It's Been 7 Wonderful Years!

***** This post is written in retrospect. *****

We are celebrating our anniversary a few days early this year. Our potential buyers are coming down next week and hopefully we'll be signing a contract on our actual anniversary.



John cannot even half-way imagine how happy he makes me. He has no idea how much easier my life is with him in it. As I sit and try to put into words the whys of my love for him, I'm bombarded with memories of the 'things' he does. But it is so much more than things. It's who he is that makes him do the things he does.

Yes ladies, he is a dirty diaper changing pro. He cooks, he cleans, he fixes cars, computers, houses, gives awesome foot/back rubs, loves God, loves his momma, loves his daughter, puts me first in all things.

He'll watch a chick flick, picks up his own socks, and buy me oreos without them being on the shopping list. He is my calm, my funny, my adventure, the sunrise in my new day, my levy when the tide of life tries to overwhelm. He makes me laugh, makes me strong, makes me confident. He actually makes me more than I really am.

He may not be perfect (those are his words - not mine) but he's perfect FOR ME. And I thank God every day for putting him into my life and guiding my path so that John and I would meet, become friends, and later marry.

Okay, so enough of the mushy stuff.



How did we celebrate?

We left Bean with grandparents and spent the day in Orlando. The Gaylord Palms resort puts on a fabulous winter experience...ICE!



It's every scene of The Night Before Christmas carved out of....wait for it....ice!





It was incredible...one of those things you had to be there to see.





Then we enjoyed many of the Christmas events happening at the resort during the holidays. Had lunch at a fab Italian resturant and then later hot cocoa, and then even later we had some drinks in the Key West section of the resort.



It was a great day for the two of us to reconnect. I admit we did talk about the baby a little bit, but hey - we both love her to pieces so who can blame us. =)

Homeward Bound Part 8 - Thoughts on Moving

Moving sucks. Plain and simple. It sucks if it is your family, your friends, or your self moving. There....there are my thoughts on moving.

Anyway, Christmas has come and gone. I'm sad to see it go so soon. John's friends and family have hefted our furniture to the new place for us. We tried so hard not to bother people during the holidays to help us but it is unavoidable.

Having Bean run around makes it so that basically only one of us can do anything at a time. She's taking it all in stride. I'm sure things are confusing to her, seeing her bedroom in shambles and being emptied, but she's still her normal happy self. At one point she even tried to help us pack and put her huge blue ball in a box. SO CUTE!

Back to packing...John and I made about 1,000 trips back and forth with our cars filled to the brim with boxes. I'm sure that made it easier on the movers. Luckily the new apartment is a 1/2 mile from our condo.

I underestimated how much stuff we have. I bought 2 bundles of boxes from UHaul (foolishly) thinking we'd only use half...Ha! People have a lot of junk under their roof. But it isn't 'junk' in the sense that we can throw it out. It's just stuff that you need eventually. I'm not about to throw it out for the sake of convenience and then have to buy it again when eventually comes around because it always does.

You can tell when moving gets old...at first I tried to carefully label boxes and neatly pack everything, but now that it is down to the wire I'm just throwing random things in a box. We'll sort it later. I'm over it.

So am I sad to see an empty-ish condo? Not really...I'm too busy to be sad.

What happens next? Well, we get settled into our new apartment and then start house shopping.

Homeward Bound 7 - Preparing for the Move

So we have an apartment now. We have the keys. We have the new address. Now comes the hard part...planning everything out for a seamless transition. At least 'seamless' is my goal.

So much has to be timed properly.

Boxes have to be packed BEFORE our friends/movers arrive at the same time we are wrapping Christmas presents and finishing our shopping.

We only have 3 no-baby days between Christmas and New Year's that John and I can focus on getting things finished without a munchkin climbing our leg or into boxes or up the attic ladder. Daycare, sweet daycare!

Switching over the utilities while factoring in time needed to clean both. Fun fun.

Life keeps going = laundry, cooking, sleeping, bath time, work.

You know how people hire wedding planners? There should be a move planner.

You would think that as many times as I've moved in my life that I could orchestrate all of these details in my sleep. But I just remember that my mom did it all.

I want my mommy!!!!

Homeward Bound Part 6 - Memories

Now that the contract is signed and the closing date draws near, reality is setting in.

I thought I would be thrilled at finally leaving this house that has suffocated me for the past two years. Unexpected is the rush of sadness as I take mental inventory of all the wonderful things that have happened here in this little condo.

~ Mom and I lived here together for a little stretch of time while I tried to sort out my life. I remember how on Friday nights we'd get a stack of movies from Blockbuster, ice cream, and a bag of peanut M&Ms. Good times.

~ My sister and I lived here together for about 2 years. I'm sure there were frustrating moments but right now all I remember is how much we laughed. I miss her a ton.

~ This was the first house I ever bought. I bought it from my mom back in 2002.

~ This is where John and I serendipitously ran into each other out in the parking lot. I was leaving from a visit with my mom and he was coming to visit a friend next door.

~ John and I lived here together after we got married in 2003.

~ I finished my degree in 2005, after many evenings spent studying and writing papers here within these walls.

~ Rocky, that little scamp, lived here for a long time. He was the first dog I ever owned as an adult. He might also be the last, but he's definitely worth remembering.

~ This is where we brought Brooklyn home from the hospital. Her first smile, word, step, bath, bump, bruise, tooth, Christmas, tear, giggle, all of it happened here. *sniff*

~ This is where friends and family warmed our hearts by coming through our front door. Some have passed on and some have moved on, but I remember them all.

Love this girl.

Went to the mall tonight for pictures with Santa. She fell in love with the fountain (Melbourne Mall for you locals who are wondering) and I got a lovely 2 minutes of stillness to just snap photos of her enjoying her surroundings.

Enjoying the Process

Have you ever wanted something so bad that you thought you might die if you had to wait one more day? And every day you had to wait you'd grow more cranky and grouchy, ostracizing your friends as you search for something or someone to pin your frustration on. You are so grotesque with impatience that women shield their babies from the horror that you've become. Until finally, you are shunned from the community like an old testament leper, with the life-sucking black hole as your only companion.

You've never felt this way? Weird.

Well that's what I felt like while on my "I need a new house NOOOOOOOW" tirade. Poor John. Poor Lisa. Poor friends & family. Poor grocery store cashier. I'm so sorry to have dragged you into my depravity.

But the dark clouds are starting to clear because, though the house hunt has been put off for a few months, I've learned what it means to enjoy the journey.

For example, it's actually fun to dream about what our next house might look like, what kind of people will fill the neighborhood, the different things we'll be able to remodel, the new memories we'll create. Sure, moving into a tiny apartment for a few months might suck at first but I'm looking forward to the coziness. And hey, having less to clean and repair is a huge bonus.

So yes, life is more enjoyable when you change your outlook. Hmmm, I wonder if this is part of why in Phillipians 4:8 God asks us to:

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.

Just sayin'.

Daddy's Shoes

Last night's entertainment included Brooklyn picking up her daddy's shoes, one at a time because they are very heavy, and heaving them to the kitchen. Why? I don't know. It's just one of those things that babies do I guess.

Then she would take them to daddy and struggle to put them on his feet. It didn't matter if he wanted them on or not. That's what she determined needed to happen at that time, and so it was. Then she would bring them back to the kitchen again and repeat the process.

It was so funny to watch her little body rush to get them from place to place.

Do you ever wonder about the thoughts babies think?