the pervasiveness of pregnancy loss

One of the hallmarks of growing up is the growing awareness, and then understanding of, the issues of pregnancy. The issue may be not wanting to be pregnant or wanting nothing more than to have a baby, or it may be one of the varying degrees of success toward either effort.

Pregnancy loss is one of those issues. It seems, in some circles, as though it’s perceived as something we simply do not discuss, or something we have not discussed and need to discuss. The seemingly pervasive sense that “we don’t talk about this” or “pregnancy loss is the secret, silent pain” used to confuse me, because I had never (knowingly) experienced the silence. Pregnancy loss is not a part of my own experience. It has always, however, been a part of my story. It is a part of some of my most formative memories. There were family stories going back generations, reasons why this aunt never went to baby showers and why those siblings were so far apart in age. There were couples at church who lost their babies, and we would pray for them. There were funerals with tiny caskets that were carried out by one person. Pregnancy loss felt, for a very long time, to be very real to me, and not something that was hidden.

But the older I get, the more I learn that many people really don’t talk about miscarriages and other pregnancy losses. Sometimes they’ll speak of it years later, and I’m sure there are others who never speak of it at all. I hear it in passing comments about why she never goes to that church on Mother’s Day – it was four years ago at the Mother’s Day service that she lost her first baby. I see it in whispers in social media, of veiled “praying for the so-and-sos” and we all draw our conclusions when the updates stop coming for a while.

These days, it can be easy to find community online. There are bloggers who “go public” with their losses, making it easier for other grieving women and men to find solace and know that they aren’t the only ones. I have often been silent, because I can’t personally relate and therefore feel like I have nothing to contribute. I hope, though, that I could be a safe place if any of my friends is dealing with pregnancy loss. My contribution to the conversation is not a personal story, but I do want to be a support, a listening ear, a meal-bringer, a friend that can be called on in the middle of the night. I want to love on these hurting parents, miss these unseen children, come alongside in, and affirm, the grief.

Every moment of every day, I live in the very real grace of having been pregnant only once, and having a thriving toddler to show for it. There are millions of women who can’t say the same – millions of couples and families who have “set a place at the table” for a little loved one who will never join them. My hope, moving forward, is that I can continue to lend my voice in support and love for these hurting families. 

all saints, sick babies, and finding a thin place in your own home

This past Sunday, my church celebrated All Saints Day. To be more specific, we held a Solemn Holy Eucharist for the Feast of All Saints. It was a very "high church" service -- possibly the most I've ever experienced. There was incense, pretty much the whole service was chanted, and it was really, really beautiful all the way around. Of course, I'm into that stuff -- worship that feels like worship of the God of the universe.

On my way home, I got a call saying that a certain 6-month-old loved one was being taken to the pediatric ER at UNC Hospitals. The baby was diagnosed with an easily treated pneumonia and (a long wait later) she was admitted to the hospital for an anticipated couple of overnights for observation. As we talked through logistics, it became obvious that I needed to stay the first night with the mom and baby. We settled in, another family member brought some provisions, and we proceeded to do the best we could to take care of ourselves and the miserable but still feisty little one.

After a long night came a bright morning with good news, and I came back home to my own little one. I was exhausted, and he is still recovering from the time change, meaning nap time wasn't too far away. We piled onto my bed and had a transcendent time of giggling, tickling, dancing, and generally enjoying each other's company to the likes of Abba, Boston, and other music I'd loaded on my recently rediscovered college ipod. After having a tough, very full day of trying not to ask myself what I would do if it were Gabriel being hospitalized, it was restorative to have that kind of connection time with my boy. As we goofed off, I kept getting whiffs of something musky and sweet.

It took a while for me to figure out what was going on. But it turns out that in my haste to get to the hospital, I had just tossed my church clothes onto the (unmade) bed, and these clothes still smelled of the church incense. Every time we moved the covers, a new bit of fragrance rose up.

