Grey Days

Oh, hey.

After dragging through the rainy, icy coldness that was yesterday, I sprung out of bed early on time this morning to ensure that I could get some espresso in my body to better brace myself for another grey day. Personally, I love these kinds of days--when I'm not at work, cooped up inside with three energetic kiddos. I think I've explained the concept of "sharing" and "taking turns"about three zillion times in the past two hours. But you know what? I'm so grateful for this job, for baby kisses, for my home, my kitten son, my love, real conversations, new coffee shops, good books and hot tea. Deciding to be thankful and intentional, and then actually following through has been so wonderful. Why didn't I do this earlier?

Takeback

And this is the post where I take all my whining back.

I've been slowly making my way through Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies, and not so slowly falling in love with her writing and story telling all over again. With my whining and self pity still heavy on my mind last night, I curled up in bed with this book and read with my heart in my throat the whole time. 

You know those days where you really just want to feel sorry for yourself? That was my day yesterday.  I think I've been ignoring how exhausted I am, which has made everything else seem a lot more overwhelming than it normally would. Even though everything I was feeling was real and true, I gave it way too much power over my life and my mind. Anne talks about her "Bad Mind" kicking in and doing some pretty decent, self-inflicted damage---100% me, yesterday. And in one chapter, she talks about a man who worked for the Dalai Lama, speaking to an overwhelmed woman who sat by him on the train: 

"He said--gently--that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born"

Now I don't think that a lot of things were necessarily going wrong in my life, but sometimes it certainly feels like it--especially when I let it feel that way. Anne later talks about a particularly terrible day and how it was resolved, saying, 

"Back in the saddle again, I thought to myself, the story of my life. I still did not know what was trying to distract me so it could get itself born, but I felt happier than I had in a long time"

Heart in throat, tears brimming my eyes, Anne Lamott totally called me out. I really don't have all the answers, or everything planned out, or the best way to deal with stress in my life, or any idea what to do "next" in life...but I have had so many lovely things already born, and many more to come in my life.

Everything I complained about has a positive flip side and I just chose to ignore it, yesterday and on so many other occasions. I just love the raw honesty that I've encountered in Traveling Mercies, and how it plucked me out of the self pity party that I threw for myself yesterday. 

Le Sigh, Will I Ever Learn?

I threw myself a pathetic pity party before I went to sleep last night. Miles did his best to cheer me up, but I was deep in it...for the smallest reasons (adding up to something a touch overwhelming). We still haven't closed. I've unpacked a little more of our stuff, but was reminded Friday that this house still isn't ours when the seller's wife came by the house and asked  bunch of weird questions about closing. We've been waiting for a month to close on this house, held up by a lot of things to do with the seller leaving the country (for a family emergency) without signing the proper documents for our closing. And on Friday, his wife basically asked me what the hold up was...

So there's that. 

And then a bunch of little silly things that I let build up in my mind, resulting in last night's tearfest.

Then, I woke up this morning feeling like a fool and my eyes still stinging from crying over...nothing, basically. Nothing that should hold any real weight in my life. Yes, we haven't really felt like we're at "home" for a couple months now, this process his dragged out longer than I could have imagined. But we're freaking buying a house. Its so amazing that we even have the opportunity to do that. And I have several other things to be thankful for about my life right this moment. I spend too much time dreaming of the future, even if its only seven days into the future, my mind is there and my heart longs for it, and then I miss out on what is right in front of  me. These things are right in front of me:

• for one year and one week, I have been married to my sweet man
• he bought me this book for our anniversary. I'm only a few stories in, and I've already cried several times 
• even though we now know I am not a top of the mountain vacation girl (whereas Miles was 100% in his element), Boo still loves me
• I trimmed by bangs last night and I don't look like a total dweeb (win!)
• even though its not "my" kitchen yet, I still lovelovelove cooking in it
• Boo got his hair cut for the first time in over a year last week, and it looks so. good.
• He also decided that he's going to cut his hair more often now. Glory halleluyer!
• my nanny baby was so happy to see me after over a week off work
• my heart nearly exploded when I saw le bebe after aforementioned work break
• Singin' in the Rain 60th anniversary showing on Thursday night (doh, thats in the future. but still)

No more pity parties, Bethany. Stop it.

