crayon

this weekend rachel and i took a roadtrip to the one of a kind show in toronto. everything we saw there was beautiful and inspiring, and quite expensive. often we would see something very lovely and concluded that we could make that ourselves. the problem is that we don't. but maybe that should be a motivation. one pleasant surprise was that we bumped into rachel greenwood, which is quite remarkable considering the size of that craft fair. had we not been taking a sit-break, we probably wouldn't have crossed pathes.

 

on sunday i went to the fat goose fair in ktown to pick up one thing in particular. so over all, i'm quite surprised to say that we're well on our way with our christmas shopping. and although it's still november, it's starting to feel like christmas, and i'm ok with that.

i've noticed that our house starts to feel small when it's messy. right now it's very messy. i have clothes everywhere and it's hard to see the floor, much less walk around, in our bedroom. i need to do something about this. this week is looking quite full, but i have to make tidying a high priority.

my right ear has been buzzing all day. it's quite annoying.
 
grace...
it's a name for a girl,
it's also a thought that changed the world.

guitar riff

so i got my hair cut.

there are two things i dislike about hair dressers...
1) when they tell me MY (natural) hair is unhealthy because it has split ends, meanwhile their hair is so overly treated it's a small miracle that it doesn't randomly break off.
2) when they straighten my hair. ESPECIALLY when i bring in a picture of what i want my hair to look like and it's NOT straight. they should at least ASK if i want it straightened. instead i have to patiently wait and then wash it again when i get home to style it myself.

i think i need to find a new salon to go to. the ladies at regis are either really out of touch or just incredibly lazy so they style everyone's hair the same way. i want something EDGY, with character, not something 'off the rack'. ugh. thankfully, after washing it AGAIN, i think it's turned out relevantly like i want it. mostly. but next time i'm going elsewhere. plus, i think they raised their prices.

does anyone know of a decent salon for less than thank 35 bux? i'm starting to think my best bet might be asking a novice hair-cutting friend to do it for me. i bet all the really edgy hair cuts i see out there are either VERY expensive or completely free.

i've gotta go. my date is badgering me to get out the door. we're going to see the life of pi in 3D.

bangin' on the bongoes like a chimpanzee.

shaggy

i've decided to get my hair cut. well, cut isn't really the right word. there will be cutting involved, but it's not so much the length as the style. lately i've found that my hair has gotten quite long and the weight of it just pulls it flat. i'd like it to have more volume and body. actually, i'd like it to have more character. i'm excited, but this is a pretty big step because i've never really had a hairstyle before. it's always just been long or growing out to long. i hope i like it. and i hope that it's easy to maintain. i can get away with being quite delinquent with my hair cuts when it's just long, because it just gets longer. with a hairstyle, it will need to keep some form of shape.

this is KIND OF what i have in mind. minus the colour. thoughts?

 

sarah and i had a long chat about hair, hair cuts, and hair styles last evening. i feel very pumped for change of some kind. frig... it's just hair right? it grows back. besides, i think the change would do me good. i think becoming more comfortable with change would do me good. i remember when i first joined facebook that changing my profile pic stressed me out. i don't feel that way anymore. i dunno, maybe that's not great, but having anxiety around change is unproductive and an unnecessary burden.

 

onwards and upwards, i say!

 

i move slow and steady,
but i feel like a waterfall.

moist

i suppose it's murphy's law. but just when i need my window scraper i don't know where to find it.

on tuesday nights, brendan works in napanee and i volunteer at KGH. sometimes he can get a drive with his colleague, but about half the time she's already there so he needs the car. we've worked out a pretty good system. i park in the underground parking lot, and he comes to fetch it there. so far it's worked out great. so after my patient visits, i walk home and usually pick up some dinner for myself because i just need something quick and easy because i'm hungry by 6:30. i quite enjoy these walks home. my solo dinners. i like spending time with b, i never grow tired of him, but i also like spending time by myself. so it's a win-win. i had a nice evening last night visiting. i think it felt particularly rewarding because people actually told me how encouraged they were and how good it was to have engaging conversation. i spent time with a woman who was 106!! that's the oldest patient i've visted so far. she was pretty sweet, and only confused because i'd woken her up from a nap (i'm supposed to wake people because the less they sleep in the day the better they sleep at night.

