She Writes Her Name

On a wall in my living room hangs a rural scene
A structure so sturdy in a field so serene
The brush stroke that rendered the settings precise
Its value incomparable to any asking price
I imagine the artist as she selected the frame
And in the lower right corner, she signed her name

A painter, a quilter, a gardener and cook
Her talents have always demanded a look
But her greatest creation hangs not on a wall
Nor covers a bed or grows in soil so tall
Its cultivation took years and hard work and love
And support of someone who smiles down from above

Her masterpiece can’t be seen, touched nor heard
Its description requires more than a word
There are seven in fact that she gave herself to
Gave love and belief in all that they do
That first clan has flourished to nine and twenty
From New York to Georgia, love and laughter are plenty

The artist’s hand, both gentle and sure
Has created a piece that through time will endure
I imagine the artist as upon us she gazes
I wonder if she will ever fully hear all our praises
Just like her name on that lower right side
Her name and her touch we all carry with pride

written 12/25/07 for Grandma

****

On Monday morning, I came back in for a run and saw I had missed a call from my Mom. No one ever calls at 5:30 am with good news, so I had a feeling I knew why she was calling.

My Grandma was, as my Aunt Patty put it, the original superwoman. She had 5 kids by the time she was 25, and added two more to the clan a few years later. She could do anything around the house, and she was creatively talented as well. She could paint a masterpiece inspired by a pot of flowers sitting on her kitchen table while a carrot cake from scratch baked in the oven, and finish it off by hand stitching a quilt for someone’s Christmas gift. We ran into one of her best friends at the grocery store today, and woman who had known her for more than 60 years, and she told us that she used to iron diapers. I’m honestly not surprised.

My Grandma was a fiercely independent and extraordinary competent, but she wasn’t what you would call a "warm and fuzzy" woman. In fact, my siblings and I often quote one of her most famous lines spoken to my brother one Christmas a few years ago when the cousins took over cooking. "Michael, this bruschetta is terrible."

You could trust Grandma to always tell it like it is, like it or not. She may not have always been right, but I can assure you, she was never wrong. Her love was not doled regularly in platitudes, but measured in acts of service – a pot roast delivered to your fridge, a hand painted Christmas card, a made from scratch Boston Creme pie every birthday, a washer and dryer found for a struggling young mother. Grandma’s love language was doing, and if you were listening for that, she never stop speaking it.
When I had been out running on Monday, I saw a shooting star drop from the sky. I literally stopped in my tracks and said "Buddy, LOOK!" (He didn’t, of course, as he was much more interested in dislocating my shoulder in an attempt to sniff a nearby tree.) I’d never seen one before and I was awestruck for a second at how bright it burned, yet fell so quickly and disappeared. Once it was gone, there was no physical evidence that indicated it’s path – just my memory of it.

When we gathered on Saturday to say our good-byes and remember her life, I think we all felt a bit like I had felt on that street corner Monday morning.

Gone are any physical reminders of the path of this fiery, bright life. Now we stand together, a bit bewildered, reminding one another of all the memories that we collectively share that prove that she was there, she touched each one of us, she burned a path through this Universe.

Goodbye, Grandma. We will miss you, and your love will burn brightly in our hearts.

The Six Days of Christmas

On Christmas Eve, we hosted Matt’s parents for dinner and a gift exchange.  I had had a hard time deciding what to cook for dinner until I saw that prime rib was on sale at Harris Teeter, and knowing that was a favorite of Matt’s, decided to go with that.  The day before, I emailed my Dad to ask for directions since it was my first time cooking prime rib.

Or so I thought, until a few days later when I looked back at a post from Christmas last year and saw that was my first time cooking prime rib.

Not only that, but the battery in my meat thermometer died again this year.

Or more likely, I haven’t used it since then.

I don’t know why but 2010 seems to have gone so fast.  Maybe because there weren’t as many hugely significant events this year as last year (2009: buying a house, getting a dog, graduating from med school.)  When I think back on 2010, things like California in March, or going to Utah in January, or running my half in September all seem to have transpired in just a few weeks time.  In fact, it seems like Christmas 2009 was just here, and yet somehow the calendar tells me it was a full 365 days ago.  When I was looking back on last year’s post (and discovering that my memory is not so sharp), I felt like I was reading something I had just written a few days ago. 

Anyways, I’ll save those musings for my year end review post.

