becoming less forgetful

Or, in other words, I forgot I had a blog.

Oops!

Life has been full and crazy lately. Here are a few snapshots...

LA with these cute friends, where sweet Bethany lives now. We have been friends for years since we all sat in cubes side by side by side in New York.

A Bread and Wine dinner party at Mandy's with my Atlanta small group girls. We all made recipes from Shauna's book and celebrated together before Katy moved to Birmingham. We hope Shauna would be proud of us!

A Grateful Table dinner to benefit our dear, dear friends at CloudWalk, a ministry that's been so influential in Jayson's and my life. We had cheese and wine and a carving station. There were lights strung up, acoustic worship, friends and loved ones, and the sound of the Chattahoochee River bubbling in the background. More than once, the comment was made, "This is what heaven will be like."

And today, as I write this, we are embarking on two more exciting journeys: we are under contract on a new house (perhaps more on that later - we're still working through some things, and it may or may not work out), and we have an exciting trip coming up that I'll report back on, too.

God is good, and there is much to celebrate!  Jayson and I realize that life brings seasons of drought and seasons of harvest, but as long as we are in the harvest, we will give thanks! (We will give thanks in the drought too, whenever the Lord brings that our way.) For now, we're just doing our best to live in the present and praise God for the blessings he's pouring out on us.

Much love, thanks for coming back by after my forgetful blog hiatus.
-jamie

becoming a hostess

As we've been praying through building community here in Atlanta, Jayson and I felt led to take a step of faith and plan a dinner party. Now, I do realize that "planning a dinner party" may not seem like a daunting endeavor requiring great faith to many people, but it was for me, because:

1. I am not a good cook. Or, maybe better said, I am not a cook. Our family of two mostly subsides on eating out, picking up take-out, grabbing a salad or soup from Alon's, or - if we're really getting adventurous - Jayson grills chicken and I put asparagus in a pan and put it in the oven for 10 minutes. Cooking scares me.
2. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. It's not so much big; you have to go through hoops like dialing in at a call box, going through a gate, going up an elevator, etc. to get in; the hallway carpet needs to be replaced; and, perhaps most importantly, we don't have a kitchen table.
3. We don't have a group of friends, so we'd be inviting couples who don't know each other. This is fun to me, but I realize it can be intimidating or just not as fun to other folks.

So those are the reasons I didn't know about having a dinner party. But Shauna Niequist, who wrote Bread & Wine (which, one day, I will stop blogging about, maybe), inspired me to give it a try. Throughout the book, Shauna wrote that genuine hospitality is not about being perfect... having a perfect home, the perfect meal, a perfect life. It's about creating a space for people to come together, to share life, to break bread, to laugh, to feel at home, cared for and safe. So I put my insecurities aside and went for it with Jayson.

We picked a date and invited seven couples, three of which could make it. We asked the Williams to bring wine, the Sparks to bring cheese, the Dolvins to bring a salad, and we got ingredients to make homemade pizzas and a recipe called "Simplest Chocolate Mousse" from none other than Bread & Wine. We cleaned the apartment, set a Frank Sinatra playlist on the iPod, borrowed a few chairs from our neighbors, and prayed for God to provide a fun and homey night.

I can't say that the party was a raving success... mostly because I don't know how that would be judged, and more so, because that wasn't the point. We went into Friday night with open hands, asking God to bless our evening and make our friends feel welcomed in our home but trying to accomplish nothing beyond that. 

What I can say is that Jayson and I had so much fun, and we hope our guests did too. Our friends were beyond gracious - helping with pizzas, getting to know one another with a genuine interest, sitting on the floor to eat, sharing sweet compliments about our little home. We went to bed Friday night worn out but happy and grateful.

I don't know where God will lead us next on our journey toward building community. But I hope Friday night will remind us that our only role is to prayerfully trust God and obey as he leads us. And if that involves pizza, wine, chocolate and friends, well, we'll certainly oblige. :)

p.s. I didn't take too many pictures - in fact, none with people in them - but here is a before and after look at our kitchen preparations:

Before

After

life lately, in pictures

Happy 4th of July!

I'm sitting in our living room, drinking coffee, watching Wimbledon. We were supposed to go to the lake today, but the 100% chance of rain in Atlanta foiled our plans. Jayson and I may just make it a movie marathon day instead. :)

Our rainy holiday aside, summer has been in full force over the last month. In June, I went to the beach with girl friends to celebrate my dear friend Laura's 30th birthday.  We ate our weight in homemade salsa and cookies, sat on the beach from sun-up to sun-down, enjoyed a frozen concoction known simply as "Slush," laughed, danced, read, slept and played charades.

This week was also's Jayson's birthday. Hooray! We started the celebration with dinner and dessert with my mom on Sunday. She was so sweet to take us to Ecco (one of our favs) and Intermezzo.

On Jayson's actual birthday, he had a meeting at Chick-fil-A, so we planned a little birthday lunch with friends. I surprised him with a cake and made him sit through us singing "Happy Birthday" to him in the Cafe. 

And finally, for our birthday celebration, Jayson and I went to Kevin Rathbun Steak. We had one of the best meals of our life, but most of all, it was fun to celebrate together, reminisce about Jayson's birthday last year (we were 24 days away from our wedding), and just have fun on a special date night together.

So, that's life lately! I'm pretty grouchy about the rain today, but I'm reminded how much I have to be grateful for - sweet, fun friends, a generous, loving family, and an amazing, sweet husband.  Have a great holiday!