The sermon yesterday talked about thin places, and how sometimes people can be thin places for each other: when we do something that brings someone face to face with God, we can become a thin place. I'm not really on board with this concept -- I think a thin place is a place, after all, and one that offers a consistent and repeated experience of closeness to the divine (as opposed to a one-time event). But there are very real moments when God, maybe through the Holy Spirit, finds us. Maybe it's in a place. Maybe it's through a memory. Maybe it's a conversation with or an act by someone else. And in those moments, we are within arm's reach of God, being touched and ministered to and reached, maybe even healed.

I don't know the theological reasons for having incense at church when there's something death-related to be reminded of, but it seems to be a theme. But there's something about a solemn remembrance of those who have gone before that, of course, reminds me of my own mortality. And thanks to a full year at this church with its reverence its tradition and its deeply moving prayers, my sensory links between and among remembrance and incense and worship are now well-formed.

So as I sat there on my bed with my happy toddler, after a long hospital night caring for a sick baby and her very tired mama, getting lost in my own fight against some very vivid "what if" fears of my own, I kept catching this fragrance -- of hope, of death, of worship, maybe even of God. And in those moments, God found me.

a week of birthdays

There are two birthdays to celebrate this week! One is my brother's, which is today. Yes, I am directly related to someone whose birthday is 12-12-12. He isn't going to be 12 on 12-12-12, though - he's like 27 or something. I stopped counting when the math made me feel old. Fun fact: Frank Sinatra's birthday was also 12-12.

The other birthday, of course, is my bouncing baby boy's! His first birthday!! I really, really can't believe it. Maybe I'll wake him up at 1:30 a.m. the way he did to me, a year ago! Fun fact: Taylor Swift's birthday is also 12-13. Not exactly the same caliber of musical legacy, but there you go.

Who shares your birthday?

the real mother goose

There's a book that sits in a basket in Gabriel's room. It's a book that probably predates me - I remember having this book in my possession (or maybe it was my brother's?) from day one of childhood memories. It's an illustrated treasury of all the original nursery rhymes exactly as they were said for decades (centuries?) in England. The rhymes are sometimes a little wonky in today's American English, but to me that just adds to the authenticity.

I was paging through this book with Gabriel the other day, reading some of the shorter rhymes to him. He couldn't have cared less, but I found some real gems I just had to share with all of you.

Be warned: this is probably not the only installment of these crazy rhymes. 


THE OLD WOMAN UNDER A HILL

There was an old woman
Lived under a hill;
And if she's not gone,
She lives there still


OH, DEAR!

Dear, dear! what can the matter be?
Two old women got up in an apple-tree;
One came down, and the other stayed until Saturday.


BARBER

Barber, barber, shave a pig.
How many hairs will make a wig?
Four and twenty; that's enough.
Give the barber a pinch of snuff.


and perhaps my personal favorite thus far...


THE WINDS

Mister East gave a feast;
Mister North laid the cloth;
Mister West did his best;
Mister South burnt his mouth
Eating cold potato.

big things happen, sometimes all in a row

In case my mom (hi, Mom!) and in-laws (hey there!) are reading, I will go ahead and say that the 'big things' referenced in this post's title do NOT include any little Ashleys or Brians* running around 9 months from now.