sometimes i think about things like the phrase "on the lam" and wish i could go on the lam just so i could use the phrase "on the lam" in an actual sentence.

how are things with you, i wonder.
 
it had a son that mowed the lawn.

shot

well... i got audited. as soon as i saw a letter for me from the CRA, i knew something was up. thankfully i was able to locate my 2011 tax return with relative ease. this morning i printed out a few copies of receipts, then sent them off in the mail. part of me is worried that they might get lost in transit. but that's just me being anxious again.

i recently spent some time reading about worry and anxiousness. it pointed out that worry is basically the refusal to accept uncertainity. the site i was reading gave me 4 questions to work through, to really ask myself if uncertainty is really all that bad (i concluded that it isn't). and the funny thing is... even though there's a lot in life that we don't or can't know, the one thing that is certain is that i'm going to be ok. no matter what, i will cling to what is good. i will know peace in hard times. even if my worst fears were realized, i would cope and i'd probably cope surprisingly well. things are never as bad as we imagine them to be. i ended up concluding that there's no sense in me sitting and stewing. being afraid of this or that really won't make one ounce of difference. and even if it helped "prepare" me, which i doubt, i'd still have to experience it for what it is. so i guess that is to say... if my tax receipts go missing, i'd either contact the charities and ask them to issue me new ones, or i'd pay the difference. no big deal and seriously not worth me making my self sick with stress.

i think that's what i'm going to do from now on. when i find myself worrying, i will imagine what my response will be if my negative projections come true, then grab onto the reality that it'll be ok. what-ifs are not worth my time. or yours, for that matter!

 

hold my hand, i'll walk with you, my dear.

suitcase

it feels really good to be on the ball. it's only been a few days, but i've been really proactive lately. i hate the feeling of having something hanging over my head that i need to do. so lately i've been thinking "now... is there anything outstanding that i need to address". so i sent a thank you card to my dad's friend, contacted the newspapers and asked them to stop delivering to our house, made an inquiry into a christmas gift for audrey. it's really great not procrastinating.

sometimes when volunteering at the hospital i get more than i bargained for. that's ok though, i guess. i feel that my years of life-drawing class prepared me for unceremonious exposure to people's body parts.

now that we're at mid-november i find myself counting down to my year-end holidays. maybe it's just the affect of november. a sort of nothing month that feels like a bus tranfer station on your way to something else. and although the end of december will bring with it good things, i don't want to impatiently fast-forward through all the joys of daily life til then.

 

the floor under our feet whispers out,
"come on in, come on in, where it all begins."

renew

well... i installed a new showerhead in the bathroom yesterday. i wasn't sure if it was going to work properly, and i needed brendan's help to tighten the fixture to eliminate a small leak in the connection. but after all that was done, i gave it a try and was delighted by the improved showering experience. the spray is really nice and the angle is pretty ideal. our shower is pretty small, but this new showerhead makes it feel more roomy since the spray doesn't go everywhere. i actually have room to breath and shampoo my hair. i'm very pleased. i hope brendan approves of it too. he liked the old showerhead, so it would suck if he didn't like this one as much in comparison.

i actually took a long weekend. i had a lieu day left over from my time in calgary so i decided to pick a weekend between thanksgiving and my christmas holidays. it was really nice. i did a bunch of running around - i usually hate doing errands, but it's really not that bad when you have enough time and the errands are not cutting into my time doing other things. i love having days off after sundays. and the nice thing was that i felt ready to return to work this morning.

lately i've been really into this icelandic band 'of monsters and men'. ever since i heard them the first time i've considered them a hybrid of stars and edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros. the more i listen, the more i'm amazed how consistently they remind of that combination. i really like them. for me, i think that's a perfect combo. funnily enough, when b and i were in costa rica, we heard one of their songs on the radio. the world is small.

 

though the truth may vary
this ship will carry
our bodies safe to shore.

peace

I'm lying on the love seat, playing solitaire on my ipod, and listening to U2. I really don't think I could be more content than I am right now. In this thin space. Where everything good is possible and worry has no place.

I used that Oxford comma just for you ;)

Later tonight, shanno and I are going to the casino for our annual trek to give them chump change and drink (caffeine) for free. Wish us luck!

If I had the option for italics, I would quote this... "Let's take a chance, baby, we can't lose."

