Today I danced with your dad. I watched him approaching me through closed eyes and I felt my heart flutter as if I were a school girl at her first dance.

Today I danced with your dad. His eyes never left mine as he held out his hand, requesting mine. I could feel tears pooling in my eyes as the room went a bit out of focus but I held out my hand with anticipation of his touch.

Today I danced with your dad. As if in slow motion I stood up from my chair and stepped forward. I felt his warm hand enveloping mine as he led me to the middle of the floor. He pulled me close to him and held me tight...as if to reassure me of his protection from something unseen.

Today I danced with your dad. Everything in the room seemed to fade away as we moved together effortlessly. No words were spoken. He held me close and as we swayed to the music I heard him sigh and whisper, “I will always love you.”

Today I danced with your dad. And today for a moment in time everything was all right.

TILE UPDATE.....

OH IT LOOKS WONDERFUL!!!

If I had known how pretty floor tile actually can be in a home we would have had it put down in our house in Henderson! Wow!! I wish you were all here to see it.

Today the workers will be finishing the master bathroom and Brian has already gone to Home Depot to purchase the baseboard. He will bring it home and cut it. Then it will be my turn to paint it. I'll be set up on the patio for painting. After it dries it will go back to Brian and his nailgun and WHAM!! down along the tile it will go! It's going to look sooooo nice in here! And I wish that all of you could come home to see it.

Sigh........

Anyway.....while I'm here I also thought that I would mention that THE TOAST OF THE DAY IS: "Here's to nothing!"

National Nothing Day. Anniversary of the event created by newspaperman Harold Pullman Coffin and first observed in 1973, "to provide Americans with one national day when they can just sit with out celebrating, observing, or honoring anything."

Dose of Mirth: "For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."~Douglas Adams

So if you've got "nothing" to do today....enjoy your day! And if you've got "something" planned...well, enjoy that too! hahahaa!

Granny's Apron

I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath, because she only had a few, it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and they used less material, but along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven. When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids. And when the weather was cold, grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove. Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron. From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables. After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the fall, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees. When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.

REMEMBER: Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

They would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron. I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron ..... but Love !!

IT'S HEEEERE!

I am just so excited that I can hardly control my fingers as I fly across the keyboard!

WE HAVE 72 BOXES OF CERAMIC TILE STACKED NEATLY IN OUR GARAGE TO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY THROUGHOUT OUR HOUSE ON MONDAY!!!

Oh my gosh I am soooooo excited that I can hardly wait to walk naked (just my feet that is) on our new floor! Hahaaaa! Of course I'll take a few pictures and try to post it but the next few days are going to be tearing down the furniture that is still "inside" the house and putting it in the bedrooms! Once the floor is done....then we begin the bedrooms! Everything OUT of the bedrooms so that the baseboard and carpeting can be put down! I'm thinking that we will be doing this one bedroom at a time?? Sounds logical but so far....none of this has been logical! haha!

Right now our biggest thought to ponder is ...."Which bathroom floor should they do first? The Master bath where we take our showers and need to get to our clothes.....OR the hallway bathroom (that's the bathroom that I like to use)?

Ok....so now I have to get a few things packed (again) and put away (I think my gnomes are getting used to living in a box and out of a box...in a box and out of a box. haha! Time to get them back into the box and move the cabinet someplace.......

Now where's that strapping tape again???

TOAST OF THE DAY!

Ahhhhh ....the first week of the new year behind us! All of the parties and those who attended them are safely back to work by now. Resolutions are being followed out faithfully or quickly filed away for next year, maybe.
For me....I dream of the day when I can go out and ring in the new year and not be at work. I'm not much of a party goer but I think that I'd really like to have a pretty dress to begin the new year celebrations. I'd make something up to celebrate if I couldn't come up with something......and that brings me to what I was going to write about here today.

The book that I've been reading....The Awe-manac. I thought I'd share the "Toast of the Day" with you. I thought that it was something to ponder in a world where we take things for granted. So here it is......

"Here's to the amazing convenience of talking to someone on a long distance phone call!"

Makes me think of all of those who left their families back east and headed west. Some never seeing or hearing from them again once they were out of sight in their covered wagons. I think to myself...."Could I have left my mother and my father? My sister and my brothers? My childhood friends and neighbors? Could I have really just packed everything up and said goodbye?" I know the answer today. I couldn't have done that. I would not have been one of the pioneers if I wasn't leaving as an entire family. I couldn't leave anyone behind, knowing I'd never see or hear or touch them again.

So.......Today, I give thanks for the invention of the telephone and the ability to use it whenever we want to and to be able to do it for pennies. I'm hoping that all of you are safe and warm and feel loved as you read this.

Love
Mom

A New Year and a New Book!

Some people like to take long vacations in new parts of the world. Some like to purchase and wear expensive jewelry. Some go crazy with purchasing art and some just go crazy purchasing! As for me, I can't resist a bookstore!
So...to make the story short and simple, I bought a new book to start my year off with a smile!
The name of the books is THE AWE-MANAC....A Daily Dose of Wonder by Jill Badonsky.
Why did I buy this book?? You're probably going to snicker here but I liked the whimsical hardback cover! I also liked the size of the book, the pages inside with all of the cool things to think about.

Each day there's a space where you name the day! Then there's a sentence that you have to finish each day. Each day you see these words: TODAY I GET TO__________. It's a way of celebrating the day! Celebrating your life! Celebrating someone else or something else....(and God knows I need to find something to celebrate!) There's cool little sayings, and birthdays of famous people and little cartoons on each page of something whimsy.
There's even a TOAST OF THE DAY! Today the toast is...."Here's to a refreshing mid-day's nap!" (Ahhhh....my kind of a toast!)
Then of course there's the part of the page that really gets me going....writing something special. Maybe I feel no words will pour forth from my finger tips or my pen (whichever I may be using) and then the inspiration comes from reading from the "WORD POOL." This is the section where there are several words that make no sense but somehow can inspire you to write write write!
And then there's the special Journal stuff...like...."List 3 things you're glad you did already this year!" 1. Got through New Years at work.
2. Cleaned out the filing cabinet and made new
folders.
3. Continued to read books that I've started and
never finished. (Whew! That's quite an
endeavor!)

So....once again I play to my addiction (bookstores and papers and pens and writing) with pleasure.