I didn’t attempt to make homemade yeast rolls again this year, but otherwise the menu seemed to be quite similar from last year’s: roasted asparagus, roasted sweet potatoes, salad and rolls.  I guess I have a go-to Christmas menu now.  (No one seems to be complaining…)

I also added a new dessert to my repertoire: jam cake.  I had never heard of jam cake, but Matt’s Dad had asked me a few weeks before Christmas if I knew how to make it and said it was something his Mom always had at Christmas, so I set off on a mission to make it.  Matt enlisted the help of his Dad’s former next door neighbor, and she sent us a recipe via Facebook.  Using that recipe, and a few iterations from ones found online to make a brown sugar glaze (heaven), I made jam cake.

I was so excited for my big reveal…. until I learned that Matt’s Aunt Paige had also made jam cake the night before!  She had come across a recipe in a cookbook, so we’ll have to compare notes later.  Anyways, it wasn’t quite as exciting or nostalgic as I had hoped, but Matt’s Dad seemed pleased to have a second crack at it.  After dinner, we did a gift exchange with Matt’s parents and sent them home with hugs for Nanta and Pa, and of course, the remainder of the jam cake. 

Christmas Day turned out to be rather quiet and uneventful.  Matt and Buddy snoozed for most of the morning, so I did laundry and cleaned the house, just like a regular Saturday!

After Matt went to work, I was feeling sort of low that it was Christmas and I wasn’t really doing anything Christmas-y so after far too long reading about other people’s Christmas on Facebook, I shut down the computer and picked up one of my favorite books, Two From Galilee.

Matt had been given this book from Nanta a few years ago, and I stumbled upon it when we were packing him up to move in together.  It’s the story of Christmas, but it’s told from the perspective of Mary and Joseph.  I remember picking it up to read one night when I was looking for something to read before bed, and becoming totally transfixed.  I never had really given much consideration to what Mary and Joseph must have experienced.  I think about the stigma that’s attached to unwed, teen mothers today and imagine that it must have been a thousand-fold worse for Mary.  And for Joseph, to have believed that she hadn’t been unfaithful to him and to stand by her, was incredibly courageous, and then the way he falls in love with his infant son despite it not being “his” is so endearing.  The story moved me the first time I read it, so I decided that it was the perfect way for me to remember that while there’s Christmas (celebrating with family, opening gifts, eating sticky buns), there is also December 25th: the birthday of Jesus.  We celebrated Christmas with Matt’s family on the 24th, and were going to celebrate with mine on the 28th, so this ended up being a perfect reminder of what December 25th is really all about.

My parents and brother arrived Sunday evening, after a harrowing 12 hour drive through some major snowstorms.  We had a nice dinner together, and sadly, an early evening as I had to go to work the next day.  Katie and Dylan arrived on Tuesday, and when I got home from work, we kicked off our Claffey Christmas.  It was an odd mash-up of traditions: Dad wearing the Santa hat handing out gifts one by one (although we always claim he does this to save all of his for the end), opening our stockings, getting a new pair of PJs, laughing and making fun of each other.  But there was much that was untraditional: for starters, that we were celebrating at night time and took a break when dinner was ready.  (Prime Rib, round 2.)  Instead of our breakfast Bloody Mary’s, we had vino and beers that were kept cold in the snow drift on our back deck.  And of course, that we were at our house instead of home in New York in our living room.  But the most important pieces were there: we were all seven together, celebrating Christmas and Dad got a Dilbert calendar.

My favorite gift was to my parents from all us kids.  At home, there’s a picture of the 3 of us – Michael, Katie and I – on the mantel that was taken in 2003.  It’s a nice picture, although Katie doesn’t like it because it was during her Barbie-blonde hair and super thin eye brow stage.  Guess I wouldn’t have wanted a picture from my senior year of high school captured forever on our parent’s wall either: my Fiona Apple middle part hair and penchant for tube tops were no better.  Anyways, my mom has been saying for the last 2 years that she wanted an updated picture, now that Matt and Dylan were part of our family.  (Well, to be honest, Dylan still has 6 more months to decide if this is in his best interest.)  So I enlisted the help of Jamie over Thanksgiving, and us kids snuck off to do a little photo shoot.  Jamie was a trooper, because it was dark outside and there were five of us to round up.  But with a heavy dose of patience, a good use of flash and a little photoshop to lighten, we got a good shot and had it blown up on canvas and framed to give to my parents.  Here’s the pictures we used.  And my favorite, an outtake.