Sent from my iPod

poppyseed

our little house has a small addition on the front - a small foyer. the foyer was added just before we bought the house and because it was tacked on 70 odd years after the house was built, it doesn't have any heating duct work in it. it does however, have a small built in space heater. that said, us lorimers are too thrifty to actually use the spaceheater. so instead we lived in a somewhat chilly home all last winter. this was a stark contrast to our last home where we could not control the heat and lived in tropical temperatures all year long.

last year during our open house, tim and tracy suggested we install a blanket or curtain over the opening to the foyer to stop the warm house-air from getting sucked into the chilly foyer. that seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't something we got around to doing til yesterday. we now have a wool blanket separating the two spaces, and the difference is quite dramatic. i'm extremely pleased. my next attempt at keeping out the cold will be to buy or make some winter curtains, because whenever i'm beside a window (either in bed or on the couch) i feel a chilly draft. they're not even old windows. i haven't actually heard of 'winter curtains' before, but i'm sure they existed back in the days before central air.

further on the home-improvement/efficiency front, i'm about to head to canadian tire to buy a new showerhead. while brendan loves our shower because it's so tall that he can stand comfortably under it, i find that it's just high-enough that at my height i can't escape the spray when trying to shampoo my hair. but more importantly, we need a showerhead with a hose for filling buckets, cleaning paint trays and the like.

 

that is all.

 

it's all i see these days.

slow

sometimes, and i mean on the very rare occasion i wish that brendan or i had a mobile phone. believe it or not, he just called me on a pay phone from the cat centre. the thought of him being at the cat centre alone is very funny and kind of ironic.

lately i feel like my life has found a good rhythm. not too busy, not too full. i've noticed an increase in my desire for social interaction, which probably means that i'm well rested and well adjusted. it's good. i'm encouraged. we've started having folks for dinner regularly. last friday we had david and sue over, it was really fun and the four of us chatted til 10:00. having guests over always requires a bit of creativity since we don't having a dinning table, but i find the more we do it the more comfortable we get and the easier it becomes.

since life is moving along at a content rate, i find i have less to write about. this is the only downside really. i get a great deal of pleasure out of writing. debriefing. downloading the contents of my head. when i was in highschool, and i'd decided to pursue graphic design as a profession i started doing more painting and the like. art was something i always wanted to do more of. it was something that i wanted as a natural part of my life. but truthfully... was always something i had to push myself to do. how i know that brendan is a true musician and not just a music enthusiast is that he plays for the pure pleasure of it. at any time of day i will find him strumming his guitar in his own little world. sometimes, to my amusement, i'll find him playing a guitar while it still sits in it's wall mount, as though he couldn't wait the extra time to take it down before playing it. music is to brendan what i wanted art to be to me. it's the thing he does by instinct. i love graphic design, very much, but my instinct is writing. it's the thing i can't go without doing for days (if i'm not blogging, i'm writing for work, or writing emails). writing helps ground me, soothe me, connect me. so when i don't have time for an entry, or have nothing of note to say, i'm disappointed. maybe i'll need to do writing exercises - find a topic and just write on it when i don't have anything myself to report on. i just don't feel like myself if i'm not writing.

man, i stand by what i said the other day about this yogurt. it's delicious!

 

through autumn's advancing,
we'll stay young, go dancing.

naturist

last night we carved pumpkins with andrew and shannon. brendan had never carved a pumpkin before, and he did NOT like the scooping out the insides part. funnily enough, when i mentioned this to his mom today she said she didn't realize he'd never carved a pumpkin before. that they used to do it as a family, and thought he'd helped, but in hindsight it was ben. she said he didn't like to do "yucky" things. he hasn't changed.

we worked together on our pumpkin, while andrew and shannon each worked on their own. pickings were a little slim at the grocery store, all really big pumpkins. but i managed to find two medium sized ones for the cardiffs, and took a big one for brendan and myself. in the end, we ended up with three super pumpkins that we'll put on our stoop tomorrow night.

i really wanted to dress up as the girl in 'short skirt, long jacket', but it'll be cold out and i haven't gotten around to planning the costume. i really like the idea of having finger nails that shine like justice. i'd probably paint them bright red or something, but i want to crochet tonight and that would be problematic. i'm currently working on a purse, and so far it's pretty good. my one concern is that i often work hard on a project, then don't wear it very often. i hope i like this purse when i'm finished and use with frequently. the problem with knitted or crocheted bags is things like pens fall out. i'm considering putting in a lining, but haven't yet decided if i want to take it that extra step further.

