To Halloween, or Not to Halloween...

(This is reposted from my other blog on parenting and all things kids: snugbutton.)

I love dramatic make-up and elaborate costumes and candlelit parties.  Small children dressed as bugs and cowboys and various animals make my heart puff up and my mouth grin.  There's just something about the silliness of it and the chance to pretend, to be an actor, to put on somebody (or something) else's shoes (or paws/antennae/whatever) that appeals to us.

But we don't do Halloween at our house.  Crazy, but true.  It's the second most celebrated holiday, after Numero Uno Christmas, and I'm not sure what determines its #2 standing other than cold hard cash.  I find that it's peddled hard, and the only holiday peddled harder is, you guessed it, Christmas.  Because they're the two where the cash is.  Christmas is a no-brainer, but when you think of costumes and makeup and candy and decorations, oh my!...you begin to see the dollar signs in H$LL$W$$N pretty quickly.  So, what are we thinking, skipping out on #2?  I mean, really.  I re-read this and think, "What a couple of joy-killing curmudgeons" (one of Jed's favorite words, by the way...use it in a FB post on his wall).

First, let me say that I do get it.  It's super fun for kids, to be sure.  Candy is scrumptious.  Dressing up is delightful.  Tradition is important and gratifying and memory-making.  When I was growing up, we didn't celebrate Halloween in my parents' house either.  I was always kind of bummed that I couldn't get the greatest costume out there and go out with all my friends, be part of the corporate festivities, and just have fun, for goodness' sake.  My parents would turn out all the lights and hide in the back of the house so no one would think we were home and knock on our door.  No joke, people.  They aren't puritanical weirdos, either.  They just felt strongly about Halloween. 

We don't go quite that far around here, mind you.  And we did do Harvest festivals when I was a kid, which I'm still contemplating.  Can I ask an honest question here?  I think I shall.  Is it old and tired to anyone else when the church copies exactly what the world's doing but calls it something else to make themselves feel better about it?  Oh goodness, I know I just stepped on a lot of toes!  I just stepped on my own toes.  I'm just thinking out loud and think it's a fair question.  Let's gingerly back away from this one for now, shall we?  Steady now...steady now...there.  Safe.  *dusting myself off*  Everybody OK? 

Tiny tree's fall foliage.

Now I have kids of my own, and one is age three, just the age where he could really start to get into it.  So I've been asking myself, "OK, what do I really think about all this?  What will we do?  And WHY?"  I don't do things just because that's the way it's been done.  I want a reason.  I want to dig deep.  What's in my spirit?  And I don't want to get all "weirdo-religious-girl" and legalistic about something, especially if it doesn't matter.  Enjoying Halloween festivities is not a sin, and I've already been through the phase where I did it just because I realized I could.  But that's not a good reason to do anything, so ponder I did.

I first considered that Halloween customs stem from pagan beginnings.  That's not necessarily enough to make it taboo, though, because Christmas and Easter are riddled with pagan custom.  I can trim a tree and hide Easter eggs with the best of them.  A friend of mine told me that, growing up in the Catholic Church (she's no longer Catholic), Halloween for her was understood as a time to show reverence for those who have gone before us and paid a price for where we are today in Christendom.  That's a great idea, and I'd never understood that component for Catholics.  But it isn't really Halloween, but the day after, All Saints' Day, in which they pay their respects.  And obviously, dressing up like a witch and going trick or treating isn't accomplishing that laudable goal.  The best way to honor those who've gone before us and paid a price is to live our own lives with the same fervor, successfully carrying the torch along our portion of the race.

So our decision ultimately boiled down to one simple thing:  fear.  Halloween compounds and celebrates and plays with fear.  Now, I would love to see my three-year-old son dressed up like a cowboy or a ninja or, don't judge, but he could pull it off, Angelina Jolie (Just trust me on this one!), because it would be silly and fun.  But if that's really all that important to me, I have 364 other days in which I can dress him up for silly good times.  But Halloween draws from its ancient Druid beginnings, oozing with superstition, fear, and witchcraft.  These things are all antithetical to my incredible God, the power of His presence, and the perfect love we have through Him, which casts out all fear.

