I can't believe it!!

It seems like the time has flown by and now you are here with me! Yay! I am so ready to be done with working tomorrow so that we can have some uninterrupted time together. Time to get things rearranged and time to lay around and do absolutely nothing.
Of course, I am looking forward to having lazy bones with you most of all.
You were right about me coming out there by myself. It was so much nicer just coming home alone together. Not to mention that we needed all the space available :)
I want you to know how much I appreciate you moving here. I know there were very valid reasons why you moved and that you fell in love with Colorado. I promise that we will not stay here. I don't want to either. Thank you for understanding that I can't leave right now.
I am excited to get you unpacked and start painting and hanging stuff on the walls.
I love waking up in the middle of the night and rolling over and kissing your bare shoulder. Or sliding my arm around your waist and cuddling you to me. It is so nice to not have that feeling of having to say goodbye. That we don't have a limitted amount of days together.
Finally my life is off of pause and I feel I have a future to look forward to again. A wonderful, amazing future of love, respect, and kindness. I promise to always be the best for you! I love you, Sugar!

Thank you

I can never tell you enough how grateful I am to have you in my life. I never cease to be amazed at what a genuinely kind person you are. I am so lucky to have your love and I want you to know that I will always cherish our relationship. I will always strive to make you know that you are loved.
This Christmas was hard in some ways. I want you here. I feel wrong celebrating without you. It has helped alot being able to see you the last few nights. I love that we will see each other in the morning. I am also happy that we will have our own Christmas when you get home. I look forward to many Christmases in our future where we won't have any distance between us.
I want you to know that having you in my life makes me feel less alone. For the first time since my Mom passed away, I feel like I have a family again. That I am part of a family,not the only one responsible for the family unit. For the first time I don't feel the entire weight of responsibility on my shoulders. I trust you.
I have loved seeing you play games with the kids and hang out with them too. We are going to have so much fun. Thank you for understanding them and showing your kindness and love to them too. I will never forget the night of our first "date" when I looked over at you, our eyes met and you smiled at me about them teasing us. I knew then that you could love us. That you did. That you were just enjoying their company. I have never had anyone enjoy them as much as I have.
I am off to bed. I am excited that we are one day closer to the move. Even though I have a list a mile long, I am so happy it is coming so fast.
I love you, Sugar. More today than yesterday. Thank you for loving me. I am enternally grateful. Tonight my tears are of joy. That I have you to love.

Sweets for my Sweety

I love baking at the holidays. I have certain recipes that I always look forward to. Ones that just mean Christmas to my family. Gingersnaps, sugar cookies, these gross snowball things that I only make every couple years to remind myself that they are not my favorite.

Today Jack and Annabelle helped me make some cookies to send to you. Unfortunately they were a little bit too much help. Belly spilled the flour and I had to guess how much to add to the gingersnap dough. They are a little too flat. They taste...ok. But not good enough for me to share with you. The Christmas tree cookies were good. Too good. We ate them all. So much for Weight Watchers today. It was all downhill for me after that chocolate milk. Five points! Yikes!

So, I will remake the Christmas trees. They are super fast, and super yummy. They aren't too sweet so I think you will like them.

I look forward to learning everything that the holidays mean for you and blending our traditions. I can't wait to be able to wake up on Christmas with you and see your excitement at your gifts. That is, if you have been a good girl :)

I love you! XOXOXO

10 things you may not know about me

1* Mandy and I used to gallop around the back yard pretending to be horses.

2* I hate sock donuts (I think we have covered this, but it is important).

3* My favorite teachers were my math teachers. And my 4th grade teacher, Miss Summers. She seemed serious about teaching us things. And she had us write her weekly letters.

4* I never drank when I was in high school. Even when I was in situations where I could have. Still not too much of a drinker.

5* I'm allergic to sulfa drugs, they make me swell.

6* My first car was a 1980 Mustang. It had a sunroof and I loved it.

7* I loved playing dolls almost everyday as a child. We would cook for them in our play kitchen, tie up little clotheslines between 2 chairs, and I was always the mom. Mandy could be the dad, or the dog. Not the mom.

8* I am scared of aliens and try not to think about their existence.

9* My second toenail on my left foot is weird. I hurt it as a kid on a merry-go-round. It has never been the same.

10* I wish I could take better pictures/look better in them. I look forward to this happening with you. Although, I don't think we are off to a great start! I want to have a photograph of every moment that we share together. They are all so precious to me.

