good friends

My friends Laura and Jill and Melissa (who took this photo - its quality is not her fault) came over about a week and a half ago to celebrate Laura's return to Spain. She leaves a week from today and will be working with Muslims in Barcelona - just the type of ministry God has gifted her for. I'm so excited for her, but sad she won't be here in GR.

I've know Laura and Jill since junior high - and they've known each other since kindergarten! We've gone from sitting together on the bus in middle school, through the drama that is high school, then supporting each other through all of the change that happens in college to weddings and babies (Jill has four!) and now homeschooling and Spain and new houses. Good times. And there's nothing better than simply sharing conversation, some Chinese food, homemade humus, wine, bread and olive oil on a Friday night. Life makes it a little more difficult to get together as often, but I treasure the times we do.

And I've had the opportunity to reconnect with some college friends lately. Several of us that worked together on our college newspaper are getting together Monday night (somehow, we all ended up in Grand Rapids and found each other after eight or nine years) and my roommate Andrea and I have just gotten back in touch after a few years. I've found that the older I get, the more difficult it is to make these kinds of friends. Maybe it's just the stage of life I'm in right now, and it's fine, but it's not as easy as it was in college and in my early/mid 20s. So I cherish the ones I have, try to stay connected to them, and look forward to the ones that may await.

rainy days and mondays

Yesterday was Monday and yesterday was rainy (VERY rainy), but, to paraphrase The Carpenters, neither of those really got me down. Instead, it was the woman who hit my car.

Yes, after years of accident-free driving, I've now been in two in the last 15 months. The one last year was my fault. Yesterday's (fortunately for me) was not. First, the good news: no one was injured. The bad news: my car is in the body shop for its second round of body work in 15 months. Soon, the entire front end will be brand new!

So I was headed toward work yesterday morning when a car in front of me slowed to turn into a health club on Burton. I slowed down too, since that's what you should do. There was a car waiting to turn out of the same parking lot. She later said she thought I was turning as well (though I can't figure out why - I didn't have my turn signal on). So car in front of me turns in, I start to accelerate, and so does the car coming out of the parking lot. And it accelerated into my passenger side. There's nothing quite like that sound of metal smashing against metal.

It's truly providential that on a dark, rainy morning, the accident was not any worse, the police officer was friendly, the tow truck drive was friendly, and the woman that hit me was extremely apologetic. And my gem of a husband was able to drive over and comfort me, give me a ride to the body shop and then a ride to work.

No pictures of the car to post - we'll just look forward to it looking as good as new.