Now I'm certainly not trying to preach a sermon.  But I have to say that even when I was bummed about not celebrating Halloween growing up, I always thought it was kind of cool that my parents had this standard and that they held the line and wouldn't cave and let us do it just because that's what many others do.  It gave me that feeling of being set apart.  A holiday consumed with vampires, ghouls, goblins, angry wandering souls, witches, eyeball stews, hexes, and curses is not my kind of holiday.  And I don't want to be violent about the Kingdom of God, as I am, and then have to reconcile what I teach my kids along those lines every day of the year with what we would seem to be celebrating on that one day, if we celebrated it.  My God does not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  Fear is our enemy.  I will only ever introduce to them the reality that it's under our feet, not something upon which to cast our flirtations.

So there you have it.  That's what we do at our house, and this is an abridged explanation of why.  On the other hand, though, we absorb the northeastern fall season into our lives with as much gusto as we can muster.  We do carve (happy) faces into pumpkins and pick apples and decorate with unique leaves and acorns.  We do eat candy (all year long, folks, I won't lie), and we do think it's fun to play dress-up.  But this is where we draw the line.  And just so you know, we have good friends that we love and respect who do celebrate Halloween, and we don't get mad at them and hope they have a great time.  Every family for itself!  That's the way it should be.

Have a great fall season, however you choose to enjoy it.

Lillian Fluff-n-Stuff Finley: 3/2002-10/2010

Lillian Fluff-n-Stuff Finley was born in Burlington, Vermont, to a psychotic, ill-adjusted stray named Ruby under the bed of Jennifer Davis.  Ruby ran off, but Jennifer Davis soon married Jed Finley, and the Finleys became Lily's lifelong family.  Despite her Vermont roots, her attitudes seemed to hail from just a touch further north.  For this reason, Jed and Jennifer always told her she was French Canadian.

Known to everyone as Lily, her most immediately defining characteristic was her striking beauty.  She was an explosion of fluff, and her feathery tail, when lifted upwards, was glorious plumage on full display.  Black and white with spots of brown, the black created the image of a mask over her striking green eyes and a cape going down her back.  Perfectly symmetrical, she was approached often in life by scouts to, please, please, do modeling.  Disgusted at the thought, she chose to pursue her passions in music and performance, and to become fat.

Her first forays into the performance world  were with the traveling circus.  She longed to be a trapeze performer, and while her skills there were nothing to scoff at, she excelled at the high dive, jumping from a small platform hundreds of feet above a tiny pool below.  Though she abhorred being wet, she loved the thrill of each jump, and her graceful movements whilst seemingly, momentarily, in flight left spectators star-struck and begging for more.  Crowds came in droves, but Lily realized that she could either make this her career or take the riskier leap of leaving behind this success and moving on to her greatest call of composing music.  She took the metaphorical leap.

Music flowed through Lily's veins.  This is one reason, perhaps the only reason, that she loved the Finleys who are themselves musical.  She was finicky, being a cat and all.  Her soft, muted meows proved that she would not be a vocalist, but that did not matter to her as her forte was the keys, which she played through dance.  She loved a piano or harpsichord, but her preference, by far, was an 80's-vibe synthesizer.  She worked with some top musicians, composers, and producers in her life and found tremendous success.  She was a key collaborator with Toto on their hit song "Africa," and she also composed the chimey, synth-y music every traveler hears who uses the terminal trams at the Denver airport.  She collaborated on hundreds of other projects.  A generous soul, she had a hard time refusing people's requests for her artistic direction, refusing only Prince with a flat "no."  He was devastated.

Lily had been retired for some time, but she did amass great wealth.  While the Finleys have no idea where it is, the circulating legend is that she sent it all to her favorite charity, "Kittens Born to Psychotic Strays."  Lily also left behind a library full of poetry and inspired musical compositions.  The Finleys don't know where that is, either.  

According to the Finleys, Lily was a sweet cat with a precious nature and great patience.  She loved chocolate ice cream and batting at the TV when she thought she saw suspicious movement on the screen.  She was trusting of those she knew understood her, and she hid from those she did not trust, which was most men.  Lily was, like many artists, a tad fragile, skittish, and misunderstood.  She never married and devoted her affections to her favorite people, her parents, especially Jennifer.  She loved to be pet when it was her idea and loved to end a good petting session with no notice whatsoever, but always with a flourish.  She especially loved to lie on freshly dried laundry, particularly if it was black, which always was most messed up by her shedding.  Lily also enjoyed sitting at the back patio door, staring through the glass at the busy chipmunks.  The chipmunks, who quickly realized she could do nothing, would run right up to the glass and chatter away, mocking her.  Lily would spend this time batting at the glass and making her whiskers twitch.  If she ever had come face to face with a chipmunk, sans any barrier, she probably would have run away.

