Maria had a gymnastics meet in Corinth last night. Corinth used to be a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere. It was, arguably, the most rural part of the journey between Dallas and Denton. Now, it’s really just a suburb of Denton. It also used to be the turnoff for Lake Sharon, which used to be the retreat center HPUMC used to own.

That’s a whole lot of “used to be-s.” But I suppose that’s how the place feels to me…a strangely and vague reminder of a used-to-be part of life.

Anyway, the meet ran late. VERY late. We didn’t get out of there until about 11:30. We decided to grab a midnight breakfast at IHOP, remembering that I’d seen one at the very intersection that used to be the sleepy turnoff for Lake Sharon. (Now, it’s just a busy suburban strip mall…)

What could go wrong at the Corinth IHOP at midnight?

Turns out, the yearly ROTC dance. It was apparently a two-school dance and apparently every single couple who attended converged on that IHOP about two minutes after we came in the door.

The dining room went from us and three other tables, to packed to the rafters with a couple of hundred teenagers.

It was a little crazy. And yet, it was awesome too. A great late night moment with my girls.

And for this, even though we didn’t get home until after one, I am thankful.

(During this year, my goal is to find something new to be thankful for every single day, and to add that thanksgiving as a blog entry, under the title “My Daily Gratitude.” I started this kick back around Thanksgiving, and it’s already resulted in a favorite new song of mine. The goal of this ongoing spiritual exercise is to see if doing such a thing might inspire even more gratitude within me, and to foster general awareness of life on a deeper level.)