One of my mentors challenged me this week, ‘When you get to sing your Silent Night at the end of the year, what do you want this year to have been about? What will have made it a success? You know the universal principle. Put in the big stones. You’ll be surprised how much of the smaller stuff will fit.’

I know it’s already September, but I’m extending the challenge. Go to Christmas. Look back. What needs to be there? In the quiet – what comes to mind? The big stones aren’t necessarily the big things. They’re likely the things no one else will ever know about.

For sure, big rocks of gratitude are anchoring my year. This week’s 39 things:

1409 Lime green frying pan

1410 Wisdom to weight my communities and steer my decisions

1411 Scott – with mild consternation – catching sight of himself in the mirror after (another) traumatic visit to the barber: ‘My hair very broken!’

1412 Cam’s creativity and resourcefulness (For show-and-tell this week he had to take something to do with fish, frogs, ducks or crocodiles – the theme being water creatures. But he is totally fire-engine-mad at the moment. So he said to me, ‘Crocodiles are dangerous. Fire is also dangerous. So I’ll take my fire engine for show-and-tell because it has to do with crocodiles!’)

1413 Risotto –

1414 And an awesome evening –

1415 With Kean and Kim – first dinner guests in our new home

1416 Cam laughing at himself

1417 The simultaneous transfer – same day – of two properties, old and new –

1418 And the fact that deciding it was time to look for a bigger house and moving into it after massive renovations, took only 3 ½ months

1419 Four families for supper at the Barretts – good food, raucous kids, abiding friendships

1420 Sunshine in the study

1421 New fancy chair that’s all ergonomically correct and designed to cure my headaches

1422 Catching up with Gary Wise

1423 Apple Danishes for pudding

1424 A tweet reminding me to keep fighting for first-time happy-heart obedience from our boys

1425 Our vet who knows as we do that Lola’s shaggy magnificence is true beauty

1426 Marvelling at the value of strong, significant leadership in the creation of world-changing communities

1427 The power of forgiveness in the fabric of families

1428 Flexibility

1429 A meeting cancelled – a free evening

1430 Finding LM grass for sale on the side of Garsfontein Road –

1431 And Simon planting it in barren shady patches

1432 The Grade 10s I taught for these past two weeks – what fantastic kids –

1433 And a spontaneous mid-lesson hug from one of them

1434 Murray’s massages

1435 Gwen and Max for tea –

1436 And remembering the years Gwen and I spent holed up in the St Alban’s English office doing language lessons and laughter and life (and Pinterest)

1437 Stiffness from gardening

1438 Cushions plump and plush

1439 Walking with my two boys across the St Alban’s campus – where massive moments of their little lives are rooted

1440 Brilliant banking service

1441 Down-to-earth realism

1442 Murray in the blue shirt he bought in Portland, sleeves rolled up and sexy

1443 Jim Collins’ good-to-great wisdom translated into parenting

1444 Wearing a bun and Cam saying, ‘Nice hair! How did you make that round ponytail?’

1445 Watching the boys on the jungle gym from the kitchen window –

1446 And thinking, how did I get to be the luckiest girl in the world?

1447 Knowing the rains will come

 

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