Delayed Valentine's Day & Our Funeral Trip

About two weeks prior to the day, I decorated our house to get in a bit of the spirit of love.

This is actually a terrible picture but I loved the red placemat and red bowl for the center of our dining room table. Since our table had a pile of junk on it at the time, I took it from above, missing the super cute-ness of the red bowl... doh!

Love.
On our living room bay window ledge.

Front entry door. And yes, we know the green door color is lame.
We seriously need to do some painting....

We had originally planned to go out for Valentine's Day the Saturday before the actual day. Since we got several pieces of bad news that day, along with my uncle passing away, we decided to stay home.

But that Sunday morning after we left church, we spontaneously decided to go see a movie. Since our church is right by our city's theatre {despite that we never go to that particular theatre because we don't really like it} we decided to pop in. The movie we wanted to see wouldn't start for another 2 hours but one that we were kind of interested in {Journey 2} was starting right then. {I'll write a separate review of it later.} We didn't totally enjoy the movie, but we enjoyed just being out together.

Tuesday morning when Valentine's Day came around, we were hurrying around packing and loading up for our trip downstate for my uncle's visitation later that day. A few minutes before we left we set aside some time to open our gifts/cards for each other. I gave Tim a humorous card and some chocolates that he likes.

Here's what I got from Tim:

He got me a super sweet card, a necklace with the "key to his heart" :), and a gorgeous ring that I absolutely love and can't stop wearing. Oh and not pictured, he got me a huge heart-shaped Reeses's peanut butter cup. It's not pictured because I ate it. And it was yummy!

We finally agreed a few years ago that we were buying the wrong types of cards for each other. It's sort of like how you tend to speak to someone in your own love language instead of theirs. We were giving the types of cards to each other that we would want for ourselves. So now I buy him funny cards {what he likes} and he buys me sentimental/sweet/romantic cards {what I like}. We are still working on that whole speaking in each others love language thing {his is a combo of acts of service and physical touch, mine is a combo of words of affirmation and quality time}.  

So we finally got a chance to really celebrate Valentine's Day last Saturday with a date day! Here we are just before heading out.

We'd slept in until almost 11 {which never happens but we'd had a crazy week and we were zonked!} and by 1 we were heading out to the movies. We went to see This Means War at the uber nice 30 screen AMC theatre about 20 minutes from our house. I'll give the full review of that movie soon as well. Then we headed out to our 5 pm Sat church service. We had every intention of going to Outback Steakhouse afterward, our usually annual V Day tradition. Plus we got a gift card for it from my Grandpa for Christmas. It was perfect.

Except you really need to be super hungry to go there, and we'd had too much yummy popcorn at the movie!

So we bailed and went to our favorite hometown-style restaurant, where I enjoyed some yummy pumpkin pancakes and Tim enjoyed his pot roast. I know I usually take pictures of food, but this time I didn't. We did leave with super delish homemade shakes too!

On our way home we rented Real Steel, a phenomenal movie & quite enjoyable!!

Thankful for my hubster and a special day to specifically set aside time to spend intentionally together, reflecting on our love and special years together! We have now shared 13 Valentine's Days together. Here's our very first one together in February 1999, 10 months after we started dating.

oh. my. word.

Yes, I'm one of those girls. Give me all the Valentine's Day I can get! And yes, Tim is convinced it's a Hallmark holiday just to get everyone to spend money. He met his match, haha!! I am a true romantic at heart so any chance at that and I'm a total sucker. He just loves that. ;)

As I was typing most of this up the other day, I asked Tim for help in clarifying the exact number of years we've shared in V Days, he ends it by saying, "Just figures that lucky number 13 would be spent at a funeral home!" LOL - I couldn't help but really laugh at the irony of that. Sadly though, it is true. We stood for 4 hours straight that night greeting people, weeping together, sharing memories, laughing together, and hugging more people than we can count on the actual Valentine's Day. 

