What's the Best Gift You've Ever Been Given?

This next week ranks pretty high on my list.

Beginning Friday, my husband has given me time. In about 48 hours, I will board a plane bound for the west coast.

He is staying home with the children. For a week. Taking time off work so I can be footloose and fancy-free.

That's rather wonderful, wouldn't you say?

Lord willing, I will see this family. And this one. And this one. And many, many other faces that I love and have not seen in five years (five years? Has it really been five years?!).

Time...to read on a plane.
Time...to walk around in the sunshine and not worry about someone wandering away.
Time...to visit with a newborn, come to his family through adoption.
Time...to sit in a unique church, a little oasis in Oxnard, California.
Time...to drive up the coast of California, the Pacific Ocean on my left and a sweet traveling companion on my right.
Time...to sip California wine and talk late and long.
Time...to ride a cable car and cross the San Francisco bay, taste sourdough bread and see the crookedest street in the world.

Time...what a gift.