lately, just on tuesdays when i start work early to accommodate my shift at the hospital, it's still completely dark out when i leave the house. it looks like it's 10:00 at night, and that i made some kind of error with my alarm clock.

some days it's just really natural and easy to believe everything's going to be ok.

all those sleepless nights,
and all those wasted days.

maybe

i've got to tell you about this new yogurt we've been eating. i almost feel like a cliche saying this, like i'm some kind of advert, but it's the best yogurt i've ever had. it makes all the other yogurts out there seem like garbage. it's so frickin flavourful! this morning as i was scooping it into a container to bring to work for a snack i licked the spoon and thought "there's no way yogurt could taste like this naturally". but when i looked on the box it said it's made with no artificial colours or flavours! i feel like it's the david's tea of yogurt. plus, i like that it's canadian and owned by the dairy farmer's cooperative of canada.

last night brendan and i went to farm boy with the gift certificate his mom gave him for his birthday. my sister's niece was our cashier! anyway, we were pretty impressed with it. except things like crackers were pretty expensive, so we didn't buy those there. b didn't feel like cooking so we bought our dinner at the take-out section and ate in their dinning space. i opted for the salad bar, which more closely resembled a next church potluck then any salad bar i'd ever seen before. man, it was good. later when i was telling my dad about it, and he asked how much my salad came too, i said it'd been tricky to know how much i was getting because there was no weight scales. and he said "ya, it's a bit of a crapshoot" :D i've never heard my dad say crap or crapshoot before. i liked it a lot!

all in all, with our trip to farm boy, and the new level of angry birds that came with a recent update, i didn't get nearly as much done last night as i'd hoped. i haven't done a chore since monday. i'm starting to slack off. but in my defence, our house isn't really that big, so i find some things on the list are not necessary. other things, like cleaning out the fridge, are things i know need doing, but didn't get around to completing this week. i'm afraid i've left everything to saturday and then saturday lesley will be mad at weekday lesley. that's happened before.

 

i will wait, i will wait for you.

farm

i've been starting to notice a trend. people don't seem to like it when i tell them things that are true. it makes them angry at me. the most disheartening and frustrating thing about that is that i'm not a particularly frank person and it generally takes me reaching a breaking point before i actually say it. it's not like it's easy for me to tell someone that i see a problem, i don't relish that kind of conversation. i kind of feel like a person, even if they don't initially like what i'm saying, should try to fathom that it took a lot of courage for me to speak up and that i did it because i love them and want the best for them.

i know it's not that i'm just a complete jerk, because one time in particular i told a friend 'this is what i see' and she actually felt relieved and thankful that i'd broached the subject. until then she hadn't been able to admit it to herself. maybe that's part of the problem, why people get angry, because they haven't yet realized the situation they're waist deep in. that said, with my dear friend, while we'd had a candid and productive conversation it still took a couple years for her to fully get it out of her system.

what do other people do? do they ignore it when they see a loved one in a self-destructive situation? i can't imagine loving someone and standing by idly watching self-inflicted problems persist. i can think of times when my friends spoke into my life in real and meaningful ways when i needed it. one of my favourite lines from a plants and animals song is "it takes a good friend to say you've got your head up your ass". i agree with this 100%. that's partly what friends are for, we help one another along the way.

it's that important tension. finding the balance between too tight and too lose.

i want to shake,
i want to shake,
i want to shake,
i want to shake your hand.

range

i spent some time thinking about my parents today, and b's parents too. it was neat thinking of them not as parents but as people.

andy (brendan's dad) is a real feeler. he's in tune with nature and spirituality, and in general is a pretty enthusiastic person. and he's very proud of brendan.

nancy (b's mom) is passionate about the things she loves. like brendan, she loves good quality things. and she's very generous and shows love through serving others.

george (my dad) loves people. he connects with all sorts of people, but especially marginalized folks. he's well informed, interested in everything and is also pretty charming.

jan (my mom) cares about relationships. she's people oriented and reaches out to those who are hurting, lonely or left out. she's very funny, has a good sense of humour, lives pretty simply, and is very encouraging.

i'd say all four of them are pretty loyal as well. which is a great trait.

i feel very fortunate to have such dynamic, caring and interesting people in my life.