On Wednesday, Mom made her traditional sticky buns and we tried to create some order out of the wrapping paper chaos.  Matt hit the slopes for some snowboarding on Wednesday, so the rest of the clan got ready to head down to Charlotte to spend the rest of the week since I was still working.  We hit the road at the same time, and I waved good-bye to them as I took the exit for 40-East and they went 40-West.  I got a little knot in my throat as I watched them drive away in the rearview mirror, because the holidays were officially over. 

Fast as they got here, the holidays seemed to go by even faster.  I’m thankful that both sets of parents, Matt and mine, were accommodating to our crazy work schedules (mine was the unforgiving one this year!) and were willing to make the trip to see us, or celebrate on non-traditional days.  It was nice to extend our celebrations out over almost a week, and sure helped delay the onset of post holiday blues for a couple extra days.  (Although it does make for one long blog post!)

Merry Christmas, ya’ll.  Hope that no matter what day(s) you celebrated, you were with loved ones!

Giving Thanks

When I was little, I really wasn’t that big a fan of Thanksgiving.  Probably because it couldn’t hold a candle to that other holiday that comes 4 weeks later that just so happens to involve a whole lot of PRESENTS, and while I’m a big fan of mashed potatoes I could really care less about turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce.  I know, I was a regular Thanksgiving Scrooge.  The older I get though, the more I appreciate that Thanksgiving is one of the few times a year that is really sacred for families.   I don’t know many people who have entire extended families sharing zip codes anymore, so having that time reserved for family get togethers is more important than ever and I’m pleased that despite the busy, work-work-work culture we live in, most businesses continue to give people the time off to gather together with their loved ones.  Of course, we have the added challenge of the emergency room residency schedule that doesn’t always allow for traditional time off!  For instance, this year Matt was working 5:30pm-5:30am the entire week of Thanksgiving, with a day off on Saturday and a 24 hour shift on Sunday.  Needless to say, when he wasn’t working, he was sleeping.  Both of our families have been really awesome about working around our crazy schedule, whether it’s meant celebrating our holidays on days other than the actual holiday-day or making the trip to come see us when we don’t have enough time off to get there. 

This year my parents drove down to Charlotte, where we celebrated Thanksgiving at Katie and Dylan’s home.  I have to confess that Katie and my mom did pretty much all the cooking, while I took full advantage of a lazy day off and read, napped, walked my doggy around Katie’s cute uptown neighborhood, and chatted with my fam.  (Don’t be fooled by that picture of Katie sleeping – that’s after hours of food prep!)  I did contribute a pecan pie, so I wasn’t a total culinary mooch.  Our meal was delicious, and I was super sad to have to leave my family Thursday night but given that either route home from Charlotte involves passing a mall I decided it was in my best interest not to wait until Friday to make the drive.

On Friday, my hubby slept off another night shift and I used the free day off to get caught up on some housework and projects.  Saturday my family came up to Winston, and Matt, Dylan and my Dad spent a chilly day on the golf course while I recruited Mom, Katie and Michael to help me lug Tupperware tubs of Christmas decor out of the attic.  Lucky them.  After the boys got back, the children embarked on a secret mission to obtain my parent’s Christmas present (not telling) and then we reconvened at Riverburch for a yummy, wine-y, happy family dinner together.  It was hard to say good-bye to my fam after what felt like an incredibly short weekend, but I’m thankful to know that they’ll be in just a few weeks for Christmas and that we’ll also get to spend some time with Matt’s family in a few weeks too. 

And with that, the holiday season has kicked into high gear!  Somehow I think that 4 weeks away other holiday is going to be here before I know it.  Happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll!

Say Yes to the Dress

My sister found her wedding dress today!  She had narrowed it down to two by the time I got down there today.  I knew instantly when she put the first one on that that was the dress.  But I was very curious about the second one… I couldn’t imagine her looking more radiant than the first one.  It was a tough competition – the second one was just as gorgeous and she looked just as lovely.  (Can feel the eyes getting a little prickly right now thinking of my baby sis walking down the aisle.  Scuse me for a second, while I do the Southern Lady eye fan and regain composure.) 

Both dresses were made for her, but the first one was it. 

I can’t wait til June 18th, 2011.

