Anarchy in the OK

Four, and Final

2009-06-30T10:15:00.003-05:00

Hey, little man-

So, it’s been a while, huh? I seem to have missed a few months of birthday letters, and by a few I mean nearly a year’s worth. What can I say? For some reason I just didn’t feel like blogging any more.

I think first and foremost, I didn’t feel like my material was as good as it used to be. I didn’t have the time I once had to tweak my writing and be proud of the final product. And I didn’t want to be one more cyber-idiot who posted just for the sake of posting.

Also, I found that I was seeing the world through ‘blogger-goggles’ – measuring every experience by how blog-worthy the material was. I began to hate this. I was missing the actual good moments in life because I was too busy making sure I remembered them for later. During the height of my blogging, I couldn’t wait to find a moment to myself so I could get on the computer and jot down all the stuff that had happened earlier. Which meant that I couldn’t wait to get away from you. I would get cranky if you interrupted me. As my blogging slowed down, I realized I was enjoying you more, resenting you less, and that everyone was happier for it.

This revelation was helped when a friend lent me a book of writings by a Buddhist monk, which helped me realize that what I was missing in my life was being present, being real and alive and in every moment. Trying to remember the past so I could write it down in the future made me absent in the present. Deep stuff, but when I took it to heart and gave up the blogging stuff, life improved all around.

And finally, one of my big reasons for walking away was that I was having a harder time writing about you than I ever had. For some reason that I haven’t managed to put my finger on, as you grew older, it seemed like an invasion of your privacy or a breaking of your trust to share our moments with the internet. Diaper stories and sleepless nights are one thing, but once you began to talk and to share your heart and mind with me, I felt uneasy about putting that online. And to be honest with you, I began to feel uneasy about putting my own heart and mind on the internet. Lord knows I had done it before, but for whatever reason I no longer had the desire to do it again. (Except for this, naturally. Irony is not dead after all.)

So there you have it. Why did I stop writing? Because I didn’t want to anymore. And you know what? I am perfectly okay with that. In the four months since February, I have never ever enjoyed you more, and I have never ever been happier. And I think that giving up a hobby is a small price to pay for ceaseless joy.

I’m still writing, but mostly in bullet points jotted down in my journal at the end of each day. Most of it makes sense only to me, but after a lifetime of writing to an ‘audience’, I’ve learned to love writing just for myself. I still keep track of all the funny things you do and say (like telling me that your favorite Transformer is Oktamus Prom). But from here on out, the stories will have to be handed down orally, told through tears of laughter around the dining room table at Christmastime. That’s the way it’s been for thousands of years, and it’ll have to be good enough for a few more.

I love you, my big strong baby-man. You are the dearest thing that has ever happened to me, and navigating the waters of baby-hood with you has been the biggest joy of my life. I can’t wait to stand beside you as you grow into the wonderful man you are bound to be.

You are my heart, Bonga.

Love,
Mama.

Just call me SwissMiss, Jr.

2009-03-04T10:39:00.003-06:00

I think it's time to sit down and have a talk with myself. If I'm not careful, all my posts will just be stuff I've seen on SwissMiss's blog. I can't help it, though. She has some of the funniest, most inspiring, all around greatest finds on her blog. Like this one, that I had to post here because it made me laugh so hard I almost snorted water out my nose.

Anyway, check her blog out. You will not be sorry. But things here might look eerily familiar from time to time.

This week's happy thoughts

2009-02-26T10:32:00.003-06:00

It has been a busy, but lovely week in our house. Chris has been out of town on business so the Benster and I have been livin' it up big time. So this week I am grateful for the following memories we made:

-teaching Ben how to use an Etch-a-Sketch
-the hours of silence that followed as he lost himself in it
-teaching Ben to play Candyland
-the hours of drama that followed (he won! he lost! he'll never play again! oh, wait, he won again!)
-dinner at the McDonald's playland (a very, very rare treat in our house)
-sitting in my parent's pasture, Ben at my side, our backs warmed by the setting sun, watching the wind and listening to the silence.

There have been so many golden moments this week that I almost feel I've been selfish with them. Surely someone else could use a drop or two of this joy. I'll see what I can do about passing it around.

Alive

2009-02-20T09:58:00.002-06:00

...and kicking, but suffering from time crunches and blogger's block. The muse is whispering to me, but I don't have time for her right now. Hopefully next week I will get at least one quiet moment at the computer in which I will elaborate.

In the meantime, watch this video of Elizabeth Gilbert talking about creativity. It makes me happy. So does she.

