I still can't figure out the best way to post these big scrapbook pages that don't fit in our scanner.
I have been taping them to the back of the office door, lighting them just so, and then taking a photo.
Seems tedious.
But laying them on a desk or counter and hovering above with the camera is not really doing it for me either.
Still exploring that one.


i love presents - giving and receiving . . .
but the catch with me is that you can't just go to the store and buy me a bottle of perfume.
oh no.
i like presents that are meaningful, creative, and thoughtful.
these kinds of presents are sort of lost on herb.
he appreciates the sentiment.
thinks they're sweet.
says "thank you".
but really, for herb, cards and little handmade gifts don't communicate the massive love they are intented to communicate.
now, folding all of the laundry and cleaning off the counters . . .
that sends my man through the roof.
but a handmade gift . . . ehh.

however, he told me that the little book i made him while we were dating is something he looks at again and again.
so, i thought i would try my hand at making him one each year . . .
here is the little book i gave herb for our anniversary in november.





And . . .
A little peak at what i am working on now . . .
My sweet friend stacy asked me to make a collage for her son's room that could also work in other rooms of her home, later.
Right now, I have two putty colored canvases and i am cutting circles.
We'll see.

The Artist Formerly Known As Valentine's Day: Vol. 1

9 am: Couples Counseling, where i played the role of wife married to husband with deep-rooted need for unconditional love; made difficult by a deep-rooted determination to never love unconditionally for fear of being taken-advantage of.

11 am: Interviewed a potential intern for the training program i am developing. The real gem here is when the student asked why I am a therapist, to which i replied something just about as charming as "I did not really pick therapy. Sometimes, therapy just picks you. i have tried not being a therapist, but it just keeps coming back to me." yep. i actually said that. really, as she left, i think we both knew i might not see her again. that perhaps she would like to be supervised by somebody whose reason for doing the job they are training her for is more complex than, “I am becoming a very good therapist.” i wouldn't blame her. I know we all have “those” moments. I just get bummed when they come at a time that actually matters.

1pm: Volunteered at the hospital and made a valentine for my man.

5pm: Picked up my man and scurried across town for a surprise massage at Indulgences Day Spa. I like surprises. And Day Spas. It was lovely. And very thoughtful and sweet of my man.

7pm: Now we are at Blockbuster. Sweet man offers up Marie Antoinette. To which I point out that he has no interest at all in this film. But he says he would do anything for love . . . even that. He suggests Season Two of Project Runway but after realizing that Tim Gunn might not be featured very much, we give it up. In the end we decide on a film with the charming Ryan Gosling. He plays a young man in the 1930's. He is a poet at heart but society sees him as nothing more than one of the rough neck mining kids. Except for of course the lovely Rachael McAdams. He sees her. She sees him. He convinces her that she is a tight-a**, and furthermore convinces her that in order to cure this, she should lay in the middle of a road and stare at the stoplights. And when her life is almost whisked away from her as a car plunders through, she doesn't proceed to kill him, but slow dance with him. Back in the middle of the street. What is wrong with this girl? She will never get admitted into Sarah Lawrence if she keeps behaving this way! They fall in love. Her parents tear them apart. He leaves for the war. She goes to school and falls in love with the right man this time. Cal. Who falls in love with Cal? In the end of course, the guy who deserves the girl gets the girl and we tear up a little bit and swoon. And then fall wildly into each other's arms. This last part was pretty awkward when the film was being shown in the theatres. But now that it can be rented . . .
But this is not the film we rented. We got that other Ryan Gosling film. You know, the one that was nominated for something on one of those awards shows? The one that nobody really recalls being in the theatre. Yeah. That one. About the charismatic teacher who speaks the language of his inner-city students . . . oh, and apparently smokes the crack pipe on a regular basis. It is one of those films where there are silences as long at 13-15 seconds. Sometimes longer. It makes me want to smoke a crack pipe. In the end, I don't.

So, his prize student finds out his secret. And apparently he finds out about a secret she has. But I never felt too clear about that. I fell asleep. But I did wake up in time to catch the girl picking her teacher up from a cheap motel after a binder and taking him home. Oh, and a very poor rendition of the "Interrupted Cow" joke. A real feel good movie.

