How did this happen?

Six Month Photo Shoot at Sears

Bathtime last night

These pictures of the Monster are roughly one year apart.  Where has the time gone?

Ella-isms

"Battheball.  Battheball. Battheball."  - Said while retrieving her toy bat and smacking pretty much anything - ball, dog, stacking blocks, etc.
"Mommy, up.  Peeease.  Up.  Peease." - Repeated over and over to me in the event I have the audacity to lay down on the floor with a pillow while she is around.  Mommies should be up and out of her way, darn it!
"Uh-oh, Teevee." - Said anytime the tv is not doing what she thinks it ought to be doing - too quiet, off, on, muted, paused.

And my favorite phrase of the day:

"Sorry, baby." - Said in a very matter-of-fact way with a pause in between the two words.  It cracks me up every time.

On My Mind Often

Luke 22:41-42: He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." (NIV)

I recently heard a lesson on this verse while teaching Junior High Sunday School.  We were watching a Nooma video by Rob Bell and the focus was on the concept that perhaps our focus shouldn't be on what we want God to do for us but what He wants us to do for Him and for others.  I don't know if the kids really got it but the whole video had a huge impact on me.

Craig and I are at a point in our lives where we're constantly praying for things to change.  Craig's job ends in two weeks.  He's had a fair number of interviews but nothing's firmly on the horizon yet.  He can't claim unemployment because churches, like non-profits, can opt out of paying unemployment taxes.  However, unlike non-profits, churches are also exempt from reimbursing the state for claims paid to laid-off employees.  We didn't know that when this whole thing started.  We know now.

We like where we are.  Craig liked the ministry he was involved in.  As it stands, those things aren't matching up really well.  I'm a bit gunshy now of church jobs and experiences because of how badly things went at times in his current job.  (Point of fact, I am no longer worshiping there - I couldn't stick it out to the end because of how awful it made me feel every week to go to a place where no one seemed to notice if we were coming or going, no one seemed to care.)  However, I long for a church to make friends, raise my kids, nurture myself.  I am not giving up.  I'm just...healing.

All of my focus and prayers have been about getting through and making things work as they are - here in our town, here with our friends.  After hearing Rob's message on the video I was, truth be told, very reluctant to say the prayer I needed to say.  Afraid to give up control and truly mean Your will and not mine.  I've prayed it several times recently and now it seems to be my mantra.  If it's God's will, there's a reason/purpose for it and everything will work out.  My will, maybe not so much.  It's scary and frustrating at times but I've been whispering it to myself today as I see more postings for places not close by that might be the perfect fit for Craig.

I don't know what is in our future but I know if we make the effort to listen, make the effort to be still long enough to listen, and follow what we hear, we will be okay. 

Because I mostly ramble about myself...

I'm posting a couple pictures of the adorable monster living in my home in an attempt to balance the narcissim of this supposedly family blog.

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Holy Updates Batman!

In an attempt to try and change my perspective, I'm changing my blog.

When I started this blog, the hubbs and I were in a rather nebulous land of seminary call process/job hunting/random life things.  The Vonnegut quote "Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment.  There is no why," inspired the domain name and the title and spoke to me very deeply about our lives.  It wasn't about blame or frustration or anything - it just was and we were there to experience and perhaps not to understand.

Time flies when you're having fun and I've been blogging here for almost 2 years.  We've aged, moved, reproduced, and (aside from all that) changed an awful lot.  :-p  The last couple months have been very rough around our household because of some job stress.  I've been trying to think up ways to shake us out of our "Wow things really suck.  They were better when..." thinking because it's really just all rose-colored glasses and not productive.  I wanted a new way of thinking.  We're not just victims of circumstance.  There are reasons we're here, reasons we're at this place at this time.  Like Einstein said, God doesn't screw with the universe and there is something greater at work than a bunch of people promising a job they haven't really been able to support or fund and now thinking maybe they'll just be done with it all never mind we moved thousands of miles with the promise of a job and support that's really just been all rainbows, glitter, and fancy words. (Can you tell I'm really steamed/scared about this?)  That can't be the only reason we're here.  There is a plan.

