My Valentine

Mushy, Mushy. This week has been a solid week of MUSH here at Ellis Island, and I'm sorry today isn't going to be any better. However- chances are, something next week will piss me off and I'll be ranting again in no time. Until then, you'll just have to endure it.

The last person I chose to write about for my Valentines project is Mark. My ultimate Valentine. The guy who makes me radiate joy every single day, when I'm smart enough to stop and take it in. That's my only problem. I don't stop long enough everyday to bask in my own happiness. I have no doubts as to who is primarily responsible for that happiness, aside from myself. That would be my husband. He supports me in everything I do. Even the things he doesn't like or agree with. He encourages me everyday to be happy. He loves me when I don't deserve it, and comes to my rescue every single time I need it. He IS Valentines Day EVERY SINGLE DAY. I'm lucky and I admit it. He may be a little lucky too, who knows.

To my darling, wonderful, courageous, handsome, smart and loving husband: I love you....

Look at the stars

Look how they shine for you

And everything you do

yeah, they were all yellow

Happy Valentines Day baby- with all the love I have in my being.
 
Love,
Heather

Daddy-O

My dad isn't around to celebrate any holidays anymore, but that doesn't keep me from thinking of him on every single one. For my second to last Valentine to write about this week, I choose my dad. I loved him, there was no doubt about that, but sometimes I catch myself wondering if he was loved enough. I'll never know the true answer to that question, but in asking it, I find an answer of my own. Love transcends the boundaries of life and death. A person could be considered lucky to be loved beyond the grave. A person could also be considered lucky to be loved from above it, as well. I love you dad...now and then, and always again.

In his memory I sing this song...

All you need is love

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.

No one you can save that can't be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you

in time - It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.

Nothing you can see that isn't shown.

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.

It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

All you need is love (all together now)

All you need is love (everybody)

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

 
 
Happy Valentines Day, Daddy-O. We all miss you and love you so much. Today and everyday.

her heart in mine

In Keeping with my trend, my sister Holly is my next Valentine.

For Holly, I have selected a poem that will always remind me of her when I hear it.

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Love you baby sis.

ain't no one like 'yo mama

Mmmhmm, that's right. Bringing the middle of the week in for Valentine's Day, is my mama. It's too hard to use my words in sentences, so I'm just going to list some of my favorite memories with the woman I adore, and look up to and care about so much; my mama.

Rubbing her thumb to send me off to sleep at night as a little girl/ the cuddle box/ the velveteen rabbit/ rocky raccoon/ teaching me to drive/ all those softball games and swim meets she was present for/ Easter baskets every year/ omlets on Christmas morning/ the "i'm not your mother" game/ my Lucille Ball Speech/ The Golden Girls on Saturday nights/ TGIF/ driving around in the snow/ Making us a fire during the blizzard of '93/  seeing her and my dad together/ seeing her ski at the house boat/ meeting her first grandchild/ her trip to Switzerland

The list could go on and on, but the thing I love the most about my mama is the fact that she has always loved me. Even when it's been hard to. Happy Valentines Day, Mama. I love you so much.

Italy, India and Indonesia

The three i's. Eat, Pray, Love is the newest addition to my bookshelf. If you haven't read this book, may I suggest with the sincerest hope that you go and get it as soon as you are done reading this post? OK. Good. Glad we're clear on that. Eat, Pray, Love is basically about a woman's journey across Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself. The author, Elizabeth 'Liz' Gilbert captured my heart immediately by describing her love for food and God. Two things I love more than anything as well.

Reading this book was really a moving, thoughtful and religous experience. Go get it. Quickly.

I mean, look at the cover art! pasta, prayer beads and flower petals. How can you go wrong?

a three makes it a trilogy

Went to the doctor today. The news was not good. It'd going to be at least a week before I can run again. Maybe longer. I have a combination of anserine bursitis and patellofemoral syndrome. Lovely. Just lovely.

The anserine bursitis is basically whe the bursa (a fluid filled pocket around your tendons) becomes inflamed.
Patellofemoral syndrome is a little trickier. Your kneecap (patella) moves side to side and up and down in a little tract on your femur (the thigh bone). This tract helps keep the kneecap in place. Mine doesn't sit in this groove the way it's supposed to. It sits just off to the right. (I know this after an X-ray.)

So now, I keep doing what I was already doing. I.C.E.: Ice, Compression, Elevation. Oh, and some seriously big doses of Ibuprofen and such. : )

At least now I know what it is.