I love you honey! I wish I could convey to you how much you are on my mind. And you are always in my heart.
XOXO

I get really jazzed about snowmen(and women)

picture coming as soon as my scanner decides to cooperate


While I was driving E to school today I saw the best snowman ever! Well, maybe not ever, but I was darn impressed. He even had a corncob pipe.
I love snowmen. They make me happy. I like the fun of making one, the joy of finding one, and the happiness they represent. Just good family fun for someone. They don't cost anything other than some time and exposure to the frigid cold.
The year before last, I gave Mandy's family a snowman-making kit for Christmas. It had an extravagant snowman pop-up book ( I knew she would keep it safe from little ripping hands), all the parts including sticks for arms to build a snowman spur-of-the-moment. Even a fake carrot nose and coal eyes. And what well-made snowman would be complete without a top hat and scarf? I bundled it all into a snowman bag so that they will always be able to go right to it and go play. I think I might have put in some hot chocolate also.
I have made many snowmen in my day. The one in this picture I made with my Mom. Emily was 3 or 4. Matthew was too little to really be out with us. It was BIG! I remember we had a heck of a time getting the middle part on top of the bottom. I can't remember if we had to build a snow ramp to roll it up or if we levered it up with a shovel. I remember it was a pain. Heavy snow. And lots of it. After we got it done, we took pictures of all of us around it. Then someone, probably me, decided we needed to make a sign saying "hi" to my sister and her kids in NY. So then we held up the sign and took pictures of us waving to them. We mailed it with a little cabin fever package. Coloring books and things like that.
Another snowman that I distinctly remember, I made alone. Well, not alone. I think I was pregnant with Matthew and Emily was out with me, but she was too little to help. I made the Statue of Liberty. I even went in and made a torch out of art supplies for her hand. For the crown spikes I broke off icicles and put them on the top. I filled a water bottle with colored water and sprayed her a greenish blue color. She was pretty cool.
I can not wait to have you here so we can build snow people together. Or snow creatures. Like cats? Or now that the kids are getting bigger and might not have that much interest in playing like that we might have to make some gruesome snowmen Calvin & Hobbes style. Those crack me up too. Where he would build them to look like his Dad hit one with the car. I think we need to do some recreations of those. Or we could make cats. Or a sunbathing lady. Complete with sunglasses.
I haven't been sledding in years, but there is a good hill for it here. I took the kids once and Matthew was still scared to go down by himself so he was riding with me. He was plenty old enough to go alone. So, once, when he thought I was going to get on behind him; I just pushed him down solo. He looked back at me with giant eyes, but then he loved it. He was the last one that wanted to go home. If I wouldn't have done that, he would be still riding with me probably.
I am looking forward to so much fun with you. I hope that these next 37-ish days fly by so that then we can get you here and can start all of the fun! Imagine how great you will look building snow-things in your beautiful,warm scarf all full of love!
I love you baby!

I'm a knitter!

I have been working on my knitting today. I chickened out of making the fancier scarf. I am messing up the transition between the stitches. I need help from a professional knitter.
But, I must say that the part that I do have done is quite impressive. My hand is crampy, but not in a bad way. I might do dishes to soak it in some hot water. That would feel like heaven.

I am crafty

I had so much fun on Tuesday looking at all of the fun craft books at Borders. I looked at knitting books, sewing books, and just general use-what-you-have-on-hand craft books. I wanted to buy them all! I love doing things like that. I have since I was a little girl. We were always working on some project or another. And we had tons of paints, felt scraps, sequins and bottles of glue to support our love affair. When my kids were little, we had entire kitchen cabinets dedicated to craft supplies that they could use as they wanted.

This one book that I looked at, Crafternoon, cracked me up. I want it. It is about doing a craft day with your friends. The introduction to it is dedicated to her mom. It is so funny (and touching) the way she writes it. You can tell that she truly loves her mom and the times they had as children and are still having today. She is about our age, I think. I hope that my kids grow up and think of me like this. I love her blog too. The pictures are fun. I would love to have a life of crafting, hanging out with friends, writing about it, and getting paid. How sweet would that be?

I can't wait to start knitting. Hopefully I can figure out the basics this weekend. I can easily see myself becoming nuts about it. And seriously, with all the time I have at work, it is perfect to be working on things like that. I guess in that sense I will be getting paid to do some crafting! And with Laura being able to mentor me it will be even more fun. I may reawaken her knitting persona! I know there are two little stores in town that have yarn to buy. Some of it is even organic. I've even seen bamboo yarn! How exciting is that???!
Plus I have the other Christmas presents I want to make on my to-do list. Aprons and either potholders or towels to match. Only a few (3?) are getting those.

And I want to go in the basement and rearrange all of my paper. I love just moving it from pile to pile. Touching it makes me happy. I don't think you can truly understand how hard it is for me to actually use that paper! What if I want it later for a different page? What if I can't get anymore of it? I need to break out of that way of thinking because it does truly make me happy to see it on actual finished pages! What good is a pile of vintage paper going to do for my ancestors if there are no pictures and words on it? I could probably finish 5+ albums with just what I already have. It is not uncommon in the scrapbooking world to hoard supplies and to overbuy. I can say that I will try not to do that, but when I have extra money I always tend to make a trip to the Scrapbook store. There is one in Bloomington that I am wanting to take a class at. It is so much nicer than Scrapadoodle. Well, at least more my style. And there are tons of challenge sites that are fun to play with. I need to get back to how it was last winter and dedicate at least an hour an evening to my basement studio and just play. I feel so much better when I do. I don't even care if I finish anything, just making that time makes me happy.

I can't wait until you are here and can hopefully find some pleasure in the basement also. I really think those artist trading cards sound right up your alley! I love that you have a creative brain also. I look forward to seeing the things that you share with me! We are going to have so much fun! I hope you don't mind wearing the first thing I knit! I promise an upgrade after I get the hang of it, but regardless, it will be made with so much love!