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Two Turtle Doves

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 December 15.  This morning I was driving to a meeting and thinking about generosity.  I had just finished filling my car with gas because it always seems to be empty these days as I travel around the county for work....and gas prices continue to go up so I am either filling my gas tank or paying the gas bill.  I remembered a time long ago, when I stood at a gas tank in California on a Sunday morning.  I was dressed for work and on my way to my job at a department store.  I needed gas to make it the rest of the way so I stopped but found out I didn't have any money to pay for the gas.  Back then, in the 1990s, you could pump your gas before you paid for it, even in southern California.  I was flustered, panicked and overwhelmed.  Someone noticed.  Someone generous noticed and paid for my gas.  I remembered telling him if he wrote down his name and number I would pay him back but he said no thanks, it was fine, he would just help me ...
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circles

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 Years ago, my oldest kiddo was struggling with some of her relationships.  Friends she thought were good and faithful fell short.  She felt unsafe and unprepared socially and so she and I sat down together after she had vented and cried and talked through all the things.  I drew a circle, then a bigger one around it and a third bigger circle around that one.  Together we came up with a list of people she could put in the most inner circle, defined as who she could trust no matter what.  It is a small circle for a reason.  Who can you say with certainty that you know will always put you first, care for you and come through for you?  Because she wasn't sure we talked about options and why they could be reliable.....God, mom, dad (and maybe nana Barb but I don't really remember.)  The second circle includes people we care about deeply who we know care for us...and why.  We discuss who they are and what qualities they posess to put them in ...
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Claire, my dining room table, church

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Today Claire came home from work and we sat at the table for awhile.  Oh boy, if my dining room table could talk......there are more memories soaked into this table that I can recount, and more tears and bursts of laughter than I can ever remember.  There are more lists and memos and plans etched into it that I could ever save...... She is making her lists for moving to college.  It's true that she is only moving a couple hundred feet away to the college in our town, but she is still moving out.  She is taking all of the things she uses every day and she is setting up a life in a dorm on a college campus with a new roommate and a whole new world.  In 4 days we will move her out.  It is so weird.  It is the weirdest thing ever.  Adding children to our home is not weird at all.  Figuring out how to send them out is.  I'm less sad and more....conflicted, maybe.   I am so excited for her.  Moving to college is probab...
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