100 somethings i love in no order

i love to take hot baths. i would rather be dirty than have to take a cold bath or a hot or cold shower.

i love to love my husband. i loved him in one form or another since 8th grade.

i love my black sweatpants that my mom gave me for my birthday in high school. it's the only material/clothing item i love. i wear them with tennis shoes, high heals, flip flops or boots. i wear them with a tshirt or a sweatshirt or a tank top or a sweater or even with a fur coat. year round. i wear them to work, to work in the yard, out to a movie, or even to sleep.

i love to be with my family. i love my husband again (and again) because he loves to be with my family. i would rather lay on my mom and dad's couch reading magazines and scrathing backs, over going to a ball.

i love my husband's family. both sets. i love when we are all together. not both sets all together. but each set together.

i love seasonal meals. homeade chicken pot pie for winter, canteloup wrapped in ham or prosuitto for spring, tomatoes with every meal for summer and burgoo with crushed up zesta crackers for fall.

i love to look at my husband's paintings. i can stare at them for long periods of time.

i love to re-do a space and create an ambiance.

i love to cone other's ears.

i love to go to work. i love to go to work especially when there is a big challenge for the day. i love our team. every one of them.


i love to go on road trips in rhonda's mini-van.

i love to even just go for a ride in town in the mini-van...just to talk.

i love to cook for others. i love the preparation. the more chopping and sauteing, the better.

i love to have parties at home.

i love to re-realize everyday that God is in control of everything, and i am in control of nothing. i have to re-realize it everyday, bc/ i so easily slip back into not belieiving that.

i love to change the colors that i love. i love shades of a color. i could eat a pantone book.

i love to mix old with new, modern with classic, shiny with flat.

i love front porches. if ever i am still alive old without my husband, i'll live in a house with a front porch with all my fab 5.

i love to love my sibling's children. helicopter aunt.

i love when they have sleep overs at our house. (forts and movies and snacks whenever they want them, and no bedtime regulations.)

i loved to play the violin. haven't played enough for years... but loved doing a recording with my husband last spring.

i loved my grandparents so much that i cry outloud or silently in my mind everytime a thought of them crosses my mind.

i love my husband's grandparents. there is something so revealing about learning from 2 generations down.


i love lighting. proper lighting. i cringe at flourescent lighting.

i love snow cream.

i love cheesy movies like STEP UP.

i love documentaries that teach us something that we otherwise wouldn't realize. (matt researches to find good ones for us all the time..)

i love that my great aunt kept diaries her whole life. and the closest i come to that is blogging?!

i love to be with my 4 best friends from high school, alone.


i love to do without.

i love to realize that we don't need much.

i love my brother and my 2 sisters. i have a distinctively different relationship with each of them. sometimes i love them so much that it hurts.

i love my unique silent friendship with kelle. one of those where we don't have to talk to communicate.

i love to constantly remind myself of all the bad things i have done/pain i have gone through to get to where i am today. what a ride!

i love the word "we".

i love my relationship with my dad. it spans from sitting on his bathroom counter every morning when i was little...talking to him while he shaved and got ready, to being really mean to him for 20 years, to then finally realizing that he was not the root of any of my problems... i was. now, there's no one i admire more.

i love my relationship with my mom. it spans from her loving me unconditionally from day of birth to now, but me being mean to her for 20 years. (once again - nothing to have been mad at her about...it was me.) she is absolutely the most lovely lady i know. i hope to "mother" just like her.

i love that my husband could be a rock star, but he's so humble that he would never think he could.

i love to look through anyone's picture albums.

i love to watch my best friends become such incredible parents to their children.

i love to remenisce the experience of living in istanbul for 3 years.

i love that i have been fortunate enough to have literally seen the world.

i love to now live in a small town.

i love that most of our family lives within 1 mile from our house.

i love to have time to drink coffee at home with my husband on sunday's before church.

i love to have coffee at matt's grandparents house and at his mom's house.

i love dairy queen grape mister misty freezes in the summer, around 9pm.

i love that everyone waves in our town.

