The Harvest

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Tonight is a highly anticipated evening – the harvest. Last fall I wrote in detail about the harvest, an annual gathering that Korena, Laura, and I have as we gather around the table, welcome autumn, share a delicious meal (which always includes tasty appetizers, a robust salad, Korena’s incredible roast, and something sweet for dessert), drink good wine, and spend time together. It’s funny – even though the three of us frequently get to do fun things together together, whether as a trio or as a group at Girls Night In or with our manfriends, there’s something so special and sacred about celebrating the harvest together. This evening will mark our fourth year (count ’em, four years!) of enjoying the harvest, and I absolutely cannot wait.

I have to borrow some words I wrote last year about our special evening to close out this post because I think they perfectly encapsulate how I feel about our sweet tradition:

So tonight we’ll meet for the harvest – we’ll talk and laugh while enjoying a juicy roast, the namesake salad, and champagne, all around Korena’s table. As I wrote in an e-mail the day after the first harvest, it is a gathering of ladies, a “woman’s night in: a harvest of blessings, a feast prepared by hunters and gatherers.” (I might have gotten slightly carried away there, but you get the point.) It is a reminder of how our friendships have grown, how our lives have changed, how our dreams have been realized, and how dang lovely it is to have a night in together around the table.

To the harvest!

Photo via Moments and Memories

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Girlfriends & Pie

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Last night Kyla, Laura, Emily, and I got together for dinner. We enjoyed salads and pizza at Eno’s, a pretty little restaurant in the Bishop Arts District, and afterwards we meandered over to one of my favorite spots, Emporium Pies, for dessert. As we lingered over coffee and pie, I looked around the table and felt myself on the verge of a having a moment – you know, one of those sweet beats in time where you just revel in the gratitude you have for your life, your community, your people.

I’ve known Emily for ten years – we met at Pepperdine University and God has woven a beautiful story throughout both of our lives that have led us to this moment, the one where we both live in Dallas, Texas. Laura and Kyla are kindred spirits who you already know if you’ve read my blog for the last several years – they were my first real pals in this city and they have proven to be the very best friends in the whole entire world. Through connections and get togethers and parties and gatherings, they’ve come to know and love Emily, and vice versa. I love watching the world get smaller like that, sitting by while friends of yours develop relationships in their own right, ones that started because of you but are certainly sustained outside of you.

So I was reflecting on these things, watching as our lives simultaneously change and expand and grow (with the addition of marriages and new jobs and babies and relationships) while also staying a little bit the same. I love that feeling, and I love this season that we’re in, the one that allows us to stay out on a Tuesday night, savoring coffee and pie, friendship and time together.