Move over, Bob Dylan

2009-02-07T09:37:00.000-06:00

'cause this kid is a master lyricist.

Overheard outside yesterday:

Cluck, cluck, cluck,
I'm a goat.
Cluck, cluck, cluck,
I'm a baby.
Cluck, cluck, cluck,
I'm a big big booooooooy...
Da dee dee do flah de dah

Whoa, man. That's heavy.

Today's happy thought

2009-02-06T10:28:00.000-06:00

This is my last day on the devil antibiotic! Note to self: next time, take the 'upset tummy' side effect of normal antibiotics over the 'intense headaches and dizziness' side effects of Levaquin.

Looking forward to feeling human tomorrow!

Hate me if you want, fellow preschool parents

2009-02-05T10:11:00.003-06:00

Even with a nose full of boogers, I sent the kiddo back to school today because staying home with him for another full day is NOT AN OPTION. He's at the lovely in-between stage where he's feeling too well to lay around (lie around? I can't ever remember) but not well enough to be a pleasant human being. So I have a wiggling, running, bossing, whining heathen where I used to have a vaguely normal three year old.

The only creature on earth he will be pleasant to is the stray dog we found on Monday evening wandering across our driveway. She is a very tiny, very old poodle who, when we found her, was so matted with burrs and prickers that she couldn't see and could barely move. Chris and I spent an hour shaving them out of her, bathing her, and getting her set up in the 'guest suite' (and by guest suite I mean extra dog crate). She is a sweet little thing and a wonderful house guest while we are searching for her family. Ben is not-so-secretly rooting for no one to claim her because he has fallen madly in love. She even has a name now. So unless some old lady calls to claim her precious, I have a feeling we've gained another dog. At least this one doesn't chew shoes.

Snot and the art of home repair

2009-02-03T19:23:00.006-06:00

Now that I am once again among the living, Ben has joined the ranks of the un-dead, wandering listlessly around the house in crusty pajamas. Instead of demanding brains, he demands "huggle-buggles" which is our code word for "Mom, drop everything you're doing and pick me up so I can complain and wipe snot on you and chew your hair." Being a mom is nothing if not glamorous.

I really do feel sorry for the little guy because whatever cold or flu this is, it is AWFUL. Seriously, it's been tens of years since I have begged for death to relieve my suffering (my non-morning-sickness related suffering, that is). I am still loopy from headaches and can fill two kleenexes to the brim each time I empty my sinuses.

Did I just lose you all? Probably. That's what I get for sharing mucus stories.

In other news, we have new windows! One of our big, useless, non-opening picture windows finally broke last month and you've never seen two homeowners more excited about a broken window. We have been wanting to replace them with windows that, oh, I don't know, OPEN since we moved in but when the windows were perfectly good it seemed silly to spend the money. When we discovered a giant crack in one of them we did a happy dance and headed to Home Depot at 90 miles an hour.

They came in last week and Saturday was a lovely day outside (I'm not even going to go into the whole weird weather ice-storm/heatwave in one week thing), so Chris installed them. I was in charge of moral support and documenting the event. Ben was in charge of TV watching and chicken suit wearing. Obviously.

We have shown remarkable restraint by actually waiting for warm weather before throwing the windows open and enjoying the fresh air. Come on, Spring. Don't listen to the damn groundhog. My windows and I need you.

How many of these posts can one person reasonably have?

2009-01-27T19:48:00.003-06:00

YES, I'm alive, okay? Stop bugging me already.

Sunday I came down with a horrible, I-want-to-die-already case of the ache-y yucky flu and spent nearly twenty hours straight in bed, sleeping when I could between moaning that my skin hurt. After coughing up disgusting amounts of, well, stuff I am starting to slowly feel better although I did take a THREE HOUR NAP today and only got up because it was nearly dinner time and I was hungry. A three hour nap may seem like rookie stuff to some people, but I don't take naps EVER, never have, and generally abhor the idea. But today I nearly bit my son's head off when he tried to wake me up forty-five minutes in. So yeah, I'd say my body's definitely working through something.

Random thought of the day: Do you know what I find hilarious? That when Ben started crawling at seven months old, I vacuumed and mopped the floors every. single. day. when he went to bed. I didn't want him crawling through all that diiiiirrrt. These days my vacuum is lucky if it gets out of the closet once a week. Just goes to show you what acute sleep deprivation does to your personality.