Lily would want you to know that she loved Yahweh, her creator.  She always said that, to animals, this was a no-brainer.  We figure this makes sense since Lily's brain was actually very, very small.

Thanks for all the wonderful memories, good laughs, inspired imaginations, affectionate purrs, and sweet leg nudges.  You were enough personality to fill a hundred more such eulogies, sweet girl.

We love you, Lou Lou.

(More pictures to be posted.)

Make No Mistake, In Our Story, We Win

It's not lost on me that things started coming to a head within thirty-six hours of me singing prophetically in worship on Sunday that there's nothing in our way that we cannot overcome, no mountain in our way that cannot be moved.  By the Spirit of God empowering us, those mountains must be moved.  I sang it, and Monday happened.  Our enemy always overplays his hand.

"Is it still Sunday?"  I tried to find my bedside clock.  Found it.  The hazy, neon green glow steadied into distinct lines.  It was 2:43 a.m., Monday, and this marked the seventh time, at least, that I'd thrown the sheets back and stumbled to Adelaide's room to either reinsert her pacifier, burp her, console her, feed her, or all of the above.  Teething.  We repeated the routine about 300 more times until she woke for the day at 7:30.  As much as I wanted to go bury my face back in my crumpled pillow, I was actually sort of relieved to end the nighttime battle for sleep and just get started with the day.  I gave myself a quick, mental pep talk along the lines of, "Jennifer!  You are not rested.  Guard yourself.  Don't let it mess you up."  Then I made some coffee and began admiring the little ridge of my daughter's first tooth, emerging through her lower gums.

All weekend, Jed and I had been washing our dishes by hand in the downstairs bathroom.  The kitchen sink was clogged, badly, and the dishwasher shared the same pipe.  I'm so grateful for drains that actually drain, and for dishwashers, that I could kiss them on the mouth.  But back to the bathroom.  When you open the door to our tiny downstairs bathroom, you're face to face with our stacked washer and dryer, almost as wide as the doorway and not even a foot from the threshold.  If you can squeeze through the sliver of space it leaves on your left, you have a small patch of floor on which to maneuver between the toilet, the giant cylindrical waterheater, and the smallest (real) sink you've probably ever seen.  I love that sink.  It's sort of old school.  But at about 9 inches wide and fewer still from wall to front rim, it was clearly not intended for scrubbing clean a dutch oven, especially when straddling the cat's litter box.  When he wasn't helping with the dishes, Jed was working for hours trying to unclog the kitchen pipes.  He wielded crazy tools, he removed the dishwasher, and he put said dishwasher tightly back in place.  Every inch that he further disappeared under the sink was another stack of dollars saved from having to call a plumber.  Until he had to call a plumber. 

Meanwhile, Lily's food bowl had continued to look exactly the same for days.  Same food level, same spot.  I kept thinking Jed had been feeding her.  Saturday morning, its static look finally registered with me and had to mean one thing:  she hadn't been eating.  How long had it been?  At least since Thursday, I was thinking.  Our introverted and beautiful, fluffy cat had been much more reclusive lately, come to think of it, so I went looking for her.  Lying on our bed, she looked different, sunken.  Had I not really seen her in two days?  She had lost weight.  She looked lethargic, and her eyes seemed to be asking a question.  I pet her for a while and tucked it away somewhere that she wasn't well.  Saturday flew by, what with all the drain-clanking noises and the dish-washing escapades.  Then it was Sunday.  Sunday mornings are always busy.  After church, in the brief afternoon pause before Jed left for the service in the Northeast Kingdom, I remembered our cat. 

"Jed, I think Lily's dying."  The words were out before I even knew that's what I really thought.  That was weird.

