A long over-due exhale

I feel like I have been holding my breath for a month. 

Maybe two. 

So I appreciate being here today more than ever.  It's a different Easter Sunday for me, but Bird and I are soaking up the 60 degrees-with-a-breeze and doing our best to acknowledge (read: bark at) the birds who are making great effort to tell us that they were here first.  But don't for one second think it's all relaxation bliss here at the lake with a 9 week old puppy.  So far, she has sat in an ant bed, swallowed chewed up pine cones, dug through a pile of pine needles, chewed on a lizard, run from a barking pitt bull next door only to knock over my coffee and break her grandma's mug causing me to curse on Easter Sunday. 

Exhale.

Devin Michael and I have had our share of crazy in the past, oh, month or so.  We paced around for weeks, the way Bird does when she just can't stand to be inside anymore, trying to figure out where we would live when our lease was over at the end of March. 

A small, meant-to-be temporary apartment (so temporary that I resisted decorating for as long as I could), gave us 3 crazy, blessed, and really really fun years, but it was time to move on.  We needed space to stretch our legs at the same time without poking each others eye out.  If you ever want to test your marriage, try to cook a meal together in a 3x3 kitchen.  We needed a better patio for my beloved tomato plant to have a decent chance this year (priorities).  We needed a bigger room as our bicycle collection grew.  And we waited...and waited...and prayed...and prayed for the right place to show up.

And a week before we would be pushed out of our home, we still had nowhere new to land.  When you're right there in that moment where you resort to figuring out how to fit your things into a grocery cart and thinking you might be shaving for the last time in a long time, you know God is testing you.  And, sigh, He does have perfect timing, doesn't He?  The perfect place arrived just in time, and in His true form, God over-delivered.  It's more than we could have ever wanted, and we are so thankful.

So thankful that we decided to make moving day as hard as possible by picking up our puppy in the same weekend.  But if I'm being honest here, I know that God sent her to us- the last of her litter, exactly what we had wanted, but she lived 10 hours from us.  Only by His perfect timing were the breeders heading to Waco for the weekend (3 hours from us) where they offered to meet us. 

And then there were 3.

It's only been 4 days, but I think I'm in love.

Fridays

Fridays start my weekend.

On Fridays, I get to wake up when I want to.

I don't have to jump out of bed and get to a work out...unless I want to.

I drink as many cups of coffee as I want, and I don't have to get dressed.

On Fridays, I catch up on all of the blogs I used to read daily.

and I get to say hi to you :)

On Fridays, I get to figure out how to work Pinterest.  And then give up because I don't get it.

I get to catch up on laundry

I get to read


I get to catch up on cleaning

On Fridays, I get to finish baking the cookies that I started on on Tuesday.

I get to watch Julia Child on Netflix


On Fridays, I get to catch up on groceries

shopping

Dr. appointments


I basically just catch up on my life on Fridays.

T.G.I.F.

A few of what I've been up to

 

Road Trip: October 6,7,8 2011

Dear husband,

This morning we open our eyes in yet another place we didn't plan to be.  Then again, we didn't plan to be a certain anywhere for this whole trip.  How did we find this place? We are in the grandest room we've stayed in all week and I think this was the first time we turned on a TV the entire trip.

I love that.

We spent the day mozying around Boulder...realizing we had no desire to live there.
Just not what we thought.
But we did stop in lululemon.  Duh.
We drove into Denver, past the Red Rocks, but we didn't get to go see it.  I couldn't believe that there was a highway right next to it.
And that highway had about an hour + of traffic to get to the amphitheater.

From Denver, we went south to Colorado Springs.  This is more our style- a town small enough to feel small, but big enough to feel big.  People were walking!  Can you believe it?!  They were WALKING from here to there!  And riding their bikes!

We left CO Springs to head toward home,  At this point, we were on a time schedule which would get completely thrown off later.  We drove through horrendous weather and finally rolled into Raton.

The Melody Inn Motel would be our home for the night. I didn't get a picture of the room, but think 1950 motel deluxe.  The best of the best in those days.  I can see families of 4 rolling up in their Bel Airs, parking right in front of their motel room door, dad gets out, looks around, puts his cigarette out, the kids run into the room to find state of the art wooden walls, vintage furniture, and oh...oh yes.

A steam shower.  The bathroom's shower could seal and switch to the "steam" feature.  There was a vintage vinyl graphic on the door of the shower that said something like STEAM - O - RAMA!!!

You were stoked.

The Melody Lane Motel turned out to be one of the cleanest motels I have ever been to, and was as close to a time machine as you can get.

The next morning we went for some coffee as Tim at Melody Lane has not mastered that part yet.  We checked out of our room (and while doing so I peaked in the door behind Tim at the desk and saw a very old lady sitting in a rocking chair in what appeared to be a bedroom.  Weird.) and found this beauty.

In a town like Raton, NM, you don't expect to find an espresso bar.  We threw the screen door open to find one barista and 2 blue-collar gentlemen at the bar.  One older man sat at a lone table in the back corner reading, and Enchanted Grounds made one of the best Americanos I've tasted.  We sort of got some of those "You're not from Raton" looks and made our way out.  We had a long drive ahead anyway.

And the rest of the trip was a blur.
Rolled into Amarillo to see Nanny

Dog bites Nanny, I take her to the ER, you go see Ian
Mexican food before we leave town
Late night drive to Dallas
in the rain
like...
torrential downpour.
Stop at 1am in Dallas to crash on Rhonda's floor
Wake up
drive home
in the rain
like...
torrential downpour.

And it seemed like I blinked and our trip was over.  I told you the entire time that it was the best trip of my life, but truly, it was the. best. trip. of. my. life.

I can't wait to do it again.
Maybe we'll drive the other way.
Or Maybe not.