In other randomness, have you caught any of Make 'Em Laugh, PBS's documentary on the history of American comedy? It's on every Wednesday here and I am more into it than even my nerdish self wants to admit. Seriously, check it out if you get a chance. I will spare you my glowing reviews because the hype will only raise your expectations and then the real thing will be sure to disappoint, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I'm off to watch more TV now, because when you're sick and snowed in, what else are you going to do? Work was canceled today and we just found out that they closed the offices tomorrow, too, so we're snuggling in tight. Although we have our fingerprinting apointment for the adoption tomorrow, and rescheduling with the federal government would surely delay things by months and years. If we can't get the car out of the driveway, we are planning on hooking the dogs up to our inner tube and making them pull us to Oklahoma City.

Today's happy thought

2009-01-21T15:26:00.000-06:00

What am I grateful for today?

Bookends

2009-01-20T16:18:00.002-06:00

Last year, on the Tuesday after Martin Luther King, Jr. day, this happened.

While I know it has yet to be a year (Thursday will be the official ‘anniversary’ and Friday will be her ‘birthday’) today has the most meaning for me. I remember last year’s MLK holiday like it was yesterday – watching movies, sewing cloth diaper prototypes, getting so excited that in 24 hours we would know if it was a boy or a girl!

By Tuesday night the world had fallen apart.

The rest of 2008 was a strange, surreal year. Many, many lows. Some unexpected highs, too. I remember thinking that if I could just make it a year everything would get easier. Somehow measuring time in years is more empowering than measuring it in months or weeks.

So here I am, a year later. And the feeling today could not be more different. Where this time last year I felt like my heart had been ripped out and I was left empty, today I feel like my heart has grown to ten times its normal size. Poisonous cynicism has been replaced with genuine – cheesy as it may sound – hope. And a year ago, hope was the last thing I ever thought I’d feel again.

As I drove Ben home from preschool today, I thought long and hard about the source of that hope. Do I think Obama will work legislative miracles? Not particularly. Why then? Why the hope? I think it all came back to this one sentence from his address: “[W]e reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” Which brought this Ben Franklin quote to mind: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” It has been my motto for the last six years, something I mutter under my breath while watching the news, and scream aloud in frustration when I can’t take it anymore. Hearing President Obama affirm my beliefs made me realize that tonight, for the first time in nearly a decade, I will go to sleep knowing that my family and I are protected – not from terrorists, but from the powerful. Having been brought up on Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin, I believe this is the most important protection we can receive. And as for terrorism, if last year taught me anything it’s that random shit can happen to anyone at anytime no matter how vigilant you are.

As much as I have mourned my little one and would have loved to mommy her, I can see that her loss has taught me much about the world. I also realize that today’s hope would taste slightly less sweet without the salt of my tears. And if being able to admit that isn’t progress, ladies and gentlemen, then I don’t know what is.

I suppose it's as arbitrary as your sixteenth birthday

2009-01-17T11:30:00.000-06:00

Ben to me yesterday:

Mom!!! I weigh FORTY-ZERO pounds!!!

Now I can drive a car.

Today's happy thought

2009-01-16T13:19:00.001-06:00

What makes me grateful today?

Little boy shoulders.
How can they be so bony and so soft at the same time?

Male Bonding

2009-01-14T22:09:00.003-06:00

if the males in your family are the bookish type.

Please excuse the tone

2009-01-13T07:38:00.005-06:00

but I have been up since 3:30 this morning.

I know I've raved about the Little Einsteins before, but I swear to god if my kid has one more nightmare about Joey the Kangaroo or Little Dragon Kite, I will fly to Disney headquarters, kidnap whoever is responsible for those episodes, and make him or her babysit my sleepless, cranky, and increasingly violent child while I soak in a bubble bath and take a nap.

That is all. You have been warned.

Today's happy thought

2009-01-08T13:28:00.005-06:00

What makes me grateful today?

This color combination:

from Lovely Designs

from Crazy Mom Quilts

From Design Sponge

For some reason it reminds me of candy. I have no idea why.

I sort of want to go home and paint every room in my house these colors. Little Baby Daughter from Ethiopia, be prepared to have a nursery in these colors!!!

Top Ten: New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-06T10:56:00.002-06:00

I haven't done this in years, and don't think I've ever done it successfully. For whatever reason, though, I feel inspired this year to make (and maybe even keep!) New Year's Resolutions. I've been mulling these over for the past few days and have come up with ten that I hope will bring me closer to the person I know I can be.