On another note, I have so many photos in my camera from the past month. For the life of me, I cannot find my USB cord in any of our boxes!  I'm sure I'll end up ordering a new one, and then finding my old one immediately thereafter.

Third Thursday

Yeah, I know this is a day late. And that I've completely forgotten to do this since I first resolved to. But I'll try to do better, knowing that I have no excuses...

Here is a little list of things that I am thankful for, I fell asleep thinking about them once I realized I forgot about this post. It really was a wonderful way to fall asleep, even if I had weird dreams all night. (Correlation?) Anyways, I am thankful for these things:

• That we didn't end up buying the first house we fell in love with. It probably would have been a disaster.
• Miles watches Titanic documentaries with me, and that this week, it lead to him watching the first Downton Abbey episode. And liking it. 
• He also reads books that I love just so we can talk about them later.
• Discovering the Draw Something app. Is that a silly thing to be thankful for? So fun for me during my nanny days.
• After 4 days of me begging and pouting, Miles begrudgingly got the Draw Something app so I could play with him
• The way Miles cleans the kitchen up. 70% completion*, 100% effort.
• The nanny babe officially gives real hugs now. And they are the absolute best.
• Also, sometimes it sounds like she's speaking Parseltounge. She's the real HP. With parents and no scar. 
• I wore maxi skirts and sleeveless tops almost every day this week.
• Eating kale. Always.
• (and since this post is a day late) I am thankful for beautifully rainy, non-tornado-y stormy days.

Can I also reiterate how thankful I am for Miles? That he loves me, and likes me, and thinks I'm funny (but really, duh), and wants to spend time with me. I would like to say thats a given for husbands and wives, but he and I know that it isn't, and that makes us all the more grateful for what we have with each other. Boo, I crazy love you.

p.s. you're goofy.

*He cleans everything within his direct line of vision when he's standing in front of the sink. Even if the sink is piled high with stuff. Except, he'll move things over to the right of the sink so he has room to wash dishes, and then he forgets about the things he's moved. And if there is anything on the stovetop, it will stay there. Same with the coffee table (we still don't have a dining room table). In his defense, the coffee table isn't in the kitchen...

House Times

So, remember that time I was weird and vague? (See post directly below) Well I can now say without feeling like I might spoil something, that we are in the process of purchasing a house! We stumbled upon the house on Sunday and fell head over heels in love with it. We made an offer on Tuesday and they accepted it without any counters yesterday! I can't believe this is real life. We can't believe this is real life. We're so excited with the potential that the house has. We will have so much room to grow as a family and so much time to create our dream home. We feel so blessed to not feel like we've settled for anything less than what we wanted--which with our budgeted price range, is truly amazing.

If all goes well, Miles and I will be home owners on February 22nd! Our first goal, before we move anything in, is to paint as many rooms as possible to colors that suit us better. Starting with the golden yellow kitchen, and the moving onto the lime green laundry room. I can't wait to have this giant, house-sized project to work on!

Also, this is the third Thursday of the month and therefore a mini-thanksgiving day for this family. If you couldn't already guess what we're most thankful for this month...then...I have no words. But honestly, Miles and I can't believe everything that has happened since Sunday. We are so thankful that our offer was accepted, that the home inspection isn't going to be as expensive as we thought, that we really feel like we're meant to buy this house.

Right around four years ago I realized that I kind of liked this guy that my roommate and I hung out with all the time. I remember the hushed confession to my roommate, her elated response and the many (perceived) awkward moments between he I, until we realized we felt the same way about each other. And here we are, four years later, married and buying a house. Doing really grown up things. And feeling like we're bluffing our way through everything. But four years later, this is our life, our little life that really started growing four years ago. I am so thankful that I'm faking all these grown up things with my very best friend. I  can't imagine being happier with any other life than the one we have right now. 

And you know I've been pinning like a crazy lady.

Third Thursday

After all the Thanksgiving holiday goodness was over, Miles and I talked about making every third Thursday a little mini-thanksgiving (little mini? redundant much? no. I like it). Not with a huge meal, and unfortunately not with my awesome siblings or relatives, but full of reflecting on what we are thankful for. We'll have just a short while this evening to have our first mini-thanksgiving before I head back out to babysit my nanny baby and her sister tonight, but I'm going to get a head start.

