Abandon, whimsy and love

Wednesday morning I got to meet with the Love Does girls. They are so excited about highlighting and underlining in their books and then telling everyone what they picked out. This love is contagious. We all loved this snippet,

"Being engaged is a way of doing life, a way of living and loving. It's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. That's what I want my life to be all about--full of abandon, whimsy, and in love. I want to be engaged to life and with life." Bob Goff, Love Does

We all agreed that this was really great and we want to live a life of whimsy and love, but when I challenged us to come up with ideas of exactly how to do that we found it quite challenging. How can we engage in life? The girls had ideas like go on vacation, bake a cake, leave a note in your friends locker and sit with someone different at lunch. Now we've got to try to actually go do those things, because of course, love does.

That night I was loved well by my friends Rach and Emily when we got dinner together. This pair is so lucky they get to live together every day and I get excited when I get to join in for a little bit.

I had laughed earlier when one of the girls suggested to bake a cake but back at the girls house we did just that. Not just any cake either, but the world's very best cake--the Ardery family recipe. I stayed long enough to eat a piece of the cinnamon sugary goodness.

I saw love in action with Annie and Mags and Molls and Ellie on Skype. What a party. I love the friendships between each of these girls and getting to witness how they take care of each other and ask for help and show up for one another.

Today after school I saw fun and whimsy and goofiness with the FBC. We meet in a large instruction room this year and today we played the Airport Waiting Game for the first time ever in this club.

I taught them the zig-zag and so many of them caught on. Saba brought all the new TSwift songs on her ipod and Shelby and Nat played DJ.

We taught more of the girls the step dance to It's Time (clap-leg-foot-leg-stomp-clap). I'm so thankful for all the 7th and 8th grade girls that have joined this year and for the awesome sophomores that continue to show up and help me with this tribe of bracelet girls.

I love Fall Break even when I'm not the one on the break because then friends like Emily and Mac come back home to visit. I got so excited when they suggested a dinner at Bub's tonight. We sat and talked about what's new in our lives and it was the best to be back with these girls that are such a big part of my heart.

And all of sudden, Amanda popped up out of nowhere and surprised me. She works at Bub's and came in during dinner. Could not have bee more excited to see her.

I saw friendship and support between the 8th grade girls tonight as they played the first match of their tourney. I just can't get over how much fun it is to watch them all play. I sit in the stands with one of my Love Does girl's family each time and we all get so nervous for each point and then cheer so loud. I love the way the girls cheer each other on before each point, they tell each other it's ok when they mess up and they really mean it, they stay humble even after they win game after game after game.

I think we have to create our own joy sometimes. We have to figure out what we love and then go do a lot of it. Building people and making them feel important is worth the extra effort. Choosing to be positive and spread that light can make all the difference.