weekly gratitude

thank you bare feet for absorbing all the wine I managed to spill down my leg at work

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Netflix. 

Damn you. 

(how's that for a backhanded entrance to weekly gratitude? I like being a walking contradiction)

But really, did I really need to get sucked in to another show? 

No. The answer is no, I did not!

But the other night I decided to put something on for a little background noise and rediscovered how much I love...

Frasier.

Bugger all - I really did forget how brilliant that show is. I'd never watched it from the beginning and now that I've finished season one (and firmly engrossed in season two) my main concern in deciding who I love more : Niles or Martin.

#firstworldproblems 

Meanwhile, it's been a pretty great week (made better by taking a brief hiatus from nineties sitcom land to watch the YouTube live feed of Florence + The Machine from Coachella - firstworldwin). 

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1. Thank you for carefree days with friends. Monday was one of those rare occurrences where a few of us had the day off together. Our version of celebration was to go to Ikea and then happy hour at Tasty N Sons (I'm going for a personal best at number of visits in the first quarter of the new year). Robin, her friend Amber, Shamoo, Frankie & Matty and I dove into the madness of Ikea and tried not to buy all the things we didn't need for prices we could afford but were far too composed to indulge in (read: too lazy to put it together ourselves - I didn't really need another bookshelf anyway). A little later we met Michull over at Tasty's (that's our cool kid slang, we're making the hipsters ache we're so rad). After a couple bacon-wrapped dates, fried cauliflower and some whiskey drinks (whiskey, grapefruit juice and honey - look into it immediately) we decided the day was still too young to call it quits, so we added to our gluttonous excursions by making a pitstop at Pix. If you follow me on Instagram (laurenjeanallece) I've already made you jealous with the pictures of black coffee and a rose flavored macaron and I apologize. However, if you're feeling food lust, come visit me in Portland - the city and I will make sure you're extremely well fed!

2. Thank you for narrowly avoiding catatonic surrender (Dean and Robin, that one's a stretch, but I  tried). Anyway, Dean wrote about it here but I'll just say here that I'm incredibly thankful these two are okay. They just barely avoided a rather serious wreck thanks to the wayward urgency of a driver who thought her time was far too valuable to wait in traffic. Without getting into all of the what-ifs and could-have-beens, it was a close call but I'm glad things didn't end as badly as they might have. Wounds will heal, bills can be paid - but the seriousness this ordeal sidestepped makes me glad that someone out there is looking out for us.

3. Thank you for for small worlds! I met Mari at Red Hills Market the other night for dinner and a bottle of '05 syrah and ended up chatting with the owner's twin sister. Turns out not only did we grow up in the same town, but we went to the same high school and their little sister was in my class! We had a good laugh over our common ground and enjoyed our shared good fortune at ending up in a place like Oregon. Life is mighty fine, aint' it?

4. Thank you, on a similar note, for all of the wonderful things happening in the lives of people I love. Though passing friends ended up cutting our dinner short the other night, Mari and I talked about some of the amazing turns life is taking lately and how blessed we are. She is one of the dearest friends I know and I just marvel at her sometimes - her faith is tested daily but it is indomitable. Not may people our age are able to freely offer themselves up as a living sacrifice to God, but Mari? She presents all she has to Christ knowing full well He may take her to some scary places, but she walks into those with head held high and nothing but joy. Hers is the kind of faith I strive for. She is fearless (or better put, even in fear she has the courage to trust - which is far more than I can say for myself most of the time). I am thankful for her friendship and the way she is (perhaps unknowingly) pastoring me in my own walk with God. (p.s. this is an example of the kind of girl we're dealing with here). There are some truly extraordinary people in this world. 

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So tomorrow night is The Revival Tour. Michull, Maggie, Dean & Robin are up in Seattle tonight seeing that leg, then over to Dante's tomorrow for the Portland show.

I am about to fall down I'm so excited.

(and because I am so adept at staying cool, calm and collected, none of you will see me doing this)

In the meantime,  stay tuned here for another installment of Nomad By Fate tomorrow!