Honestly, I almost forgot about our thankful resolution until this moment when I found myself watching an episode of "I'm Getting Married And..."(tried to find a link for this show, but it is nowhere to be found). I only discovered this show yesterday, it follows two brides in a unique/unusual/interesting situation who are getting married. After our wedding, the amount of wedding related shows, blogs, magazines that watched or read fell down to about zero. I'll be the first to admit that I over did it with the wedding "research", like way over did it. But this show isn't so much about idea for a dress or decorations or anything, its more about the bride and their situations. The episode I watched yesterday had one mail order bride and one bride entering into an arranged marriage. This episode has one bride one a $2,000 budget and another with an unlimited budget (that ends up at above $220,000). Miles and I had a fairly small budget, but I can't even imagine only having $2,000 to work with--so I ache for that bride. And this $220,000 bride? I am speechless. 

All this to say, this was a huge reminder of how incredibly thankful I am that our wedding is over. I had so much fun planning it but when it comes down to it, I am relived that July 2 has come and gone. I am so thankful that I am no longer engaged to Miles, but I'm now married to him! We fell into married life with great ease--almost so much ease that when people ask us how married life is, we don't know how to answer. We forget it is something new. I am thankful for that. I am thankful for a husband who sold guitars, holiday hours and worked overtime to pay for our wedding and honeymoon (on top of awful student loans) while I finished school. I am thankful for his patience with me and thankful that after all was said and done (and paid for), he was happy we had a real wedding and not a small ceremony. As much as I would have liked to dance through our entire reception playlist, I can laugh at the fact that the a/c was broken and we bailed on everyone in our sweaty wedding garb after only an hour. And then went and ate mexican food and drank margaritas as husband and wife. 

I am also thankful for these things:

• That once the aforementioned episode was over, I found Amelie had just started on another channel.
• Miles and I are ten days away from our first ever Christmas together
• Last Sunday we drove to my grandmother's to pick up some furniture she wanted to give us. Among other things, I was given my great-grandmother's vanity. I'm so excited to have a place to put it in our new house (new house still TDB)
• During the drive down to my grandmother's, Miles surprised me with a newly purchased Nat King Cole Christmas album.
• Singing along with Nat at the top of our lungs. Even when he sang in German and we didn't know the words.
• The scene in Amelie when she takes the blind man through the market and describes everything to him. I could cry.
• That I just heard the nanny baby laughing to herself in the crib. Even if that means that she skimped on her nap time.

So Very Thankful

Yes, I realize this post is a few days late for the actual Thanksgiving holiday, but I didn't plan ahead to post before we left to visit family and I didn't bring my computer along on the trip. I have so much to be thankful for, but I'll narrow it down to my top ten (in no specific order):

• a wonderful husband who makes me laugh so hard, and does everything in his power to coax me out of a bad mood
• my family, sometimes I can't believe how amazing they all are.  and that we're related.
• my nanny baby and how she cuddles
• Riesling, kale chips & Walking Dead evenings with mah Boo
• that my car is still running and gets us from A to B (please don't ever stop)
• walking to our wonderful church on crisp Sunday mornings
• wearing tights
• dreaming of our first house (and the gajillion Zillow posts we email to each other) and the puppy that we will adopt before even the first box is unpacked
• Miles giving his best effort to finish the Hunger Games series for me
• Boo finally conceding that it is now the Christmas season and we can finally decorate/pick out a tree/listen to music/watch christmas movies non-stop

There are big things that I am thankful for, as well as the million tiny things that fill my minutes, hours, days. My life is so wonderful. Miles and I have been so blessed. We both agreed not to let the spirit of thankfulness pass as we move into a new season. I hope to really be contemplative and reflective on a more daily basis. Every third Thursday of each month methinks is the new mini-thanksgiving for Miles and I and our little family. 

Once again, I failed completely at taking pictures this weekend. Just too busy having fun and stuffing my face with delicious foods. But I did make sure that Miles took a picture of the three siblings before they flew back to Chicago last night. Miles and I are SO EXCITED about our trip up to Chicago in February to hang out with these cool kidz.

So happy Caleb was here this year. Y'all, I have the best, coolest, most beautiful siblings. 

Happy late Thanksgiving!!