So anyway, shitty job situation aside, we were also rebounding from illness and injury and feeling more than a little out of sorts.  I decided to start changing the way I think and react.  I can't control a bunch of people with their heads up their ass but I can control myself.  I made a promise on Sunday to be more proactive.  I've been to the gym.  I've tried hard to clean up right after I do something instead of trying to get back to it later.  Yeah, we still have a PILE of clothes in the cradle instead of put where they ought to be, but the dish pile is pretty much non-existent.  I've been reading more, praying more, eating better - all the good stuff - all in an effort to be a better me.

Today I signed onto my blogger account, knowing full well that I've failed mightily in the NaBloPoMo for the month but what evs.  The first thing I noticed was that the tone of the blog didn't match the new me.  I didn't want to be the person just waiting for whatever was going to happen.  I'm done just watching the days melt by without any big steps.

It's time for change.  Life is not about waiting for the world to happen to you and it is not about tearing through hitting all the key marks without understanding.  Life is about experience.  If I sit idily by, soon I'll be up to my elbows in lunchmeat sandwiches and tween drama wondering what happened to my baby girl and all the things I wanted to do.  It's time for me to be a more deliberate person.

To that effect, I've changed the domain name, the title, and the quote.  I'm teaching myself how to appreciate life so that I can both appreciate my family more and pass these lessons on to my daughter.  I've promised myself that 2011 is going to be a good year and this is one step on the path to fulfilling that promise.

Goodbye 2010!

2010 has been quite a ride! In it's final hours, I find myself left with a mixed bag of inexpressible joy and new and deep worry over our family's financial future.

This past year I learned:

• what am amazingly wild, wonderful, awful, selfish, and selfless ride motherhood is going to be and that I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
• how to keep smiling when you're not sure how you're going to feed your family in two months.
• that while I miss being surrounded by old buildings, historical research, and other crazies who love it like I do as my job, I really enjoy the job I have now.
• our families are too far away but we love where we live and they love where they live so we'll just have to make it work.
• my little family makes me more happy than I EVER would have expected - even when it's just the three of us heading out to wander through IKEA on a Saturday afternoon.
• that in just over one year I can make at least one friend in a new place who feels like I've always known them and who makes my life so much more fun.
• Craig and I can get through anything - even some really crappy, scary, emotionally taxing job things coming up in the next month.
• praying does make me feel infinitely better - even when it's God that I'm mad at.

It's been quite the year of life lessons and I'm sure 2011 will be the same. The last few weeks have been incredibly rough because Craig's learned some scary financial things about his work and we're not sure how things are going to pan out. It's been disheartening to watch everyone at the church let this happen and/or not even know about it. I've been trying very hard to enter the new year on a positive note and I've made it. I feel blessed with my family, positive about my job experience, and determined to make the most of the coming year. Ella's developing in leaps and bounds and we have the whole year ahead of us for family time, local trips, and building friendships. 2010 was a rollercoaster trip - thrilling and terrifying -- always a bit out of control. 2011 is our time to focus on us, pay off some debt, get job things figured out and just keep moving along.

Best wishes from our family to yours this New Year's Eve!

Catch ya next year! :)

Back in the Saddle Again

Whew! Life's been crazy! Since August I've flown four times, been in five states outside of Washington, mourned a relative, celebrated two weddings, and spent Thanksgiving in my hometown for the first time since 2004. It's been an expensive, exhausting, and completely worth it whirlwind adventure.

I haven't blogged in a while mostly because I haven't had time or nice things to say but I've decided I need this outlet. I need to champion my family, rage at the world, and detail the minutia of my life. It helps me get it all out and channels my energy.

Things on my plate right now:

1. Fitness Re-Boot. I have the gym membership I've been craving for so long and I LOOVE it. However, to get in my workout for the day and still be a present member of my family, my workout slot is 5am. This, I do not love. I was very good about going for a while but travel and bad weather have conspired with my innate laziness and I haven't been in quite a while. I will be there tomorrow, high waters be damned (we have had a lot of high water around these parts lately...hell, not so much)! I've resigned up for SparkPeople to track my fitness and my food and it's telling me that if I keep this up fairly consistently, I could be at my ultimate healthy weight by next Christmas. :) Merry Christmas to me!
2. Crafting Ahoy! My goal this year was to craft and I've been semi-successful. I am always working on Ella's baby book. I have even started playing around with other scrapbooks (England 2006, Wedding 2007, etc) but those aren't really started yet. Over Thanksgiving, my mom and I made one of the three stockings I wanted to complete by Christmas this year. The pieces are cut out for the other ones but I haven't really had the time or space to do any sewing. I'm planning on devoting a chunk of time this weekend to it in order to bang out the rest. It's 11 days until Christmas - can I have them done in time for Santa?
3. Cleaning, Cleaning, Always Cleaning We have a tiny apartment and due to our own financial problems and some job worries, we won't be able to move any time soon. Therefore, we have been slowly culling through everything to determine what we really need and what can either be pitched, donated, or sold. It's a work in progress but it always feels nice to make a little bit more room.