On Love. The Unconditional Type.

My mom and sister arrive from New York tonight!  I wonder if my Mom knows what she’s getting into.

It has been really, really, really hot here.  Really hot. 

I’m going to cook flat-iron steaks with a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce tonight.  I really like saying “reduction sauce” because it sounds fancy, but it really just involves leaving something liquid on the stove for a long time until about half of it evaporates.

When you do that accidentally it’s called “getting distracted.”  BUT, call it a reduction sauce and suddenly it sounds fancy.

My mom and sis will head on down to Charlotte on Wednesday, where they have wedding dress shopping plans all day.  I’ll join them Thursday, to hopefully help narrow down some finalists. 

Friday, my mom will return to me where I shall put her to work helping me get ready for our garage sale on Saturday.  Like I said, I wonder if my Mom knows what’ she’s herself into.

I think some gene gets activated when you have kids that makes you suddenly and selflessly okay with doing what would otherwise be intolerable activities, all because your sweet precious babies asked.  I mean, I adore the Budster but he’s never asked me to help him move, organize a kitchen, iron a shirt, pick him up  from softball practice, quiz him for a spelling test, or make a grilled cheese sandwich.  Now that would test my love.

Then again, I’ve never asked my Mom to take my crate out back and hose poo out of it every day for an entire year.  So, yea.  Gene activated.

Totally innocent.  No idea what this “crate business” you have mentioned?

Flashback

My Prom Dress, 1999.

I adore this dress.  Can someone please invent a party for me to wear this to again?

Or perhaps, I could star in an off-off-off-of-off-off Broadway production of Beauty & the Beast.  (My sister and I spontaneously broke out into singing “Tale as Old as Time” when I put this on.)

I’ve given away every other prom dress, homecoming dress and bridesmaid dress.  But this continues to take up prime real estate in my closet.  I don’t know why I have such a hard time parting with it. 

Real life should include more opportunity for tulle.

Posing with Daddy, Prom 1999.

Parents Weekend

I’m very fortunate that despite the fact that my parents live 700 miles away i still see them many times a year. Last week my parents went down to Hilton Head and on their way home, stopped at my house.  Friday afternoon Dad and I went for a run, taking little Buddy boy along.  Then we went and had an amazing dinner at a small southern bistro called Mozelle.  It sort of seemed like maybe it was Winston’s own little Chez Panisse – open kitchen, small atmosphere, obvious “regulars” and delicious and fresh seasonal foods on the menu. 

Saturday, Matt and Dad went golfing and Mom and I hit up the JL Rummage Sale.  I love when one woman’s trash becomes my treasure!  I found two plates for food blogging or bunko parties and a number of paperbacks, all a quarter each.  This is the first time I’ve broken my reading resolution, but I think it was a good exception!  I read one (a chick lit book) in the span of 48 hours already.

Afterwards, we went home and picked up some groceries for dinner.  Once upon a time, my mom used to take me to the mall when she came to visit. Now she takes me to Harris Teeter.  Hmm.  Seems like my priorities have shifted.  (Reflected in the fact that my cooking has vastly improved since 2002, and my wardrobe largely remains stagnant since then.)  After that, my dad went for a run and my mom and I spent the afternoon sitting on the deck with a Kunde Gewürztraminer from my Sonoma trip.  My mom and I often text each other “wish you were here, having coffee on the deck!” or “wish you were here, having a glass of wine on the porch!”  So, believe me the moments I actually get to do so, I savor every moment of it. 

Once my dad got home, I set to work cooking for them.  After 18 years of them cooking for me, it’s nice to return the favor. After dinner Dad put the hockey game on and Mom and I sat around and talked…so it was basically just like being at home, only it was my home.

                          Returning the “Eat your Veggies” favor to my parents.

Today, they got on the road extra early.  Strange that when they leave my home, I still feel a little bit homesick.  You know you did something right in parenting if your kids are sad to see you go. 

(On an unrelated note, the fact that the only picture I have from spending 48 hours with my parents is a bowl of spinach is a sign that my food photography obsession has gone too far.)

Molly Paper

My sister got engaged!  Did I tell you that yet, blogworld?  I think I did, back in a Thankful Thursday.  Anyways… Katie and Dylan got engaged in February, and the moment I heard the happy news I knew what I wanted to give the love birds as an engagement gift. 

A beer coozie with the International Symbol of Marriage!!!!

