Winds of Change

There's nothing like the holiday season to bring you face to face with all that is changing around you. If you're like me and don't always do well with change, this can be somewhat of a tough time of year. But sometimes it's good to sit down and reflect on the things that are different, acknowledge and accept them and then keep on trucking forward.

I love Christmas because it's one of the only times in the year that my family gets to all be together. Every year for the past few we've had another wee child running around the house and that kind of change is fun. This year we had another guest (bigger than a wee child) and although I was somewhat reluctant to share our family time with him initially, it was natural and relaxing to have him there.

But when we are all together like that it reminds me that we are all getting older. Adult children have middle aged parents and I fear my parents getting older. Granted, they are still very young, but I wish I could stop time and keep them that way. I still need them.

It's interesting to look back 5 years and see what a different person I've become. Most of the changes are great, but I have to stop and mourn some of the lost naivete and idealism.

And looking forward to the future I anticipate some of the changes to come and dread others. But I cherish the things that remain the same: my dearest friends, my family and my faith.

Happy New Year, friends.

High Maintenance Blog

My blog is high maintenance. Well, maybe it's me that's high maintenance. But my blog always has to look nice. It's pretty much one of the best parts of having a blog actually, choosing a new background. I love looking through websites and finding some that makes my heart go 'yes!" It seems that the background I choose reflects how I'm feeling at the moment. My previous backgroung was very bright and bubbly! This one is more subdued. Calm and classy. And that's how I'm feeling these days.

I wish it didn't say Merry Christmas down the side so I could keep it forever and ever.

Joey's? Yes, please!

It was Roommate Christmas 2009 this weekend. We get all dressed up, go out for dinner and then go see the Living Christmas Tree production at a local church before heading home to open gifts. It is a fantastic tradition that we all dearly love.

This year we decided to go to Joey's for dinner. It's a rather new restaurant in our area and is a bit fancier and since we were getting dressed up in our little black dresses we figured it would be a good choice. I like to look at the nutritional info online before I go to a restaurant so that I can make better choices about what I eat. So last week I went to Joey's website and while they didn't have the nutritional info there, it said to email an address if you wanted the info. So I did. And very shortly (20 minutes later, I'd say) I received a personal email back from their culinary manager apologizing, saying they were doing some work on the website but the nutrition should be up by the next day. In the meantime he was willing to send me the nutrition on any items I wanted. Impressed, I responded saying that it wasn't urgent and I would just check back later.

A week later I went back to the website to check and it still wasn't up, so I emailed the same address again, this time requesting nutritional info for a few dishes. Again, very promptly the culinary manager emailed me back a personal email with the details. I told him that even if I didn't like Joey's food (although I was sure I would) I would always be supremely impressed with their service.

So we arrived there on Friday night and the hostess started chatting with us about why we were all dressed up. We told her it was Roommate Christmas and she got all excited because she was going to have a chance to get all dressed up the next night and we had inspired her. Then our server, Kevin, came to take our drink order. He also commented on how dressy we were and joked with us throughout the night about many things. He was quite delightful (and uber cute).

We had planned that we wanted to get a picture of us at the restaurant and, joking, I said to the girls that I thought we needed a picture with Kevin. When he came back to the table after we had paid, we asked him to take our photo and he said "only if I get to get in on the action!" How could we refuse?!

As we got up to leave a manager came over to us and said "Ladies, we loved having you in our restaurant tonight. You made Kevin's weekend, you made my night. What you represent is exactly what we want this place to be about. I know you're in a hurry but we would really like to offer you dessert on us sometime, so here is my card, give me a call next time before you come in and we'll hook you up." We were all blown away. He was genuine and sincere, this wasn't a sleezy attempt to suck up to us. We hadn't done anything spectacular (except look awesome!) but they loved us.

I am beyond impressed with this restaurant's culture of customer care. The food was great, by the way. But beyond that they really took care of us and that is really refreshing in our world today. Kudos, Joey's. Kudos. Also, Kevin is my new BFF.

Alicia, Barbara, Errin, me, Kevin

I didn't know it was possible to love them this much

Just thinking about them makes me grin and my heart melt into a little puddles. They make my heart come alive.