Life hasn't worked out exactly as planned lately (when does it?) and I've been working through phases of anger, despair, anger again, and acceptance. We're blessed to have health, love, family, and (as of right now anyway) a room over our head and food for our baby so we can't really complain.

I promise to keep up with blogging a bit more. I'm sure all two of you who read this are thrilled. :)

At the airport

Ella takes a break in my arms before our flight to Indy. More on that later.

Slow Fade

"When you are sorrowful look again at your heart, and you shall see see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

~ Khalil Gibran

The Reason Wednesdays are Wonderful

I have been lucky enough to get to spend every Wednesday with Ella due to some cutbacks at work. I love it! Sadly, I go back to full time in September so I only have a few more Wednesdays left to spend chattering, cooing, and goofing around with Peanut here. Here's to making the most of it!

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Blogging from my phone

I'm just testing a new app I have. What better way to test than to include a pic of our household besties, Brigid and Pecan, chillin' together.

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Month Five is Nigh And Everyone's Still Alive

In the coming weeks and months, I'm going to try and make this blog a bit more of a priority. I've been so busy keeping records of my life elsewhere (baby book, calendar, mini-journal, Picasa, etc) that I haven't kept up here.

The basic updates: Ella is the most awesome baby ever! No bias here...nope, none at all. hehe She'll be 5 months old next Thursday...which is NUTS! She rolls all over the place, can sit supported by her hands for pretty decent periods of time, and has been eating cereal for almost 3 weeks. She loves the cat and dog and lunges forward anytime the dog is nearby so she can put her hands in Brigid's fur and pet her. Brigid has been wonderful and will turn her head and lay down so Ella can touch her and love her without Brigid getting poked in the eye or something. Pecan still has little interest in the baby but will rub up against her hand if Ella's holding out hers when we're holding out ours.

We've tried as much as possible to continue our lives and add Ella in, rather than stop everything and just sit around watching her. She's become quite the traveler and there's only more on the way. So far this year, Ella's travels have included:

• Up into the mountains to the outlet mall with her Aunt Allie and her parents. She was little enough then that she just slept through the whole thing.
• Into Pike Place Market with Aunt Allie and her parents. She snoozed in her carrier the whole time - it was glorious! :D
• Jimi Hendrix's grave with her Uncle Steve, Deb, and parents. Easy enough to point out it was her mom's idea to visit a graveyard with a 7 week old. hehe
• A trip on the Light Rail into the city. She just watched the world swirl past her while hanging out in her stroller.
• A trip from Westlake Center Mall to Seattle Center on a monorail put in place during the Seattle World's Fair. Ella was rather blase about the whole affair but her mom was uber-geeked out by the history/architecture of the recent past. :D
• The Northwest Folklife Festival at the Seattle Center. Full of music, food, and hippies...it was awesome!
• Many miles of walks with Deb and her mom around the area - into parks, around neighborhoods to judge people on their lawns and homes, etc.
• Again into Pike Place Market with her great-grandparents and parents. This time she was awake enough to be alternately fascinated with all that there was to see and cranky/tired/hungry that things weren't revolving around her.
• Out to a restaurant with the great-grandparents. We thought she'd be a monster but she was so tuckered out from Pike Place she slept the whole time.
• Up into the mountains for 4th of July with the Willsons, the Sorensens, a horse, several dogs, and a brood of chickens. It was in the 50s, drizzly, and at times chilly enough to see our breath but totally worth it! Ella sat on a horse (with much assistance and caution, of course), took a mondo nap, and was a trooper around fireworks. So. Much. Fun. :)
• Northwest Trek animal park with Grammie Penny and her parents. This is officially the coolest place ever! It has animals native to the Pacific Northwest and they were all out that day (save for the bobcat who was in hiding somewhere). We saw bison, elk, big cats, a beaver, grizzly bears, lots of other things, and...a moose! Ella didn't really care about the animals too much but the beaver and otter both caught her eye because they were so close and so needy for attention. The beaver kept swimming up to the glass, pausing with his paw on the glass, and then performing a backflip and returning to the glass for his admirers. Too cute!

