86 Days Grateful- my baby is one!

Happy Birthday, Claire baby!

~•~

83 Days Grateful- showin' the love

Sometimes they don't get along and sometimes the even fight.
They are mostly best friends, but rarely do they do this.



Even though they don't always show it, I'm sure this is how they feel about each other.

~•~

79 Days Grateful- First day of Spring

It's official. It's Spring, and the glorious weather today was worthy of its arrival.

~•~

78 Days Grateful- girls' night out

Those are my friends in the background. One came from Connecticut and two came from Long Island so we could all have a night out. It is no small thing, the four of us getting together. I think we took it for granted when we all lived so close.
We made the best of last night, eating and talking until the late hour, several yawns and their long drives started calling them home. I just had a short walk to my front door. Thanks for coming to my neck of the woods, ladies. I had a great time!

~•~

76 Days Grateful- free day

(I'm a little behind :)

No dr. appointments
No house work
No one coming to dinner
No meetings
No one else's children to babysit

My only obligation was to be a mom.

~•~

74 Days Grateful- when she lets me see her sweet face

I barely recognize this face. It is usually hidden behind a mass of disheveled hair.

I try to do her hair. When I do, she pulls it out within about 10 minutes of completion. Sometimes, I don't even get to finish it.

Today, she kept her hair in all day. I tried not to draw her attention to her hairdo by complimenting it. Instead, I took several dozen photos of her, because let's face it, she may not ever let me do her hair again.

FYI- Jane is so like me when I was a child. I wouldn't let my mom do my hair either. My elementary school pictures hold the proof.

~•~

71 Days Grateful- the best 45 minutes of the day

It was a

paper filin'
car breakin'
home cleanin'
home showin'
tear wipin' (not mine)
important documents missin'
return emailin'
clothes mendin'

kind of day.

It wasn't all bad, but it was all busy and I was so tired for all of it.

It really did me some good when we took the girls out tonight during our home showing. We braved the wind and rain and went to our favorite bakery for a treat. It was more for me than for the girls, but I'm glad they enjoyed it :)

Can you tell which cupcakes they wanted?

~•~

70 Days Grateful- fairies

Hannah's chosen fairy pose in the window.



Good fairies, bad fairies, happy fairies, sad fairies...
I bet you didn't know that fairies are very temperamental.

My two older girls played fairies today for SO long!
It's always so funny to listen to them in their make-believe world. I find myself laughing around corners.
Even though they experienced every emotion imaginable, they played through it and they didn't bug me at all.
Good fairies!

~•~

69 Days Grateful- cherry blossoms

I love fresh flowers in my home, especially cherry blossoms which are so representative of Spring. Every time I look at them, I feel happy.

Here's another one, just because.

~•~

68 Days Grateful- surprise shoes in the mail

Check out my daughter in those heels! I'm not sure what she is doing with her hands there. I think she was arching her back and holding herself in place to keep her balance in the shoes. After she had her fun trying them on, she told me how silly the things were. Yeah, silly, but who cares.

My M-I-L sent me these shoes in the mail, and I didn't even ask for them! What's even better is that I'm really excited about them because I just don't buy shoes like this these days. Thanks, Mom!

Good thing I just painted my toe nails. Now I just need an outfit to wear with these babies and somewhere to wear them...?

Dan?

~•~

67 Days Grateful- at home pedicure

If you are podophobic, look away.



I don't know what it is about a fresh pedicure. It just makes me feel a wee bit prettier.

~•~

A fresh face, and a wet thumb

Here are a couple of my favorites from this thumb-sucking cutie I got to photograph yesterday.

I don't know what it is. I just love it.

I've never had a thumb-sucker. She looked so cute with her thumb in her mouth, so I welcomed it at first.
Then, when I wanted the smiles, 'cause she's got some great ones, I couldn't get them. I did get a few, though, before all she wanted was thumb.

It was great to shoot again, other than my kids and my everyday happenings. It's been a while. Thanks, you two!

Still, I can't wait to shoot outside!

~•~

62 Days Grateful- modern miracles

I wasn't going to mention this because I was just too embarrassed, but I lost my Canon Speedlite on Sunday. I was careless and it fell out of my bag. My heart has been aching with regret since. I'm pretty sure the ache comes from the money lost from such expensive equipment.
I don't use my flash that much. In fact, I try not to use it, but sometimes, you just need a flash. They have their place in this world.

After we had exhausted our search, looking in every possible location, my husband put these up around our building:




My husband and I both felt it was a lost cause, especially after a couple of days had passed.

Are you waiting for the miracle?
Here it comes.

Tonight, I received a phone call from a woman in our building whose husband may have found the flash. She said that he found something in the middle of the road the other day while he was driving down our street.
She was trying to translate what information he wanted her to get from me over the phone, but I wasn't making sense of it. Finally, without getting my hopes up, I asked if what her husband found was a "Canon Speedlite 580 EXII in a black case". I just wanted a "yes" or "no".

"Yes. I will have my husband bring it down to your door."

I proceeded to hold my breath for the next five minutes until I heard the door ring.

I remember opening the door with my eyes searching only for what rested in his hands, and there it was. Relief and elation surged through me.

The man, my hero of the day, had apparently seen the case laying in the middle of the street right in front of our building on Sunday morning, right after we left.
He said, as I understood him to say, he didn't normally look or stop for things like a black case, but he just did. So he picked it up and took it home.
Maybe it took a few days to make the connection between his find and the "Missing" posters, or maybe he just took his time getting around to it, but I don't care. He found and returned my flash to me safe and sound.
I am definitely thinking of ways I can show him and his wife my thanks.

The miracle is threefold:
• No one ran over the flash in the street, crushing it useless,
• a person took the time to pick it up, right after I dropped it,
• and this person was honest and decent enough to hold onto it to seek out its owner instead of selling it on Ebay.

Some of you may understand why I was suffering this week over a piece of camera equipment and some of you may not. It's really about money and an investment. Losing a lot of either can hurt.
I am not hurting tonight.

~•~

61 Days Grateful- Thank you, Jane

Dear Jane,

Thank you for being so good today while I shopped, even though I thought I lost you when in fact you were just laying down on the bottom rack of the cart.

Thank you for letting me have a workout two days in a row. I'm on a roll! Let's keep it up.

Thank you for loving my music. It's funny to listen to you sing the lyrics as you hear them.

Thank you for having enough personality for the two of us (I've been kind of dull lately).

And in honor of his birthday, here are some words from Dr. Seuss that make me think of you, Jane:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
~ Dr. Seuss