Bubbalooba Baby: Day 13: Life is Good

I just finished reading a really good book called "The Year of Living Biblicially" by A.J. Jacobs. The author, a New York "Jew like the Olive Garden is Italian," is a agnostic and decides to live for a full year according to the Bible to see if he can find God. As time goes on, he learns to love to pray. He finds a lot of benefit to it. What he ultimately decides is that, if anything, he has learned that prayer is a major key to life as it makes you focus on small things in life and makes you understand you're an important part of a much bigger thing; it made him grateful.

This weekend, John and I went to Carlsbad/La Jolla. We were able to stay with a Global Hero friend of mine and her family. She has an 11-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter, so John was in his element. We had a great time! It was so fabulous to go to an American grocery store, buy the things are most familiar (Cheddar Bunnies, chardonnay, trail mix...) or go to American stores and SHOP! John got his "boy fix" of baseball, Wii and the park. Momma get her "fix" of Ann Taylor, J.Jill, LuLuLemon and Z. Galleria. Oh yeah!! My friend and I also did a long 12-mile run this morning along the Pacific Coast highway. Oh my gosh...I have been to some amazing places in the world and this is definitely in the Top 5. It was so utterly beautiful that I ended up running only 10 and walking 2 so as to not miss any of the scenery. We were running up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean, so we could see all the surfers and boaters and hear all the waves crashing against the cliffs and rocks. Up on the trail, we had to dodge other runners and cyclists constantly because there were so many people. The coastline also happens to be the route for the Carlsbad Marathon, so I kind of ran the Carlsbad Half Marathon (which most of the people out the running were training for)! How fun! Anyway, it was surely a run I'll never forget. We could see the coastline for miles and miles, either north or south and the spray from the ocean hitting the cliffs created this kind of muted affect between the actual coastline and ocean so they blended in together so smoothly.

Unfortunately, as they say, all good things must come to an end. We had to leave as my friend and her family had things to do. They took us to the train station and we rode the "Surfliner" back to San Diego. We rode the upper deck. The train followed the coastline, so we were able to enjoy it for just a little longer. When we got back to San Diego, we put-putted around downtown for a little while, visiting Seaport Village (where John got a "Life is Good" t-shirt, hence part of the reason for the title of today) and stopping in some extremely fancy hotels. We walked around the harbor and enjoyed the million-dollar yachts anchored at the slips. Nothing like the slips at the Northside, I tell ya! Some of the yachts were almost as big as my house.

We finally jumped on the trolley, back to San Ysidro to get across the border before dark. The trolley ride (the trolley is actually an electric train) takes about 30 minutes from downtown to the border. The further south we go, the poorer it gets. It was so sad and disheartening to see the landscape change from beautiful coastline, gorgeous homes on cliffs and shimmering tall buildings to factories, warehouses, boarded up stores, tiny stucco homes with laundry hanging outside, yards filled with garbage, children playing in parking lots, even homeless people camped out behind buildings or under trees. What a change of scenery within an hour. While watching this amazing change take place, it reminded of the book I mentioned. The author's ideas came back to me that we can be grateful for the smallest things in life and really appreciate everything we have. My heart went out to the people I watched as we zipped past...I prayed they had appreciation for the smallest things in their lives, as difficult as that may be. I know as we drove through those areas, I became more prayerful and appreciative about the small things in John and my lives - grateful we're able to be here, grateful we have a good support system, grateful for the doctors and nurses treating John, grateful that we were able to spend a beautiful weekend with friends, grateful we were on the trolley and not sleeping against the dumpster...I mean, it could go on and on. Bottom line is that my family is enormously blessed. We have much to be grateful for and I thank God for reminding me of that today. As ironic as it sounds given our current circumstances, Life really is Good.