Great expectations

This has been a lovely vacation.  Not at all like Charles Dickens' too sad novel.  I think the picture above says it all.  Thank you blue skies, thank you sun on my face, thank you palm trees!  And I will say thank you in my underwear (in the privacy of my own home of course).  Did it meet my expectations?  No.  But expectations are funny things.  They mess with our perspective.  And people and situations rarely seem to meet them.  I should have learned by now, that family vacations are not really about me. And that's ok, because we only have 20 odd years worth of vacations with these lovely creatures until we are begging them to vacation with us but they're too busy.  Twenty years of shell hunting, Doritos eating, wet suits on the floor, throw me in the pool again, sibling squabbles, watching toddlers nap vacations.  The day after we set foot in Florida, Meagan got the vomiting flu.  The next day NiNi starting running a fever.  Two sick kids inside on the couch and the beach was screaming my name.  I have to keep reminding myself, slow down.  Meagan is quickly growing into a young woman.  Ethan is looking more like a boy than a baby these days.  NiNi will soon be seven.  Chris has this quote pasted on the wallpaper of his phone, "Be all there."  Stop thinking about what you plan to do later that day or even in the next 10 minutes.  It will all still be there when this moment passes.  So I'm trying to have fewer expectations these days and more moments of gratitude.  I recently finished the book "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp and have been dabbling in my own list for the past several months.  A little embarrassed to say that it's taken 6 months to get to 100 things I am thankful for.  Shameful.  But I will say that my awareness of the blessings comes a little easier now, and sometime even at rapid fire...

A husband who sings the loudest at church and is the loudest dad at the pool
Candlelit baths interrupted by toddlers
Matchbox car tracks in my houseplant dirt
A God who is only light, no darkness (not even a little)
A job that gives me an endorphin release on at least a weekly basis
Chocolate faces licking beaters
Tender calm after the kids' emotional storms
Repentance, second-chances and do-overs

For my entire adult life, I have made a list of self improvement goals on January 1 of each year.  I typically achieve very few of them.  But I still make them, because it feels unproductive not to.  Well, not this year.   This year, instead of expectations, I will have reflections.  My one goal is to bask in the blessings of the present.  And hopefully reap some much needed joy and peace.