But when spending it with family in the midst of a tragedy, it's not exactly your focus. 

Thankfully the actual day did end on a good note. After those four very tough, but also good hours, we went out to dinner with my mom, stepdad, 2 aunts and 2 uncles. It was very, very sweet. And we went to my favorite spaghetti house to boot!

I could for real eat spaghetti every. single. day. Mmmm.

Then we ended with a couple hours at my brother's house, playing with and laughing with our 2 nieces and nephew. I put Olivia & Cayley to bed before leaving, read them their Bible story, prayed with them, and answered some TOUGH questions they'd managed to come up with! It was quite an adventure, but it brought such sweet joy to my heart. The sad part was that they'd be at school the next day during the funeral, so we wouldn't see them, so hugging good night also turned into goodbye, and none of us wanted to let the moment end.

Enjoying the Valentine's Day cards we got them

Joshua walking with Grandpa {my dad}, sporting a cute-as-all-get-out t-shirt that says "Handsome is an understatement" - haha, I love it!!

Olivia& Grandma {my mom} playing some back and forth bouncing with Joshua who is all slicked up like Alfalfa after his bath - isn't he precious?!?!? 

 

It was quite the roller coaster ride of a day. But it puts into perspective all of the meaningful things in life, what matters most, and that how we spend the actual Valentine's Day doesn't ultimately matter. What matters is that we honor God wherever we are and that at the end of the day, we're standing in it all together.

Seeing my aunt's broken heart that night and her lonely spirit really brought home the reality.

I'm so thankful for hubster each and every day - whether we're laughing or arguing, I'm so glad I get to spend it with him!

But I'm also sensitive to my friends out there who are single, lonely, longing for a mate, and hating every year of Valentine's Days. I understand friends, I hate every year of Mother's Days that go by. I know it's not the same, but I just want you to know I'm sorry and I'm not writing this with some insensitivity to the plight of singles. You are in my heart and prayers.

Whether you have someone or not doesn't ultimately matter. How you spend each day impacting this world is what matters. 

Thanksgiving & Disappointments

I love Thanksgiving. I look forward to it every year. I love all the smells, the foods, the special time with family, and the time to focus on all that we're thankful for.

My sister-in-law Jeremi and I two years ago with our first turkey at our first ever Thanksgiving at my dad's house. And we were back in time for a meal with Tim's family here on Saturday!

The amazing assortment of food at my Grandpa's house with mom's family last year

Tim loves Black Friday. He talks about it for months, does research, finds early ads online, and is all about finding the big bargains. Get in, get out, and be done with the shopping and crowds.
{This year it's been even better because much of what he wanted, he found at huge discounts prior to Black Friday or at midnight that night online, and voila, no store shopping necessary.}

Thanksgiving this year was not as we'd pictured it.

Not even close.

Tim got sick. Plans were cancelled. Family wasn't seen all weekend. We were alone.

But it was still special in its own way. We made the best of it, enjoyed time alone together celebrating, just the two of us.

Tim's brother & sister-in-law's house was where we'd planned to go, but her parents were going to be there {whom we dearly love} and they'd been dealing with cancer, pneumonia, heart concerns, etc, and we especially didn't want to risk getting them sick!

I knew friends we could call, options we might have, but Tim was really miserable and he just really needed a few days of rest at home. No Black Friday shopping for him. {And yes, you'd better believe I went!} 


I spent my days focusing a lot on Tim, our little family together, had some sweet time with the Lord, and special time reflecting on how thankful I am for all God's blessed us with.

We did enjoy it... despite the illness, despite not being with family on Thanksgiving, despite not having a special home-cooked meal {and being especially thankful for the wonderful people & prepared food at Boston Market that tasted yummy & was as close to home-cooked as we could get!, then later had a special meal with the ham I had on hand & my homemade mac & cheese}, and despite not being able to share my homemade pumpkin & cherry pies with family, we've been enjoying having more for us! {Eek, must. get. on. treadmill!}

Our table decorations - the turkey is an heirloom from my Grandma D. It opens up in the middle. Love. I enjoy putting homemade cookies and other goodies in there.

