chestnuts roasting on an open fire....

one day, i will try a freshly roasted chestnut - but until i can find one of these i'll just sing about them.




Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping on your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.


Everybody knows a turkey and some mistletoe,
Help to make the season bright.
Tiny tots with their eyes all aglow,
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.


They know that Santa's on his way;
He's loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh.
And every mother's child is going to spy,
To see if reindeer really know how to fly.


And so I'm offering this simple phrase,
To kids from one to ninety-two,
Although its been said many times, many ways,
Merry Christmas to you !!!

the healthiest me i can be

so i've been reading several books lately that ... gasp ... aren't fiction! i know, so shocking! i never ONCE read a text book in college (except for my literature classes, but those were fiction or poetry so that doesn't count - i wanted to read those) and in high school i literally just skimmed. so for me to pick up 4 non fiction/text book type books in the past month and devour them is practically unheard of!

the first book i went through was YOU on a diet: waist management. this is a hilarious book that really teaches you how your body works - why eating one thing could cause another part of body to not work/function at it's full potential. it's not really a diet like the title suggests, more of a guide on how to optimize your body's performance. this is an amazing revelation if you are interested in better nutrition whether you're "big" or "little" already.

then i received a book from my mother-in-law called The Healthiest Kid in the Neighborhood by Dr. William Spears and his wife and two sons who are also doctors (pediatricians). if you have or are ever planning on having children - PLEASE READ THIS BOOK! i cried several times because i want to give eisley a better chance at being healthy and having a better body image than i received from my parents and i want to be a role model for her. Now, i'm not saying my parents did a bad job AT ALL! i can't remember a time when i was in school that we kept chips or cookies or soda - or anything like that at all in the house. in fact, i distinctly remembering training myself to like soda - it hurt sooooo bad at first to drink it - then of course it became easy :) so actually my parents gave me an incredible advantage starting out in that respect, but we also ate lots of mac-n-cheese and loads of other processed things with more salt or sugar per serving than one needs all day! i am an admitted salt junkie - if it's salty and has partially hydrogenated soybean oil in it, i probably like it! i can give or take sweets, but salty is where it's at. this book really has given me a new outlook on my role as a parent. the book mentions that we as parents naturally want the best for our children and also ourselves. we give them the best toys, the nicest clothes, want them to attend the best schools and get the best education, so why would we feed them sugar loaded breakfasts right before school that inevitably cause them to act out, fall asleep, zone out and not get the full experience at school and why would we feed them foods that break down their immune systems instead of fueling them so that they don't get sick as often? Since we as a family, my parents and shane's too, have been eating healthier, i can't tell you how much better i feel - more alert, happier, more energetic, i really like life again! If you never read this book, but i wish you would - remember these three things:

Never eat anything with these ingredients in them and you will be 90% of the way to eating very heathfully:

1. partially hydrogenated soybean oil


2. high fructose corn syrup


3. any dye/color followed by a number; red 40, yellow 5 etc...

then the next book i picked up was No Need for Speed: A Beginner's Guide to the Joy of Running by John Bingham. lauren, me, my mom and shane are going to run the bolder boulder in may (national pickle month by the way) and we are starting our training now. my mom and dad were runners before i was born and up until i was about 3 - they even wrote a running book - i can't find it anywhere online, but we have a copy somewhere in the basement. my dad has for probably the last 7 years been running again - on a treadmill because his knees can't handle concrete. my mom however, has not run since i was three - she actually ran the bolder boulder while she was pregnant with me! this is a great book too if you want to get into running - it lets you know it's ok that you're not going to be a marathoner overnight or even after a week's training for that matter. it's very inspirational and has lessons from everyday people like us that haven't been running that long and the changes it has made in them. The book has a quote in it that goes something like this, i don't have it in front of me so this paraphrased: when you untie the "nots" (reasons you are NOT capable, good enough, etc) you learn that you can change and you can change into the best you you can be. you may not be the best runner ever, but you can become the best runner you can ever be. as your outside changes you start to notice your soul change as well.

the fourth book, i'm still reading, is another running book called The Complete Book Of Running For Women by Claire Kowalchik. i just started it, but it's just geared, obviously, towards issues women face while running.

i'm excited to start my life, with the support of my family and friends - to become the healthiest me i can be!!!

the grieving process

it's funny...no, not funny at all, it's scary actually how random moments in life spark back into life emotions from long ago. i've been wanting to write about this for a while but at the same time haven't because i know it will be a tear filled experience, and as i am at work when i write these, i don't really want to be caught bawling in my office.