At this point, I wandered upstairs and collapsed on my bed because apparently a massage, a slowly nursed glass of wine (oh wait, that was herb who slowly nursed his wine. i think i practically slammed mine. might be part of the problem), and a generally sensitive body don't go well together. And tiramisu. I really love tiramisu. And so i ate some. But I don't think it was all that useful. The reason I am saying this is because I actually heard ringing in my ears. I didn't know this actually happened to people. I thought it was an expression. For what? I am unsure. But there was ringing. And then a very strange and inexplicable mystery "white noise" and even though sweet herb humored me very well, it was clearly "my very own special noise".

So I slept.
Until I didn't.
That would be until about 3 am.
Because you see, I normally have a small white pill that tucks me into bed at night. But with the wine and tiramisu and whatever weird massage toxins where floating about . . . not to mention the inexplicable noises . . . i skipped the sleeping friend. It just seemed like if I took it, I might not wake up until next Tuesday.
So here I am.
Awake.
Fantastic.
At least it gives me a chance to do my 5 am blogging that I just love doing!

Hope you had a great day!

Who made YOU feel loved yesterday?

Happy 51 Weeks!

It is official. This time, 53 weeks ago, I was hopping out of the shower after walking home from Einstein Brother’s bagels with Amy. The weather was cold and rainy. Despite my self-diagnosed seasonal affective disorder, the weather did not disturb me the least bit. The hairdresser was on his way. It was a mellow morning, just as I had planned. Jack Johnson playing in the background. Nobody had been invited over, with the exception of two bridesmaids who were asked to refrain from coming if they were the least bit overwhelmed or stressed out. They didn’t come by except to pick me up to go to the church.

This week, I am going to take us all on a little trip down memory lane . . . dating, engagement, the wedding, and the big fat first year of marriage!
How about these fun pictures? Our first big night out as a couple – my 80’s party! And our first “nice picture” as a couple! I had this enlarged to a 5x7 and put into a frame for Herb. I was so nervous to give it to him; what if he freaked out because he thought I was more serious about the relationship than he was?!?!? And I would feel like a fool! But, I pushed my fear and gave him the framed photo. He did not, as it turned out, freak out. He was relieved that I liked him enough to frame a picture of us!

You can read about "our story" here.

Marriage: A Tool for the Depraved? VOL. 6

When Herb and I were going through pre-marital counseling, we were asked by our counselor to think about the areas we might struggle in. We replied that while we knew there would be difficulties, we could not answer that question until we were in the middle of it.

Well, we are in the middle of it. We are in a relationship with the least amount of boundaries that there can be between two people. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, our close friends and roommates have stumbled across the occasional glimpse behind the curtain. They make their way back until the inevitable happens. They stop. They reach a point at which, despite their love for us, they can go no further. You know what I mean. We have all seen parts of our friends that we just don't want to approach. Their drudge. Their junk. We see it. Clearly. Often, we are even affected by it. But to really address it often requires that we pay a cost that is far too high - it is incongruent with the actual value of the relationship. Instead, we navigate and negotiate the relationship and our boundaries so as to be the least impacted while avoiding all unnecessary conflict.

This is not what we desired in our marriage. We have done our best to blur the lines between where one begins and the other ends. Our goal has been to combine ourselves, our things, and our hearts as much as possible in order to make it impossible to separate us from each other. We wanted the other person to see "everything".

In taking down all of the curtain we have with other people, we are exposed. We have given another person the privelage to not only go behind the curtain, but to take it down, fold it up, and put it on the top shelf in the linen closet . . . that infamous shelf where we put things we don't want to throw away, but we know we will never use again. Without the curtain hanging their to protect us, everything is fair game. We are being seen like never before. Feedback that nobody has ever dared to share is being heaped on faster than we know how to process it.

We are frightened. We are angry. What we see is difficult. And being seen is even more difficult. I don't think we realized that creating the deepest type of intimacy that we are capable of creating during the first months of marriage would hurt so badly.