As you can see, she's been a busy girl for the last few months. The rest of the year is shaping up to be equally busy! Grandma Sheryl and Grandpap Geno are visiting in late August. Ella's going to start spending time with other little ones when she goes to someone's house 2xs a week for playdates/babysitting. Dad and Ella are spending a long weekend along together while I travel to Dallas for a wedding. The whole family is flying to South Carolina for a wedding in November and then flying two weeks after that to California to spend Thanksgiving with family. Whew! Craziness! Add to that a fundraiser for Craig's youth that I'm helping with in September, a 5k walk at Northwest Trek I'm doing (also) in September, potentially a walk/fundraiser (again also) in September, and *fingers crossed* a move out of our tiny apartment into something a bit bigger (also) in September.

I have also decided that I am going to make Christmas stockings for our family this year. This should prove to be interesting because I have minimal (at best) knowledge of all things craft-y but I'm not planning to get uber-complicated but rather to make basic stockings for the five of us (yes the animals are getting stockings as well - I'll probably do my practice runs on theirs) that match and will look nice if (oh please, oh please, oh please) we have a mantel come Christmas. hehe

This post was a tad longer that I anticipated but I needed to catch up. I am going to try very hard to post more often. It's just very hard to find time between the work, play, and, routine to sit on the computer and post to friends/family the minutiae of our lives.

Now if only we had a little more furniture...

Our apartment is cramped. It's cute and cozy but to be perfectly honest it's cramped. We have four full bookshelves, two full built in book shelves, two beds, two dressers, a sofa with a chaise lounge, a recliner, a small desk, a desk chair, a coffee table, a nook for shoes, two dvd cases, the tv and tv stand, four bookshelves serving as pantry storage, and a dining room table and chairs. We also have various boxes and items sitting around because there's no storage space left to shove them. hehe Whew!

And now we have a crib and a cradle and I couldn't be happier! :) My parents visited over the week of Thanksgiving and they brought one of the two beds we now have set up, the cradle, and 9 boxes of my books from home. hehe The bed was mine as a child and will serve nicely as a guest bed for people coming to visit. The cradle was made by my grandpa for me when I was an infant and it's now going to be used for our little one when she makes her arrival. While they were here they bought us a crib and mattress from Ikea and helped us build it and situate it in our room. It's beautiful. Natural wood, simple design - perfect! Once we have a bigger place, the plan is to give the baby her own room and move all of our dining room storage shelving into her room as bookshelves and storage. The stuff in the dining room is dark brown-black and will be a nice contrast to the light crib.

My mom, being the crafty woman that she is, not only arrived with a knitted baby blanket, a hand-quilted baby blanket from scraps of a quilt she made my brother and a quilt she made Craig and I, and a quilt front of nursery rhymes she's going to finish and give to the baby, but she's also said she'll make me my own crib set so that I can have the colors I want instead of the stuff we've found. How awesome is that?!

Craig and I ran into a slight problem while looking for crib bedding. The problem is that Craig wants monkeys for our bedding and I want the colors green, purple, and brown. Those are fairly hard to find together. I can find green and brown and green and purple but not together - at least not without something like butterflys all over it or whatever. Sooo - my mom and I picked out a green fabric and a purple fabric that she's going to use as a back and front to a simple quilt. She's going to use a monkey face I found as a template to put on the green side of the quilt, thereby getting both monkeys and the colors I want and then she'll use the same purple fabric for a skirt. We also found a nice white with little purple flowers to use as the cover for a crib bumper. I can buy the fitted sheets in green, purple, and this really cute monkeys and brown polka dots and we're good to go! There's a wooden wall hanging of a monkey face similar to what will be on the blanket that I'm going to put up on the wall next to either the baby's name or some saying in brown and purple lettering. That's my current plan for the baby's crib space, etc. As you can see, the nesting has begun. :)