Injuries: the spine tingling sequel

There isn't really much to add except that I am being forced to the doctor's office tomorrow- because my knees are NO BETTER. At all. Like, they might actually hurt worse now than they did originally. Maybe not. I've lost track. All I know is I am ready to get running again. Every day that goes by that I haven't run , I have to "X" off a day on the calander marked with something super cool I was supposed to do that day. I'm also still getting cool quotes from runners world, which is awesome except for the fact that they are making me feel like a GIANT LOSER for not running. Mark says I should look at the bright side. (There's a bright side to your knees feeling like they are ripping themselves from their own body for over a week? It better be RAINBOW freaking Brite.) Ahem. Rant much? He says at least I miss the running which will make me more inclined to start over when I am allowed to. I guess he's right, but I much prefer sulking at the moment. At least he doesn't know I think he's right. He never reads this blog. It's below Grand Theft Auto, Fallout 3 and sleeping on his list of priorities. HA.

Speaking of sleeping. Do you know what time Mark went to bed last night? 7:10pm. That's right. I think there were chickens who were still awake after he was asleep. And tonite? 8:35pm. (Which is actually REALLY LATE for him.) This week he is working the PRDI shift. (I think that's how it's spelled. It's pronounced purr-dee.) Anyway, I have no idea what that means other than he has to be at work before the chickens wake up. Like, he has to get out of bed at 3:00, I think. I could tell you how many kinds of wrong this is, and my suspicion is that you would agree with me, but I'm not going to. Here's another awesome part. Mark volunteered for it. I know, he's insane. It's kind of hot. Not really. Since he doesn't read this blog, I'll make another confession. I really miss him. This week I have seen him a grand total of 5 hours. This is not good for me. I'm so whiney when I'm in pain. All I want is to be cuddled and loved and to have someone to complain to and I can't bring myself to put that on him. He's too tired. He's there at 3:45am and isn't home until 5:15pm. I just can't do it. I have made dinner two nights in a row though. It's ready when he gets home so he can eat, shower and go to bed.

I'm Suzie Freakin' Homemaker over here, except for the knees. They are more or less flipping Susie a bird.

maw

Not Maw Kettle. It's Beth- Subject number 3 of my little Valentines game. Can you picture your home away from home? Well, her house is mine, and she is easily my maw away from mom. Don't get me wrong. THERE's NO ONE LIKE YOUR MAMA. Beth is different though. Since she hasn't actually raised me, she gives completely unbiased advice and is always objective. All of that in a way that still feels like she loves me, even when she has to tell me something I'm not going to like.

It's actually funny how our relationship came about. I honestly can't remember how old I was, but the details about our first meeting are still sharp. I was cleaning house for her "man friend" (now husband) Bill. They came by as I was retrieving my money from the cigar tin on top of the refrigerator. (side note: to this day, I still love that method of payment, it's too original to use myself, but I think of it fondly everytime I need to leave money for someone.) Anyhow, Bill introduced me and explained what I was doing there and Beth said "wanna swing by my house later? I've got a vacuum cleaner and a mop too." Simple. That was it. We laughed and I have pretty much been glued to her side since.

We've made several trips together, including the beach and the mountains. I've driven Miss Daisy to the store, and she has rescued me more times than I can remember. We are the type of people who can chat for hours or not speak at all and be absolutely comfortable in the silence- and that's saying something.

Hanging out with 40 year olds hasn't always made me fit in with the cool kids, but I don't care. She's Maw. And I love her. Happy Valentines Day, MAW.

Love,
Hedda

RCW

In keeping with my promise, Ryan is the next subject of my Valentines Day posting. Truthfully, I don't know why I am writing about him so early in the week. It's hard to actually put into words how I feel about this child, but I'm going to try. They say a mother's love is endless. I'm no one's mother yet, but the love I have for my nephew is about as close to that kind of love I'm ever going to get- until I have children of my own. He's just so... perfect. Honestly, the word perfect sounds sort of generic when I think about trying to describe how I feel about him- my feelings for him are that big and run deep.

I can remember the day he came into the world, and the first time I saw him. My entire family rushed back to see this new bundle of joy. Maybe thats a better word to use when describing my love for him. Sheer, utter joy. The kind of happiness that makes you cry and smile at the same time. Where was I? Oh, right. The day he was born. My mom was crying and someone else in the room said he was beautiful (and really, he was). I heard the nurse tell Holly and Wayne congratulations. Me? I was speechless. So speechless in fact, that I didn't say anything until I asked to hold him. And then I said "Welcome to the world, sweet baby. I'm your  Aunt Heather, and I am going to love you like there's no tomorrow."

