I really wish I had some pictures to go with this post and to be fair I truly did intend on taking some, but somewhere between the start of my day and the end of it my camera just didn't find it's way out of the bag. Perhaps it was because most of the day I spent covered from head to toe in a good inch thick layer of saw dust, or maybe perhaps my mind was so involved with the humming vibrations being sent through my body starting at the hand and finding it's way to my toes that I couldn't focus, or maybe my camera never found it's way out from it's case for no other reason than I simply just forgot about it. I'm not really interested in telling you about my camera today. I'm not interest in sharing stories about my Birds or to even sharing with you my excitement over the 21 more days it will be until my husband gets home. No. Today I want to tell you a story about love. Love between me and my new best friend. My new partner in crime. Perhaps even the love of my life.....

yes the love story between me and my new sander. In a belated/somewhat sweet birthday present moment my father came home yesterday with the Ryobi 5 In. Vs Ro Sander and well it was like in the movies. The moment where the two characters meet for the first time. The music starts to play and the camera slows down revealing the gaze one character gives to the other. I swear in that moment the world slowed and time stopped. We were together. It was magical. All weekend long I had been gluing and cutting and clapping my wood together waiting in anticipation for the moment when my piece would be finished all the while dreading the moment that I had to pull out the heavy, annoying, overheating, almost painful hand sander in order to smooth out my wood before getting back to the gluing, and clapping, and staining finale....ugh I was in total dread. But then when the stars aligned and the sea parted revealing to me the sander for the God's I was at peace. I couldn't wait. I hurried outside like a kid running down the stairs on Christmas morning. I set up my table, stumbled to find my wood, slipped on a small hidden-behind-my-shoe piece of scrap and began to sand. There was no harsh start up. No arm ripping shake. Just the subtle, sweet vibrations of the paper touching the wood. The sander glided my hand over the wood with such ease and grace that I didn't even have to think about it, and faster than I had ever seen before my wood began to smooth like butter. There was a moment, a mere moment where I am certain the clouds parted and allowed the sun to beam into my garage and touch the tip of the sander in all it's glory so that God himself could admire it...yes, it was heaven. And it's all mine.

Random Thought number 1:
      There is an average of four Saturdays in every month. If you were to sleep in until noon just on Saturdays for a year you would loose an average of 24 days of your life.......that's almost a whole month that would just be gone.

Random Thought number 2:
      It might be possible that you know you've watch too much Supernatural when your dreams take on the same formula as one of it's episodes.

Random Thought number 3:
      I wonder how many people in the world have been injured by a piece of their clothing.....like Ben Stiller style in the movie There's Something About Mary.

Random Thought number 4:
  If I were to leave the house right now would I be able to pick up a Sweet Treats Frozen yogurt from Kennewick and still make it pack in time to go to Home Depot, cut my wood, clue it, and then clamp it before the Birds get home.

Random Thought number 5:
   If I were a Bird would I be a small Bird because I'm short as a human or would my hight as a human play no role in my life as a bird.

Random Thought number 6:
     Did Monster Dog eat my glue bottle or can I just not find it.


Random Thought number 7:
       How am I going to weigh down the basket for my shoot this Saturday

Random Thought number 8:
       How long is it going to take me to unpack my house when we move in June

Random Thought number 9:
    Is the military even going to have our stuff by June because last time it took them four months to get our housing stuff delivered.

and last

Random Thought number 10:
    Where did I put those shoes I wore that one time while playing at that one park with the Birds.

maybe this is why my head is hurting?

This is what I am planning for the front of the business cards. In case you're not sure the silhouette is a photoshop brush I made from a 1940's pin up girl who happens to be saluting...she is also the same pin up I used for my "about me" tab on the upper left hand side. DW is how I sign off my emails to people who write to me.....aka D for Diary and W for Wife...Diary Wife.

and this is the inside or would you call it the information side or...what the hell do they call this part of the card???

And this is the decal I am thinking about putting on my car. I happen to love them...Like I really love them. But do you? What are your thoughts.....nice...bad...fun...fresh...too much...not enough...rique?

Tell me, tell me, tell me...I don't want to order something that you guys aren't going to like.

No, Google I do not need to know why I can't own a Canadian.....however I do already know why men have nipples, I also happen to know a fun little fact about how sometimes when baby boys are first born they will leak from their nipples...fun fact there, take that with you when you leave here people.

You know Google I have my own theories on why men cheat and I don't really care at all why dogs eat poop I only know that I wish they didn't.

