Last week I was up in the mountains north of Los Angeles for an annual writers retreat with a bunch of my friends. It was awesome. It is every year, which is why I take such pains to make it. We laugh and eat and brainstorm and eat and write and eat and… Yeah, there is a lot of good food! Every year, I eat about a third of my total intake of fresh summer fruits at the retreat. Like I said, awesome.

My friend who hosts it, Lauraine Snelling, just had hip replacement surgery a few weeks ago. God moved my heart to want to be helpful, so I came up a few days early to help with shopping and other preparations. I've been feeling pretty selfish in a lot of ways the last year or two (lots of reasons why), and it felt great to genuinely want to be selfless for a while. More awesome.

You know there have been a lot of things going on with me and John the last year that have made life more challenging than usual. Not the least of which is that John's company shut its doors the day I was to drive to the retreat. Uh… now what? Do I stay home and help him try to figure out what to do next? We took a long walk together, talking to each other and to God. At the end of the walk, we didn't have any answers, but we felt God must know what He's doing. He's gotten us this far. A few minutes later, walking up the steps to our apartment, John's phone rang. Another company offered him a job! His unemployment lasted a whole three hours. Can you say “awesome”?!

So getting away for a little while and focusing on my career again has been an emotional blast of fresh air. Plus, the mountain air is literally fresher and made me feel more relaxed. I got to stare at the stars every night and actually see them. Happy sigh. Now I'm starting the new week sitting by myself in a hotel room for a week working on the next draft of Love at the Fluff and Fold. I think I'm going to have an even better week now that my brain has been stimulated by my writing friends, and my heart has been freshened by a zillion more examples of God showing me how much He loves me. Perfectly awesome.

I hope you have an awesome week, too!