When they came home from the hospital, I was there. Not like living there. Well, maybe a little. Holly needed a lot of help, and well, I needed a lot of time with Ryan. That kid changed me, I think. He changed how I felt about having kids from "God that's a scary thought" to "Maybe I could do this". It was him. A lot of the reason for that is probably the amount of time I spent with him. One of the funniest things I remember about him being that little is he was always pooping. And whenever I had to change him, it was always poop. If someone else had him and he started pooping, someone would inevitibly say, hand him to Heather, she's a pro at it.  I didn't care though. I loved him enough that I laughed when he peed on me- more than once.

So, to my sweet nephew Ryan I say, I love that you have pawpaw's eyes, I love the way you say Bruisie, I love that when you take a bottle, you like to pat my hand, I love that you are really starting to make sense when you talk, I love to see you run, I love your smile and your sweet face, I love that you changed not just me, but all of the people in our family, I love that I helped name you, I love that you are mischievious, and love that you are so smart. In essence, I love all the things about you that make you- YOU. Happy Valentines, baby boy. And thanks for coming into the world- you make it a much better place.

Love,
Aunt Hedda

Kingston Casino

The best three hours I've spent in a long time! The day started out as any normal Saturday does: Mark got up early videogaming, and I slept in until the dogs insisted on going out to pee. After a while, Mark and I headed over to the station with nothing in particular in mind to do afterwards. On the way home, we stopped to get a coke and while I was rummaging around in my purse for money to pay, I came across an old lottery ticket winner for a free ticket. So I cashed it in, got another ticket and added $5 in tickets to it for fun and we headed home. We had just pulled into the driveway and we were still talking. The car was idling and Mark started scratching tickets. We found 3 winners! We were already in the car so we decided to redeem those and get fresh ones. This started a gambling frenzy and turned an otherwise blah and boring, dreary Saturday into one of the best dates I've been on in my life. Here's what we did:

We went from Rocky Top on Bluff Road to our house, scratched those tickets, redeemed them at the Rocky Top in town (across from Movie Gallery- which incedentally is going out of buisness), went to our bank and scratched those (we thought it might be lucky), redeemed those at the Exxon in town and added $3 dollars in tickets. We went to Lowes to scratch those, where we lost it all, and then went to Kroger to get fruit. Mark decided there to spend $20 more dollars on tickets. So, went to the liquor store (in Midtown) to scratch those. We redeemed those at the Rocky Top (next to Rite Aid), bought new ones and went to Rite Aid to scratch them off (which I said was bad Juju, but who's keeping track?) We redeemed those winners and bought new ones at Raceway. We scratched those off at Classic Styles (which got its parking lot paved recently- kudos, Beth!). From there, we took those winners to the Exxon at the top of the hill (wow, this is some serious local slang) and took the new ones to Bet's Pets to scratch off. From there we went back to the top of the hill (ha) to Smokin' Joes to redeem our winners (dude in there called me beautiful- bonus!) and we took those tickets to Cherokee Middle to scratch them off, where we lost everything again. We found a dollar in change, because by this point we were HOOKED, and took it to Pilot on lawnville and bought one ticket. We took it to the driving range, scratched it off, then took the winner to BP on Gallaher to redeem. We took the one we got there to Huddle House to scratch off (which, did you know it closed? WTF?) and got another dead end. We found another dollar in coins went over to the Weigels across the street (where we ran into one person and hid from another) and got one more. We scratched it at Normans (so sad it's not really there anymore) and hit another dead end. We decided from there to head home until coming up the hill I found ANOTHER two dollars (this time a bill and coins) and we took it to the Rocky Top at the top of the hill and bought the last two tickets, which we took to the bandroom and lost again.

The moral of the story:   Lottery Tickets: $33. Gas: $2.53 a gallon. Best date of your life? Priceless.

Injuries

Biieeeetccchhhesss. It's what my mother-in-law would say and it's the only appropriate thing I can think of at the moment. I was doing so WELL. I stuck to my running schedule. Like clockwork. I was getting up everyday and running before work, which is no small feat for someone who considers getting up before 10 to be early. (It's who I am, you don't get to judge.) I'm sure you're wondering what the hell it is that I am talking about. Well, it's my knees. At first, I thought that maybe my extra "chubby" was causing the problem. Now I am beginning to think it was the running down hill. My last run was Wednesday, which is infuriating. Wednesday I ran and I thought I was going to die. Or, at the very least, that my knees were going to come unhinged from my thighs and that I was going to have to pull myself with my arms back to the car and just wait for someone with legs to drive me and my car home. The pain is nowhere close to being gone and from what I've read about it, it may be a week or more before they are healed. I feel like I have in some way let myself and my running buddy down, but I cannot run on knees like this-even if I wanted to, and I assure you, I DO. I've been alternating heat and ice and neither one really helps at all. I may be headed for a doctors visit next week if things don't improve.

