Puppy Love

I love my dog. 

I might have a slight problem with taking too many pictures of her.

I'm not talking about a "Oh, let's just snap one for the Christmas card" kind of thing. (Which my husband would vehemently oppose in any form.)

No.

It's more like a:

"She might never, ever, EVER look this cute again, so I NEED to take a picture of her RIGHT NOW!!"

kind of thing.

But that's normal, right? If your dog's cuteness escalated like mine did?

I mean, isn't this series priceless? 

Rolling around with a wink on a yoga mat?

Or how about a collage of that time when she had a particularly soulful look in her eye?

 

No?

Window Boxes & Corny Quinoa Muffins

You know you have a good thing going when you come home to a living room scattered with tools and a husband standing at the kitchen sink. Though I should have been more impressed with his ability to scrub twenty pounds of fruit (that he hand picked himself from the loquat tree in the front yard) I was too busy fixated on what was sitting in the middle of the coffee table.

There in its simple, understated glory was a brand new window box. A window box! Just for me! This might have been a forgettable moment for any other city gal, but in my world, I saw that box and knew an angel got its wings. It meant that I finally had a shot at something I'd thought dead and long gone: the ability for me to have my very own garden.

source

Coming Home

I really dislike traveling without my husband. And venturing to the land of meat and cheese (major emphasis on the cheese) for work this week, it felt especially wrong and ironic that he was left in Southern California while I could have had roast beef and flights of microbrew with every meal on the company dime.

(However, I did have a delicious roasted beet salad that I enjoyed very much. So thank you, job, for that.)

I also have to be careful that when traveling sans-husbo, my imagination doesn't get the best of me. What I mean is that sometimes after leaving the cloudy, mysterious haze that surrounds Los Angeles, I'll touch down in a place that reopens my eyes to a life of normalcy lived elsewhere.

Wait, it's rush hour right now?

Shut up, I can park for free?

Hold on, how much for this ice cream??

Beauty Laughs: Good is the Day

It's Good Friday.

The humanity of Jesus is fully disclosed today.

And while usually the Crucifixion is a somber, heart-wrenching thing to dwell upon, today it brings such a sweet reality to my soul that I can't quite put it into words. Maybe it's the realization that for all the ways I know I am nothing like Jesus, I see in the events of Good Friday...Jesus, you were just like me. 

He is the Me I strive to be, and He was the Me that deserved to be on the tree. For all the times I pray, God, I'm feeling LIIIIIIKE THIS!! @$#^%$*&(%!!!  

Today is the day He says, Well, I felt... like that.

Actually, I take that back.

He didn't say anything, did He?

"He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth."

-Isaiah 53:7

Blow to the heart that heals as it hits.

Happy Easter Weekend, all.