Kicking It Off: Cookie Party Style

There were mixed emotions going into Saturday's planned cookie party. Friday's Connecticut news did nothing less than stop us all in our own tracks.

A friend called Saturday morning to ask if I still had plans on following through with the get-together that day. I wasn't prepared for the flood of emotions that would come in my sheepish answer of 'yes'…. I hadn't expected guilt to be the biggest one.

I don't know if the guilt stemmed from the thought of canceling never crossed my mind….if the situation in Newtown only gave me more reason to dive deeper into all of my own surrounding good…. or because while I puttered around my own kitchen, Friday night, to distract me from the reporting news, another mother was collapsing in hers, from heart ache, because of it.

Somewhere in that day, I forgot about that guilt or it turned in to gratitude, I'm not quite sure.

All I really know is how I feel and though the Christmas preparations of getting gifts ready, packages sent, and cards stamped, has been busying for weeks now, the scurry of kids in my house, laughter of my mumma friends around my table, and declarations of 'not being able to have one more bite' made, I felt settled.

The roller coster has inched to the top, the momentary hover before the decline is now, and it's my most favorite part of the ride, the expectation and anticipation of what is to unfold.

And all I know how to do, when faced with the realities of life's unacceptable evils, is to slow myself down while also amping myself up, to be in tuned with my level of appreciating it all. 

And the cookie decorating party, was a good way to start.
Happy Monday.