Completely disheartening. And sad. I'll update later..... biiieeettccchheeess.

Father in laws

As far as they go, I've got a darn good one. He just celebrated his birthday on Thursday. His 58th, I think. Mark and I met him and Darlene at Outback for dinner. I haven't been there in so long, and let me tell you, the blooming onion is better than I remember it being! Anyway, Mark took Ken yesterday to Coal Creek so they could play. With guns. Apparently, this made Ken (and lets be truthful- Mark) very happy, so for that I am happy. I was also happy to stay home and let them have a father/son day. It's also because I'm not gun crazy.  : )

Happy Birthday, Ken! Many happy returns! Love you!

More Snow!

Doesn't Saber look so happy? All weekend long she pranced around looking like a queen, just like this, acting as if the snow had been delivered just for her. She jumped and ran and looked so smitten, I swear I could see her smiling!. Naturally all the other dogs hated her. She deserved that snow though. It's just been too long!

Well, we did end up getting all that wonderful snow last weekend and Courtney came prepared. We made a huge bowl of chilli on Friday night and settled in with cards and some board games. On Saturday morning we got a little more snow. Mark was sick most of the weekend, so he only ventured out once. Courtney and I played as much as we could and the girl time was nice.

Bruiser and Magoo weren't as interested in the snow as Saber was, but they were good sports about it.

Court and I warmed up with some Jack Daniels before heading out to make snow angels.

Here's to the biggest best snow of 2010- so far. 

Coco Holt...Errrkkk!

I have so many reasons to be thankful in my life, and Valentines Day is just a week away- which got me thinking about the people in my life that I love the most. Since it is seven days away, this week I thought I might make a post each day (or at least try to) in honor of the people I love most in my life.

One of the first people who came to mind was Courtney. She has been my friend for longer than I care to admit, and that's only because we're getting older. In times of old I can remember Court saying to people, "Heather has been my best friend for 8 years!" -and that was a while back, so it's been much longer than that since we became friends. We met first in the church nursery and were good buddies to begin with. From there, Courtney moved from Midway to Kingston when we were in 5th grade, I believe. We've shared so many wonderful memories. Everything, in fact, from Sex Ed, slumber parties, tears, and laughter to tricks and jokes. We got left at the skating rink more than once by our parents who were out having their fun, from sneaking swigs of champagne on New Year's Eve, rolling my own mother's front yard, living together and so many weekends of non stop fun, it's actually kind of hard to recall all of the fun we've had and the mischief we've made together over the years. I owe so much to this woman, that girl and that little old lady I know will be by my side, no matter what time does to us.

To my best friend, Courtney: You mean more to me than I can express. I love you...Errkk!

Where I been, and what I been doin'

Ah yes, I've been pounding the pavement. In my new running shoes. (insert a beaming smile here!) I could not find a gym close enough to home that I really liked so, I decided I would start running to at least include the exercise portion of my New Year's resolution, until I do. I got all of my info from Runnersworld.com . And let me tell you, it's not easy. Even for beginners. They have a whole section for beginners with information on everything from shoes to nutrition and injuries. When you sign up with them, you get email alerts and other cool info. My favorite part is you get a quote everyday called your "daily kick in the butt." Some are corny, and others are really inspiring. Here is my favorite one so far:

"Each afternoon I would run my demons hard until I left them heaving by the roadside."
-Christopher Solomon

Some mornings I have had to run early, but none were as pretty as this morning was. (See above.) A good friend, Andrew, over at Custom Commentary, has been running with me too. It's always lovely to have support, so a special thank you to him. We have dubbed our team "Chasing Chubbies," and we like it a lot, thank you very much. So, in short, I run, come home, shower, get ready for work, work, come home, do a few things around the house, have dinner, read and go to bed. Oddly, I am starting to fall a little in love with this routine. I've never been a morning person, but today I was up at 8:00AM to run. I'm even impressing myself, lately. Hopefully, this all explains the lag in posting. Right now I'm headed for my latest book find (a review of that to come soon, hopefully) and some popcorn before I crash. Happy Monday!