Ok, after I sent that to Dylan, I got to work ordering my real engagement gift.  My sister’s friend, Molly, is a super talented stationary designer and I have been WAITING for Katie to get engaged so I could order her some cute-as-can-be stationary.  Molly did the designs based on a few emails we sent back and forth with ideas, and integrated Katie’s wedding colors into the design. 

Kate loved the cards.  And she loved that I made her pose outside holding the cards and flashing her bling.  Ok, maybe that’s a stretch, but she looks cute anyways so I’ll post it. 

Thanks, Molly, for your talent and thoughtfulness!  You do great work.  Ya’ll go check out her stuff here. 

Katie, Her Cards, and a half-hearted “show me your bling” effort.

Lovebird Cards.

Hey, FTC regulations require me to tell you that MollyPaper did not pay me to endorse her lovely stuff.  In fact, I paid her for the cards.  Just so we’re clear on that and I don’t get sued.  Good?  Good.

Back Where I Come From

Growing up, my mom always made corned beef & cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. I guess I’ve never asked, but I’m assuming she started doing it for my Dad, whose father is Irish. (Although, from what I’ve heard about my Grandma Swales, my mom’s mom, boiling everything in one big pot would have been right up her alley when it comes to cooking!)

This was my first time attempting to cook it myself, and I was pretty pleased with the results. (I actually made this on Sunday, but it seems appropriate to post it today.) Then again, you basically just continually add things to boiling water: meat first, then potatoes, then cabbage. Making the sauce involves stirring and microwaving. It’s pretty much a no-fail, and it goes a long way. Definitely can see why my Grandma Claffey (my Dad’s mom) would have been a fan of this, since she was tasked with the challenge of cooking for nine every night!

I could hear her voice while I was cooking, with one of her most famous quotes:

“If potatoes weren’t so common, they would be a delicacy!”

I guess this should go on my cooking blog, but then again, it’s not the healthiest meal I’ve ever made, so between you and me, let’s just agree to leave it here.

Did I mention soda bread? Mmmm, soda bread. We’ve been eating this for almost a week now.

I love being Irish. Growing up in the North I experienced a big focus on “where your family comes from.” Maybe it’s because the northern states were “melting pots” much more than the South, but I’ve not come across this same fascination with the place of origin in the South. Here, when you ask someone where they are from, they are likely to tell you which county their relatives have lived in for the last 100 years! That kind of longevity of place is a bit of a novel concept for most Northerners.

In 3rd grade, we had to make cut out paper dolls to represent our family’s country of origin. I specifically remember using an excessive amount of red yarn for hair, and plenty of freckles. In 4th grade, we had to interview an older relative about their relatives – during this project I learned my great aunt was supposed to come over to America on the Titanic but fortuitously fell ill and couldn’t make the departure! In 5th grade, we had Immigration Day in elementary school. We had to dress up from whatever country our ancestors had come from, and if I recall right, there was a pretend Ellis Island type experience and a swearing-in assembly. Oh, us melting pot of Western European suburban kids!

I was very conflicted as to whether to represent my Swedish ancestors (Mom’s side) or my Irish ancestors (Dad’s side.) In the end, I choose Swedish for one simple reason: I was blonde.

Other than our somewhat odd fascination with immigration projects from 3rd grade to 5th grade, I haven’t dabbled much in my family’s roots. My brother spent sometime in college tracing my Dad’s line back to Ireland, and my mother’s father has a great record of his family dating back to England. The first time I learned that my Grandma Swales (Mom’s side) had descended from Swedish missionaries who had lived in Venezuela was at her funeral!

As I grow older, I find myself being tugged back towards my roots. I know very little about my family beyond my grandparents – which is the complete opposite of my “100 years in one county” husband who can tell tales of a great-great uncle who was a physician who traveled on horseback throughout Lincoln County and a great-great grandfather who was a pilot. It wasn’t until about a year ago, when putting together a family tree in my wedding scrapbook, that I learned that my sister’s name – Kathryn – was my great-grandmother’s name.