friday, june 16th, 2006. shane and i had just celebrated our first wedding anniversary on the 11th and were planning on taking the week after off from work due to some scheduling problem with his work. so on friday after work we went to the olive garden and enjoyed a nice meal together and talked of what we would do during our week off. we were poor back then, still are for that matter, and we couldn't afford to do anything too "fun" so we were just gonna hang around the house and maybe go to the zoo or something. on our way home, i specifically asked shane to go a certain way home. we couldn't though because of a police barricade obviously blocking us from an accident up ahead that was just out of sight. i immediately said a prayer for the people involved like i always do -it's something my mom always did in the car when i was a kid so i guess i picked that up. so we went the long way round instead. then we came across another police barricade blocking off a large section of highway. down the other side of the road we saw an ambulance coming - not racing - with its lights off. shane said "bummer, it's never a good sign when you see an ambulance with its lights off going to a car crash." i had no idea what he meant. so i asked "why?" "because someone died" he said. wow, if i had only known then.

we continued home and spent an hour or so goofing off and just laying upstairs talking. then shane's phone kept ringing, but we were on "vacation" so we weren't gonna answer phones. i purposely left mine downstairs so as to not be bothered at all. shane got a voicemail. his mom wanted him to call her and for me to call my dad. i knew then and my heart dropped that something bad had happened. i called my dad back after missing 4-5 calls from him. he didn't say hello, he didn't say anything reassuring like i wanted him to. he said "sit down. betsy died." i dropped the phone and screamed - one of those screams from a movie when a parent loses a child - one that you think they are making up, because no one really makes that noise. but they do, and so did i. shane called my dad back a few minutes later and put him on speaker and he told us what happened. betsy - my beautiful little betsy boo, her brother and her mom had been hit by truck while turning left across highway 287. betsy died instantly - thank god. joan was in the hospital barely alive. and marky was going to another hospital with some bad cuts and such. so i called everyone i knew, once i had it together a bit more, and asked them to all pray for them. i called lauren, it was her first day back to colorado - in fact she was still in the car. i called jenna and kathryn to see how they were. they didn't know yet. i couldn't be the one to tell them. i couldn't. they called me back frantic because no one would tell them anything - they knew someone died but they didn't know which someone. i couldn't tell them. i couldn't. shane and i held each other crying till we fell asleep. i woke up in the middle of the night screaming again.

we picked them up the next morning at the airport and now my vision of airports being happy places has changed. not everyone flying in is greeting friends and family and is excited about their stay - we ran to each other and cried for a long time holding each other. people stared, people shook their heads like we were ruining their happy time in the airport...whatever. that week of "vacation" was the most exhausting and emotional week of my life. i can't even imagine how much more exponentially hard it was for betsy's immediate family. they are the strongest family i have ever met and i greatly admire them all.

i went through a grieving process - i cried everyday for weeks about it. about all of our happy times, about regrets, about her lost future. i thought i was mostly over it. i started to only occasionally cry. jenna had moved back and i saw her a lot and that made it easier. then i hadn't cried in months. until we tried to watch the movie disturbia. if you've seen it then you know there is an horrific accident at the beginning and the boy's dad dies - i couldn't watch the rest - i again started to scream. it was too realistic - it was too much like what i thought she might have seen just before she died. it all came back too fast. i again cried for days - not as long as when it first happened, but a long time.

our good friends' puppy died this week. another little life taken too soon. so much potential so much promise. life is too short already and sometimes even shorter still. i've again cried for days and maybe that's ok.

spanksgiving!

so thanksgiving was last week! it was a blast as usual.

when i was little and actually up until about 4 years ago we spent every thanksgiving with one other family. we weren't related but since my family didn't have any other relatives in state and practically their whole family lived in colorado, we would spend it with them. it was fun, but i always felt like the odd man out - they were are very close and were really each other's family. now due to some interesting circumstances, we don't do holidays with them anymore.

but now, since we still do not have any family besides our imediate family here in the big CO, we get several families together who also don't have blood-family close by. we have essentially become our own NEW family! I love it so much! we had fifteen people around two tables this year - and since we're all pretty much grown up except for my little girl ( who napped during dinner :) ) there was a mature adult table and just a plain old adult table - NO KID TABLE! we added a new adult face this year and by next year there will be one more little face to sit with eisley at the "kiddie table"! we went around the table and popped open these cheezy party poppers that each had a paper crown, joke or riddle, and a small worthless prize inside, and said something we were thankful for that started with the first letter of our first name. the mature adult table kept true to it's title and said very mature things: charlie - christ, linda - love, mark - my wife (he cheated i think), Joan - jesus.....the plain old adult table should have been renamed the imature adult table because: shane - sex...no scratch that...special ed kids (yes that is my husband :) ), mark jr. - moobs ( man boobs ), Rueben - red heads....see it was fun! we then played some silly videos made at jibjab.com HILARIOUS! and played guesstures - again hilarious! anyways, i had/have a lot to be thankful for and i love my family and adopted family sooooo much!

