I'm so blessed!

I don't really expose my spiritual side too much on this blog (I reserve that mostly for discussions with my friends and my bible studies), but I just got a phone call that served as another reminder of how blessed I am. Typically, something happens to me like once/week or sometimes more/less often than that and it makes me realize that the man above really is walking with me. Not that this post is going to be spiritual or anything...

To put all this in perspective, let me go back a couple weeks. (I'll try to be brief. But because I probably can't, I'm sure I won't (LOL).)

On my way home around 12am a couple of weeks ago, I was taking my usual route through BodyMore to get home and in the middle of the city, out of nowhere, a deer runs across the street while I'm doing about 60 mph (yes, I was speeding). It was late at night and I saw something that resembled an animal coming from the left but I was in the middle of the city so I didn't think it was a actually a deer! By the time I realized it was in fact a deer, it was running right past the front of my car. After slamming on brakes, I must have missed that thing by less than a foot and it completely scared the crap out of me. I wasn't wearing a seatbelt (big dummy) so considering that hitting a deer is close to hitting a solid, stationary object, I'd probably have went through the windshield. Needless to say, I was thanking God for those entire 2+ miles I had to drive before I got home. That situation made me realize how quickly your life can change but God had spared me of that life-altering event. There's no doubt that I would not have been the same (in some way, shape, or form) had I hit that deer. And oddly enough, even though I didn't hit that deer, I still don't feel like I'm 100% the same person. At that moment I grew somehow. And although I'm not sure how, I'm sure that it will be revealed to me in due time.

This brings me to this past weekend. My mother and brother have birthdays one day after each other. My mom's birthday was Sunday and my brother's birthday was Monday. But my mom called me late last week with the wonderful idea of throwing my brother a surprise bowling party. It was his 21st birthday so we had to do something special even if my brother is pretty low-key when it comes to celebrating things. My mother quarterbacked the surprise party, calling people, finding an alley, etc. And on Saturday night I drove down to D.C. to surprise my brother. The party was lots of fun even though my mom had me take care of everything while we were at the bowling alley. Making sure 25 people get shoes, on a lane, and are able to bowl with who they want is not an easy task. Not to mention when you enjoy bowling yourself and you've got all your brother's friends saying they'll beat you. But what really mattered was the time my brother had and he had a ball!

The co-birthday cake

My brother enjoyed his cake quite a bit (LOL)

Mom after bowling a frame

My brother and my cousin Gil

Me and Gil

Cheese!

The next day (Sunday), my brother and I had organized a surprise birthday dinner for my mother. It was my brother's idea actually and I just sort of ran with it. LOL. I got a few of my cousins on-board along with my stepbrother and made a reservation for Maggianos. We got my stepfather to get my mother out of the house under the pretense that she was going to dinner with him, and the rest of us proceeded to make our way to the restaurant to surprise my mom. My brother and his friends were there along with several of my cousins and my step-brother and his girlfriend. When my mom and stepdad showed up she seemed pretty surprised and very happy. We all then sat down and laughed, joked, and ate our way through 3 courses of Maggiano's cuisine. I gotta mention that Maggiano's was GREAT! I'd never been there before but I will most definitely be going back!

Me and mom

Mom and my stepdad

My stepbrother and my mom

Toast!

My cousin and her husband gettin' all kissy-kissy

And that brings me to this morning. I just got off the phone with the Director of Development at my job and the organization would like for me to take a last-minute trip to Atlanta in a couple weeks to represent the organization at an awards ceremony. This made me feel great because it tells me that the higher-ups here see my hard work, my rapport with my co-workers, and the way I present myself and they feel that I'm worthy of representing our organization at an event where our competitors and supporters will be in attendance. It definitely makes me feel good!

Lately there have been some small but negative things that have taken place in my life. But when those things happen, I never allow myself to get too pessimistic. My mom (the only person I know who is happy 99.3% of the time) instilled in me to focus on the positive and not let anyone or anything deter me from being happy and enjoying every day of my life. And the older I get the more I use that to help me take the bad with the good and keep it moving. All these situations over the past few weeks have really driven home the fact that I am blessed by God to have Him watching over me and to have the family that I have along with everyone else who plays a positive role in my life.