The man makes stools...

I saw this video on Dooce.com and, well, if what people say makes THIS guy feel good, what he DOES makes me feel insignificant...  It's only about 2 or 3 minutes long, so if you have the time to spare...

http://vimeo.com/23095780

We need to stop this madman.

http://vimeo.com/invisible/kony2012

If you have 30 minutes, watch this video.

I was seeing links to it all over FB and Twitter yesterday and I wondered what or who Kony2012 was so I watched the video today.

He is an animal.  A criminal.  A bad guy.  A REALLY bad guy.

He needs to be stopped.

This is a Wikipedia link to Joseph Kony:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kony

It will take you much less than 30 minutes to read about him.  It will take you MUCH MUCH less than 30 minutes to be horrified, and I hope, moved to act.  If you can't donate, if you can't put posters up, you can spread the word.  Make people aware.

I never thought I'd say these words, but...

Thank you, President Obama, for acting.  I hope it makes a difference.

Two fireplaces in February!!!

I had this post ready for 2 weeks but had some trouble uploading the photos from work, so it had to wait until I had some uninterrupted time at home with my laptop...  Jack was sick yesterday; he even stayed home from work.  (You KNOW he had to be feeling not-so-good!  In fact, he's taking a nap now; we're staying in today so he can get his strength back.)

After spending a few weekends doing the bedroom fireplace, it took hubby ONE.DAY to put up the stacked stone on the sitting room fireplace.

I know you're all thinking he's incredible, and he is, but we were working with an advantage:  the gas fireplaces were installed by the fireplace people when we put on the addition, so all he had to do regarding prep work was remove sheetrock, add tileboard, mix mastic, and slap those tiles up there!  The tiles were 4-5 stones high, and 24" long, so that made it a LOT easier.  Also, FYI, we bought the bedroom rock 2 years ago but just got to the project this month; they were even blocks, all rectangular.  The sitting room fireplace stone was ordered a couple of weeks ago, picked up on the Friday of our long weekend, and they've improved the design (yes, it's a different company, too):  they had interlocking ends, about 2" long on each 24" tile, so you see far fewer "seams" where we had to cut and modify to fill in spaces.

I am not the person to describe this in technical detail, so I hope that was enough of an explanation that you could figure it out!!!  Suffice it to say, I think these new fireplace surrounds add a LOT of oomph to those two rooms!!!

This is the one in our bedroom.  It's not a deep mantle; neither of them is.  I'm going to lean framed photos and/or a mirror against it, since hanging photos on a rock wall would mean damaging the rock...

This is the one on the other side, in the sitting room.  The fireplace is see-through and throws heat on both sides.  I'll put framed pictures on this side, too, most probably the focal one will be the painting we had done in Vegas by one of those street painters.  You can click on this link to see what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzi_BGnY0Vc  We had one done in greens and browns, trees and a lake, to remind us of our lake house...  I'll take a photo of it and post it when I can...

The most patient and docile cat ever!

I am not a cat person. Sure, my sisters and my mom have cats that I can tolerate, in fact, I even like them.
But Bosn? The star of this You Tube video?
It's official - this is my most favorite cat ever!!!

My art project for this weekend...

I follow Kayla Aimee's blog - you will too, once you fall in love with her baby Scarlette - and she recently sent out a mom's plea for projects to do with her little girl.  You see, Scarlette and her mom are quarantined for 6 months - they're 4 months into it already so there's a HUGE light at the end of the tunnel - but she needs to keep her very active baby busy!  And they don't have the distraction of wandering the mall, going to the library, going to a crop...  Scarlette was very premature, in NICU for a long time (5 months or so, KA?), and to keep her healthy, mom and baby are sort of housebound...

WELL, someone sent her this awesome project.  Put some different color paints in a ziplock bag, shut it securely, and let baby Scarlette "paint" a piece of modern baby art by squeezing and pressing...  KA thought to put a piece of cardstock in there and rescued it pre-destruction, then gave the bag'o'paint back to Scarlette.  A regular piece of modern art!

So I'm going to do the same thing this weekend, and create some Project Life inserts, some card bases, some backgrounds to use in my art journal and in my scrapbooks!  Thanks, KA, for the idea!  (And thanks, too, to whoever sent the idea to Kayla Aimee!)

http://www.kaylaaimee.com/2012/02/ziplock-bag-painting-1st-art-project/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kaylaaimee+%28kayla+aimee%3A+only+slightly+neurotic%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

The Day before Valentine's Day

I thought it might be a great day to write a post about my husband.  He is one of the kindest, most thoughtful, gentle, hard-working, loving men I have ever met. 

