ode to the joy of a couch

Note:  For the 33 of you that have already read the sleepy, first edition of  "Ode to the couch" blog, stick around for the photos.  For the rest of you...this is all new information.  Kisses.


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I'm coming to you live, from my new couch.  The one that feels like a velvet covered cloud and is the soothing color of a perfectly sweet creamed coffee.  We've had the couch for a week and 2 days and I haven't done one single bit of evening physical activity since this beautiful creature came in to our lives.  I cannot resist the chase lounge, the over stuffed pillows.  We've even spent the night on it.  Both of us. And we slept better than we do in our bed.  This could be very very bad.


I've caught up on about 5 tv shows that I never even heard of before.  Which is easy because I don't really watch tv.  I have accidentally found some tv I enjoy via the netflix, but hulu is a different game entirely.  Hulu and this couch have given me blogger's block.  Every time I belly up to my desk to write, I get tense and figity, distracted by the siren song of the couch and the hulu.


It took me a week and 2 days to give up the fight and cave completely, bringing the laptop to the couch.  My giant comfy blanket and my holiday jammie pants are made of the same material. I'm encased in velvety goodness, velcroed to this spot, peering over the top of my laptop fearful that the witch hunters will burn to to get rid of her dark magic.  Name the terrible CW show.


But the writer's block is gone:)  When you can't move your ass from the couch to the desk, bring the desk to the couch I guess.  And then write about said couch.  


This is no way to get ready for the Warrior Dash or a Tough Mudder or even the Pumpkin Festival 5k.  I feel an intervention coming.


Or, it could be that my body needs this little piece of heaven just now.  I have been crazy content, it's been building day by day since December.  I'm taking deeper breathes, reading books, cooking new meals from new cookbooks.  I'm journaling meals, complete with pictures, giddy with the idea that someday the girls will pick up this "cookbook" to find not only delish recipes, but their momma's sense of humor, and memories of how we always partied in the kitchen.  


I'm not crashing on the couch every night.  I'm sitting here reading.  Real books, from start to finish.  I've been reading the same 3 books for about 3 years.  This couch comes along and BAM!  New book done in less than a week.  This couch is making me smarter.  Fatter...but smarter.


When I'm not pining over furniture, some good work is getting done around here.  A massive purge of excess toys brought more organization to several rooms in our new house.  Finally, I feel like these rooms have their own purpose, a specific function rather than just places we dumped our stuff 6 months ago.  We've lived in a lot of houses over the last 10 years and each time, there is a moment when I realize the house has become our home.  When our people arrived last weekend for Autumn's 15 birthday, and everyone was settling into their rooms and tossing suitcases around like they would stay for ever...I felt that moment.  


I love walking by a room and seeing suitcases open, things tossed about.  It means someone is visiting:)


Fast forward 24 hours.  After a peaceful snowed in Sunday at home, I just jumped on here to enjoy some of my frick'n amazing chili and finish this blog.  Add some photos and call it good.  But what I saw was 33 page views.  For a blog post I did not send out into the universe. Except... I did.  In my couch drunk stupor, I must have "posted" the blog instead of "saved" it.

I am too cool.

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My girl turned 15 on January 17th. 15.  Fifteen.  Quince.  It blows my mind.  Of my three children, the story of how Autumn came to us is my favorite .  She was the unplanned game changer of my life.  In 3 minutes my life went from one of total self absorption to one of possibility.  The possibility of knowing love so intense and overwhelming, you lose yourself in it.  You would throw yourself in front of a freight train for it.  That 15 seconds of peeing on a stick, followed by 165 seconds of watching a second blue line appear, forged a bond between myself and that cluster of cells that would forever change the course of my life. In 3 minutes, I become a mother, without hesitation, reservation or regret.


By the time I got pregnant with Annika I knew I was capable of sharing this love with however many children the universe blessed me with.  


I knew I loved being pregnant and could rock it.


I had breastfeeding down.  I could feed nations.


I could work off the baby fat in 12 months with out sacrificing Mexican food. 


And when we decided to see if God and my old eggs could rally one last time, I was content with what I had, so Liam was the cherry on top.  He is ALL dessert baby.


And as much as I believe each of my children is nothing short of a miracle, the truth is that neither Annika or Liam would have ever even had a chance...without Autumn.


My girl.

Well hello baby girl. 

Look at my girl now.  Totally confident in her style...eat'n an apple.  I think she is the coolest.

My favorite part of birthday weekends?  The long, lazy mornings.

with superman...

and Grandmas...

Grandmas who wear Ed Hardy glasses rule.

Grandma's who wear Superman t-shirts rule.

and favorite cousins...

I'm not a big shopper.  As a matter of fact, you could know me for a very long time and never hear me utter the words "Let's go shopping!!"  No, it's typically more like "Ugh, I have to go shopping, will you go for me?"

But for some reason, my 3 Aries loves can sweet talk me into just about anything, even a Saturday of shopping.  How do they do it?

From left to right: Libra, Aries, Aries, Scorpio (me), Capricorn and... Aries.

The Aries.  They are lovely, complicated creatures.  I seem to be wildly attracted to them as well, even though as a Scorpio their over the top enthusiasm for life and right on the surface emotions require a lot of focus.