So you know how sometimes 'life' kinda rolls along for a while and you're able to keep up and get all most enough of your stuff done and 'the immediate future' isn't so overwhelming when you really consider it...AND THEN...you go to Guatemala for a week, wherein you get sick almost immediately, and the day after you return you have a house guest, and you discover giant patches of fur missing off your border collie's haunches, and then a couple of days after the guest leaves you pack up and leave again for 5 days on the East Coast with your in-laws (who are, incidentally, pretty much the coolest in-laws around), whereupon you learn that 3 days after you get back from the East Coast, your mother-in-law (of whom you are a big fan...and you're not just saying that) is coming for a 12 day visit which is happening a little sooner than you'd anticipated, and then you come back home to find something that may or may not be BLACK MOLD (but is black, and moldy, and makes your throat so tight you can't breathe**) growing in your master closet and you have to empty out your walk-in closet somewhere to get the repairs done but you can't pile everything in the guest room because that's about to be occupied but you don't have many other options besides dumping everything on the floor in your bedroom except you can't SEE the floor yet because the room hasn't recovered from all that traveling you just did and there are suitcases and laundry baskets everywhere not to mention all the stuff you would put away but can't because it goes in the closet, and then you hear from the awesome neighbors who just gave you a great bike and took care of your dogs last-minute but were thanked by said dogs via BITES but because the neighbors are awesome they think it's funny but kinda sad that the dogs were that neurotic, and oh by the way you're starting a new job this afternoon but you're afraid to wear your work clothes which have been hanging out in the is-it-mold-mold-or-black-mold closet so good luck with that, and besides all that, everything you read has basic grammar and spelling errors which REALLY IRRITATE YOU and also this is the week you decided to break the email habit and only check it every 2 hours but it's making you feel even more agitated than usual because you can't.get.your.email.fix??!?

Right. So that's me right now. Any questions?

How was YOUR Independence Day weekend?

*no, they DON'T need apostrophes***
**yes, it's breathE, not breath***
***you should hire me, because I know stuff like this

christmas doesn't look as good this year

I spent most of yesterday wrapping up and boxing all our Christmas gifts for family back east.  I am looking forward to what might become my new Christmas tradition:  setting up a wrapping station in front of the TV, munching on a giant Hershey bar and watching soap operas.

I have always liked wrapping gifts and coming up with a new way to do it.  This year, my plan was to make fabric gift bags for everything.  And then, I got sick.

SICK.  ugh.  During one of the more inconvenient weeks of the year.  I'd had big plans for this week that's wrapping up right about now: finish unpacking the living room, finish decorating the apartment for Christmas, finish Christmas shopping (that was supposed to be this past weekend) and then pack everything up, including making all the gift bags and stamping our 80 Christmas cards, with PLENTY of time to get everything to all the right places before the big day without having to pay an arm and a leg in shipping.

Well, most of that didn't happen.  And saddest of all: I couldn't find my supplies for a backup wrapping job, since there was no way I would make it to the fabric store, unearth the sewing machine, and get all the sewing and wrapping and packing and shipping done in the brief window of feeling like a human that I had yesterday.  My backup plan?  Wrap everything in brown paper, tie with twine, and hand-stamp the receiver's name on the package.  Cute and old-timey and coherent.

Except I couldn't find my twine.  Or my stamps.  (They are probably not unpacked yet.)  Not even my emergency jingle bell stash!!  And I had like 2 hours to get it all done.  No time for trips to the store or anything.

So this year, everybody's presents from Brian and Ashley are wrapped in brown package paper and written on with silver Sharpie.

I make Christmas ugly.

I do take solace in the fact that they will be arriving on time, however.  That counts for something, right?  Even though the wrapped gifts are a bit of an eyesore?

a big announcement from the western homefront

After nearly a week of alternating between panic attacks and extreme excitement, I am ready to announce that there is a new member of the westernmost (as far as I know) contingent of the Gainer/Daoust/Shultz/Bowden families.

Her name is Aurora, but she goes by Rory.  She is a beautiful three-month-old brown package of piddle border collie and I am investing in a Bissell Spot Shot very very soon to save the carpet.  When we brought her home, she was about the same size as Eli, but a little taller and with a bigger head.  She outgrew him overnight.  She still looks like a stuffed animal, though.

Her name, Aurora, comes from a town in the Denver Metro area, where we will probably be spending a lot of our time since our Denver neighborhood shares a border with Aurora.  She is not named after Rory Gilmore.

(Brian didn't go for my suggestion that we name her Aurora Borealis and call her Rory-Bory.)   (Sometimes I call her Rory-Bory anyway.) (UPDATE: Brian came around.)

oops

So you mean the 'hiatus' post I wrote never went live?