here's just one of the funny videos i made:

may is national pickle month

lately, i have been drawing pickles. silly i know. pickles playing the piccolo. pickles on parade. pickles can do it all apparently :) i really like my little pickle family that i am creating - it's not by any means world shaking or moving - it's purely fun and mildly entertaining...at least shane and my mom tend to laugh at them. it's interesting to see how creativity flows out of you at different times. right now - everything is pretty light-hearted and playful. in college, most everything in my portfolio held some ideas/aspirations for my life but with sadly depressing undertones.

creativity. creating. out of nothing something comes to life. it's a pretty powerful concept. little old me can pause, think of something elaborate or mundanely simple, use my hands and in some medium bring that small glint of an idea into being. sometimes it's all you held in your head and more and sometimes it doesn't come close to the perfect image you were desiring. sometimes when your hands start to move, the idea morphs into something completely different. sometimes the image you create tells you a hard truth about yourself. sometimes you don't want to know these things. sometimes you're pleasantly surprised and sometimes deeply disappointed in your lack of ability. sometimes you touch people with your art. sometimes you hurt them. sometimes your social commentary isn't appropriate. sometimes it's the only way people will listen. sometimes it's the most important thing you will ever say. sometimes you just do it to be silly.

warm and fuzzy

what does the phrase "warm and fuzzy" bring to your mind? it used to bring images of little kids holding squirming puppies or how full my heart feels when i see a man holding his baby and smiling. those seem like good illustrations of the phrase "warm and fuzzy." and until recently, i held only good ideas in mind of that phrase...

the other morning, after the baby had an uncharacteristically bad night - waking up every hour on the hour - when i finally did get to sleep i was OUT! so, when i felt shane snuggle up close to me, like he does sometimes early in the morning before his alarm goes off, almost pushing me out of the bed, i didn't mind and got that "warm and fuzzy" feeling. "awww my hubby wants to cuddle me after a long sleepless night" i naively thought to myself. now, shane normally moves some so that i can actually pull my arms from the covers, but this time, he would not budge! i pushed and pushed and even groaned "move honey!" but to no avail. he wasn't going anywhere. so i rolled over as best i could and opened my eyes to a warm and fuzzy butt. yes, lewy's butt...not shane's peaceful sleeping face but a warm and fuzzy smelly butt. i was so asleep that shane's alarm went off, he got in the shower and lewy took his place and i didn't even notice. i immediately said very loudly "GET OUT LEWY" to which he, instead of getting out, played a dangerous game of peek-a-boo with his tail and the place the most heinous gasses can emerge. and that's the reason "warm and fuzzy" doesn't always bring good things to mind for me anymore.

he did eventually get out of the bed - but only with lots of brute force and threats of never seeing his kong toy again.

addictive behavior

i have an addiction. they say that the first step to overcoming an addiction is acknowledgement. so here i am, acknowledging it.

i am addicted to starbucks.

shhhhh....don't tell anyone though - i am only telling you - that is acknowledgement enough for now.

i wake up, i think of how delicious a tall soy one-pump carmel macchiato sounds. i get ready, i think how delightful a iced grande soy latte with one perfect splenda would be. i drive to work, i think of the way half-and-half looks like swirling smoke when you pour it into a venti iced coffee and how i might do anything to get one. inevitably i cave. i try and spend less than $5 when i go. and for the most part, i can somehow resist those little fluted cakey cookies so unprecociously named madeleines.

every friday i go to coffee club with loo-loo. we sit outside under green umbrellas talking and joking and in general just enjoying eachothers company. i love friday coffee club and am almost depressed when it doesn't happen for one reason or another. every sunday (almost) the crew we roll with goes to lunch (usually chipotle - i am not personally addicted to it - but i know three boys who are - YOU KNOW WHO ARE - acknowledgement is the first step to recovery!!!!) and then it's on to starbucks. we sit for a long long time talking and playing with the babies, in general just getting to know this new hodge podge family that god has created for us (strangely enough, this new family has mostly been brought together by starbucks. that is another blog in and of itself, but let's just say starbucks weaves in and out of all our lives!) My mom is also a fan of the "bucks" and orders with flare! she rollllllllllls her R's in "grrrrrrrrande" and sounds strangely italian or at least foreign when she says "tall cafe vanilla frappuccino light!" you might say she is my "enabler." she all too often buys me one of those enslaving beverages. i love my mom - for more reasons than just that, but that is high up on the list.

there are a few things i don't particularly like about starbucks 1.) can be habit forming - obvisouly 2.) a little high in price at times 3.) and it seems like they might be taking over the world.

