(what I’m anxious to get back to)

♥ puppy dog
♥ my recliner
♥ my morning coffee (cause let’s face it, elsewhere it’s just not the same)
♥ watering my garden
♥ checking for blossoms & fruits
♥ snow cones
♥ the sound Penny (guinea pig) makes when Kevin wakes up in the morning
♥ the smell of home
♥ mail
♥ clipping coupons (I have a problem)
♥ the rare day w/ dry heat
♥ sunlight through our french doors
♥ …and puppy dog. again.

Here’s where I’ll admit to you that the Blues Festival going on in town wasn’t exactly our cup of tea. There were lots and lots of bikers. Really, the town was over run. There was a lot of stuff you couldn’t get to or see because of the large crowds this festival drew. I would love to go back and check out what I missed.

The one photo I took of any bikers.

Later that evening went a little ways past our cabins to The Rowdy Beaver.

Kevin had a steak. I had what I always have, given the chance…

…a pound of cold shrimp. Yum.

I wonder how much I would have to eat to get The Gout. That’s what we call it around here. I had an uncle one time who came down with The Gout. Not “gout,” The Gout.

Then we drove down some winding mountain roads to go see a natural bridge that it turned out you had to pay for and we weren’t into paying to see it. I mean, you couldn’t see what was on the other side so you didn’t know exactly what you’re paying for. This isn’t my first rodeo. I’ve been to the state fair and have seen the sign for the “Man Eating Chicken.”

I did take a picture of a rock though.

And then I had Kevin stop alongside the road so I could get a shot of this house. Because it looks like the same house in my favorite children’s book — The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree by Gloria Houston. The illustrations by Barbara Cooney are fantastic.

By the end of that day I was ready to get back to our cabin, relax, and enjoy a long bath, a cup of tea…and a Slim Jim.

• Aww, shucks, Matt. I don’t think anyone has ever said anything so nice about my husband and I.
• THIS. Exactly. “The best part about Facebook scam pages is that it helps announce to you which of your Facebook friends are dumb.“
• Say “I Do” to the name change
• The Dirty Dozen and The Clean 15 — read it!
• Burger King Crafts: Twilight Edition
• Colleen’s brief thoughts on the LOST finale
• Man, a baby hippopotamus looks like a great pet.
• The Traveling Red Dress, from The Bloggess
• 45 Things To Do With Fresh Sage – If you’re in the situation I was in a few years ago (planting one tiny plant of sage and having it stay forever and ever and multiply everywhere) then this will be really helpful.

We spent our first anniversary in Eureka Springs, Arkansas at The Grand Treehouse Resort. I had heard good things about it from a number of people, but the credit goes to Aura for the idea. When she posted some photos from the place on her blog a while back I knew that we had to visit. We were not disappointed.

When Kevin called to make our reservation there was one cabin left — Sanctuary Treehouse. They were expecting a lot of people in town over those few days for the Blues Weekend (which we would learn more about later) and so we went ahead and took their last cabin. It was perfect.

And Kevin liked the door.

One of my favorite things about the cabin was the symmetry. I’m so OCD that repeated patterns can really get to me, but give me a room that is about as perfectly symmetrical as it can be and somewhat minimalist…and I’m in heaven. Really, from the moment we stepped through the door I knew why they named it Sanctuary.

Of course I couldn’t pass up the symmetry. Perfect photo op. Also, FACT: I meant to have pictures taken at our wedding with Kevin and I together with our Macs — him with his white one and me with my black.

Loved the bed. The sheets were comfy and again, the decor of the room was so relaxing. Couldn’t have asked for anything more perfect on our anniversary.

My one complaint was the big window up there. I loved it during the day, but between 5 and 6am on a weekend that you want to get some extra sleep? I needed some blackout curtains. BAD. For the record, thanks to the early sunrise I saw my husband awake the earliest I’ve ever seen him on a weekend.

Loved the tub, shower, and sink. I took every opportunity to get into the tub that I could. It was enormous.

Oh, and I almost forgot…

Just as I almost forgot to take a picture before we devoured it. The owners have The Most Fabulous Cheesecake waiting for you in the refrigerator, along with some delicious orange juice. Even Kevin, who doesn’t enjoy regular cheesecake, liked the chocolate (he gets whatever cheesecake is loaded down with peanut butter, chocolate, and cookie dough whenever we go to The Cheesecake Factory).

The balcony was the perfect place to have my 6am cup of coffee. Just enough breeze, not yet hot, and the flowers…you see them? They are exactly the same color as the stained glass windows in the entry. They carried their theme very well.

Next up, I’ll share some of our experience in town. It was…interesting. And we weren’t expecting what we walked into. Which was almost equivalent to the Sturgis Rally.

I’m not even going to write a clever intro because Matt provided me with a SIX PAGE DOCUMENT. I appreciate thoroughness.

