Champagne

Quarter Century: I came, I saw, I conquered.

26: Bring it on.

I think today is the first birthday of mine that it's ever snowed. I wonder if I'll be able to metaphorically use that to describe this next year exactly a year from now? I was thinking about the year I just had when I should have been trying harder to sleep last night. I was mostly having a chuckle at all the less-than-ideal situations and counting my blessings for all the unexpected and better-than-I-had-anticipated situations.

I have had the vast blessing of continued friendships, the privilege of reconnecting with a couple of old one's, and the delight of making some new one's. I have a family that I love and that loves and cares for me too. I have a man who is more and better than I could ever hope for. I have my God who is faithful and sustains me each and every moment. I love my job. Life is good.

Thank you to all of you out there who have contributed to my journey. I thank my God for you often.

Cheers!

If you're smart, you'll light my fire

Today, hilarity prevailed at school.

This morning the children were solving a math equation and one child asked for some help. He figured out the answer and I told him he was right. A minute or two later I heard the same child talking to his friend. The friend was trying to convince him that the answer was something different when said boy told him, mater of factly, that "Miss T says that the answer is 4...and she's way smarter than you!" That made my day...one of the children thinks I'm smart.

Lunch time! I was unpacking my lunch, children are lined up at the microwave. Now back in the day I had a peanut butter and honey sandwhich and I was very content with that. Nowadays you should see the stuff the kids come to school with! I digress. Next thing I know, I hear hysterical screaming and crying coming from the microwave area and I go over to investigate. On route I realize there is smoke pouring out of the microwave and I suspect this is connected to the hysterics. By the time I get there I'm trying to calm the child down and I look inside the microwave to discover 2 very crispy tacquitos, one of which has a black spot in the middle with a pillar of smoke exiting it. I pull it out of the microwave, praying the entire time that it doesn't combust into flames. I salvage one tacquito for the boy and run the other under cold water before I throw it out so it doesn't catch the garbage can on fire. I opened a couple of windows to help the cloud of smoke exit. That's not a good smell. Infact, it's nauseating. A split second after the children exited for recess, I zip my jacket up and start laughing as I exit. I relate to the teacher how funny I think this is now that the threat of fire has ceased and the class smells like a giant bag of burnt popcorn.

It's times like these I'm glad it's a 4 day week. I wonder what tomorrow will hold?

Date, With a Side of Random

So I had heard about a little place in Fort Langley that sells cupcakes and tea and such and since we all know my man loves cupcakes I thought "If we walked over the ferry and into Fort Langley, I bet that would make a nice afternoon date." And on Saturday, that's exactly what we did. It did not go exactly as we envisioned but we had a good time.

It began by walking to Tracycakes. We entered a tiny tea room, decked out in a black-and-white, Perisian-type decorated room. With old ladies in it. We sat down at a glass-topped bistro tabled and ordered some of my favorite tea ever (Mighty Leaf Tea, Tropical Green Tea) and odered some turkey sandwhiches because Mike was starving. I kept apologizing to poor Mike. I felt out of place, how did he feel?! The sanwhiches came and Mike described them as "$7 sandwhiches that we could make at home for $3"...yummy, but not at all filling. They would turn out to be our appetizer. Then we had a cupcake each. Dense cake, dense icing, we prefer the home-made variety to these. After leaving the place, Mike says "I felt like I was going to break the place" to which I concur "Me too!". I also agreed with him that it's the closes to Starshollow (Gilmore Girls) we've ever experienced.

Time to make this up to Mike. We stop in at The Fort Pub where he orders a large, beefy burger and a pint of Sleeman's Honey Brown. Back on the Testosterone Trail. I had some soup. Some Lions guys came around selling meat draw tickets. I had never entered one before so we buy some tickets and came 2 numbers away from winning. Gross.

After we were done there we headed back to the ferry and vowed never to go to Fort Langley on foot because it's weird. But later on we decided it was okay for us to travel on foot if we were going to Wendell's because it's not weird and we know that. We spent the afternoon being fish out of water, in both cases probably being to young to be at each place, but we had a blast. Wish we had a camera to chronicle it for you all. Maybe next time.

Look Out!

There seems to be a bit of poop hitting the fan this week. I just keep trying to duck.

On the other hand, highlights have included making heart-shaped marshmallows topped with chocolate ganache with R. She made the marshmallows and ganache earlier in the day Monday and then I came over to cut them out and help decorate. We already have plans for Easter. There was a surprise party for a friend at a yummy restaurant. Valentine's Day was great! Mike and his newly-engaged sister made an amazing dinner that us 2 couples enjoyed, topped off with blueberry cheesecake from Crumbs. Mike got me one of my favorite bottles of wine (that I'm usually too cheap to buy:), and some goat cheese, garlic, and my favorite crackers to accompany the bottle. Oh, and one of the greatest Valentine's Day cards ever...it involves The Muppets. All in all, a much needed, relaxing night in...loved it!!!

