Sunday, February 27, 2011

Things we learned we loved this weekend.

We love this.

And this.

And this.

And this... SJ in Andrew's Build-A-Bear Buzz Lightyear suit:






And clean laundry/a full underwear drawer/new, clean, white sheets.

We're pushing through the next 24 hours until Scotty's last final is behind us! We have a big week ahead of us, but it's so nice to know that school will not be a factor for two whole weeks! We're excited to go to the gym again. We're excited to get the next movie in our netflix queue. We're excited to go SKIING this Saturday. We're excited to sit down and have dinner together... at the same table... at the same time... We're excited to take a trip! And we're excited to no longer have days that seem to run into the next and the next and the next... as if one week is all one big, long, day.

Thank goodness for our blow-off-steam night of awesome, active, games, lots of laughing, excellent food, and spending time catching up with good friends at a traditional Zarbock date night. And thank goodness for nephews and nieces, who always make us laugh and forget whatever it is we were stressed about.

And thank goodness for our washer and dryer. The pair and I have been in a co-dependent relationship all weekend. We have full closets and dressers to show for it!

I spent this evening reorganizing my bills/insurance info/virtually everything in the kitchen... it feels good to know I'm starting my week actually semi-prepared for what Monday brings.

One day more! (to the tune of Les Mis.)

Friday, February 18, 2011

Gonna Make This Garden Grow...

Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe
And a piece of fertile ground.

Inch by inch, row by row
Someone bless these seeds I sow
Someone warm them from below
'Til the rain comes tumbling down

Pulling weeds and pickin' stones
Man is made from dreams and bones
Feel the need to grow my own
'Cause the time is close at hand




"Inch By Inch" has been my favorite song since I first heard it as a twelve-year-old. I first heard it at the ranch. It will most definitely be my bedtime song for a future baby. For me, it's not just a song about a garden. It's a song about creativity. It's about creating ourselves from scratch. It's about making choices in our lives and then seeing our choices create something bigger. It's about being authentic, working with our hands, and creating something we're proud of... even creating and pruning ourselves. I had no idea it was also a children's book. Do I have any excuses to ask Scott to buy me this book? When is the next holiday?

I know we just had a holiday. It was Valentine's Day, and we had a wonderful night! Scott and I both worked on V Day and came home to each other after long days. I was off a half-hour before Scotty was. I figured that half hour would allow me plenty of time to drive home, clean the house, plan a dinner, run to the store, prepare that dinner, and set the table all ready to go by the time Scott came home. Of course that was ridiculous, and I had only made it home and through half the dishes by the time Scotty called to say he was heading home. Scott, being his wonderful self, took half my load off my hands. He had me text him a list, and he grocery shopped AND brought home dinner. He even made me a lovely movie all about us and how much he loves me. I love when Scott makes me movies! I love that he expresses himself through making videos. I love having them as a record of our relationship. I'd put it on the blog so you could all see how great he is, but I'm keeping it special for me!

We're continuing our celebration by going KITE SKIING tomorrow! Uh huh... I hope I don't blow away!

So I'm a pretty lucky girl with a pretty awesome husband and a pretty fabulous life. I guess I don't need to be making wish lists with children's books on them.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

This Makes Me So Happy!

56 Worst/Best Analogies of High School Students

Apparently the Washington Post held a contest in which high school teachers sent in the “worst” analogies they’d encountered in grading their students’ papers over the years:

1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

2. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.

3. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

4. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

5. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

7. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

8. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

11. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

12. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.

13. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

14. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

15. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at asolar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

16. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

17. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

18. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

19. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

20. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

21. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

22. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

23. Even in his last years, Grand pappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it hadrusted shut.

24. He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place that hunts dogs, I suppose.

25. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

26. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

27. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

28. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

30. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

31. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

32. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

33. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

34. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

35. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be
buried in the credits as something like “Second Tall Man.”

36. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

37. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.

38. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

39. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.

40. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.

41. They were as good friends as the people on “Friends.”

42. Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein’s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.

43. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.

44. He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo.

45. The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747.

46. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.

47. The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.

48. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.

49. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can’t sing worth a damn.

50. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

51. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.

52. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake.

53. You know how in “Rocky” he prepares for the fight by punching sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat locker he was in.

54. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

55. Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an inattentive phlebotomist.

56. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at 10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10 percent black.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

We Learned A New Song

...and it's a fun one!

If I were a flower growing wild and free
All I'd want is you to be my sweet honey bee.
And if I were a tree growing tall and green
All I'd want is you to shade me and be my leaves

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

If you were a river in the mountains tall,
The rumble of your water would be my call.
If you were the winter, I know I'd be the snow
As long as you were with me, let the cold wind blow

If you were a wink, I'd be a nod
If you were a seed, I'd be a pod.
If you were the floor, I'd wanna be the rug
And if you were a kiss, I know I'd be a hug

If you were the wood, I'd be the fire.
If you were the love, I'd be the desire.
If you were a castle, I'd be your moat,
And if you were an ocean, I'd learn to float.

All I want is you, will you be my bride
Take me by the hand and stand by my side
All I want is you, will you stay with me?
Hold me in your arms and sway me like the sea.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Joan Walsh Anglund

Scotty's right. I blog more about the tiny humans than anything else.

My grandma gave me three darling little books she's had forever. They're illustrated beautifully, edges worn wonderfully, and fit perfectly in the wicker-arched bookshelf that originally sat in my grandpa's basement.

So instead of blogging about the tiny humans, I'll share some Joan Walsh Anglund that I've recently loved.

"Reason is the sentinel of the mind...but the doorway to the heart is unguarded."

"Be as the stars, unchanging in the firmament, guiding others through the darkness by your steadfast light."

"The greatest pain is the estrangement from one's true self."

"The unveiling of one's soul is the reason for existence."

"Fill your heart with Beauty, and Beauty will come to you. Fill your thoughts with Love, and Love surrounds you. Seek always Truth and it shall be yours. For as you believe are all things made manifest unto you."

I'm not sure we've ever played light sabers.

Fact: There's nothing cooler than nephews and nieces. For example: I get a phone call today from my sister. It is VIP week at school and Andrew needs to make a poster about himself for his classroom. Kirsten decided she'd make one for Ben and Sarajane while they're at it. She was asking them questions about their favorite food, favorite story, favorite game... etc. She asked Andrew, "What is your favorite holiday?" Like a normal kid, he said, "Christmas!" She asked Benjamin, "What is your favorite holiday?" Ben answers, carefully calculated and wide-eyed, "My favorite holiday is when Lindsey comes over to play light sabers with me!"

Who else considers hanging out with me to be on equal par with a holiday? Only this guy.

These are pictures from the weekend we spent up at Kirsten and Nick's cabin with the kids. We went sledding, caught up on some sleep, ate delicious food, and built our first snowman of the season. It was a blast!



We went up to Kirsten and Nicks last night for a Thanksgiving dinner in January. It was delicious, and so fun to hang with the kids and watch them in action at FHE. Sarajane was singing along to the piano, and Ben went nuts during Duck Duck Goose, running all around the main floor. Andrew loved FHE, and it was so fun to watch him get so excited about it, "I just love these times!" Such funny little people. I especially loved how Ben would try to run through our legs every five or ten minutes.