Ooops... sorry guys :)

WELL.  Let's recap the past few weeks:

My husband finished his seminary education back in August.  A couple of weeks later, he was offered a job in Denver, Colorado.

I spent much of September and most of October trying not to hyperventilate, on account of the moving across country at precisely the exact same time that my responsibilities at work were kicked into high gear.  All the work events and whatnot went really well and I did not, as anticipated, stroke out at any point.

On November 1, Brian was ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).  I fondly remember this day as the day he proved a few less-than-stellar personalities in the seminary realm WRONG, COMPLETELY WRONG YOU JOKERS WHO SAID HE WOULDN'T MAKE IT, AN ACCUSATION BASED PRIMARILY ON THE FACT THAT HE DIDN'T KISS YOUR BEHIND AND CRADLE IT IN FLUFFY DOWN PILLOWS AND HANDSPUN SILK IMPORTED FROM ...WHEREVER SILK IS MADE.  jerks.  [end rant]

Packers came on Thursday, Nov. 5, and loaded all our crap personal belongings into boxes.  Movers came on Friday the 6th, which was coincidentally my last day of work (I KNOW.  Take a freaking break, Ashley.).  And while the preceding couple of weeks had been very bitter-sweet (or bitter-exciting as I liked to say) Friday was mostly comprised of Bitter.  I worked until closing time, got one last meal in what had become my beloved hometown with Brian and Kyle (aka my best-guy-friend), and set to work cleaning the house.  Which had become very dirty as I had not really done any cleaning in it in the previous 2 or 3 months.  On account of all the other stuff going on, and a mild bout of some kind of gastrointestinal awfulness.

Related aside/shout out: my super-awesome boss friend and her teenage daughter came to help out.  They were life-savers.  Brian also roused some troops to come help clear out the millions of boxes from the attic - something that would have taken us hours.  (Boxes, you ask?  Well...knowing we would probably be moving in the year after Brian finished school, we saved every box that came across our threshold in the 2 years we'd been married.  We had many boxes.  Many.  Boxes.  And then that blessed institution, the church that hired Brian, sprang for packers and movers, so we didn't need any of them.)

Our greatest fear was confirmed that day, as well.  Our air mattress is no longer with us.  I have been racking my brain trying to figure out where it could have gone, and the last thing I can remember is taking it to Delaware for my brother's wedding.  I'm hoping it's floating around my mom's house somewhere, although she assures me it is not.  So we spent the night at my boss friend's house. And it was exactly what I needed.  Too busy and too many people for me to get caught up in emotional hoo-hah and bawl everywhere, but relaxed and hospitable enough that I could sit back and be emotional anyway.  Without the blubbering.

Saturday morning, we got into our overstuffed car and left.  It didn't take Eli too long to borrow himself a tunnel nearly to the back of the car.  That dog has an awful lot of funny packed in his under-8-lbs frame.

I think we were about half an hour on the road when we realized that we'd left everything in the fridge and freezer.  And even if we wanted to turn around, it would do us no good as we were effectively locked out of the house.  I am STILL kicking myself about the 3/4 bottle of wine from our friend Melissa that I planned on enjoying in my first week(s) as a housewife.  It's from Duplin County!!  Extreme sadness.  I hope my landlord enjoys it.

So that's it.  We made it.  We're here, all our crap personal belongings are here, and everyone seems to be settling into his/her/its place.

Actually, if I'm completely honest, in the battle between Ashley and The Boxes, I think The Boxes are winning.  Updates as warranted.  Unless I get stuck in a corner.  (Again.)

I think I forgot to mention ...

... that we are moving!

Yes, we are relocating.  To a completely different and new-to-us part of the country.  Many hundreds of miles away from family.

We leave in 3.5 weeks.