But there are far more things i do like... it's a warm inviting place to meet friends, coworkers, or family, read a book, spend time writing, meet new people...etc. it's always full of holiday cheer :) and it's truly great coffee.

truthfully, i don't wanna get over it - i want to bathe in its warm, robust aroma

...just one more time...

blood on the ice

last night i went to my first ever hockey game. it was so much fun and we won!

i don't know what it is, but lately i have just been wanting to do stuff that is totally off from what i normally like to do. going to a sports game is definitely out of character for me. watching grown men fight like school boys over a poor call and getting paid way too much money for it usually doesn't sound fun. but, lately, it has...i got completely drawn into the world series - i even painted my fingernails and eisley's toenails purple to support the rockies...although it didn't seem to help them at all :( shane and i stayed up late watching the games and even went out to buffalo wild wings to watch the first game with a group of friends!

so at shane's work they drew names for four tickets and a parking pass to last night's avalanche game against the calgary flames (i know absolutely nothing about hockey, but i had actually heard of the flames before, so i felt pretty good about that). shane didn't win them, but our good friend emily did and invited us to go with her and her hubby chris. so we got a babysitter and had a mighty fine double date! the parking pass was for the VIP lot - sounds way cooler than it was, but it was very close - and the tickets were amazing!

row 13 (our heads were just above the glass) and just off to the side of the goalie - perfect for watching all four of the goals the avs made last night. there was a bloody fist fight and shane caught a pretty lame t-shirt! all in all, it was a great game, even though i didn't have a clue what was going on half the time.

it was a great night with people i love. i like trying new things and stepping out from my norm every once in a while. i am gonna start doing that more often!

fairy tales really do come true

once upon a time

a girl fell in love with a boy

they got a dog

they had a baby

their life is splendid.

the end.

poop breath when shane's gone

shane is home and i am happy. this has been a hard month for us. he has to go to trade shows for his job about 6 times a year and they are usually pretty spaced out. this month, however, there were two trade shows with only a week in between. this is how it usually works: he leaves early in the morning -giving me a kiss before he goes - and i am usually too asleep to say more than a mumbled "luhhbbuuuu honey"(i am sad that i never get it together enough to wake up with him and make him breakfast or do something special for him - my excuse lately is "the baby" - but bologna, she is the best baby and doesn't wake up till 6 or 7!) everyday i get up, take lewy out, get baby up, feed baby disgusting pureed things, and wait for shane to call. the entire time he is gone i wait for him to call or text me. i try and pass my days as quickly as possible. i miss him like i would if i had lost a lung or some other vital organ. it's hard to breathe when he's not here. i feel out of breath like i am running a marathon at 15,000 ft - well, just walking at that altitude will wind you! when he is gone, i realize how much he does for me (see below) and how much god desires us to be united with someone. it's also impossible to fall asleep quickly when he is not there next me. i am cold - and usually smelling dog farts, because lewy sleeps with me when shane is gone and prefers his butt to be in my face - not that his face would be any better - he has poop breath and snores - anyways, i am cold and my mind races with every strange creak or sound. so i usually turn the light back on, try and get lewy to reposition himself, and read something until my eyes are so heavy that i have to sleep. making dinner is not fun either without someone to share it with. so i usually just eat something microwaveable or ramen noodles. life is not nearly as fun without my hunny bunny there by my side.

but strangely enough, most times when shane gets home, i treat him horribly, like he went away on purpose just to make me feel lonely and inadequate at doing a two person job. i know this isn't the case and that he is heartbroken whenever he has to leave me and the baby and even poop face lewy. but for some reason i retaliate to the wrong person and treat him like dirt. i am working on being loving and respectful when he gets back, because i love him and truly never want him to feel unloved or unwanted! i don't know why i wrote that - i guess i just need to put down a visual reminder to myself to not take out my frustrations on him.

so now life is back to normal. my feet are warm at night and i only have soft breath on the back of my neck and i can make dinner for two!

things shane does that i take for granted (a partial list):

• takes lewy out everyday before i get up
• turns the bathroom light on AFTER he closes the door
• wakes up every other morning to feed the baby
• buy dog food on the way home from work so i don't have to make a special trip
• picks up milk or some other various grocery
• rents me movies on saturdays when he is gone most of the day to keep me occupied
• gives me his onions and pepperoccinis (sp?) from salads
• calls me everyday on his way home for lunch
• texts me every afternoon about 3 to say he loves me
• takes the baby on a walk when he gets home from work so that i can have 10 minutes to do whatever the heck i want
• folds the laundry - i help too
• does dishes - again i help too
• rubs my back
• plays with my hair
• makes up silly songs and jokes to make me laugh
• works at a job that he doesn't love to make enough for us to live on
• remembers my favorite thing at restaurants and orders it for me
• doesn't complain about how things are going - even though sometimes i wish he would
• whispers or mouths "olive juice" and funny weird times
• gets along with my parents like he truly is their son
• can't cook but for boiling water but would try if you asked him to

i could and should write more but it's time to go home - you get the idea i'm sure - he does everything for me!