You know I don't even care why women cheat and I'm not even touching the why women get wet thing. Google Sir, I'm seeing a trend here.
Then nothing really changed and I got through the whole typing situation and found a website that explained why we cough...turns out the reason I gave Little Bird was pretty correct .

"Because there is excess mucus or other irritant matter from external sources – dirt, smoke, household cleaners – lying on the surface of the respiratory tract, and your body is trying to expel them by propelling it violently upwards."- Reason given by Medical Website

"Because your body like totally doesn't like what's hanging out in your lungs and stuff, so it like totally tries to like get rid of it by coughing." -Reason given by me...see totally close...like textbook close.

Anyways then for shits and giggles, okay more for "I hate this damn cough nothing is working what will soothe a cough" reasons I thought I give Google another try.

Damn it, Google! I have no interest in knowing how to shave my pubic hair...however thanks for helping me sync my Wii remote.

I could honestly say that when my sister and I get together nothing but trouble is going to happen. It's not that we have too many childhood stories of mischief to share, truth be told we spent the majority of our lives living in different homes, raised by very different parents, and experienced very different childhoods where the stories only rarely overlapped one another. At the same time we are sisters after all, and sisters well, sisters are just born with a bond.

As different as our lives have been we have always been able to find common ground. Even after some pretty big fights that lasted perhaps a little too long, we have always been able to make peace and come out of it laughing. I sometimes think that the ability to find laughter in pain, is what has gotten us this far. So when my Birds were born it was only natural that they too loved her just as much (if not more) than I do. The bond that I seem to have with my sister only seems stronger between them. Which is weird when you think about how little time they have been able to share together. In fact we haven't lived in the same town since my children we're born...I think maybe even longer.

Yet if you were to spend any given moment with us you would think that my sister Hedder lives right next door. It's not easy knowing that we're going to be so far apart again in just a few more months. It's even harder knowing that she is at a point in her life where huge growth and change is going to start happening and there is a very good chance I won't be around for most of it. Sure I'll make a point to be there when I can and I know she will too, but that's just not the same now is it?

However there is always some relief in knowing that when I do see her it will be as if we had never been apart and that just as when we were little kids growing up two very different ways we'll still always have a good laugh just around the corner.

This has been on my computer screen for the last few days. It has really been the only thing I have seen. It can be overwhelming the amount of work that goes into saying good-bye to a loved one. It's even harder I think when that someone was a person you respected and whose family you truly do not want to let down. And I only had one thing to do..so I can only imagine what everyone else must be feeling.
Now let me make it clear to anyone who might remotely be related to me and is reading this post that I am in no way complaining about being asked to make something for the family to remember this time. In fact I was honored. Yet, when I sat down and found out that everyone put their faith in me, I got scared. I feared so much that I would let everyone down. That it wouldn't be good enough, that I wouldn't be able to give them what I know they had in the their hearts. I was afraid. But for them, for her, I was going to do it. There are a lot of things that are going to happen this week that I have to tell you all, I would truly only do for this family.

1:) I will once again be reciting the Rosary......this has not happened in many, many *coughs* many years.

2:) I will be attending Mass....to know how long its been since I have been a part of Mass refer to post 1.

3:) I am thinking but have not yet decided if I will take part in the Eucharist. I lean towards not doing so since I have not a:) done so in many years, b:) gone to confession, and c:) am still battling my place in faith....which technically means I shouldn't/can't participate.

4:) I'm going to wear heels....this one doesn't seem so important next to rest but still I thought I would include it if for no other reason than for you all to relate to my pain.

The truth is for every second that I sat in front of this computer looking at the same images, and writing the same things over again I was filled with happiness. Happiness that I have been allowed to be part of this family, apart of Mrs. S's (try saying that out loud) life, if only for a moment. I'm happy that in this moment of sorrow I was not only able to help but had family there to fully believe I was capable of doing so.
To all of you who read this and I will see soon I want to say to you, I love you.

Do you ever just feel like a broken down tree? A feeling that you have weathered all the storms there could possibly be and still stood strong. That you have stood while so many of your brethren have fallin?
Oh man, today I felt like this tree. Like everything I tried to do fought against me, tired, worn down, and even a little broken but still I let my roots hold tight. It is so easy for me to sink into a world of "could have, should have, woulda been, if only." and it takes all of my strength to not fall. Everything I had planned today, scheduled day did not go as planned. From meetings with family, to school conferences, picking up my dad at the hospital, getting dinner, making it to Staples, editing, editing, editing, all with a small little voice in the back of my head whispering "don't fuck up. They're depending on you. Oops you missed that. Fix this."  I'm ready for a hug, and in five more weeks I'll get it.