"Dying?  She's probably just sick."  Of course, Jed's answer was more probable, but I just wasn't sure.  That night, the kids were finally down, and I found Lily.  She was standing at her food bowl, and I gave her all sorts of high-pitched, soft-voiced praises for attempting to eat or drink something.  Barely sniffing her food, she tapped her paw in the water as she always does to verify its depth, then she tapped it with her other paw, then she just stopped.  Without drinking, she came to me and lied down for some affection.  "Oh no," I thought as I stroked her from head to tail.  I could feel her shoulder blades, ribs, spine.  For a fat cat, she was super skinny.  She looked at me, and made a low, mournful, barely audible plea.

After my Monday morning pep talk and cup of coffee, life came at me fast.  I thought we'd be winging it with the tiny-sink dishwashing-a-thon for a few days when Jed texted me that the plumber was coming that morning.  My heart leapt and sank at the same time:  "Working drains!"  "Lots of money."  As I tidied up the kitchen, I glanced at Lily's bowl, hopeful.  No change.  I went to find her, and she wasn't dead, but she looked to be at death's door.  I called Jed.  What were we going to do?  We obviously had to call a vet and just figure out the cost.  By the time I got around to making the appointment, the plumber had been humphing and sighing for hours in complete consternation at the horribly designed entanglement of pipes under our kitchen sink.  He tried all his tools and knocked out part of a wall before he finally snaked our neighbors' hose into my kitchen and used a blow bag to, really, just blow out the clog.  Wouldn't you know, it worked.  About halfway through the drama, I remembered how tired I was, Adelaide wasn't eating well, Levi was craving some Mommy time, and I was worried about Lily.  By the time I made several calls and finally made the appointment, I started to cry.  Where did that come from? 

Then I remembered all the kick-butt prophetic words we received via Holy Spirit just the day before.  Ones I had so passionately sung.  Ah-ha.  You see, for those willing to receive it, Yahshua (or most people call Him Jesus) bought victory for us with his life, death, and miraculous resurrection.  Pretty awesome.  For us, the deal is done.  Most of us know about that, right?  But does that mean one day in heaven, or did He say, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?"  That means today, in my life, right now, I have a chance to walk in that resurrection power and apply that victory to everything.  Indeed, maybe I must.  Maybe that's the point.  The ever-increasing Kingdom (on earth as it is in heaven).  Hmmm...  I have the opportunity to look at the clogged drain, the sick cat, the sleepless nights, the financial statements and say, "Come what may, you are not the final word."  And so they are not.  Because maybe junk comes at us, and maybe that junk would like to dangle a very rotten carrot to distract us from the purpose we're fulfilling and the God we're glorifying.  Maybe it'd like to make us soft, make us want to take a break.  Maybe our enemy would like nothing more than to keep this little thing he's got going in the earth, and maybe he's terrified of sons of God who finally get it that every victory we win in our lives puts him one step closer to his ultimate dethronement.  Maybe he knows what I know.  Maybe he's scared of what I know:  In this story, I win, because my God is remarkable, mind-blowing, and splendid.  End of story.

5 Things I Learned at Disney World

OK, so most of these "life lessons" are not new to us.  But Disney does have a way of wow-ing you on a completely never-before-seen level. 

5.  Dreams really can come true!  And it's usually imaginative vision and staunch perseverance (read: relentless forward motion even in the face of setbacks) that drives them.  If you go to Disney World today, you can't help but think it takes a lot of cold, hard cash to pull all that off, but Walt Disney didn't start out with all that cash.  Don't believe me?  Check out a brief history of his beginnings here:
http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/complete_history_1.html

4.  If it runs smoothly, someone's doing a ton of work behind the scenes.  You ever been to a fancy wedding?  You ever planned one?  You know what I'm talking about.  Multiply that times about 1000, and pull it off every day. The same goes with anything in life and can be applied this way:  If I want it to run smoothly, I've got to make it run smoothly.  That means work. 

3. You appreciate a thing more when you've invested something in it.  Many people travel from far away to visit Disney World, and let's face it, just getting through the gates isn't cheap.  And because of the cost and the sheer size of the place, most people (should) devote some time planning out their days.  Because of all the effort, you have this pervading attitude upon arrival that you will enjoy yourself to the max, come what may!  What a great way to approach anything in life.  Plan, plan, plan, then show up determined to make the most of it.

2.  Not everything is worth the wait.  ("Remember that one time we drove all the way to see Plymouth Rock, and it was nothing more than a large-ish stone?")

(Do I exaggerate?)