All of my mom's generosity and craftiness has gotten me thinking about crafting. I can cross stitch (but then again, a monkey could cross stitch - it's not exactly complicated) and I've been attempting lazily to learn how to knit for some time. I've never really sewed, at least not in earnest, although I've always thought about it. I value the items my mom has made for me so much - graduation quilt, wedding quilt, scarves, wall hangings, etc - and I'd really like to be able to do the same thing for my little girl. I think I want to learn to do more than just cross stitch. As much as I love it and find it relaxing, I also recognize that cross stitch art/craft is pretty tacky outside of the occasional holiday decoration or simple piece. Sewing and knitting have a little more versatility. I'm perusing sewing machines now in hopes of finding something cheap and efficient to start out on. I'm also thinking classes would introduce me to people in the community and since I know almost no one here, that would be a good thing! :)

And for the really big news...

and the final announcement/post for the day...

We're having a baby girl! :) WOOT!

We went in for an ultrasound last Wednesday morning and found out we're having a baby with 2 legs and 2 arms weighing around 1lb and counting and most definitely a girl! The ultrasound tech was way nice and the whole thing went very quickly and smoothly. The baby cooperated to a degree but as has been the case since the beginning, wouldn't hold still for a minute.

I learned that what I thought were tiny kicks to my bladder whenever it's full is most likely a head butt as baby is laying head toward my right ovary and feet toward my left ribs. Of course, as I type this, she's probably shifted positions. :)

We go back to the doctor on the 4th of December and will get the big run-down about all the different measurements, etc that the tech took and the radiologist looked at. Hopefully all is well!

I'm most definitely visibly preggo now. I need to take a few pictures of me and post them here - soon, I promise - and I'll definitely be putting a picture or two if little Miss Falvo at the end of this post.

On an equally awesome note - we were going to go with a baby co-sleeper attached to my side of the bed but we just don't have the $$ to get something only to get rid of it once the baby's 30+ lbs and have to buy something new. Instead, we've found three different cribs at Ikea that we like that with mattress included are roughly the price of a co-sleeper. The crib can be kept in our room (we have nowhere else for it) less than 1 foot away from my side of the bed so baby and I can be close while at the same time investing in something that we can use a lot longer. PLUS - the crib will be right under a totally blank wall and I can do baby decorations! I was feeling a bit down that I wasn't going to be able to do a full nursery because of space and $$ so I'm completely stoked that I'll have this one little space to make a cute area for baby. :)

We can't wait to meet our little girl! The ultrasound doesn't show much but we already know she's both adorable and a handful!

Alert: Adulthood!

I am an adult. This fact is something I usually just acknowledge and work with. I own a car. I pay bills. I have a steady job (that will end on Friday but that's neither here nor there). I have an IRA. I am married. I have three animals that depend on me. All of these are facts that don't really seem that huge to me possibly because these are daily items in my life. They don't give me pause or send shivers down my spine. They are just aspects of my life, some I love (hi Craig, Chestnut, Pecan, and Brigid) and some I don't (bleh bills).

I only have these shivers of adulthood once in a while and when they come I experience moments that I can only describe as not unlike those scenes in movies where someone is standing in the foreground and then the scene behind them, usually a hallway or a room, lengthens and stretches in such a way to give you a sense of shrinking movement. I feel a sense of my universe expanding with these moments - shifting and changing the bonds around me.

This evening, sometime after dinner, my universe expanded when I had the slowly dawning realization that Craig and I will be hosting our first Thanksgiving and Christmas with family. Whoa. Major adult moment. We've done the solitary holidays. Our first Thanksgiving and Christmas as Falvos were sans family and were totally awesome. They weren't awesome because we didn't have any family. They were awesome because we started a couple new traditions and just got to relax together. We've also had some family holidays. Last Thanksgiving we spent time in Florida with Craig's family for the holiday and a wedding. Last Christmas we visited my family in California. Never have we hosted family for a holiday.

I'm completely excited!! It'll will be weird and terrific and memorable all at once. We're not sure yet if Christmas will be a both-sides event but we know that my family will be up for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. Craig's already thinking about the size of the turkey he'll need; I'm already thinking about the size of the Christmas tree I'll need; and my father's already thinking about whether or not we'll be able to pick up the Macy's Parade. :D Teh awesome.

And on a smaller (and yet way bigger) note, if the thought of being the ones hosting the holidays wasn't daunting enough, the growing Bean inside me gives me pause more often than not about how quickly my life is changing. I texted Craig today after I ate lunch because of the amount of swish-y movement I felt in my belly. Friends are starting to notice the changes. I can no longer wear the pants I like. There's definitely a baby inside me and life will never be the same. How awesome in every definition of the word!

