All things thankful for: April

... my shower. seeing family and friends.

... rain. [It's my one true love.]

... more How I Met Your Mother. I'm catching up via Netflix so it takes a while.

... chicken pot pie and Grandma Baldwin's cake. All those shower gifts inspired me to start cooking again. [We'll see how long that lasts.]

... planting flowers in pots on our patio. I've been waiting SO long for that moment.

... buying a cute dress for $14.

... bringing our canoe home. Hopefully, the weather will warm up and I'll be able to use it.

... writing a research paper in one day. ONE DAY! [The only thing this proves is that I'm a slacker.]

... getting presents in the mail. Hello, knife set. Welcome Home.

... Dreaming of our hammock. One more month.

... Opening the windows while I clean.

Don't be a dope: elope!

For all of you marrieds out there I'm seriously impressed that you made it through the wedding part. Seriously, I feel like my head is about to explode with everything I need to do. I have lists that require multiple sheets of paper. I have no idea how people are able to do all of this with out losing their mind. I thought since everything was booked, decisions made, I was done with all of the hard stuff. I was an idiot. Coordinating everything with all of these people is going to make me officially crazy.

... My aunt who volunteered to play the harp for our ceremony? Can't get a hold of her.

... The minister? Not coming to the rehearsal.

... The florist? Wants to arrive 3 hours before the caterers but wants the cake to be there.

... The D.J.? Wants all of my information yesterday but is not in town so can't discuss anything with me until Monday.

... The directions I sent out to everyone? Wrong.

... 1/3 of my guests? Did not RSVP.

... My fiance? Completely unconcerned with the whole thing. He's like, "Dan, chill out. It'll be fine." He's probably right.

All I ask of the day is that we leave, married, with a few awesome pictures, and with no one in tears. Oh, and if we could manage to feed our guests, too. I feel like if the other things go wrong it's really not a big deal. However, other people disagree with me.

side note: i love this cake topper and would LOVE to see the look on some of our relatives faces during the cake cutting if this was to grace the top of our cake.

{I'm actually glad we're not eloping. I think it took me about 10 months to admit that.}

It's the little things ...

... SPRING, SPRING, SPRING! It's everywhere! The grass is green, the trees are blooming and I am one happy girl.

... Having a whole week with C home.

... Homemade chicken pot pie. mmmm....

... Actually using my cake dome.

... Opening the windows.

... Only 2 more weeks of school.

... Watching my dog run through a field.

... Finally having a creek filled with water.

... Thoughts of the beach this summer.

... Getting Pottery Barn and J.Crew catalogs in the mail.

... Dinner at my favorite restaurant on a random Tuesday night.

... Watching a movie on the couch with C and Henry.

Dog love.

"If you are a dog lover, a true dog lover, and not just one who sees them as pets or animals, but are instead one who sees them as one's dear companions, and more than companions -- sees them as perhaps being but a step or two down the species ladder from humankind, not sharing human exceptionalism but not an abyss below it, either -- you watch them different from the way other people watch them, with a respect for their born dignity, with a recognition of their capacity to know joy and suffer melancholy, with the certainty that they suspect the tyranny of time even if they don't fully understand the cruelty of it, that they are not, as self-blinded experts contend, unaware of their own mortality.

If you watch them with this heightened perception, from this more generous perspective, as Amy had long watched them, you see a remarkable complexity in each dog's personality, and individualism uncannily human in its refinement, though with none of the worst human faults. You see an intelligence and a fundamental ability to reason that sometimes can take your breath away.

And on occasion, when you're not being in the least sentimental, when you're in too skeptical a mood to ascribe to dogs any human qualities they do not posses, you will nevertheless perceive in them that singular yearning that is common to every human heart, even to those who claim to live a faithless existence. For dogs see mystery in the world, in us and in themselves and in all things, and are at key moments particularly alert to it, and more than usually curious."

-- The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz

What makes our [apartment] a home

I'm stealing this from Taryn because I saw it on her blog and thought it was cute. I think it was originally for a giveaway but I'm just doing it for fun.

1. The dudes.

We've lived a lot of different places and I'm sure we're not done moving. But, as long as we have these guys with us wherever we are will always feel like home.

2. Books, books, books.

I love books. I love reading. There's just something that's homey about having books tucked away in places, just waiting to be re-read.

3. Our "money tree" & 4. My red bookshelf

This plant was the first living thing we purchased together and it's grown SO big. It survived a two day trip in the back of a Uhaul all the way from Virginia. I have to give credit for keeping this guy alive to C.

The bookshelf was free, handed down from my aunt like a lot of our furniture. I painted it when we got to Colorado because I wanted to bring some color into our apartment. It's bold, it's my favorite color, and it holds some of my favorite books and pictures.

5. Pictures.

I love pictures which is why they're pretty much everywhere in our apartment. I like to change them a few times a year when I get bored with the ones on display.

6. Our patio complete with flowers and herbs.

C and I love to sit outside. I love the flowers because they bring some color to the prairie of Colorado and we both love to cook with the fresh herbs. Note: this is a work in progress.

7. Our chair-and-a-half.

It's the coziest chair. I love to read in this chair.

8. Our Colorado posters.

I love that they're colorful. I love the Flatiron one especially because they're my favorite front range mountains.

9. Our fireplace.

It has made a huge difference this winter! I love to come home, turn it on, and pour myself a nice big glass of wine.

10. Just us.

Doing all the normal stuff. Watching movies, drinking coffee on Saturday mornings, cooking dinner together, wrestling with the dogs. That's the stuff that makes this place home.

If you thought winter was over...

... you would be wrong.

this is what we woke up to this morning.

Dunkin did his best to try and melt it.

Our first "toy"

So C and I did get our canoe on Thursday night. It was quite the ordeal. I'll explain. First, I got out of class early and took the dogs for a walk up to the gym where C was. I figured it'd be a good surprise since we hadn't seen each other in a week and he was leaving the next day. And do you know what he says when he sees me sitting there? "Hi, can we go get the canoe now?" Geeze ... I missed you, too. So, we drive to REI to pick up the canoe and when we get there we asked them if they could help us put it on our car. The next thing I see is two guys WHEELING the canoe out of the store and my thought was "crap, this thing is going to be ridiculously heavy".

We get the thing outside, the guys lift it on top of the car and it turns out our roof rack isn't wide enough. So the guy at the store helps us tie it down and then goes "Um, you can't drive anywhere like that. You need wider racks." Umm ... then why did we just spend 20 minutes tying it down. I go to move the car to a parking spot while C goes inside to grab us some new (but very expensive) racks. And the guy from REI is watching me move the car 20 feet, the whole time going, "careful! not too fast!".

Once we got the new racks we realized that we had to take the canoe off the car, put it somewhere, and install these new racks. All of this happened in the parking lot. We got the strangest looks. Our canoe 'parked' in one spot and our car in the next.

We haven't taken it out yet but so far I've learned:

1. It is one thing to pick up a canoe. It is an entirely different thing to pick up the canoe, hoist it over your head, and gently set it on top of your car. This sucks even more if you're short.

2. If you drive with anything on the roof of your car make sure EVERYTHING is tied down. I mean EVERYTHING. This was learned the hard way, obviously.

3. Canoes look much smaller online than they do in person.

I'm hoping it will all be worth it once we get it out on the water. Then I remember my last canoeing experience with C. Hmmm ... I think there was a lot of yelling because I wanted a relaxing day out and he wanted to race people in a kayak.

Canoeing in DC. I'm being distracted by something. Probably a floating shoe or piece of trash.