Sometimes you wait a long time and you have certain expectations, then the thing upon which you've set your sights for so long turns out to be so-so at best.  If it happens at Disney World, of course it happens in the real world, too.  And that's just life!  No big deal.  Turn it into a great story and move on.

1.  But if we must wait, and we must, make the wait part of the fun.  Most of life is what happens in between the "big events."  In Dr. Seuss' "Oh, the Places You'll Go," the infamous Waiting Place traps people in a perpetual state of just...waiting.  At Disney World, they had long, winding paths for the extensive lines they get in peak season, and often they embodied the theme of the ride.  For Finding Nemo, the line seemed like it was underwater.  It was fun!  Notice your surroundings, smell the roses, engage the people around you.  Do what you can to make the most of wherever you are, and you'll be rewarded. 

This list is not exhaustive.  Or, maybe it is.  After all, I certainly didn't spend my whole time at Disney pondering the lessons I could learn.  We simply pushed ourselves to our physical and mental limits, multiple days in a row, in pursuit of having the most possible fun.  Wait.  Maybe that's another lesson right there.  (Sort of.)

Service Recap*: 10-07-10, Honor

What ever happened to honor?  Or even, dare I say, honoring authority?  I'll be the first to admit that I had a lot to overcome in my attitudes in this area.  My dad, of all people, reared me to question all authority, and that concept was permeated with distrust and suspicion.  In his defense, he was trying to teach me to be an independent, critical thinker, but I gained a great deal of lawlessness with it, because the principle alone is lawless, or rebellious.  I used to think rebellion was a good thing.  Can you believe it?  Then experience taught me that the chaotic self-indulgence of a rebellious life leads to a broken sense of self, and to confusion, cynicism, and insecurity.

When Jed and I were first married, I would drive him to work before heading to my job.  One fall morning, we were late (you know it wasn't his fault), and I was speeding, trying to weave through traffic on a 40-mile-per-hour city street.  I have a lead foot if anyone does, and believe it or not, I inherited that from my tiny, sweet, white-haired mother.  Fortunately for her, she has a knack for getting out of traffic tickets.  I, however, do not, as that cold morning demonstrated.  (In a moment, you'll see why.)  The officer that had the audacity to pull me over asked me for my phone number.  Overcome with tremendous frustration, I tearfully blubbered it under my breath, punctuated by gasps and gulps.  We could not afford a traffic ticket.

"What was that last bit?"  the policeman asked again, glancing up from his pad a little stunned.

"SIX!  FIVE!  ONE!  FOUR!"  I shouted at him between sobs.  You know he was thrilled to be standing, on what was possibly his first stop of the morning, face to face with hysteria and madness.  I'm sure he was cold, too.

My husband is the quiet, consistent one, and he'd never been stern with me.  Until that fateful day.  As I drove away at 13 miles an hour, I was ready for him to commiserate with me about how dumb it was that I couldn't break the law and get away with it--when I heard an unfamiliar tone in his voice:

"I can-not.  Be-lieeeeeve.  You shouted at that officer."

What?  Was he on crack?  And who calls them "officers?"

Betrayed and embarrassed, I realized that my handsome new husband was, after all, a menacing, hateful man who would harass me till death do us part.  Great.

Then that squirmy feeling started turning in my belly.  He had offended me.  But he was right.  It so thoroughly went against my pre-programmed perspective up to that point that his words blind-sided me.  It didn't matter.  He was still right.  From this new angle, I couldn't believe how ridiculous my behavior had been, which annoyed me even more.

Oh, why does it really matter?  Well, let's see.  First of all, I was acting like a selfish, bratty juvenile.  Never pretty.  Isn't that typically the underlying attitude when we're disrespectful?  Secondly, authority is part of the system of having and maintaining order for the good of all.  So I can be that selfish brat and think, "It's not going to hurt anyone if I speed a little bit.  What are the odds?"  Ah, but if everyone decides their singular life is more important than the whole, we've suddenly got a lot of speeding, light-running brats on our hands.  I don't want to live in that place:  car crashes and bad attitudes and entitled demands everywhere!  The beauty of showing honor is that it's part of our way of transcending our own lives, of getting outside ourselves, of saying, "OK, so I'm going to be late today, so maybe tomorrow I'll get my bum out of bed and out the door on time like a responsible adult."  There's power in not being self-absorbed and in recognizing that the greater good is more important than our singular existence. 