I do not, can not, never have, maybe I don't wanna believe i'm beautiful. I could stand before you and deliver a thousand different reason why I think I believed that I could never be beautiful and all the reasons I believe/d that I'm not. But I'm not sure any of those reasons would matter. At some point in time they would all involve the blame of someone/something other than me. In fact for me I never understood the desire or the need some of us women have to feel beautiful...that was until someone made me feel beautiful for the first time.
I met my husband by chance on a very cold February night. It was one night and then I moved on about my life thinking that this person who I truly thought was wonderful would never be seen by my eyes again and more than likely would not remember my name when he woke up in the morning. So I went back home that Sunday. Went back about my life, my college, my work, my entire existence. A day went by, then two,then three and the boy I had met in the small coffee shop had simply become a memory of a once upon a time for me. Until I got an email that ended with just five words. "I think you're amazingly beautiful." I had, had boyfriends, I had been hit on (often) but never before that moment had anyone ever said to me "You are beautiful." Sexy, Hot, Fine, and Gorgeous, but never beautiful. It should have sunk into me with those five words and all those days of his deep love how beautiful I was to him but truth be told it never did. Then

she was born. I had never in my life seen anything/anyone so beautiful.

and then she was born and I had never seen anything/anyone in my life so beautiful.
Then today while my children played around the park and other children flocked together like birds and slowly made themselves into their own civilization a woman said to me
"My goodness your children are beautiful."
and I replied
"Thank you, I wish I could take the credit."
and she replied
"Well of course you can. You're their mother aren't you. Where else would they get it?"
and that was that. I smiled and for a moment had no idea how someone is suppose to respond to that. Truth is I didn't. I just smiled and moments later when the kid's games were done, we left. On the drive home we drank hot chocolates and my Birds sang to their music and I thought to myself, perhaps beauty is not something we can be but rather something that just is.

It's so common when someone passes on that we hear words like "truly missed" and "Gone to soon" pass over the mouths of loved ones and as if they are reading from a book someone will whisper next "The world just won't be the same". Too often as a natural need to find peace we take a person and turn them into something they weren't and place them up so high on a pedestal that no one could ever really reach.
Truth is we lie.
This weekend Mrs. S passed on. Grandma Schille was all of those things we tell ourselves a person can never be, and yet she was. Or at least she was all of those things to me. Grandma Schille was by far the most welcoming person I met when I became a member of the Sgt's family, not that anyone was unwelcoming, but Mrs. S, she could fill you with the feeling of warm apple pies, and soft blankets. You got the feeling that just by being near her you were better off in the world than you had been before.
But she didn't leave this earth too soon. In fact this earth kept her much longer than I think was fair. 100 years on this earth is enough if you ask me. But even when the time is right and the notice is not all that much of a surprise there is still something inside of you that just wants to cry.
Mrs. S was loved and she so dearly loved in return.
I could tell you the facts of her life. 13 kids, 40 something grandkids, almost 50 greatgrandkinds and I think just recently she even became a great great grandma....but then I've never been able to keep all the people in this family straight so don't quote me on that. Out lived her husband, out lived her memories and her stories.
I could tell you how she loved to laugh and smile even after she had lost all ability to really communicate. How she knew a good joke when she heard it. That she loved a cold beer on a hot day, a cold day, a mild weather day.
I could tell you how she gave the best hugs, even when she became weak and felt almost breakable to the touch her hugs were still something to be admired. How her eyes always met yours to say hello and how she ALWAYS said hello. Long after her mind had given in to age and she couldn't remember who you were she would still offer you up a hug and a hello. I could tell you how even at the age of 98 she was willing to play with her great grandkids and never once complained about ANYTHING. How even recently when the Birds would visit her and she had no idea who we were she would still want them close to her.
Oh man I could tell you so many things that made this woman great, maybe not perfect, definitely not a saint, but great. Truly great.
And even though I could tell you all those things and I know you would so very much be willing to listen, I don't want to. I only want you to know that when she closed her eyes on Friday night and went to sleep with maybe dreams of love and family filling her head, she didn't wake up here with us, but rather she woke up to find herself in the one place where love truly is all around and for that I am truly happy.