And look! It doubles as a vertical scrapbook!

My refrigerator is messier on the outside than it is on the inside. I have a hard time weeding out old photos and old news, so what happens is the new stuff gets magnetized along with the old stuff, and pretty soon it's a big random mess of faces and stories of people I love...which is not necessarily a bad thing. It's especially crazy around May and June when all the graduation announcements come flooding in; I've had the same senior photos up for so long that some of the kids still being displayed have graduated college! So if you were to study my refrigerator right now, among the pictures, thank-yous, and invitations, you would find a postcard from Paris. Yes, THAT Paris, NOT the one in Texas. It's been up there for several weeks now and I imagine it there it will stay for months to come. To me it symbolizes timeless old friendships that are alive in our pasts in spite of seeming neglect. It came to me as a consequence of this wondrous age of the internet, of facebook, of this world of technology that I was dragged into kicking and screaming, but have now grown to embrace (no snide comments from my kids, please). Teri is a friend from our family-growing, Tate Springs Baptist Church-going, living-in-Arlington days. We were part of a circle of friends in our twenties, young marrieds having babies and get-togethers, in the same Bible study on Sunday mornings. Teri, her husband Scott, and their children moved away before we did, if memory serves me correctly, and we'd lost touch over the years. That has all changed with the advent of facebook. I have enjoyed getting back in touch with Teri and reading her blog, "Girl Meets Paris". She, in fact, is partly responsible for the blog you are reading now. I love reading how a trip to Paris changed her perspective on life, and she has reawakened a long-cherished desire in me to "meet Italy" and see how that affects MY perspective (more about that later). The postcard is actually my prize for entering her blog contest -- a souvenir for me of Teri and Scott's most recent trip to France. I love seeing it hanging there on my fridge every day, reminding me of precious days gone by and of beautiful days to come, and the blessing of a friendship revived. Love you, Teri!