Behind our apartment building we have trash bins. One for "regular" trash, one for "recycling" and then one that belongs to "La Pharmacie" that occupies the first floor of our building. David and I were on our way out on Saturday and took both our trash and recycling out. Our recycling bin was piled twice as high as it should have been. Most of the cardboard boxes were from the pharmacy, so I wondered what the heck was in THEIR bin.
I opened it up and it was filled with little pink "new baby" boxes. (the sort of box a new mom might get during her first visit to a pediatrician's office) My curiosity got the better of me so I opened one up. I was amazed to discover that each of these boxes had loads of "stuff" inside them. A sealed pamper, lots of coupons, samples of baby soap, etc. So, the poor girl in me said "hey, we are going to get the pampers out of these boxes and give them to our pregnant friend". David, having been married to me for 24 years was not surprised and helped me to pull out about 6 boxes.
We took them back inside our apartment stairwell and pulled out the goodies. It was like Christmas!! Some of them, in addition to the pampers and coupons, had baby wipes and even full sized bottles of baby shampoo. Upon seeing my excitement, my executive husband said, "do you want me to go get the rest of them?" I LOVE HIM!
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| sorry it's blurry! |
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| why wouldn't they give these away? |
Could we afford to buy a pack of pampers? Yes
Could we afford to buy wipes? Yes
Could our friends afford to buy themselves pampers and wipes? Yes
Are we too proud to empty boxes from a "trash bin"? No!
I'm going to have to start looking in that Pharmacy bin a little more often!!
Speaking of my "executive" husband, we had a very special visitor in Alsace this month. The CEO of Eli Lilly, John Lechleiter and his wonderful wife Sarah were here for a site visit and we had the pleasure of joining them for dinner. What's a girl to wear when she is having dinner with the company CEO? A nice dress and a pair of heels, right? What about when this same girl has to WALK to dinner (about 3/4 mile) along cobblestone streets? Yep, she still has to wear heels. I am happy to report that not only did I make it without twisting an ankle, I also didn't totally destroy my shoes.
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| Not a tall heel, but hey, a heel nonetheless |
The next day was the big site visit for David and so I had the pleasure of taking Sarah out for lunch and a little shopping adventure here in Strasbourg. I was so proud of David and his team. Everything went like clock work at his plant….well, except for the cafeteria lunch that day….seems as though the cook didn't quite get the chicken cooked thoroughly and David only noticed it AFTER John had eaten half of his meal. How does one gracefully tell his boss's boss's boss that he is about to get salmonella poisoning? (Luckily, this didn't happen!)
Other big happenings this month involved a tuscan dinner invitation (thanks Matt and Germaine), attending a gender reveal party for our friends Stephanie and Martin (they are having a baby boy), co-hosting a baby shower for our friends Katie and Kevin (thanks Lynn and Katie Luck for helping to host!), attending a "farewell dinner" for our Spanish friend Ainhoa, an AIA General Assembly meeting, another "farewell dinner" with the Howards and Dobbins, David's league basketball tournament and Le Sig's championship tournament. Did I mention that we've only been home from Greece for 15 days?
One highlight from the last two weeks was when our Le Sig friends, Matt Howard, Tony Dobbins and their wives Brittney and Allyson came to watch David's Lilly team play in the semi-finals of their league championship. David and Kevin Noone were HORRIFIED that two professional basketball players were coming to watch an industrial league game, but oh my goodness were the other players starry eyed! Allyson was entertaining us all with her "trash talking" and other sideline antics and the underdog Lilly team pulled out the win. Of course, everyone wanted a photo with the Pros, so it was a great night.
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| Allyson, our #1 cheerleader/trash talker |
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| Lilly team with Matt and Tony |
Finally, we hosted a "deep fryer" night so that I could say "goodbye" to Matt/Brittney and Tony/Allyson. (We are hoping that BOTH Matt and Tony re-sign with the Strasbourg team next season) You can't get spicy food here in France, so anytime someone is willing to cook buffalo chicken wings you have a winner. Our new deep fryer got a work out. 6 lbs of chicken wings, 2 pounds of homemade nuggets, french fries and onion rings. What a great way to spend our anniversary. They were horrified that we would host a dinner on our special night, but hey, didn't we all have our friends around us when we initially tied the knot?
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| Matt, Brittney, David, me, Allyson, Tony, Katie, Kevin |
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| The girls…many fun nights playing games with these 3 |
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| The guys….rarely is David the short one in a photo |
As I reflected on our last two weeks of craziness, I was struck by a single thought. My foundational change in character. I was once so caught up in what people thought about me. I can still fall into that trap, but it is not my everyday concern. Pride is an ugly thing and I wonder how many proud people wish that they could be "real" with those around them? For me, I think it was my own insecurity about being seen as "less than" and so I always wanted to do everything myself, I never wanted to accept help from anyone else, and so this then continued to feed my pride. I am a success, look what I can do. Do you notice how many time "I" appears in this paragraph? It's really unattractive.
Isn't life much more meaningful when our story includes "we, us, them"? Aren't we called to love others? If we truly do, if we work hard at showing the love of Christ to all, I think our stories and our lives can only be filled with blessings. That isn't to say that hardships will come, but when they do, we can be surrounded by the love that we have cast out to others and it returns to us multiplied, therefore diminishing the sorrow of our earthly trials.
Cast out some love today. Don't be proud, "dig" into the dumpster of your heart and provide a blessing to someone in need. It doesn't have to be painful and it doesn't need to cost you money. You just need to be intentional. Smile at someone, say hello to a stranger, hold the door for someone. That's my challenge to you….let me know how your day becomes brighter after you decide to cast some love out in the world around you.