I know that, strangely enough, this is some of my reason for blogging. Ever since learning my great-grandmother’s name, I’ve wondered who she was. At 27, what was she doing? What did she think? My mom has recently found and shared some writing from my Grandma (her Mom) and there’s something that seems magical about hearing the voice of the people who came before you. Especially, in the case of my Grandma, hearing her voice as a wife and a mother, before she played the only role I knew her as – grandmother. I blog for myself, to shake the voices and stories out of my head, to supplement my not-so-trusty memory, but also to put my voice out there for my someday children or their children to read and know who I was, before I play the only roles they will know me in. Isn’t that the fascinating thing about people? We play so many roles in our lives, yet we generally only know each other in one or two of them.

Maybe it’s the process of beginning to start a new branch of a family tree – getting married, the joining together of two families – that makes the desire to know more about where you come from grow stronger. Maybe it’s totally random. What do you think? Do you know much about your family line? Have you ever been curious to know more? Where would you start, if you wanted to know?

Who knew a blog on boiled cabbage was going to end up being a soliloquy on immortalizing my own voice? I think I forgot to mention another reason I blog: it turns out I can, and will, talk about anything I want.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, from a 25% 5th-Generation Proud to Be Irish Woman. Although, you should know, that’s just one of my roles.

Restored

Oh, weekend.  You could not have gotten here any sooner.  I usually don’t feel that way… my weeks often go by so fast, the Friday afternoon almost catches me off guard.  This was one of those weeks that somewhere around Tuesday I was like a lil kid sitting in my front window just waiting for Friday to show up.  Just one of those weeks.

The weekend ended up being just the perfect blend of social time, me time and house-restoring time.  (And when I say restoring, I do not mean Bob Villa style… I mean restoring order, calmness, sanity and the throw pillows that somehow always seem to end up bunched in one corner of the couch.)

Friday night we had a very casual dinner at La Carreta with Zac + Jamie, and Matt + Donna.  I don’t think I’ve been there since college… but it hadn’t changed a bit.  Same wait staff, same cheap pitchers of margaritas, same never ending chip basket.  After dinner, we went downtown and Donna + I accompanied Jamie on a walk around the art district to complete her night photography assignment.  The boys busied themselves with the drafts at 6th & Vine.  I had taken my camera card out to upload the day before, and for the 2nd time that week, had forgotten to put it back in.  So I’m waiting on you, J-boo, to live vicariously through the awesome night pics you took! 

Saturday was the first hint of our long overdue Spring, and I’m pretty sure all of Winston found a way to be outside.  Matt finally got to crack open the golf bag, and I took Buddy on a long run after getting the house put back to order.  It seems like no matter what we do, sometime around Wednesday or Thursday our house starts to look a little bit like a tornado passed through, dropping Vera Bradleys and junk mail and pocket-sized medical references in every corner.  Thank goodness for Saturdays, and the chance to put it all back together.  (Literally.  My house and my self.)

Saturday night we got together with a bunch of the other Emergency Medicine interns and their wives for a wine and cheese party.  The premise was simple: bring a wine and a cheese to share and sample, but the outcome was superb.  (I think there’s few comestibles I love more than wine and cheese, so I’m fairly easy to please.)  Our hostess, Kim, went out of her way to make some other tapas, including an asparagus-prosciutto combination that Matt and I were still talking about 24 hours later and a fiery Spanish tomato dip called Romesco.  Imagine my envy when Kim described a 2-week cooking experience in Spain she and her mother had attended.  Oh my sweet heavens.  Who wants to send me?  I regret that I didn’t get my camera out, because the food was simply gorgeous.  (It tasted amazing, too, which I suppose is equally as important to non-food bloggers.)  I still feel a little hesitant to whip my camera out and start photographing food in places other than my own kitchen. 

Sunday we headed down to visit with Matt’s family and celebrate the March birthdays, including my mother’s-in-law tomorrow.  Matt’s aunt was in charge of the cooking, which was as delicious, abundant and Southern as any family gathering could hope for.   I consider myself very fortunate to have married into a family that is as loving, welcoming and accepting as the one I was born into.  I know this isn’t always the case, and any time I listen to a girlfriend tell a “mother-in-law” story, I send a little thanks up to my lucky stars for giving me such a wonderful second family. 

Matt’s family lives about 90 minutes west of us, but it doesn’t take 10 minutes of being on the highway before I am sound asleep, every time.  There is something about good food, warm homes and cozy conversations that knocks me out every time. 

It doesn’t take much to put me back together after one of those weeks: a clean home, some yummy food, and time well spent with friends and family.  It’s my very ctrl + alt + delete button that gets me ready for another Monday. 

May Appear Closer Than They Are