THREE POINT FIVE WEEKS we are leaving Richmond and driving to Denver.  And I have only had 2 breakdowns (that I can remember).  (and one of those was really small.)

I love Richmond, and I am really really sad to be leaving it.  I love my job, I love my neighborhood, I love this town.  But I also love snow, and I love major league baseball, and I love my husband.  There is some sadness in leaving Richmond, but there is much joy in going to Denver.  It means Brian is finally going to live his calling.  It means we will have a fresh start in a new place, just us, together, everything as 'we' or 'us' or 'our.'

This is a new chapter in my story, in his story, in OUR story.  This will be a major dividing point - we'll have Before Denver, which is a nebulous mis-mash of Ashley's life and Brian's life and Brian and Ashley's life together, and we'll have After We Moved To Denver, which will be wholly ours.

You know what else this means?  ROAD TRIP!!

Anybody have any tips on road tripping with a papillon?

real and true happiness

One of the things about my husband that I find most endearing is his affinity for glass-bottled Cokes. I've always been a Coke girl myself, so we were a natural fit.

Cokes usually come in 8 oz glass bottles - the 12 oz variety doesn't seem to be made anymore. Even the bottles go for 'big money' - $4 or $10 at antique shops.

So when we were shopping at the Evil Empire the other day, we were thrilled to find that there was an entire palette of 6-pack 12 oz glass bottle Cokes. We picked some up, naturally, and have been enjoying their presence in our fridge, and our tummies, all weekend.

The only real hitch with these guys is that the caps are plastic, not metal. Some would consider this great, for the same reason that any resealable cap is great. And hey, they may become our new water bottles until we can make the move to aluminum or stainless steel bottles. But really, there's something a little odd about twisting a contemporary plastic cap off an old-fashioned bottle. This certainly won't stop us from making the most of our newly acquired "happiness in a bottle!!"

And as a side note: if you're into the nostalgia that Coke brings up, I'd recommend you check out the Coca-Cola store website. They have some super rad stuff.

7.17.09

Last Friday, my little brother tied the knot, and I was there to document it.

Congrats, little bro. Many happy returns.

Favorite Photo of 2008

From the Shutter Sisters website:

"I spent the last couple of days browsing through my personal photo folders and reflecting on this past year. And I thought it would be great if you could share your favorite photo for 2008 with a short comment about what this past year has brought into your life, as well as your hopes and your dreams for 2009."

With a renewed interest in photography simmering, I thought this might be a good way to start off the new year.  So here it is, my favorite photo from 2008.

We loved this beach, which was in a town called Kailua on the northern part of Oahu.  I loved capturing this quiet moment where Brian was stomping in the surf, oblivious to everything but the sand and the water.

Thanksfulness => Faithfulness

I have a whole lot to be thankful for this year.  

The economy is tough, yes, and that's no way to start off married life, but we actually are more stable this year than last year, financially.  Even though it's pretty tough and there are some days that I just want to go home, I am really thankful for a job that gives me fulfilling work and allows me to make a difference in real lives, every day.  It's easy to lose sight of the importance of that.

I'm thankful that Brian and I survived our first year of marriage.  I know he was the right choice for me - even on the bad days, I am sure of it.

I'm thankful that I have a family who will take care of some of our basic needs when necessary - offering cars, doggie care, and even ESPN.

I'm thankful to live in a country where we can elect officials - and then be free to hate on them, when necessary.  Granted, I don't think it's become socially acceptable to hate on our president-elect publicly yet, but I'm thankful that that day will come too.

I'm VERY thankful to have a car that is paid off and is working.  It's reliable, which means I don't have to worry about breakdowns when I'm on the road.  It means we can travel to Chapel Hill tonight, to Concord tomorrow, and to Asheville the day after, without worry.