this is you
according to me.

suggestions?

joelle is 9 years old. and has recently gotten really into pioneers. last year, in grade 3, her class did a study on pioneers and has been semi-obsessed ever since. she really likes their simple, lo-fi life style. she likes outhouses and doesn't want to own a car when she's older, but instead just ride a bike. i'm really digging this, and really want to encourage her. i tried doing a search online for books for kids about how to live green. i'm not having much luck. i found one promising one, but when i flipped thru the contents it wasn't quite what i was looking for. instead i want something about composting, reduced energy consumption, exercise, local foods/gardening, home-made stuff and do it yourself ideas. has anyone come across anything like that?

teenaged

so i had a consultation today about braces. this is because of my loose baby tooth situation. i'd looked into how much it costs to just get braces on the top, and with my 50% coverage thru work it looked as though it would be around $600 (after my insurance). BUT no so. it turns out my teeth are pretty much worst case scenario. all of the moderate solutions (not the cheapest, but not the most expensive) are not options because we need to coax the adult tooth into place from it's current home in the roof of my mouth. i'd need braces for around 2.5 years and it would cost $7,000. which sucks.

basically my options are the whole shebang or do nothing. when my baby tooth falls out, apparently the adult tooth will move a little, but not much.

i'm kind of disappointed because i know i'd love to have this impacted tooth in it's proper place, but i don't know how much it's worth to me. on the upside, i could probably do it down the road if i don't do it now. i assume i'd only have to pay half, but i need to check. i feel pretty torn because in the grand scheme of things, compared to a down payment on a house or a university degree, $3,500 isn't THAT much. but from where i sit, it's a big chunk of a new-to-me car, it's an expensive trip, it's more than brendan's college tuition :S i kind of envy the fact that most people get their braces as teens with their parents paying, and therefore never have to make this kind of decision themselves.

i really liked the dentist though. part of me wants to go thru with it because i think he'd be enjoyable to work with. except he clearly thought i was much younger than i am, even though i'd say things like "i've had my job for 9 years" and "my husband and i bought a house on main street" and my age written as 32 years and 10 months was written on the paperwork. aside from that he was a super cool guy. like seriously. the most charismatic dentist i've ever met.

lately i've taken to playing solitaire on my ipod while singing along with the music on my ipod. this both puzzles and amuses brendan.

everyone has a skeleton
and a closet to keep it in
and your mine.

hypothetical

i had lunch with my mom today. she lives about a 6 minute drive from my work. when i arrived she commented that i looked taller, and i told her that she looked shorter. since we were both in sock feet that seemed very strange. so we stood side by side in the mirror and i was a good 2 inches taller than her. my mom and i have always been the same height. as she said, we've always been at eye level. how very strange. i think she's getting shorter. there's absolutely no reason why i'd be taller - people don't get taller when they're full grown. it stands to reason that she's just getting shorter with age. it's still a little odd that she'd drop by 2 inches at 66. if she keeps this up she'll be a whole foot shorter in the next decade.

i was 16 when i started living alone with my mom. joy moved out for a year in university, then came back for a year before she got married when i was 18. since my late teens my mom and i lived as housemates rather than kid and parent. this has created a dynamic of equals, and in recent years me teaching my mom a lot of things. i've often attributed this with my lack of fear of authority figures. anyways, we sat and chatted over lunch, with me giving her feedback and advise. and at the end she told me i was very wise and that she appreciated me. i think sometimes i take our relationship for granted and want to be the kid and her the all-knowing parent. but i suppose we can't both be equals AND parent+child. i'll just adjust my expectations and be gentle with her when she doesn't know all the answers... or even all the problems.

 

we see the exact same sunrise.

target

so yesterday i went for some massage therapy. i was hoping for a full body massage, but since it was massage therapy they ask you what your problem areas are and work those specifically. so i ended up having just a back, shoulders and neck massage. still it was super great. at one point my legs jerked funny and the massuse said "oh, did i hit a nerve there?" and i had to admit that i'd started to doze off. i regularly fall asleep on massage tables and yoga mats. i'm really glad i went. i get really tight tension knots in my shoulders. she gave me some advise on how to manage that.

as i drove home, i enjoyed feeling like complete mush. massages are good.