We see you over there laughing, Matt. I may still have bird seed in my hair. Goodness knows it’s still in the car.

…

I want to start by saying … WOW! Season 2 completely blew this show wide open. I mentioned it on Twitter, but it seemed like every question they answered, two more were asked. Before I get to the questions regarding Season 2, I’d like to take a look back at the questions I had following Season 1 and see how many I can answer. (more…)

When I was going through wedding preparations and getting so many things together in the last few months, there was one task left before me that only I could be responsible for — Kevin’s ring. I knew he didn’t want anything flashy. No diamonds, very little adornment. He’s just not into that kind of stuff. So I found a simple white gold ring with a milgrain edge and called it a day. But I knew it wasn’t done. I had wanted to have something inscribed on the inside of his ring, but I had struggled with finding something that fit — both the occasion AND inside the ring.

Then the verse hit me. The verse that Kevin and I first memorized together whenever we were still doing that.

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.” – Ruth 1:16 & 17

I’ve kept it a secret from almost everyone until now and I’m only telling because it feels particularly timely.

Where you go, I will go…

This little Oklahoma girl’s heart is right here. It does not want to leave. And I think that inscription felt safe because I never expected it to be challenged. I meant it, but I didn’t imagine “going” might mean “leaving.”

How a year can change a situation. Within two months of our wedding we were both working in the same local school, both happy, excited, and getting acquainted with our new jobs. It wasn’t until about 6 months later that we heard rumblings. And then rumors. And then concrete bad news that some people would not be coming back. The first people to feel the cuts would be the first year, temporary contract teachers (Kevin).

Our jobs are up in the air. At this point, neither of us know if we will be coming back and won’t know for possibly 2 weeks. I won’t lie, it’s scary. Not scary because I think we’ll starve or lose our house or our cars or anything like that. We are already blessed beyond measure to have a support system that simply would not allow that to happen. But it’s scary because I’ve never been there before. Never been without. Never truly in need.

The thing is though, both my husband and I have faith. Sometimes I’ve wondered if I have it easier than other people because I can’t remember a time when I doubted that God would come through. I know not all people see that as a positive, but I don’t care. Kevin and I have made it to this place where we don’t know what is going to happen, but we know that we’ll make it through, no matter what we have to do to make that happen. Things may not go as planned, but we will be okay. We may not know where we are going right now, but we are going together.

Happy first year to the funniest, happiest guy I know! Thank you for being such a sweet and understanding person and for putting up with my craziness. I love you!

(And because I never did, I’m posting some of my favorite wedding photos after the cut. Sorry if the cut doesn’t work in readers!) (more…)

As a kid, I didn’t get in a lot of trouble. Go ahead, ask my brothers. They’ll tell you I was spoiled and received preferential treatment because I was the oldest and the only girl.

I’ll tell you I didn’t do stupid stuff.

Okay, there was that one time when I was 5 and decided to launch rocks over the house with my little shovel. It was a feat of engineering for someone my age. Mom didn’t see it that way when one of the rocks came crashing through the front window. Oops.

But seriously. I was well-behaved. My brothers were…boys. Kyle and I are 18 months apart and Ryan is 2 and 1/2 years younger than him so we’re stair-stepped pretty nicely. From the start, right after Ryan was born, I was placed in the middle and it was for a reason. Then it was because they were both in car seats and I was the only one who could wear a seatbelt. After they both grew out of their car seats it was because they would go after each other like a pair of rabid wolverines. 

Kyle and Ryan bickered and picked at each other like there was nothing more fun in the world. Back and forth, all the way to church and from; on the way to school and on the way home; roadtrips — forget roadtrips. Those were the worst. “Stop touching me!” “You’re too close to me!” “He’s got more leg room!” “I want to sit on this side!” “No, I called it first!”

Gripe gripe gripe gripe gripe. My parents wonder why I was so bossy. I felt like a referee in the middle of that mess! And everyone knows that the person in the middle is the one suffering. Four words — feet on the hump.

The fact that I was in the middle never did what Mom and Dad intended (reduce the number of fights between them). Instead, I was just caught in the middle. After a while I think I started finding humor in it. I could get away with a lot of tiny things because my brothers were always going at it and my parents were too busy scolding them. I am what my dad calls “a pot-stirrer.” I might not have been in the fight, but I was definitely fueling the fire.

One evening, we were on our way back from The City and I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but what I do know is that my dad had had enough. The boys were fighting, we were almost home, and it had been a long day. And Kyle had one of his favorite G.I. Joes with him. Flint.

Flint had this awesome pack he wore (pictured above) that you could fill with water and he would shoot eco terrorists. With water. (Sidenote: The Gulf Coast could really use you right now, Flint.) He also had “color-change battle damage.” You know, the same old thing that happens to you when you get covered in toxic waste, acid, deadly oil spills, etc. So that was pretty cool. We all liked Flint. Personally, I liked to put his helmet on my finger and play like he was a little puppet.

