Any Similar Revival

(Imagine the mean magician guy from frosty the snowman saying that title)

Busy weekend here. I am still recovering.

Valentine's Day, baby shower for Sarabeth, and BIG birthday party day for Olivia on Sunday. Total party overload for me, and that is saying a lot.

Liv had her party at a roller rink.

Not the best place for photography, but hey.

Rad carpet.

Then we went back to the house for more party. And hair-dressing.

And MORE cake. Because there's just not enough cake in the world.

And these two. Seriously. I would never behave like this.

Happy Birthday Liv!

Sarabeth's shower was fun, too. Except we had to bring balloons. Am I the only person in the world who hates balloons? Even though Pooh says, no one can be uncheered with a balloon, I'm not too sure about that.

Bump-alicious.

From me and my Prince Charming:

mooches!

That is how I feel: blah. I don't know if it's because of February, or the weather or what, but I'm just sad and aimless and blah.

Maybe some of these will cheer me up.

Yesterday, Heidi brought over this bread for our family stamping day:

He was awesome! Saffron-sun bread, and we ate him ALL UP.

Me having a cozy book day Sunday afternoon. That's always cheering.

Someone was under the blanket with me.

Blurry pic of Chad helping this man with a flat tire. Yes, I'm that dorky: I took the picture in the side mirror while waiting in the car.

I love walking by this church–St. Paul's Episcopal church.

Ok, I'm feeling slightly cheered. Plus, Chad says he has something planned for Valentine's day. That sounds promising!

Gotta go find some bubbles now.

I love these pics of me and my dad. Our heads match.

And here, we have kind of the same part. sort of.

Our heads no longer match so much. As my hair has increased, Dad's has decreased. (sorry dad, but it's true.) He's still a handsome guy though!

This picture cracks me up. You have my mom and Heidi, sharing some private joke, laughing it up with each other. And then you have me, and I am telling the photographer and everyone else something very important: "Yo, that's a birthday cake. Right there. Blow out those candles and cut that cake."

That slightly perturbed, worried look in my eyes is what gets me. "Don't you people get it? That is a freaking birthday cake!" Why the delay?

At least I've always had my priorities straight.

Heidi, I need your memories on this one. All I've got to go on is that funny face the tow-headed kid is making.

Here I am on the first day of college. Look at my eagerness! My huge smile, that dorky over-big red jacket, the bare bones of the ugly room.

I've been going through college pictures, wanting to make a scrapbook of those days. I scanned in a bunch of photos last night, and then I started reading my journal from freshman year. I can't decide if it's really funny or just depressing.

First of all, I am mostly interested in reading about what I did, who I talked to, etc. I want FACTS. I want a STORY. And what was I writing, my 18-year-old little coed self? I was writing about feelings. Yuck. Page after page of me whining about being homesick, worrying that I wouldn't make any friends, wondering how I'd do in my classes, rambling about boys. Hello, stupid little self! You are already going to remember the feelings! It's the stuff you're doing that will fade out of your memory! And, I was dumb. I actually wrote this down: "I can't understand this. I'm really feeling content in the mornings, tired but focused in the early afternoon, really down in the late afternoon, and then after dinner, I'm flying." Seriously? Hello, moron, it's called low blood sugar. Eat a snack.

Parts of it make me want to cry, especially the parts about my family, my immediate family of mom, dad, brother. That family is gone now, and I just have this long-distance father I talk to on the phone, a brother I only talk to on Facebook chat. I wrote that my dad was picking me up on Friday for a weekend trip in the truck. I hope he comes by himself so I can get him to myself for two whole hours. That made me cry. I still wish I could get him to myself for two whole hours.

I want to reach back in time and SHAKE that girl, that self-absorbed, melodramatic, dope and tell her to shut up! Pay attention! Stop worrying about stupid things, stop worrying about boys, focus on what is real and what will last beyond these four years. I want to whisper in her ear that she needs to soak in all that family time she can get, because it's only hers for four more years.

In all honesty, I do feel like I had a great college experience and I did learn so, so much. But I wish it was the 33-year-old me who could have four years out of time to read and learn and ponder, not the dumb kid who took it all for granted. Of course, one could argue that it was those four years as a dumb kid that grew me up.

We live in an old neighborhood with houses pushing in on all sides. I don't like that part of it. I grew up on 4.5 acres, with the neighbors far, far away. When I looked out my window, I saw trees, gardens, grass, flowers. When I look out my windows now, I mostly see other houses. But I am learning that beauty takes on many forms, and the sun shines (sometimes) no matter where you live.

You can tell how dirty my windows are from the fuzziness of this picture. But if I clean them, they just get dirty again in 3 minutes. Plus, if I opened the windows now, I'd get snow blowing in through the screens.

Happy Wednesday!

I'm still in a stupor from this weekend, which went by in a crazy blur. On Saturday, I had my Stampin' UP new catalog kick-off open house, and we made stuff.

Then we went to a progressive dinner with our small group from church. No photos of that.