But I can't do it. 

I've been reading some tremendous tributes, written by lovely women about their men, but I can't do it. 

I tried.  I erased this post more than once.  I started it several times.  I am struggling with the words, unable to put into black and white how he makes me feel.

We've been together (permanently) since 1993.  We started dating in 1990, broke up twice (his call), but found our way back to each other each time.

We are not into PDAs, although we do hold hands and kiss each other hello and goodbye.  We are not afraid to say "I love you" in front of family and friends, or even in front of strangers.  We're not into huge romantic gestures, though, no big bouquets of red roses, no jewelry for each and every holiday, no pajamagrams or Vermont Teddy Bears.  No big gifts, no big showy apologies, no big passionate fights. 

In fact, we don't fight.  We have no reason to fight.  Some people have said that means one of us is lying, but it's quite simple:  the same things are important to both of us - each other, the kids, our families.  After that, what is there to fight about?

Yesterday was World Marriage Day and we renewed our vows in church.  Married couples had to stand and repeat their vows in front of the congregation attending that Mass.  I think we were the only couple in church to kiss each other when we were done.  The words meant even more this time: 

to love and to cherish,

in good times and in bad,

 for richer, for poorer,

 in sickness and in health,

 'til death do us part.

 

I joked with him again, he's stuck with me again! His response was, as always, "I'm not stuck with you, I chose you."

Even though were weren't young when we got married (I was 38 and he was 48), you don't really think about how little time you really have left with each other.  Every day together today is one less together in the future, and I know I want to be with him for many, many, MANY more years.  There was one day a few years ago when he was sick enough that he wanted to go the hospital, but even through that, he was up and moving under his own power.  We got to the hospital and we were walking to the ER door and he stopped in his tracks and said he couldn't walk anymore.  I had to leave him and get a wheelchair.  I have NEVER felt so helpless and scared in my life.  I have never felt the potential loss of him like I did that day, and Lord knows I don't ever want to feel that again.  In fact, I keep on telling him I'd better go first...

I can't picture my life without him.  I almost don't remember my life without him.  I look back and say things like "If only we'd been together then..." or "You would have loved..."  My life is full of him.  He doesn't "complete me" (shades of Tom Cruise!) but we are better together than we are apart, we are happier together than we are apart, we would manage if we had to, but we don't want to be apart.

I'm very aware of how lucky I am to have him.  And I know, deep in my heart, that he feels the same way, and he shows me each and every day, in so many tiny little ways.  We don't need big gestures.  It's enough that he reaches for my hand before we fall asleep at night.  It's enough that he doesn't need to go out and have a good time with his buddies, that he wants me to go along.  It's enough to see the "I love you" when he looks at me, even if for some reason he can't say it out loud at that moment.  It's enough to hear "I love you." 

He is enough for me.  He is all I want.

I know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he loves me.  That he wants to spend the rest of his life with me.  And that feeling?  For me there are simply no words to describe how that makes me feel.  I feel loved, cherished, honored, protected, cared for.  I know he's proud of me, that he worries about me, that he wants no one but me.  And that feeling, that confidence in our love for each other, that is the gift that keeps on giving every minute, every hour, every day.

Happy Valentine's Day, J!!!

$5000 richer, once removed...

THE GIANTS WON!  21-17!  WE BEAT THE PATRIOTS!

And my darling daughter won $5000 in the football pool!

That's the same as me winning, right?  Once removed?

I'm so excited for her!  Her fiance posted "$5000!!!" on Facebook, so I replied with, "???  Did you win a football pool???"  That's when he said it was my daughter who won!!!

It was an awesome game, and I'm so glad I watched it.  It was a real nail biter, that's for sure, and while I can follow a game, I don't know all the rules and regulations.  My daughter, however, does.  We had gone out to dinner with the two of them last week, and S mentioned that they don't watch games together, in the same room, because she goes crazy!  In fact, he said, she uses his clean socks and underwear to throw down flags during the game!  So I asked her, when she called to tell us about her win, I asked how many flags were on the bedroom floor.  She counted:  "1, 2, 3,... 11, 12, 13!!!"

I wish she'd taken a picture of the floor!!!

And, by the way, THE SINGLE BEST SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL WAS (DRUM ROLL, PLEASE):

THE CLINT EASTWOOD/CHRYSLER COMMERCIAL.  THE MAN IS H.O.T.