I have 4 Aries in my "inner circle" already, and I recently befriended another one without even realizing it. There is something going on here.  I'll get back to you when I complete my research:)

I love it when family hangs out in my kitchen.

And it always happens.  I've lived in houses where the kitchen is the smallest room in a tiny house and without fail, we end up piled high, sitting on counter tops and floors with wine in hand chatting away.  Standing room only, the rest of the house available, but no...the kitchen is the heart of the home in my family. 

My family + my husband's family + our family + eating a giant breakfast in my house = over the moon, swooning, gushing, cheesy joy! 

Yup.  We are home.

Speaking of my home.  I need your help.  

I have A LOT of windows that need A LOT of help in the window treatment department.  At the moment there are blinds on them.  I hate blinds. I'm grateful the former owners left them on, because this would be a giant fishbowl peep show if not for the terrible beige blinds.  But we aren't really "beige" blinds kind of people.

Having said that, I am struggling to find a beautiful, creative and affordable way to cover all these fracking windows.  I would like to spend less than 300.00, but so far that seems unlikely. 

The big issue is that anytime you are going to toss up this much fabric, it needs to not overwhelm the room.  I want to make them myself, but what fabric?!?!? 

There are more, I just can't get them all in the photo.

Please, please help a sister out.  

Happy Chinese New Year!  And don't forget to give my other little project some love when you can! XOXOXOXOXO

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the mother of all holiday posts

My husband begged me not to name this blog "the mother of all holiday blog posts"...the expectations will be sky high.  I laughed at the idea that anyone has "expectations"of the nerd herd blog.  He's cute.


So I'm moving along through December, making cookies, shopping online, snapping photos and enjoying my Christmas jams when I realize that I hadn't had a "short" moment in almost 20 days.  I was totally and completely present.  I didn't review photos or write a single word beyond the occasional status update.  It felt good to neglect everything but my family and Christmas tasks.  It has been quite some time since days have flowed together so effortlessly and I've felt tears of joy well up in my eyes.  The ride through each day took me to a place in my heart that desperately needed the visit.  


Sometimes my husband looks over to find happy tears coming.  It used to happen quite often.  A peaceful snowy Sunday snowed in with the kids, a good video game and chili on the stove could overwhelm my heart with gratitude.  For a husband who shares the exact same interests and for kids who love to spend time at home, with their family.  Daughter's who sew with me or beg to play hearts.  A little man who insists his dad keep his Superman jammie pants on for an entire Saturday.  Such good stuff.  


Over the last year, I was very careful to protect my heart from fully breaking.  I tread lightly in all emotions for fear sadness would take root permanently.  When you do that, it works but the price is that joy and gratitude get through in small doses as well.  And in recent years, those are the two emotions that have driven my creativity, my photography and writing, my mothering style and dictating what kind of wife, daughter and friend I strive to be.  Joy and gratitude for my unbelievable life. 


But December 2011 may go down as the month of tears of gratitude.  Something happened, my heart opened up and accepted whatever the universe offered.  Of course there was the deep punching pain of our first Christmas without Maria...as expected.  But I was shocked to find so much peace in just thinking about her, in recalling our last holiday with her.  


I allowed myself to feel it all, and was rewarded with peace.  


Here is something my husband hears a few Sundays a year..."I'm just going to stay up as late as I can with you and be wiped out at work tomorrow.  I just want to keep this going."  Sometimes, the fleeting 48 hours of a weekend are so painfully precious that I fight to stretch it out until only a death like sleep can take them away from me.


He heard that every weekend in December. I've spent a lot of tired days at work, but a girl has got to have priorities. 


My priorities:


Her first formal.

Homemade Christmas gifts.









Christmas cookie marathons









Skipping family photos so that Liam can explore the set instead.



When the dancing starts, cookies get pushed wayyyyyyyyyyyyy down the priority list.



Getting to Brandon's family was the highest priority this year. Between my need to be close to my family for support and healing, the packing and moving and building a new life in South Dakota, we have been far too absent. Upon reflection, we realized that it had been a year since we had all been together at their house. We took time off to ensure we could spend 2 full days. As we drove north my husband spoke excitedly about the upcoming weekend, how pleased he was with finding the perfect gifts and how he was going to insist that I relax. Really relax. And sleep in late (I did) and unplug (I did) and just be together.





As much as I love my husband's feet, this is about my awesome new Christmas jammies.



And this is about awesome new flash cards from Grandma.



New babies in the family.



Laughter, sweet, precious laughter.



My mother in law's home is always ...home. perfectly manicured for every season but not over done.






Liam is finally old enough to really get Kimass. It blew his mind that we were letting him...in deed encouraging him, to rip apart pretty paper and tear open boxes. And even crazier, that inside each of these were trucks & super hero "guys" & books & tools and...oh my.



It was perfect. From start to finish. 


Well, almost. Mother nature took the year off, she must still be recovering from the show she put on last winter.  I miss the snow.


But back to some faces I love in places I love:




And then we came home to do it all again in our home with my family.












So...that is the mother of all holiday posts. In re-reading it, I realize all that  really happened is that we did what most people do this time of year.  See a little more beauty, become a little more generous and kind, offer more smiles, laugh a little more and make "getting there" a priority. It was good.


I think we'll keep it going.


Happy New Year to you and yours. XOXOXOXOXO