On Sunday, we drove out to PA to visit Kirk and Missy and attend their awesome Super Bowl party! You may wonder what drove people from Cleveland to Pittsburgh when the Steelers were playing in the big game, but I have to tell you: somebody needed to root for the Cardinals, or it wasn't going to be fair. Actually, there were quite a few closet Cardinals fans present, and I think they felt safer rooting for them with us there. 😉 We were upstairs, and the crazy Steelers fans were in the basement with the big TV, and we could just cheer how we wanted. It was a great game, even though the Steelers won, and it was very amusing to see how HAPPY the fans were because of it.  I made a new friend, too. (She was one of the closet Cardinals fan). Her name is Kristen, and she is a photographer too, and she has an awesome website:  www.kristenjoyphoto.com . We stayed up way too late, ending up in the hot tub after midnight. Let me just say that I am TOO OLD to stay up late, eating crazy food and drinking strong margaritas. I pay for it big time the next day, when I am wandering around Ikea with my husband trying to decide on floor lamps.

As usual, it was fun to see the kids. Isn't this boy super-handsome?

And here is the girl, who cut her own bangs a few days before:

As I mentioned, we went to Ikea yesterday and found floor lamps for our dark and hard-to-light front room. And we bought frozen Swedish meatballs and had Linda over to eat them with us. She is the best friend ever for watching our pets when we leave. Myles thinks she is supposed to live here with us, and we agree. Linda, move in with us.

. . .you will find us looking like this:

I love to sit in the same room while Emma is coloring. It's almost performance art, the way she dances in her chair and sings her original songs with abandon. She chooses colors quickly, rhythmically, and without regard to real-life accuracy. She sings, I listen, and Ben, from the couch or the chair next to mine, asks ponderous questions or relays the plot of the latest episode of some cartoon he watched that morning. He's not so much into coloring, but he LOVES to talk. Conversation is his art-form, and he is practicing and honing his craft every hour of every day. Between him and Olivia, every moment is filled with language, interaction, words.  He makes observations and asks pertinent questions–as Heidi has said, if Emma is an artist, Ben is a scientist.

He LOVES to use my cameras, too. He's getting pretty good at it, although I can't seem to break through to him with the idea of composition. He just points and clicks and clicks and clicks. Thus, the following, unflatteringly-angled shot was created:

Long-nosed, but at least my eyes look pretty.

Oh, and this is funny. Emma is trying to see the shutter open and close as I take her picture. The expression is priceless.

Crazy snow here. The drifts on either side of our driveway are hip-deep. I'm hoping they melt by June.

Ha! I love this picture! Meredith bought this hat our first day in New Zealand. She was fresh from the heat of the Iraqi desert, and NZ in September is COLD. We were wandering in and out of the shops of Christchurch, and the poor girl was freezing her heinie off. We saw these hats in almost every shop, and after she finally popped one on her head, the look of abject misery disappeared from her face. You're sitting there thinking, "possum fur??? What the????" Well, the people of NZ HATE possums. Their possums aren't like our possums, which look like crazed, cartoon characters. Theirs are kind of cute. They are also kind of destroying native plants and birds though, so they make every effort to get rid of them. As their fur is super-soft and warm, they blend them with sheep's wool (also LOTS of sheep in NZ!) and make beautiful, warm softies with them. Someday, I will tell you about the "possum plucker" we learned about.

Meredith has been in this hat almost her entire time in northeastern Ohio. It's MUCH colder here now than it was in NZ when she first wore the hat. In her secret heart, she can't wait to get her butt back to Hawaii. We all know it.

Heidi, Meredith and I have been at the hospital today waiting through Cynthia's surgery. They started the operation at 10:30 this morning, and they just paged us about 15 minutes ago with an update. She made it through very well. Her valve looked good, so they didn't need to replace it, but they did bypass one of her arteries. They scraped off a part that looked diseased, and they scraped off the bump that they think was causing the clots. So all in all, it looks good! Thank you for all your prayers–we're going up to see her in a few minutes. She'll probably be out for the next 24-36 hours so her body can heal. I will post more updates when I know more. For now, though, we are all very relieved and thankful!

What a title. Anyways, it's been cold.

The windows look like this:

And the house looks like this:

Inside, however, it looks like this:

Sometimes, it's worth $5.50 for yellow tulips to cheer one's FREEZING COLD day.

Can you believe there has been enough sun for sunflare?

There was a heat wave today, and it actually made it into the twenties! Remember how it stays light until 9 o'clock in the summer, and you can run outside with barefeet and see grass and dirt and the wind doesn't hurt your face? Sometimes I forget what that's like. But it's coming. And in July, when I'm hot and bothered, I will remember the stillness of January nights and how much I love to see my breath, and how cozy the fire is when the snow is falling and I have no where to go. I enjoy everything better when I see it in contrast.

But spring could come now. I wouldn't mind.

Jill gave me this blog award!

She loves me! She really loves me!

OH, and by the way, Cynthia's surgery was rescheduled for next week–probably Wednesday. Sorry for not updating sooner. I'll keep you in the loop this time, I promise.