I'm thankful that God still teaches me about how to trust him.  I've been careful about not overspending this year, and I've been comfortable with that idea for the most part - it's in my nature to want to do big, special gifts.  But right when I began to fret about 'all those' expenses combined with the gas to get us from Richmond to Hershey to Concord and back, some unexpected events converged to get us over the hump, with some to spare.  Things like a $500 honorarium, lots of birthday money for Brian, a couple of monetary anniversary gifts, and a prize drawing for $100 at amazon.  God has always been faithful to me, and he has provided once again.

more duggars

A little while ago, there was another buzz from America's most famous large family, the Duggars.  Two buzzes, actually.  

One is that Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar - mom and dad - are expecting baby #18 - a girl.  The other is that Joshua Duggar, baby #1, got married.  Their new daughter-in-law looks like a sweetie, and is of course pretty conservative, judging from their wedding photos.

I don't like to comment on the Duggars and their lifestyle.  The way I see it, if they want to have 18 kids, and they are able to support their family while doing so (they live DEBT FREE) and their kids aren't menaces to society, then more power to them.  They aren't pushy with their faith (I've never seen or heard them addressing other people - just themselves and their own convictions), they live responsible lifestyles (did you see the part where they live debt free?), and they're raising productive members of society.  You can learn more about them here.

Some people question the real parenting that they could be doing - with that many kids, how do any of them get quality time - but I don't think that's an issue.  Their kids are good kids, so they're doing something right.  They're well-dressed, well-fed, they study every day and each one plays an instrument.  Home schooling is not a choice that everyone would make, but again...it's working for them.  Who am I to judge?

I like this family, a lot.  I wouldn't make a lot of the same choices they do, but they strike me as good, salt-of-the earth people.  They aren't wasteful, they don't try to push their views on other people, they don't condemn folks who don't agree with them - they just disagree.

I think that if more folks took a page from their book, the world might be a little bit better of a place.  

But maybe with birth control allowed.

beards

beards - check the link for an awesome cartoon on today's topic.

One of the major changes we recently underwent at Chez Ducklings is directly involved with my husband's facial hair. Never one to look the same for too long, he's been experimenting with full bears and full heads of hair in the past couple of years.

When we first started dating early last year, he had a lot of hair on his head. It was between 4 and 6 inches long, thick and kinked, and he didn't use conditioner. That's a lot of hair to try to manage without conditioner.

About a month after we started dating, he shaved the sides and left the middle long - a mohawk. He bleached it and dyed it light blue. THIS is how he met my family - and how I met his, incidentally.

In April he shaved it all off and went bald for the summer. He buzzed it really short again in the fall, a couple of months before the wedding. After that, he started with the beard.

He kept a full but trimmed beard for a while, and then shaved it off a few months ago when it got hot. he also went bald again.

I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere toward the end of summer, he decided to stop shaving all together and let everything grow until the end of October. He had 'needs a haircut' length hair, and the beard was going on 2 inches long. He could even hold things in it - pencils, mostly. It was hilarious, and awesome, and maybe a little bit out of control.

Last Friday, it all went away. GONE. It's quite a change. The top of his head was a little stubbly by Friday night, prickly by Saturday, and certified scratchy by Sunday. His hair grows pretty quickly. In a couple more days, it will be soft like fur - my favorite.

chinese crested

I had a dream last night that I went to the mall, and there was some kind of doggie event going on.  I met a Chinese crested.  

In case you don't know the breed, I should inform you that they don't have much hair.  

I almost got a Chinese crested back when I was looking for the pet that ultimately became Eli.  I was down to cresteds, Italian greyhounds, and papillons as my breeds of choice.  Turns out I couldn't find a breeder that had the hairless cresteds, and I was afraid that an Iggy would be too fragile for my rough-housing family dogs, so papillon it was.  

Most days, I'm pretty happy with the choice.  And Brian would probably agree that of the three breeds, the papillon is the least 'heinous-looking' - suffice it to say that he and I have VERY different tastes in small dogs (ie, he doesn't have a taste for them at all).  We'll be adding a larger breed to our family as soon as finances and commitments permit.