however, i made the mistake of starting my new pilates workout afterwards. i really enjoyed the pilates. it was just a half-hour, and was super conveinent. during some of the poses i started to remember the things i didn't enjoy about pilates when i took it years ago. thankfully, one of the unique traits about pilates is that each exercise doesn't last very long. now where the mistake comes in is that instead of having a nice soft and relaxed body today after my massage, my muscles are sore from pilates :S that said, my tender muscles serve as evidence of a solid workout. i think i'll try to do it every other day throughout the fall and winter. man, the internet is pretty great sometimes.

that said, i've been getting pretty annoyed at all the pornographic pop-ups on the site i watch tv shows. honestly, if someone wanted to watch porn they'd look it up. why do they need to lure people who are not interested? it's really troubling.

 

you forgave and i won't forget.

andre the baby

it seems that fall has really truly arrived. the hill on taylor-kidd has gone orange.

i've been trying to learn to like dried apricot. it's a stupid story – not worth telling. and despite the fact that i hate their texture and taste, i snacked on one or two at various times throughout my work day. i figure that after enough time has passes i'll get used to them, then eventually like them. there's no particular reason for this, other than i want to like them.

so i've come up with a winter exercise plan to replace jogging. i'm going to do pilates at home. i've found a video online and i'll do that to work my muscles. i think that's a good substitute. i'm going to start tomorrow... after my massage! i'm going for a massage because my work benefits cover massages done by proper massage therapists. i'm pretty psyched.

while i'm not a person who worries, i am someone who prepares for the potential of unfortunate things. most frequently i worry about things being stolen, but i worry about other things too. now that brendan works in napanee on tuesdays, he needs to pick up the car at KGH because that's when i do my volunteer shift. we came up with a good arrangement, but there was part of me that was concerned about what would happen if he couldn't find the car because the plan is that i'll park in a general area rather than one specific spot. so there i was fretting about this, when i remembered that there's like a 93% chance that what i was worrying about wasn't going to happen. so then i felt much better. not worrying about stuff is awesome.

on my way home, i saw her thru her living room window. it made me smile and happy. i'm glad she's well and back at home. it's good.

that's the way to my heart.

chuffy

brendan and i have talked theoretically about having a wine tasting party for quite some time. after a relaxing summer evening of sharing a wine bottle with robb, the three of us decided to set a date and just do it! so we decided on brendan's birthday, although it ended up being the night before brendan's birthday because we couldn't invite all of our friends to the wine party. since our space is small, we thought a group of 6 or 7 people would be best.

so friday night arrived and so did our guests all dressed up in their fancy attire. afterwards, someone commented on facebook that "the costumes were great" but we were actually just fancy. brendan even bought a monocle. it was awesome.

we provided the wine and everyone else brought cheese and a snack to share. brendan and i were both blown away by the quality and variety of cheeses. and although we still have plenty of cheese left over, together we did eat more than half. it's fair to say that none of us had ever eaten so much cheese at one time.

the wine tasting portion of the evening was very fun. prior to the event, i developed a score card with questions that included traditional wine tasting questions along with creative questions. these included...

if this wine was a person, what would its name be, what would it wear, what would it say, what would its job be.
if this wine was a movie, what would it's genre be.
and if this wine was a song, who would sing it.

we tasted our way through six bottles (not entire bottles, we still have wine left over too) and had a really fun time hearing each other's answers. when we were finished that portion we played a round of apples to apples with the six wines and andrew was the judge and had to pick the best based on our arguments. by that time the distinction of each wine had gotten muddled together, so we ended up just arguing based on the names. in the end, rachel won for arguing for the bottle made by robb's mom. shannon may have lost points for saying robb's mom's name sounded like a street drug.

andrew was a super good sport. he doesn't drink alcohol at all, but we provided him with a spitoon and he upheld a long tradition of tasting and spitting. he also rated the wines very fairly and didn't just say they all tasted like dirt. i think the key was when he said he had to remember not to expect it to taste like juice. very true.

the evening just flew by and we played a very lethargic game of apples to apples that led straight into brendan's actual birthday. my precious b is 24 :) i've always said about younger men... they don't STAY young. wait a second... i don't think i've ever had a relationship with someone older than 23 before. hahahahaha.

anyways, i feel like our wine tasting party has given us more confidence as hosts. i look forward to a future filled with guests in our house.

 

pour me a glass of wine,
talk deep into the night,

who knows what we'll find.