The Supper Club

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.
-- George Sand (1804-1876), French writer

Last night the WGH and I had supper with two other couples from our Sunday school class (hi, guys!) and the conversation somehow - and I'm really not very sure how it came to this - turned to my blog. Turns out that on Wednesday, one member of the group (I'm working on his code name) was stuck in his hotel room on a business trip with little to do, checked his email, gave in to his curiosity and clicked on the link for my website in an email from me to the Supper Club group. After perusing the website for a few minutes, he found the blog. Hoo, boy. Apparently he got caught up in reading some of my posts and suddenly an hour and a half had gone by before he realized what time it was and that he hadn't eaten yet.

So now I'm feeling guilty for keeping him from a meal, although he assures me it was not entirely my fault. And I'm thinking, okay ... is it a good thing that I write what folks find interesting enough to read and get lost in for an hour and a half? The short answer? Heck, yeah.

Truth be told, I do the same thing. If I'm reading something (email, blogs, a book) and it has my attention, time gets away from me faster than you can say Bob's your uncle. Other things get left in the shadows - like the tea kettle (which I now have a replacement for thanks to my fellow BMW, the Queen of Shorts), breakfast, lunch and dinner (who needs to eat? oh, right, the kids), the housecleaning (there's a whole 'nother topic for you).

The way I see it, life is too short to waste on worrying about things, and sometimes it's okay to get lost in the moment. If you're spending your time doing something that makes you happy, what's wrong with that? I love to read. I love to write. The more time I spend doing both of those things, the happier I am.

The WGH is a musician by training and talent. By day (and sometimes night) he manages a grocery store, but recently he's become involved with the Nashville Pipes and Drums band, an awesome group of bagpipers and drummers who compete and perform on a national level. In case you didn't know, there is a difference between a drummer and a percussionist (percussionists can read music). The WGH is a percussionist, and a really, really darn good one. I've been worrying for years because he's never really had something that he can do just for him. I have my escapes - friends that I can just run off and do things with, my writers' group, my Sisters in Crime group. He doesn't have "a best friend", didn't have any kind of like-minded group that he could socialize with. Until now. Now he has what he calls "a hobby" - and it involves doing something that he's been doing since he was six years old. The music is a part of him, and he loves it as much as he loves anything else. Whether he's happier, he hasn't really said, but I know it's something he enjoys, and I love to see him doing things he enjoys.

I thought Mr. Sands' words were a fitting synopsis of how I envision our lives. The WGH and I share things as a couple, and we share things with the kids as a family, and yet all five of us are our own individuals, and that individuality brings something to the group that makes us better as a whole. How blessed we are to be living the ideal, and that stretches beyond our family to our friends as well.

I promised my Supper Club friend that just for him I would throw in a "Music of the Moment" that was a little more contemporary than Tchaikovsky or Bizet, something with more drums and guitar than percussion and strings.

How about Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth? Or Van Halen's Jump? Just got a double dose on my favorite classic rock station (yes, I do listen to more than just classical music - just not when I'm writing).

Do something today that makes you happy. It's good for you.

=) JB