This year's yummy Boston Market food :) - notice we broke out our Christmas plates!

My homemade pies (w/ purchased crust), along with the pie that came with the meal at Boston Market {the one with the lid on it}... which we haven't touched yet. But you couldn't get the meal without it.

Plans change, things fall through, disappointments happen, people get sick, and life goes on.

But a couple days into all of this and the antsy-ness hit. That lonely ache deep down. That feeling you only get from being away from family and loved ones.

It was hard.

I got sick over Easter this year. Now I feel like I'm waiting for the ball to drop on Christmas. :(

But instead of letting that antsy & depressed feeling totally take me over yesterday, I got up and kept moving. I'm exhausted, but not too depleted because I knew my limits and when to chill out.

Over the course of the weekend, we watched oodles of football, watched the Thanksgiving Day parade of course, favorites Elf and Home Alone {those are the ones I have to watch ON Thanksgiving!}, watched tons of other Christmas movies {thank you Hallmark & Lifetime!}, took down the Fall decorations and put up the Christmas ones {still in progress--and that one's all me except Tim helps put the tree up}, dreamt together and made plans for our house, snuggle time :), and listened to Christmas music via David Crowder, Josh Groban, Enya, Travis Cottrell, Mannheim Steamroller, & MercyMe.

Yes, it's been a somewhat lonely, quiet Thanksgiving. An introspective, reflective Thanksgiving. A homesick-but-still-glad-I'm-not-traveling Thanksgiving.

An at the end of 4 straight days alone at home {for the most part} together hubster & I are trying not to be too sick of each other Thanksgiving. ;)

But the last minute change of plans haven't made me any less thankful or happy. 

How was yours??

Leaves

Leaves are some of my favorite little things. I love the different ways they look, the bright and varied colors, the crunch as they fall to the ground, the slushiness when they're all wet and gooky, and the wide variety of shapes. So cool!

Unfortunately my allergies are not a fan, but I don't care. Last weekend before we went on vacation we decided it was high time to rake up all the leaves going crazy in our driveway and side yard.

Ahhhh. Good times. Happy to have it done too! :)

Sleep, Date, Pancakes, & Early Present

The remainder of our weekend after the 5K race and after I recovered from a couple of hours of relaxing before mom & stepdad left.....

As soon as they left, I slept. And slept. A couple hours later, I awoke, got ready very quickly, and we went to evening church. After an incredible service, we went out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants and talked and talked and recapped how we thought the 5K went and what we'd want to see done differently. It was really nice to hang out just the two of us after all that stress leading up to that day! We'd both been working so hard for it {granted, in very different ways!} that it was taking a bit of a toll on us physically and emotionally. To be able to sit and fully recap was very healing for both of us.

After dinner, we walked through part of the mall to the Barnes & Noble next door and bought ourselves a couple of books.

If you've been around here long at all, you totally know which book is for who. 

We left there, picked up some movies for the next day...

...and enjoyed the rest of our evening together before crashing...and sleeping in Sunday morning. It was sooo nice after such a crazy day to have so many hours of sleep...now if only we'd both had good nights of sleep it would have been great. Something about waking up so early the 3 previous mornings meant my body was awake and ready to go by 6:30. I was not. I laid there until 9:30 thankyouverymuch.

Silly body, you know not what you think.

With that extra relaxation, of course who can resist a sleepy Sunday morning pancake breakfast?! Not I!!  

And just because there's one plate in there don't be thinking I didn't make any for Tim! Tsk tsk, of course I did! We both enjoyed it, except these new wheat blends aren't as good as they sound. They're dry, and as a result we used a wee bit more syrup. But I still feel better about myself using that mix instead of a regular one!