Valentine's Day at school was a different story. The children were all hopped up on sugar. One child lost a tooth (unrelated to the sugar). I settled into the general mayhem of the day by the time 9am rolled around. I couldn't fight it so I let it engulf me. While at R's house on Monday we helped her and her hubby make these great Hersey's Hugs and Kisses roses for her kids classes and there was enough left over to make them for my class, so we did. The boys spent recess dancing with each other with the roses in their mouths. One boy started sharpening the end of the bamboo skewer. I let him know that wasn't okay. I wanted to make a comment about not being in jail, but I controlled myself. Survey says: the roses rocked!

The past few days, I feel a little like I'm living in the Twilight Zone. It will be interesting to see how this week ends up. Until then, you can find me crouched behind anything. DUCK!

The Good News About the Bad News

For the past month-and-a-half or so, Zander (my Sportage) has been sounding a little...funny. I think it sounds like there is a bird caught in my engine. Mike has, on occassion, asked me if I chirped my tires. My parents think it sounds like a bucket of bolts. To try and remedy my ill-sounding ride I made a doctors appointment for Zander (a.k.a. Bay City Kia).

Yesterday, I bee-lined it from work to the gas station to Bay City to find that the dear girl on the phone Wednesday really meant Friday when she said they could get me in "tomorrow" at 3:30p.m. What kind of a post-modern world do we live in when "tomorrow" becomes relative? So the dear man there tells me that it's okay and they'll see what he can do. I tell him I thought it was my fan belt but my Dad WD-40 that and it still chirped and he thought it was coming from the air-conditioning unit. He turned the engine on and it sounded the best it has in about 2 months. Thank you Murphy('s Law). The dear man pulls out a stethascope-type contraption with something that looks like surgical tubing and a probe attached to it. Roswell called, they want their gear back. He listens to a thing or 2, hears nothing and turns the engine off.

He has a little look-see under the bonnet when he exclaims "There's your problem." Turns out the hub of my fan is cracked. Not cracked around, cracked across. I was amazed that the fan had stopped in just the right position so that the man could so easily see it. Thanks God! Turns out they also have just one fan in stock and they could get me in this Saturday at 2p.m. God is good.

The kicker is that my 5-year warranty is up on Monday, February 12th and this is covered under the warranty. I'm so thankful right now for God's provision. I stopped by the daycare to let Mike know what was going on and, as I danced a jig down the hall (quite literally, ask him), I said with a smile "Good news! My fan is cracked!" He gave me a look like I was cracked.

Zander's surgery is set to take a couple hours and then he'll be good as new...thanks be to God!

My Inner 2 Year Old

After this weekend, my inner 2 year old is dying to get out. Not the sweet and cute 2 year old either...that one is being edged out by the 2 year old who's favorite word is 'no'. I need to harness that inner 2 year old and the ability to say 'no'. Life is so great (thanks in large part to Mike) and I love all that we're doing but I can't keep going at this pace and expect not to get sick again. I know in my head that need to say 'yes' a little less, but I'm having trouble connecting my heart with that concept.

Yikes. That all seems a bit ranty, but my inner child was throwing a tantrum today. I feel a little 'no' coming on:)

February, oh February

Goodness, I've really been slipping at this blogging thing. How does R do it everyday?! Life happens, you all know how that goes. My apologies.

It seems that January was barely here. I only realize all that's gone on when I look back. I was just settling in and, next thing I know, it's slipped through my fingers, replaced by the extra short February. February is a month of evaluation for me. It's my birthday near the end of the month so, for some reason, as soon as February hits I find that all my spare moments are spent evaluating the previous year. Today, for example, is the 1st of February and during my break I found myself thinking about where I was last year in life. Yesterday, January 31st, on my break I was thinking, carefreely, about the upcoming weekend.

Today I started having all sorts of questions reel through my mind that weren't there yesterday: How did I serve God this year? How did I make a difference in someone's life? What were my top 5 favorite adventures? If this past year was a rollercoaster, what shape would the track have? Did I remember to intentionally show people that I love them? How many bottles of wine did I drink? What didn't I do enough of? What did I do too much of? What do I hope to repeat? What do I hope to forget? Which were my favorite pair of jeans? Have I come closer to growing into the woman I want to be? I only have a few weeks left, what do I have left to do?

There's a glimpse into my mind for you.

Now, for something completely different, I have to get a pirate costume ready for tomorrow as it's pirate day at school. Then we have the worship social to attend so I need to get my clothes ready for that now or I could have a breakdown in the mayhem and accidently wear stretchy pants and nobody wants that. Thank goodness Mike can cook and will be taking care of that end of things for the social or we'd never make it. We'll be late, but we'll be there:)