: 1 :
First and most importantly: Jason's birthday was on Wednesday.
Hooray for birthdays!
Actually, at this age I'm kinda past the ole "hooray for birthdays" thing because I don't especially enjoy getting older (I don't dislike it, but it's not going to break my Top 100 Favorite Things list). Nevertheless, Jason and I figure if you're going to get older you might as well be able to eat out on your birthday. He picked Spaghetti Factory, and then had the happiest of birthday experiences by listening to Sydney and Jules whine, complain and fight the whole.night.long.
It was super terrific.
: 2 :
On the way home from Jason's birthday dinner, Jason was telling Jules that in 10 years she'll be 16. "In ten years," he said, "you can drive me to my birthday dinner. Won't that be fun?"
"TEN YEARS?" she said, "Won't you be dead in 10 years?!"
Time is tricky concept to grasp.
: 3 :
I have a birthday coming up. Next Friday, in fact, I will turn the lovely age of 37. I don't care much about turning 37 except that it gets me a little closer to 40. And while I did just say that I'm not super duper excited about getting older, I am super duper excited about going to Hawaii when I'm 40. I may already be thinking about the swimsuit I will wear to Hawaii.
: 4 :
We've had a little bit of doggie drama on the farm. Greta (my parents' German Shorthaired Pointer) and Iggy (Ty and Sarah's yellow lab) got into something fishy. It was either a trout, a salmon, or a salamander. They then both proceeded to get salmon poisoning. Evidently, 90% of dogs die without treatment, and Greta was pretty close to not recovering. Iggy had the benefit of being a 100+ pound dog, and so had a little more fat reserves to fight off the dehydration. Greta, on the other hand, is still a puppy.
Dad took Greta to the vet, who gave her some antibiotics. The antibiotics worked on Iggy, but not on Greta. Dad had to take Greta back to the vet, and she stayed there last night. The good news is that they said she turned the corner this morning and had her appetite back. Looks like she'll recover just fine.
: 5 :
We had some amazing fog last week. Freezing fog, is the weatherly term for it. It was foggy, and it was freezing, and everything had frost on it. It was kind of like snow, except...not.
(Pardon the redundancy in photos if you follow me on Instagram.)
The railroad tracks near our house.
The country road that I usually run on. This is my usual spot for taking pictures. There are horses off to the left, and a big field and trees off to the right. For some reason, I just like taking pictures here.
Also, there's a great view of Mt. Hood from this road. But I don't have the kind of camera that makes it look as big as I see it in real life.
On Instagram, I titled this "Lucy in Narnia, circa 2013" because that's exactly what it reminded me of. It was day 3 of not seeing the sun, and I just felt like we were stuck in winter forever. Sydney makes a pretty good Lucy, yes?
The alternate title could have been "Sydney at future asphalt factory site." But I wasn't quite feeling the magic in that.
And here are the trees at school. Although walking to my classroom--downhill! on ice! in heels! with a bag full of textbooks!--is sometimes an adventure, it is always without fail a beautiful view. These trees are just perfection.
: 6 :
For no particular reason at all, I have been ridiculously crabby this week. Not just crabby, but angsty and moody and fidgety. It's not because I'm tired, because I've had two consecutive nights of 10+ hours of sleep. I'm just in a mood.
The one person that can almost instantly get me out of my mood, even if just momentarily?
Addie.
Every night I read books to her, and every night she picks out the two books that require batteries (they have sparkly lights on the last page). A couple months ago, the batteries had died on both books, but I replaced them.
"New batt-ries!" she says as she points to the back of the book.
"Yep. New batteries."
"Thank you," she says. Every single night.
: 7 :
I may be grumpy, but I know that tomorrow will be better. For one thing, tomorrow I have two spectacular things going on.
First of all, tomorrow I am going to see Young House Love (aka: The Petersiks) at Rejuvenation in Portland. And not all by myself either. Sister Sarah and friend Emily are going too. And it will be awesome.
I love John and Sherry. They inspired me to paint my kitchen cabinets, and for that I will always hold them near and dear to my heart.
Second of all, after the YHL amazingness, I am going to a spa with BFF Megan, and we will get massages and momentarily forget about all the things that make us grumpy.
I am very very very excited.
Happy Friday! Hope you have a great weekend.