With my recent frustrations in iPhoto, and my backlog of doing anything with my pictures because the organization of it all makes my head want to explode... {organizing pictures is a big deal to me, and I've not been happy with any digital organizer yet} my sweet & wonderful hubby surprised me Sunday morning with an early birthday present:

Cannot wait to get going on this puppy!!! YAY!!

Then we got a kick out of our outside thermometer. When it's warm and the sun shines directly on the sensor, it can really get up there. The temp on Sunday was only around 80 or so, but check out what our reader indicated....

Haha! The days following it were mega hot, and somewhere in there our sensor died or ran out of batteries. Now it just reads "----". I miss it. I use it to help me determine whether I need a jacket or not in the morning, etc. Which the 3 days right after this, we definitely did not since it was about 80 and awful humidity each morning. The rest of this week has been a nice relief in the 60s!

Somewhere in there we watched a little bit of one of our favorite good ol' comedies: 

I have no idea why the pic turned out freakishly red....

After our rented movie marathon {movie reviews coming later if I remember}, we popped in a favorite {The Sorcerer's Apprentice} which we both just love and get a kick out of. While watching that, we also enjoyed our favorite local {as in 5 min away} deep dish pizza place {honestly, we don't have a Giordano's or Gino's East nearby or we'd probably go there, but Taylor Street's deep dish is pretty snazzy too!}:

And now as it's taken me the course of several days to wrap this up, and as I'm finally back off the couch and enjoying life in the 60 degree weather, I will finally schedule this to post so you can read it! 

California Fun

It's been a weird week. Tim's been working late each night as their company moves {one floor up in their building where there's more space}. I vowed to not work as late this week because last week was so crazy, and I've got too much stuff to do personally, it'll just make me end up in the looney bin if I push too hard {and of course, that'd flare the Fibro}. So I'm trying to chill a little bit this week {despite that work is crazier than ever and I'm nearly freaking out about it...}!

Anyway, so not seeing Tim quite as much as normal, it's nice to reflect back on this past weekend when we got a lot of really great time together, and also back to our California trip! It's hard to believe it's already been over 2 weeks since we've been back and I still haven't had a chance to go through all those crazy 1100 pictures, ack!!!

So without further ado, here are some of our fun pics from CA {you know, the kind you wouldn't normally show people, except that I could care less since I'm already confident I look like a total goober anyways}...

Cousin Jenna, her roomie Jena, & I at Yogurtland in downtown Santa Barbara about 10 pm the day we arrived in SB - they were stressing {T -2 days until graduation and moving out} - sooo fun!

I mean really, look at that backdrop! Who cares that it was overcast, it was still gorgeous!!

As we were leaving SB, it was super windy and we caught a bit of a sandstorm.

The night we arrived in Manhattan Beach {just south of LA} it was in the 50s and really windy! We were freezing, but it was a lot of fun walking the pier and watching the sunset!

Having a run-in with a shark at the round-about aquarium on the Manhattan Beach Pier.

Me & Mickey outside the Disney Store & Soda Fountain on Hollywood Blvd.

Our first full day in SB, Tim realized he was freezing and needed to go to the mall to buy a jacket. {I packed in layers knowing the weather was going to be all over the place. He, um, did not.} This is the cell phone pic I took to share with my coworker/friend Abigail to show her what we were doing at the time she was texting me in SB. That's right, visiting California and we were hanging in the mall. Nice. {But on the plus side, Tim loves that jacket & it was definitely needed!}

I wanna be like her when I grow up. 

Sitting on a log on the end of the SB pier, causing me to have a couple moments of nervousness being so close to the edge and teetering above the ocean :::eebie jeebie::: - although yes, the log was firmly nailed down! - This pic was our crazy attempt to take our own pic but I have to admit I feared the phone slipping and hitting the ocean just a wee bit!

The sun was bright, I was sitting on the sandy beach, and barely able to see the front of my phone... and this is the lovely pic of Tim that came out of him standing in front of the ocean. DOH!