So do I say "ma'am" and "sir" even though I'm in my thirties?  You bet, and I teach my kids to do the same.  Do I allow my children to call adults solely by their first names?  Nope.  Do I dress like a bum when I go to church since that seems to be the current trendy thing to do?  Not a chance.  I make a decided effort to dress in deference of the occasion just as I do when attending a wedding or another special ceremony.  And do I address police officers in a calm, respectufl manner?  *with a sheepish glance at Jed*:  You better believe it!

This idea of honor and getting beyond ourselves touches so many aspects of our lives including how we allow our children to behave as members of our family and the overall manners we use as a means of being polite to those around us.  I learned an important lesson that day in the cold car with my new handsome husband, and in case you were wondering, he's not so hateful and menacing after all. 

*This story is not really a service recap as I intend them but it's the direction I took in response to the service in which my apostle talked about honor and truly honoring Yahweh.

Funky Line Dancing Is Fine...Not So Much Funky Line Spacing in My Blog

Remember that one time when I said I was leaving perfectionism behind and was just jumping in and looking forward to how things would progress? 

I figured out how to make it so that my blog does not post my About Me info twice, nor does it post my first post twice.  Forward motion is good!  However, I regret to say that somewhere along the line my post body text in my first post has become all crammed together, as you can see (Except this post is not doing it, which I guess is good?).  I know that makes it (the first post) really hard to read, and I'm working on it as well as a few other things.

Thanks for the kind comments here and on Facebook.  I'm working on Post #2 (I guess now it's #3), and no, Dan, I don't think that one will have guns or violence, except maybe the gun carried by the police officer.  But he didn't have to use it.  The suspense builds...

So far, this thing is gloriously not perfect!  I do believe we're in for a blog education.

There's No Room for "Perfect" Where I'm Headed

It's finally time!  I'm embarking on a little journey into the blog world, and as my tendencies are towards perfectionism, I want to get everything just right before diving in.  Let's be honest, though.  Is anything ever completely "just right," or is life a little more organic, changing, and utterly messy than the sterile confines of "perfect?"  I've decided to leave "perfect" for other times and places.  And people.  Let's leave "perfect" for social network profiles and Christmas cards.  The truth is, if anything's ever going to happen, we just need to dive into it, particularly at that moment when we know in our spirits that the time is right and we're not just making a flippant decision.  Perfectionism has only ever led me into a perfect paralysis in which I accomplished absolutely nothing while waiting around for everything to be...some weird ideal that doesn't exist.

My church here in Vermont just celebrated its 13th anniversary, and as we began Year 14, my apostle said that we would do well to examine our lives and leave behind some things that we just didn't want to take into Year 14 with us.  Indeed.  No need to muddle things up as we move forward, growing, changing, and ever increasing.  I've decided to leave behind perfectionism.  Since I've always wanted to start writing more and have always stopped just short of actually getting that going, I've decided to take the plunge as one of my first forays into leaving perfectionism behind.  OK, so the profile aesthetics might not be exactly what they could be yet, or maybe I have no idea how to fancify my page, or wait, maybe I'm not using the best platform at all.  Maybe I haven't yet learned about all the gadgets and fun ways to include links in my writing, but who cares?  I'll get there, and I look forward to watching how things will progress along the way.

So here we go!  I've decided that ordinary life is really a succession of extraordinary days.  It certainly has that potential.  Kids, faith, keeping a home, overcoming challenges, loving the truth, marital bliss, philosophy, what else?  Dirty dishes, oil changes, poopy diapers, and good books, too?  Everything that brings meaning, and life, to our lives...  If such things are important to you, hopefully you'll find here a fun spot to sit with your coffee and get a daily (let's be honest, more likely weekly) dose of humor or inspiration or rest.  I've been writing this post for about a week, and this one isn't even meant to have much depth!  This morning alone, I've been interrupted about ten times by my preschooler, and this moment, the baby has begun to cry.  Forget perfectionism!  The fact that I'm about to finish my very first blog post is nearly a miracle.

Here and now, let's set sail, then, and see where it leads us, shall we?  I'm leaving perfectionism at the dock.  What would you like to leave behind as the coming days unfold?  Or perhaps pick up?

See you in about a week!