Late Introductions

I think I really need to put more pictures up on the blog. I have tons and tons that never (really) see the light of day. This might be a good way to start. Here are some introductions:

The Falvo Family

Me: 

28. Born in Ohio, raised in California, and currently residing in the South (going on 4 years now.) Loves: books, reading magazines back to front, summer rain/thunderstorms, traveling, the Christmas season, fam and friends. Hates: drivers who don't use their turn signals, Palmetto bugs, 

Craig: 

31. Born and raised in southwestern Pennsylvania, and currently residing in the South (also for 4 years now.) Loves: video games, books, hot sauce, hockey, arguing theology, and me...well really all of our friends and family.  Hates: tomatoes, the Cleveland Browns, the Detroit Redwings, and morons on the road.

Chestnut:

4 ½. Born in South Carolina and adopted by McKenzie in January of 2006. Loves: belly rubs, treats, lettuce, catnip, and naps. Hates: Brigid, water, being picked up.

Pecan:

1 ½. Born in North Carolina and adopted by Craig and McKenzie in November of 2007 as a scrawny, sickly baby. Loves: water bowls to play in, Chestnut, Brigid, McKenzie, running around crazy in the house, hair bands.  Hates: Craig (sometimes), sudden movements, any visitors to the house, being picked up.

Brigid:

 1 ½. Born in South Carolina and adopted by Craig and McKenzie in August of 2008. Loves: her family, her toys, anything she can chew on, her Kong ball with a treat in it.  Hates: baths, hard rain, being left alone for too long, and Toby the evil Seminary dog.

Snow!

I'm sitting at my In-Laws' house in West Virginia on an April morning watching it snow, and I mean really snow, outside.  It's completely awesome!

We arrived on a warm-ish sunny Saturday.  Sunday was lovely - mid 60s and all that.  Monday it turned cold, clounds moved in and it rained.  By evening it was sleeting a little with tiny bits of ice raining down on us which tinkled like glass upon hitting the pavement.  It began to dust snow later at night and we all woke up this morning to almost an inch of snow and more on the way.  It's apparently "wet snow" as I've been told so it makes really nice snowballs.  Brigid, our dog, wasn't too phased by it while she was out in it though watching it fall from insides seems to confuse her a little.  Belle, our parents' dog, isn't phased at all.  :)

I'm thinking of taking Brigid on a bit of walk today, looping the mile up and around this neighborhood.  I think she'd love to walk in the snow and I know I would!  The only thing deterring me is the rather obscenely steep hill/road to get around the circle.  This town, like apparently all towns in West Virginia, is anchored around and atop mountains.  This makes driving rather nerve-fraying but always interesting.  

Today is a lazy day.  I plan to read, rest, and watch the snow fall.  There is an electrician coming to fix the new hot tub out back and I am very hopeful that I will be able to sit in a hot tub tonight while it snows.  We shall see.  The rest of the week involves driving into Pittsburgh to see a variety of people.  It'll be busy but until then - I'm going to go look at the snow.  

Ch-ch-ch-changes

This is my life, in words.  

My name is McKenzie.  I am 28, married, mom to two cats and a dog, hopelessly nerdy, surprisingly loud, and a historian/historic preservationist.  My husband Craig is 31, a graduate student at a seminary, hysterically funny, a delightful grouch, and absolutely (to a surprising and intense degree) devoted to family and friends.  

We are getting ready to make the next big jump in our life together and move.  We don't know where.  I have a great job where we are now but we feel that God is pointing us in a different direction.  Craig has applications out to a variety of jobs scattered throughout the country.  We are waiting to see what happens and feeling pretty positive about the whole experience.  We're tired of feeling like transients and long for a community where we can plant roots and grow.  We want a house, a garden, kids...the whole shebang. 

Things feel tightly wound as of late.  I think something's getting ready to happen.  It's a good feeling.

This is a new story - the story of us.  If you want to catch up on the story of me told sporadically over the past two years, check out this blog to do so.  That was about me.  That was about looking back and thinking.  This is about our family: me, Craig, the dog, the cats, my insanity (it has its own place at the table, folks).  All the good stuff.  I needed a place to move forward.