Perhaps you thought I fell in a snow bank and got stuck

Bullet point catch up:

• Enjoyed 11 days of gorgeous warm weather and sunshine


• Missed my wife


• Took the grueling 3 day California Bar Exam


• Survived


• Visited with Mom, Michelle, Mey, Eamonn, Silas, David, Amy, Shannon, Brady, Maedell, Harold, Uncle Steve


• Went for many many walks outside without freezing


• Got heartwarming news that made tears run down my face, the good kind of tears that were uncontrollable and got caught in the corners of my smile


• Realized how much I missed Los Angeles


• Loved my morning walks to Starbucks, even better when my mom joined me


• Ate real Mexican food


• Spent a very fun but very long day at Disneyland and California Adventure


• Shopped at Trader Joe's (oh how I miss TJ's) - thanks Michelle!


• Celebrated my mom's birthday with shots of vodka, the beach, a play and family


• Witnessed my nephew walking


• Visited an open house - just a mere $2 million and the house could be mine


• Confirmed that I am ready to make a big change and move to California again
  

Journal of [] me who is tired of wearing a wool coat

Wordless Wednesday

This is my first Wordless Wednesday post so I am allowing myself a few words. First, thanks to Tina for the idea. Second, this is one of my favorite wedding pictures - the scenery, the colors, my beloved, it all just takes my breath away.

Celebrate Love with the eyes

Nothing says LOVE like THIS girl looking at me like THAT


Or like THIS


Or even like THIS



Happy Valentine's Day to a girl who knows what to do with her eyes from Journal of a girl who melts in your presence

The Things We Borrow

I am a pretty average person, live my life in a pretty average way and can generally relate to people pretty well. So when I sat down to think about the borrowed theme for today, in honor of Freedom to Marry week, I realized that the average person borrows a lot each day. This is not a bad thing. We all borrow and we all allow others to borrow. The most common uses of the word borrow are

to take or obtain with the promise to return the same or an equivalent (I would like to borrow your red dress for my hot date tonight. I'll give it back unless it gets ripped off of me and then I'll buy you a new one.)

to use, appropriate, or introduce from another source (I borrowed this definition from dictionary.com)

I borrow things because I like to improve myself everyday. Some people are good writers, or builders, or joke tellers, or cooks, or deep thinkers or sex goddesses, or political genius', or financial wizards, or mothers, or satirists, or drivers. We borrow ideas and learn from other people everyday. Borrowing is good. Some people have a collection of really good books to borrow too, or good clothes, or recipes.

I don't know when, how or why the tradition of borrowing something for one's wedding came to be (and I am not sure I really want to know, probably some crazy man, woman, you are my property now, crap) but we used it at our wedding to honor the person we borrowed it from. Both B and I held hankies from our grandmothers. My everyday borrowing doesn't necessarily honor the person allowing the borrow, but in some ways it does.

Things I have borrowed:

• "Your hand fits my hand" the quote inside B's wedding band


• B's good mood on days when I don't have one


• fashion advice from my new Glamour magazine


• a book from the library


• playfulness from the kittens


• wedding ideas from the knot


• the bathrobe I am now wearing


• ideas from my fellow bloggers


• sentimental feelings from the people I love (turning them into my own)


• this template from blogger


• song tunes

Journal of [the] giving and taking that makes the world go round

Freedom to Marry - An old picture of my dad

In honor of Freedom to Marry Week I am following the call from The Other Mother to post something old. Here is the schedule she created: we'll see if I can keep up.

Tuesday, Feb. 10... Something Old
Wednesday, Feb. 11... Something New
Thursday, Feb. 12... Something Borrowed
Friday, Feb. 13... Something Blue
Saturday, Feb. 14... Valentine's Day: Celebrate Love


This is a picture of my dad a long time ago, making it relatively old to me. The significance of the photo is the person in it. He is significant in my life for many reasons but he also played a large role in my freedom to marry. Not only did he actually perform my marriage, but he enabled it (homosexual enabler as hate-spreading Phelps likes to say, loving, intelligent father, as I like to say).

He enabled my freedom to marry by teaching and loving with his heart first, always. He has spent more than half of his life shaping and creating his daughters. He has taught me to be stubborn, to not take any crap and to fight for the kind of change I'd like to see in this world. His kind eyes and gentle gestures have shaped me into a person willing to see the good in people, places and things and to be patient with the tides of change, but not sit back and let the tides change me (too much).

The young boy in the picture above is the person I know as my dad. He has enabled this daughter to seek happiness and to find freedom in marrying the person she loves. The freedom (ability) to be able to marry whomever one wants is important but to find freedom (comfort, happiness) in marrying, while the world is judging so harshly, is a gift I am lucky enough to have received.


Journal of a positive enabler (I hope)

Time Flies...

Well, it's been a week since I posted last and it's been 3 months since the wedding, so I thought I'd post about how we thought it was finally time to get the thank you cards out. We printed these awesome cards from shutterfly. And we just finished filling them all out - they will go in the mail tomorrow.



In other news it's about time to help our kittens find their forever homes. This weekend we will take them to the adoption clinic and hope that nice sweet people will adopt them. They have grown so well in our house and they've developed such wonderful little personalities.







Journal of an extremely unimaginative post

February Flowers

Happy February!
In honor of the (commercialized) month of love and flowers I would like to introduce my budget wedding flowers. I laid down three Lincolns at Costco and got a stunning mixture of colorful roses.

Each guest was handed a rose as they lined up along the aisle. As I walked down I greeted each guest and collected their flower. It was a wonderful way to say hello to everybody and have each person be a part of the 'building of the bouquet'. At the end of the aisle my mom and sister helped bind the flowers with ribbon and viola, my bouquet was born!








Journal of a flower