was a success. As we sat around the living room afterward and munched on leftover pasta salad, we were quite thankful that all was completed and I think we all slept well that night.
If you have ever ordered a strawberry açaí refresher from this coffee shop called Starbucks, you may know that the dried strawberry inclusions are not that desirable and get quite mushy. I have this habit of always forgetting to order my drink without them. Bug, however, always remembers and when we are together, she reminds me of the thing. Upon delivering the teachers drinks from Starbucks, the dearest Bug told me, “I even left out the inclusions since you always forget!” As the quote goes, to be known is to be loved. How true! It is the littlest things that mean the most.♥
The school children’s enthusiastic voices rang through the halls. Sometimes I wonder if they understand all the meaning behind the words they sing. “Everywhere I go, the Lord is always with me. Everywhere I go, He’s right there by my side. He is constantly cheering me, pressing toward the victory. He is always leading me, everywhere I go.”
“I like your shoes!” “Those shoes are cool!” Little did the boys know that Miss Nellie’s shoes were two years old but the shoes had Nike symbols so that was all that mattered.
If you would like to do a little something for your community, I would suggest an evening of cleaning ditches with your youth group. The evening chosen was quite pleasant, not too warm but not windy either. It was quite a fun time. We picked up car parts, broke glass bottles against each other, and occasionally picked up something that is too disgusting to mention here. It was a tired, dirty group of youth that gathered for pizza at school. The roads do look quite nice now until the next group of wild Amish decided to throw their empty beer cans out of their buggy’s on the way home from a party. Despite feeling grungy, we had a good time and did something good for the community!