i love that my mom has created and maintained so many traditions for us. (this pic is from cousin book swap 2006!)

i love to tell my little sister what i'm giving her for christmas or birthdays, before it's time.

i love murphy's oil soap on the wood floors.

i love layers.

i love bookstores that smell like coffee.

i love junkstores, if the smell is right.

i love buying junk, then de-junking every once in a while, and donating it back to the goodwill store.

i love picture walls.

i love big art.

i love glass, by stephen powell.

i love fine, plain white china.

i love centerpieces.

i love white panties, even though i usually don't wear any.

i love names. how in the world will we decide which one our babies get?

i love sitting in my mom's lap. i dream about a baby of ours sitting in her lap.

i love when mm and martha smack their lips when they eat, but anyone over 2 years old that smacks absolutely drives me up the wall. i really should go to rehab to deal with my issue with it.

i love targeting either alone or with friends or mom and sisters, but not with matt. www.target.com

i love laying by the pool, but don't like swimming in the pool.

i love the sea in the south of turkey, preferably on a sail boat for a long weekend.

i love turkish food. not only the taste, but the whole ceremony of serving and eating it.

i love costa rica...seeing it by 4-wheeler.

i love the shower in our costa rican bungalo. with walls, but no roof. it's the only showers i have ever loved.

i love cheese. anything from good imported cheese, to laughing cow triangles at sureway.

i love black leather moleskin squared notebooks. size large. 240 pages. i go through 1 every 2-3 months. www.modoemode.com

i love our local newspaper. www.thegleaner.com
however - i hate to read the new "post comments" section after every article. it is so sad to me to read the visciousness of people, hiding behind a screen name.

i love a simple barnes & noble, starbucks, double feature movie saturday.

i love branswager and cheese cracker sandwich with nu-grape in a bottle. haven't had it in years.

i love cold water with lime.

i love hot water with lemon and honey.

i love a plethora of white candles.

i love lale. she'll be my next blog.

grasping. grasping. getting hungry for dinner.
there's no good way to end this.
love.
c

un-frazzling

today my dad asked me over and over again, "what is wrong, honey?"

i could only respond, "i am frazzled."

i really don't know what is frazzled. several weeks ago, we flew to nyc to get away for a long weekend (a surpirse from matt for my birthday). we just spent the past 2 holiday weeks thoroughly enjoying our family and friends. we are healthy, as is everyone we love. we have a lovely home and a crazy dog that is calming down, finally. we live 2 blocks away from our work, which conveniences us to run home to use the restroom, if we want. we live anywhere from a 1 block to 6 block radius to the majority of our family members. did i mention that i married my childhood friend and soul mate 7 months ago? everything in our life is really alittle too good to be true.

when i am frazzled, the thing that brings me back is to do something alone. so, i just sent matt to a movie and then to the airport to pick up his brother from india. i decided to stay home alone to take a quick night nap. (i must be tired? i never do that?) i just woke up and heated up a smorgesborg of leftovers from our new year's eve party. then, i thought, to un-frazzle - - maybe i would start a journal in the same journal that i never completely filled 18 years ago. (i just found it upstairs last week in a box of stuff...). instead, i'll attempt a blog. it might only last several sessions. i never know.

snapfish is aggravatingly slow lately. maybe i can share pics on this instead. where is the spell check on this thing?
i'm just realizing as i type what could be frazzling me. i am so fortunate to go to work everyday with a father, brother, a sister, 3 brother-in-laws, one of my best friends, and a husband. some wonder how it works...how could that many members of a family work together? well. it just works. it just does. i cannot imagine enjoying or excelling at anything else. quite frankly, the job saved my life 10 years ago. anyway - - i am just realizing that i never really think about much other than work because i feel so passionately about it, it is our family's livelihood, and (what i am really trying to say) - we are a newly-wed couple that is together literally 24 hours a day. matt decompresses with painting and studio recording sessions and discovery channel marathons. i should go to the gym, but for now, i think i need a blog to un-frazzle. OTHER THAN JEANS will be the title, and this will be the last time work is mentioned. wow. i already feel better.