"one last hurrah", or, "sleeping in shorts in november"

If my chronicles of this past weekend were part of a book, the chapter would be called one of the above titles, if not both. Actually, I think they're both quite reflective of the style of my current read, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's no secret that I tend to take on the writing (or even thinking) style of whoever I happen to be reading. During times when I was joyously engrossed in the Harry Potter books I found myself narrating my own happenings like a great adventure. I stopped just short of having a British accent, namely because whenever I try to do an accent it just turns into Australian.

I had a fantastic weekend in Phoenix. Got to enjoy some warm weather, lots of great food, even better company, and best of all I got to relax. The trip started out pretty turbulently as my flight on Wednesday was cancelled...after they held us in limbo for a few hours. Honestly, it was pretty ridiculous. Everything was going according to schedule until *scary music* the door wouldn't shut properly. From there things kind of steamrolled. They kept us on the plane for two hours as mechanics got called out, looked at the door, went back to their workshop to look at schematics of the door, and then said nothing was wrong with the door. So you'd think we would have been able to go then, right? Wrong. Our captain vaguely referred to "another problem [he] didn't care to elaborate on" and after two hours of waiting they let us deplane. About 20 minutes later I started hearing rumors about cancellation. Then began the mad cell phone dash to try to get on the phone with a ticketing agent so we could avoid the hideously long line at the ticket counter and get transferred onto the next flight. They announced that our flight was cancelled AFTER a bunch of us had already switched our tickets and had known about the cancellation. So lame. Seriously, never fly U.S. Air if you can help it.

But, for as hellish as it sounds I wasn't really bothered by any of this. I was able to roll with things pretty well and found myself content to just sit and wait. I also got to make a few phone calls which can sometimes be hard to find time to do. So, 12 hours after leaving my house I finally arrived in Phoenix, exhausted but okay.

Once I got there I had a really great time. One of the best things was when I realized late Friday afternoon that I hadn't been wearing my watch most of the day and I'd spent most of the day in absolute ignorance about what time it was yet I didn't care at all! That's something that's very unusual for me, so I was so happy when I realized how much I'd been able to let go of any agenda.

Now it's 9:50 pm on Sunday night and I've been trying not to think about all that lies ahead of me this next week. It's going to be nuts, absolutely nuts. I am so glad I had this weekend to recoup before all the madness starts. God's grace was so evident to me this weekend in so many little ways - the ability to stay calm and patient, gorgeous weather, the beauty and fun of friendship, time to stop and pray, amazing food, church with no responsibilities this morning...the list goes on. And I think the biggest grace was the ability to see the grace itself. I feel like one of two things happens whenever I go away: I either totally lose my grip and fall apart because I lack my daily routine, or I totally thrive and am open to God in new ways because I lack my daily routine. Before I left I was so afraid of the former occurring because it's happened so many times before. Thankfully, this was a weekend of the second option, and I'm hoping that the refreshing and lessons of the weekend overflow into the upcoming days and weeks.