Blending ourselves means that what's mine is yours. So, in addition to acquiring my witty sense of humor, an all access pass to the fruits of my kitchen skills, and my quirky view of the world, Herb got all of the sour stuff too. The student loans, a wild set of in-laws, and an old Honda Civic. Wait, it gets better. Herb gained the baggage that comes from being a part of a broken family, having a mild case of depression, and the world view of a narcissist. Who would have guessed all of that was wrapped up in that pretty white dress and gauzy veil?

The reality is that "having and holding" one another is a big job. "Having" always seemed like a good thing. "Sure, I would love to have some ice cream." Having has never so much seemed like "choking down" to either one of us. There is a lot to have and a lot to hold and it takes more than nine months to learn how to do so. Our new marriage is not strong enough to hold the weight of "having and holding" all that has been presented to us by the other. So we wait, endure, fight, and make-up. Rinse and repeat. It is disheartening, sometimes, to see the commitment to your love turning out to be the hardest thing you have ever done. And, again, it is harder to see your love struggle so hard to love you.

In my most dramatic, selfish, and fatalistic moments, I want to walk down the street, pass the park, and forget how to go home.

Last night I happened to glance at my wedding vows. They are posted on my laptop but I try not to look at them because they do little more than make me feel like a complete failure as a wife. However, this little line stood out to me, "I will journey, explore, and adventure alongside you - even when the path seems uncertain and the outcome is unkown."

I have no idea how to get to where the path is leading us. Most days, I can't actually see the path. I often want to sit in a corner in the basement and wait for the hard part to pass. I want to fast-forward us about 25 years. In this fantasy, my hair will be cool - wirey silver ringlets. I will have a huge ass and I will wear a lot of velvet tunics and bangle bracelets. Herb will have a gaggle of neighborhood teenagers that follow him around for no aparant reason and call him Chief. He will chase the neighborhood cats with more urgency than he does now. He will develop an odd laugh and call me "Queenie" and pinch my huge velvet clad ass in front of our friends and neighbors to make them squirm. And we will like each other. Really like each other. We will banter in the kitchen as kids and dogs run between us. We will see the other's junk and we will call them on it without personalizing it.

But my wedding vow was prepared for the present reality and prescribes a different approach than a sojourn in the basement for a "Sex and the City and Sudoku party" scheduled to last until the year 2031. "Journey, explore, and adventure". Three very strong verbs. A verb is an action word. This means I cannot sit down and wait for this part to end. It means I have already committed to staying actively engaged. So I I come out of the basement and come alongside of Herb; verbing as much as I can.

The Promises We Keep

During this part of our ceremony Herb whispered: "Wow, that's a lot of salt." To which I replied (either audibly or in my mind. I don't remember - I was the bride so I don't have to remember!), "Well, it's a big commitment!"

The final part of Herb's wedding vows to me:
"I vow to laugh with you, sing off-key with you, boogie with you, cry with you, celebrate with you, make babies with you, walk in the park with you, nap with you, make decisions with you, tickle you, travel with you, and share my entire life with you until death do us part!"

It is so easy to get caught up in looking for big indicators of his love for me. But as I re-read these vows today, I realize that he shows me that he loves me all the time. Just the other night, we laid on our bed, and sang (off-key of course!) through the script of the musical RENT. It was so sweet, so simple, so unplanned. . . but so romantic and so saturated with Herb's vows. Saturated with Herb's heart.

So we laid there, on our regular bed in our regular house, after a night at church, after onion rings at Spanky's and before Grey's Anatomy. In the middle of our normal life, we lived our vows, singing:

"There is no future. There is not past. I live this moment. As my last. There's only us. There's only this. Forget regret. Or life is yours to miss. No other road. No other way. No day but today."

And as a sidenote: regarding the lame date you went on a few weeks ago, Kelly - straight men DO like musical theatre! You go girl! That man was not worth your while! But you already knew that! And that is reason 238 why I love you.

And as another sidenote: The blue behind us in this picture is not stained glass . . . it is Colorado's autumn indigo night sky. How lovely!