Yippee, I'm playing in the sand on Manhattan Beach in California!!!!! 

And now as the thunder roars in the distance, the rain starts to pour, and hubster is finally on his way home, I bid you good night!

Spontaneity

Sometimes you just have to roll with the punches.

And I love spontaneity for all kinds of reasons. Especially with the Fibro since planning can be hard. You never know when you're going to have a good day or a bad day.

Today was a pretty good day. I've been working late every night this week, but tonight I got out of there as soon as I could {still 20 minutes late, but better than it's been the rest of the week!}. I'd been pretty exhausted {and happy - trust me, I love love love my job!!}, but was still just feeling the vibe that I wanted to do something.

My dear friend Monica's son Parker {whom you all have come to love too if you've been around here long!} :) was sick the past couple of days with a nasty flu bug :( and fever. I've seen them the past 4 days and I love it, even though 2 of those times were really short. I love the spontaneity our relationship thrives on and how they have such a great open door policy which I absolutely love.

Needless to say, I sprung in on them after work tonight, and found Parker feeling much better, but was still a little 'off'. Which meant good snuggle time with him! I don't know for how long he snuggled with me, but it was definitely longer than it's been in quite some time!! I can't believe he's going to be 2 in just a few months. And he looks 4. And wears 4T clothing. What a kid!

For my sake, please pretend not to notice how fat I look here... hard to crop it & still get the same effect. So just look at the cute, snuggly kid! ;) 

I had an enjoyable chat with Monica, a great lunch today with my coworker Crystal earlier in the day, and fun conversation and projects at work that kept me energized and enjoying life! Despite the not-so-fun annual female check-up doctor appt this morning, and the "so, you're still trying to get pregnant, huh?!" greeting she gave me so kindly as she walked in the door... it went pretty well. I'm thankful to have it over with though, it's the appt I most dread every year as I'm sure all you females do as well, to the point I couldn't sleep well the past two nights. There's been some cause for concern related to... female stuff... and it was really good to learn that there's not a need to be concerned by what was happening. {Sorry if this is TMI!} Anyway, I'm glad it's over and all is well, and I had some helpful answers to some questions I'd been having. We also had a good chat about the not trying/trying situation we're in. Overall I feel pretty good about it.

But still, female doctor appts are never fun and ruin a smidgen of your day. Because well, you know. Mehhhh.

So back to this spontaneity thing and away with this TMI thing... hubster and I totally ended up having a wonderful spontaneous evening to ourselves. Since I'd prolonged my going home by hanging at my friends, I was able to time it perfectly so that I was heading into the mall {there's one about halfway between my work and home, and it ends up being mostly on hubster's way too} at the same time he did. So I surprised him and joined up with him in his quest to find new tennis shoes before his trial 5K run bright & early tomorrow morning, and the real 5K run on June 4th. We tried a store that was sorely disappointing, then we did some mall strolling {one of hubster's least favorite activities, God bless him} and tried some other stores.

The tennis shoe mission failed. :(

But I got some cool dress sandals out of the deal! :)

And... pretend not to notice how badly I need a pedicure!

Then we spontaneously grabbed some dinner at the food court {actually quite yummy!} and headed upstairs to their surprisingly gigantic theatre where we saw Something Borrowed {cute, hilarious, and a bit weird, but overall I enjoyed it}. I'm glad Tim could be talked into seeing a romantic comedy with me, because the rest of the summer will be full of us going to see the big blockbuster action movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers 3, X-Men: First Class, The Green Lantern, and Jerusalem Countdown. So I had to get my pick in while I could! {Granted, I'm excited about several of those movies, but still, I need my romcoms too!}

It was a good evening. Now that we've unwound ourselves from the large Cherry Coke we drank up until about 9:30 p.m., we will try to go to bed for our early rising tomorrow! Good night & happy weekending peeps! :)