"Cheer"y Cheesecake

Looks decadently delicious...doesn't it?

Oh yeah, it soooo was!

  What else is delicious?  The sweet company of friends who CHEER you up.

  For those of you who don't know, I've been in Kansas City for almost two weeks now with one more left to go.  I'm taking some classes for my Masters of Divinity work, a.k.a seminary.  My seminary is great and the experiences I've had the opportunity to partake in have been wonderful and rewarding.  However, leaving my family for these intensive course's isn't exactly my "piece of cake".

  When I commit to something, I commit with gusto.  I'm passionate about it, often intense and devoted to making the best of the opportunity.  So, when I made the choice to attend seminary I knew that I would need to go to KC for intensive courses twice a year.  It's really not that bad of a situation as I have a great time getting to know classmates here and making lasting friendships.  Plus, there are wonderful places to go around here and I can never get enough of the Jerusalem Cafe...seriously...the hummus and lentil soup is out of this world. 

  BUT...I'm a family gal and I do love my boys, so being away from home for extended periods of time without my family is difficult to say the least.  Plus, the walls of this here hotel room begin to suffocate a person after awhile and there are only so many day time TV shows one can swallow without bugging.  The last day or two, I've just been kinda down in the dumps...you know, a little homesick.  Well, today, a friend, classmate and colleague (one in the same) took me out.  She purposed the idea to go somewhere and walk around and not go directly back to the hotel like we usually do.  Right on!  I was in.  We had a great time.  There was lunch, which included great conversation about some new literature I can't wait to read.  Apparently my friend is a big reader as am I and she has tuned me in to a new-to-me mystery series (fiction).   Perfectly enough, there was a big Barnes and Noble right down the street.  We walked down the Plaza and stepped foot into book lovers bliss and the smell of paperbacks whisked me away to happy town.  Something about the smell of books always cheers me up.  Is that weird?

  After books, we walked around Pottery Barn which is dangerous because I love it and can't afford it.  After some more walking we discovered, wait for it...the Cheesecake Factory.  Yum, yum, yum.  I very rarely allow myself a piece of cake.  But today, today was for cake and with the cake came coffee and with the afternoon out came a refreshed me.

  It's amazing how one person's acts of love and kindness can make a tremendous difference, even in ways they cannot possibly know, in the lives of those they care for.  It wasn't much, but the TLC of a friend became so much.  I'm just grateful for the sweet friends, the sweet moments...the cherry topped moments of our cheesecake life.

  Who put the cherries on your life today?