Kyle, however, liked to put the helmet in his mouth. Now, he was still pretty young and those little pieces are choking hazards no matter what the age. For Dad it was probably a combination of that and the fact that everyone had been touching that helmet. Germs are not something you mess with in this family. And like I already said, Dad had enough. Enough. When that word came out of my dad’s mouth, you knew it was serious. And he had told Kyle twice already to get that helmet out of his mouth.

I think the threat had already been made. When Dad looked in the rearview mirror and saw the helmet on the tip of Kyle’s tongue for the third time, he said, “Give it here.”

Hand it over he did because there was no more messing around at this point. Down rolled the window and out flew the helmet. There may have been tears, I don’t remember, but things were never the same. What is an Eco Warrior without his helmet? He faces a world with traumatic brain injuries and deadly poisons seeping into his gray matter around every corner. And so he retired. I’m sure he still saw some terrorist fighting action, but not as much. Eco Warrior Flint was the first G.I. Joe I remember the boys having that had gear of any kind that you could control. Not long after, he was relegated to a life unfitting for any G.I. Joe at Sudsy Waters Seaside Retirement Village and Bath Tub with Moosel the Wuzzle.

• If someone brings up the show Wipeout! in conversation I check out. Right then. Completely.
• Glee is almost dead to me. I like the music, but the plot is already getting old and until someone throws a Jim Jones flavored blue slushie in Finn’s face and rids us of his voice, I’m out.
• When setting up a wedding registry, consider the depth of your bowls and whether or not you will be consuming cereal from them (you will unless you’re some kind of heathen). Then don’t register for the shallow bowls, register for the deeper ones. For those of you getting Fiesta Ware that means register your place settings in PIECES, skip the bowl included in place settings, and opt for the Gusto Bowl. You will thank me later.
• I cannot visit the “Confessions” section of the Pioneer Woman blog without Usher’s song running through my head.
• It’s funny, that one episode of I Love Lucy left a permanent impression on me about the use of wallpaper. Never, EVER will I attempt to put that stuff up.
• I have a problem with my sweat not making it through my pores correctly and I’ve never been one to sweat much anyway, so that makes the heat and humidity we’ve been experiencing lately very uncomfortable. So far it hasn’t been too bad, but you can feel it coming. In the past I’ve had problems with going outside and immediately getting a headache from the heat or becoming nauseated. What can I say…made of sugar
• Heather emailed me yesterday to tell me the stereo she’d had for about 15 years almost being consumed by her pet grendel, Annie. It somehow survived and works better than it did before. Made me think of my little purple boombox (circa 1994) biting it with tape 3 of Wuthering Heights stuck in it.
• I don’t consider listening to audio books “reading.” Fact.
• Twenty-two pages into Yiyun Li’s The Vagrants and it’s fabulous. Read it.

I do realize that every post I have written over the past week has been LOST related. Sorry, dudes. There’s more coming around the pike, but for now my non-LOST/annoyed readers can just not go past the cut and you’ll be saved. There you go.

Matt is a college pal. Well, Matt is my husband’s college pal. I think I met him a couple of times and would see him at church, but that’s about all. Nice thing about getting married is that you get to know more friends of your spouse. And since I married the most social guy I’ve ever met, I’ve acquired a nice assortment.

Matt recently decided to give LOST a shot and I thought it would be interesting to get the thoughts of a new Lostie right as he is starting the series. So, here is the first set of questions Matt answered about Season 1. This will be a six-part series documenting his thoughts at the end of each season. Seriously, this is going to be fun to watch.

Note: Matt is a weatherman (is that a pejorative term in your line of work?) and who knows, his expertise may somehow color his view of the Smoke Monster. Let’s see!

(Thanks for the quick response, Matt. It’s almost like you knew I didn’t have a post planned for today.)

1. Hello, Matt Mahler. Welcome to your first round of LOST questions. Excited?
   Tremendously.  Believe it or not, I’ve actually been looking forward to answering these.  I can finally, officially, join the Lost discussions!
2. I just realized that your last name is a homophone of ”mauler.” How has that worked out for you?
   Not as well as I’d like.  At times I wish it was spelled MaUler instead of MaHler.  For reasons I’ll never understand, people feel the need to pronounce my last name with a long-A sound rather than the proper A-H sound.  Pro-tip: you know the sound the doctor always told you to make when checking your throat?  The whole “open up and say AH” business?  That’s how it’s pronounced.
3. You know, Kevin’s last name is Crumpler because somewhere back there somebody was a baker–a crumpet maker. In your time knowing him, has he ever made you baked goods?
   I honestly don’t think I’ve ever received any sort of baked goods from Crumpy.  Now that I know the history behind the name Crumpler, I’m slightly disappointed with the lack of baked goods. (more…)