Should be in bed...

... but I'm not. :) 

I just enjoyed a sweet conversation with my pal Julie, and I got to read my other friend Ruthie's account of her baby boy's birth. These are important ladies in my life, whose friendships are of differing lengths and intimacy levels, but I celebrate their joys as God seems to have them both in seasons of blessing. 

(For the record, I promised Julie that I'd mention her newest one's birth a while ago when I convinced her to resume her blog. I failed to do that, so here goes:)

CONGRATULATIONS, DAN AND JULIE!!!!! They welcomed Sara Meleah on June 5. She was born healthy and (despite some major rudeness from the anesthesiologist) without incident! She's great - initially I thought she looked like the spitting image of Julie, but now I see a lot of the Donatini clan in her. In any event, she's doing really well and is a blessing to her whole family. 

(Sorry, Julie, for the delay.)  

Of course, it's also nice to see pictures of my adorable niece on Julie's blog, as well. Thanks for doing that, Julie! I get to see pictures of her from Julie's site, and Jaimi tells me snippets of Hannah from her walks with her baby Emma and Julie and her girls Mya, Sara while Julie watches Hannah during the day. Of course, my family tells me about her too, but the more the merrier! Oh, and I get to talk to Hannah on the phone a few times a week, so that's good too. Now if I could just get my family to be better about taking pictures of her and sending them to me or posting them on our family account on photobucket.com more often.... (hint hint). I even recall my sister buying a video camera, and since photobucket can accommodate video uploads, that would work too (nothing like some public pressure, right Miss? ;))

Work continues to be good. I'm really bonding with my coworker, Laura, which is fun. She and I laugh A LOT, and sometimes I wonder if my boss, John, gave thought to what he was getting himself into when he hired two single, silly, 20s-something women. I'm blessed he did! My coworkers are great. Some Christians aren't big fans of sarcasm or teasing or joking around. To be clear, I'm not either when it's at someone's expense, but when we are together, the five of us (John, Jeffrey, Laura, Helen - the secretary - and I laugh so much. We had another one of those days last Friday, where we laughed at Laura's stories so much that we probably irritated some other customers at Applebees, and we definitely made our own stomachs ache from all the giggling. So much fun. 

The sexual abuse group starts next week - yikes and yippee! I'm feeling the pressure to get it organized, but I'm also excited to get started. As I told Julie tonight, I am reading 7 or 8 books right now for work - one on forgiveness, one on boundaries, one on restoring sexual identity (for treating those with same-sex attraction), one on eating disorders, and 3 on sexual abuse. Whew! I cycle through them. I never get as much done in the day as I want, so I bring them home, but then I end up vegging out, cleaning, planning the vacation, or something else. 

I tried out a church yesterday. I won't be back. It was solid biblically, and this may be selfish, but the pastor took the pulpit at 11:20 - and was just finishing his first point (out of 4) at 11:50. This is probably bad, but that's too long for me. He preached until 12:20. Whew. The service started at 10:45. I wasn't prepared for that. It's sort of like when you go for a walk in the woods because you heard of a beautiful waterfall a couple of miles in. The trail isn't clearly marked, so you do a far amount of wandering. You do see some neat things, but by the end, when you get to the waterfall, it sort of isn't worth it anymore. That was the sermon. Given that I haven't been in church for 4 weeks, it was a let down. And for the record, since I haven't said it in a few days, I was sooooooooooooo spoiled by the concise, clear, convicting, and applicable teaching of my friend and pastor Ben that any church will have a tough row to hoe to compete. Oh well - 0 for 1. This weekend I'll be back at HBC (Hallelujah!), and then the next two weekends I'll be here for more shopping. 

For the record, my Labor Day holiday was good. I never posted about that. It was busy though - went to an Indians game (and got a speeding ticket on the way - oops), saw my dear friend Rachel, saw Jaimi and Julie, had a cook-out with my parents, sister, and Hannah, and came home. No rest for the weary, but it was a good weekend. This weekend will be similarly busy - lunch Saturday with Jaimi and Julie, Saturday night at Ben's for the OSU vs USC game (where OSU better perform drastically better than they did against Ohio U this weekend or will be in for a shameful beat-down), Sunday church, and then Sunday early evening back here to "home". It will be good to see my loved ones again, though, and VERY GOOD to be back and worship with my other loved ones. 

Long again. I might as well stop thinking I'll have shorter posts; seems unlikely to happen anytime soon....