Reasons to L.O.V.E May

I love the month of May, for many reasons. I am so excited the month is here! I thought it would never get here, and here it is! So without further ado, reasons I love May...

1.May 21, is my birthday! I love birthdays. Not that I have extravagant parties or anything, I just like a celebration! Chris's birthday is also in May, the 30th to be exact. We are debating a joint par-tay. He really wants no party at all, but I am going to go ahead and say it is for the both of us. I love birthdays.

2. The flower for the month of May is a lily. Technically I believe it is "Lilly of the Valley" but Stargazer Lillies are just as beautiful, but with more color. Lillies can be the most versatile flower coming in all sizes and colors. But they all have that wonderful smell. Chris bought me some beautiful yellow lillies that are planted in a pot on the patio. I love flowers, and lillies.

3. Crawfish. As mentioned in several other blog post, it is crawfish season! I love crawfish.

4. The weather. Anyone who knows me knows I loooooove sunshine! May is the perfect month of weather. Not to hot (well at least not for me) and not too cold. There are still a few cool-ish days throwin in this month, but May is when it really starts to heat up. Cute little dress, sandals (which means pedicures), dinners outside, tan skin, blonde-er hair. Ahhhhh, I love May weather.

5. Baseball season! Ok, ok I know baseball season really starts in April, but you really get into the "swing" (no pun intended) of things in May. College baseball begins the playoffs soon. LSUS is entering playoffs. Hopefully LSU can get its act together and win another one this year. The local Shreveport Captains haven't had a very stellar team in years but it is still fun to go out to the ball park, enjoy a hot dog and the nice weather with friends. I love baseball.

6. Summer time! This word lumps up the previous five things in one. Because summer time is synonymous with crawfish, sun, my birthday, baseball. But summer is the best time of the year, and May is the perfect month to kick off summer time!

7. Weddings. May is also synonymous with weddings showers because May leads to June and July when there is a wedding just about every weekend! My dearest friend from high school is getting married June 12. She has had two showers already and has one more next weekend. I couldn't be more happy for her. And I love seeing all my girls from high school reunited for such a wonderful occasion.

So those are a few of the reasons I love May. What are your reasons to love May?

Friday Five

1. Crawfish again this weekend!! I can't wait. I love crawfish. It's not just about the crawfish, it is about the whole experience. You always eat with friends or family. It's always a pretty day and everyone is always in a good mood. I mean, how can you be in a bad mood with crawfish??!

2. 2 weeks of class left! Whoo hoo!

3. When school is over, I am not going to know what to do with myself. I am working on a camping trip though...

4. I got a haircut yesterday. I love haircuts! A fresh new "do" makes anyone feel good.

5.Tomorrow is May 1. 20 days until my birthday!! Seriously, another year has gone by?!? I'm getting old!

My Work

Today is my work's annual meeting. Except to avoid legal, logistical, confusion, we are going to call it our Annual Community Celebration! It resembles a typical annual meeting. A meeting of the members, new officers in, old officers out, a couple orders of business and out the door. The Foundation is "on the move" though. We want to have more of a presences in the community. We have started doing lots of collaborative events and public forums. We want to be an organization that can link you to the causes you care about and get you involved in our city. This year's celebration will actually take the form of a celebration! We are focusing on education and children and students! There will be musical productions from there very different youth organizations. There is a lovely (if I do say so myself) slide show that features a lot of the nonprofits the Foundation gives to in Shreveport-Bossier. We will have "snack lunches" after and cookies and juice! A true celebration of our city and what The Foundation has done in the city for the past 49 years! We also will hand out our 2009 annual report.

Cute invitation, right???? ;)

Next year is our 50th anniversary and we are planning big things for North Louisiana.

Why I love my friends

This past weekend the girls and I took off on a trip to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. We stayed in BR Friday night then headed to Nola Saturday morning to watch baseball games and shop and eat and have fun!

After the baseball games we finally got to our hotel about 8:00 and were starving. We decided to go eat "real quick," then go back to the hotel to get ready and head back out. After numerous failed attempts to find a place to eat, we settled on the famous New Orleans eatery of... Arby's. Yeah I know, real exciting. But it was good enough for us and we just wanted to eat.

After we got out food, we dived right in and started eating. Not even half way through our meal a homeless woman, came in and sat right next to us. Out of all the tables in the completely empty Arby's, she sat next to us. We all noticed and took note of how sad it was. Two police officers walked in and the lady jumped up to get ketchup and such like she was a paying customer. She didn't want to get in trouble and if ketchup was all she was going to get for the evening she was ok with that.

About that time, Jessica said there was no way she could finish her sandwich, so she would give it to her. At the same time, Crystin and Amber said "I was thinking the exact same thing!" Crystin went ahead and gave the lady her fries. She said thank you and began to eat them. After this the lady had another homeless friend walk in. She immediately asked if he would like some and began to share. This lady, who clearly on the outside has next to nothing, offered him her food that was just given to her! It is extremely humbling to see her share what little she had, when it can be so difficult for us to share even a little when we have all the resources in the world! Our very, very tender hearted friend Jessica shed a few tears. Ok, no, she was seriously crying. And we were seriously trying not to laugh at her. The situation was sad and what we did was nice but that many tears didn't need to be shed. We tried to make light of the situation and cheer Jess back up but she had to get out there. We picked at Jessica the rest of the weekend for tearing up, but she "just couldn't help it!" No one ate much else and before we left we gave her another container of fries, and the rest of Jessica's and Amber's sandwhich.

I don't tell this story to show off or brag about what we did. Because there is really no need in that. It really was nothing big, just a small gesture of giving. I tell this story because I am proud to have these ladies as my friends. I really played no part in the story. I was more of an observer, if anything. It was humbling to watch my friends give and care in such the way they did. None of us are perfect, but I know we did the right thing that night. And wouldn't this world be so much better if people just did the right thing?

I love these girls and so thankful for their loving hearts!