This is the only real 'experience' I've had with a CC tho, other than watching dog shows.  Weird that it came three years late.

introducing...

I would like you all to meet our pumpkin.  We picked him up at the Lakeside United Methodist bazaar last Saturday.  They had some GREAT pumpkins - all shapes, sizes, and various stages of smoothness and otherwise.  We were charmed by this guy's knobs and bobbles all over.  I'd never seen one myself, actually, and it was instant attraction.  We haven't discussed whether or not to put him under the knife.  It would require careful planning, but I know Brian has the skills and vision to make something fantastic, should we choose to interfere with nature.  

He is lounging on our front porch in all his warty glory while we debate his fate.

Eli's not sure what to make of his new friend.

bragging rights

I would just like to say that I am so proud of my husband.  He's really been through the ringer the past few months, and the past week especially.  A bomb went off in his face Thursday that would have sent most people to the loony bin, and he's been able to find more silver lining than gloom.

I won't go into details because I am so pissed off at TIIC that I'm seeing red, but I am very impressed with the way that he has dealt with this unpleasant situation.  He's been upbeat, motivated, reasonable, and anything but 'disrespectable' in trying to figure out a solution. After having all weekend to ponder his next steps, he had about 4 hours to wield a machete through some Grade-A Presbyterian order (aka bureaucracy) and I'm encouraged to see that the administration supported him the whole way.  I couldn't be happier to be his wife.

There are a few more things to tend to before everything is back on track, but I know he will come out on top.  I am sure of it.

I'm so proud of you.

eli the menace

You may or may not be aware of the tiny dog living in our house.  He is 3 years old, his name is Eli, and he likes to wear sweaters when it's cold, which can be loosely defined as 'October through April.'

One of the rooms in our house is the study - aka the Man Cave, but the Brian version.  No big screen TV, no recliner.  Just a mission-style desk, some coke paraphernalia, and all kinds of electronic gadgets.  (And mountains of books, papers, etc.)  Eli also has a crate and a doggie bed in the study, so the boys spend a lot of time back there.  

Brian discovered a wad of tissue that Eli has torn up and left all over the floor.  He came out to where I was, and told me his latest theory on the dog.

"I think that because I leave a mess in the office, Eli thinks he should make a mess in there too."

I told Brian that flylady says our children are always watching.

weekendular bliss

As is usually the case for us, October has been somewhat heinous, so we decided to take some serious solace in this past weekend.  We carved out 2 commitment-free days and vowed to make the best of them - a 'staycation' of sorts.  And it's been glorious.

Yesterday we puttered around town doing random stuff we wanted/needed to do.  Unfortch we made it to the (Lakeside) farmers market a little late and the honeycrisp apples were all gone, but we got some good ones anyway.  We also picked up a very pimply awesome pumpkin from Lakeside UMC.  We hit one of the new 5 Below shops and the Trader Joe's at Short Pump (note:  that place is MAYHEM at lunchtime on a Saturday) and came home with some nice treats and candy for the kids.  We also went out to Virginia Center Commons, which is another huge shopping complex.  I picked up some Vampire teeth at the creepy halloween shop.  We got some donuts from a little league baseball team.  I spent an old gift card at Michael's for some yarn for a project I've been wanting to do for a while.  We poked around the Barnes and Noble trying to find things to drop another gift card on, and came up with a $6 copy of Hamlet with glosses on the opposite pages of the text.  

We came home, caught the UNC/UVA game (go Heels!) and I stamped around the kitchen in disappointment over the OT loss while Brian did a few more errands.  I made Steak Diane for dinner - neither of us had had it before and it was great!  And so easy!  And because we hadn't run the dishwasher yet, we ate on china.  When's the last time YOU ate on china?

Today has been another slooooow day so far.  We cuddled for a long time, watched a couple movies, and the next few hours will be for 'work' - school for Brian, baking for me.  

There's not much I wouldn't give to have one more day.  It's been great to slow down.