10. Clean up after myself. This one is more than just practical. It has the added benefit of improving my marriage since the number one thing we fight about is clutter. Most couples fight over money. For us it's junk mail and dirty dishes.
9. Spend less time looking in the mirror. I wonder how many hours and days and weeks I waste every year peering at myself.
8. Stop telling people about my weird dreams. No one cares. (This doesn't apply to Chris. Listening to weird dreams was part of our wedding vows. Comes with the package.)
7. Wear more skirts. I don't do this enough and there's no reason for it. This is the best my legs are ever going to look. I'd better take advantage of it now.
6. Write down one thing every day for which I am grateful. I am also hoping to share these here, when appropriate.
5. Create. Doesn't matter what or when or how much. I want to be more than just a consumer of beauty. I want to add to it.
4. Shave regularly. (see #7)
3. Blog less. Live more. Sorry, internet. That's how it goes sometimes.
2. Learn to enjoy silence. For about a year now I have been avoiding it at all costs, even falling asleep listening to my ipod. I need to stop fearing what the silence will reveal to me.
1. Stop justifying my own inaction. This is the biggie, the Numbero Uno. I have a terrible habit of talking myself out of things for no reason other than I'm too damn lazy to do them. 'I don't want to brush my teeth tonight. I'll just do it tomorrow morning.' or 'Ben doesn't need to wear his helmet. He's just riding around the driveway.' It's stupid, it's lazy, and I (or someone I love) will end up paying for it down the road. So no more procrastination! No more denial! Here I go, jumping head first into living intentionally.

I feel good about this list, like it's doable. Not only doable, but important. I will be better for it, and maybe my little corner of the world will be, too. Certainly that makes it worth trying.

The grinch also stole my motherboard

2009-01-01T21:07:00.004-06:00

Why, oh why, universe, do you always choose the week of Christmas to send your spirits of destruction to my house? Last year it was the hot water heater. This year, your freaky post-holiday thunderstorm fried my motherboard and left me unable to blog. Worse yet, unable to shop online. Worse yet, unable to let playhousedisney.com BABYSIT MY KID. Damn you, universe.

So yes, Christmas was lovely and the computer is fixed so I can finally tell you about it. It was strange, but as much fun as I had getting ready for Christmas, I woke up the morning of the 26th ready to take everything down and just get on with life. Now Christmas seems like it was months ago instead of just last week. Perhaps the incessant banging of marbles through this:

fried my brain's motherboard and warped my sense of time. I have to say, though, that despite the banging marble sounds, this was the best possible toy we Santa could have bought for the little man. He has talked about nothing else since October and I'm thrilled to report that the toy lived up to the hype. Hours upon hours of play... for Ben too! Seriously, Chris and I have had to drag ourselves away. It's all we can do not to run out and buy all the expansion sets right now.

And speaking of expansion sets, Chris's gift to me was one for my ass in the form of nearly TEN POUNDS of candy. WHY?!?! He knows how the little m&m's call my name from their shelf in the pantry and won't stop their siren song until they are all nestled in my belly. He could have at least thrown in a gift certificate to Old Navy to buy some bigger jeans.

Personally, I think it was a shrewdly calculated bit of sabotage. We had already agreed that fitness wise we were both being ridiculously lazy and negligent and once the holidays were over, we'd do something about it. I was recently made aware of this when I weighed myself and saw that I had gained ten pounds or so since Thanksgiving. GOOD GRIEF. I would have noticed this sooner but I've been wearing nothing but sweatpants since vacation started - probably because regular pants were too tight. Yikes.

Now, I have never been a weight-conscious person. Until recently I was only concerned with keeping enough weight on that I didn't get anemically thin. (Having a ten year bout with IBS was, like, the best diet ever.) But whether it was getting older, or switching vitamins, or starting to drink coffee, or exercising regularly, my old, uh... 'habits' have changed for the better. This means no more planning outings around emergency trips to the bathroom. However, this also means a rather disheartening ability to gain ten pounds in a month. Maybe I'm still woozy with the joy of eating dairy without fear of digestive repercussions, but I will gladly hop on the treadmill a few times a week in exchange for full command of my bodily functions. And yes, if I just so happen to stop looking like a sausage stuffed in its casing when wearing my jeans, all the better.

So, let's see... we've covered Christmas and bowel habits. That should just about do it, don't you think?

How was your Christmas?

Who has two thumbs and is up to her eyeballs in Christmas?

2008-12-21T21:25:00.012-06:00

This girl right here. I will be so glad when this holiday is over, if only to get to go to bed at a decent hour. I have been Martha Stewart-ing my way through December in an almost indecent fashion. Handcrafted gifts for everyone this year! Hours of sweat and toil! I am ashamed to admit that I'm completely loving every second of it. I do miss the sleep, though.

In lieu of a real post I will leave you with these outtakes of today's photo session with Ben. We needed a recent pic to include with a grandparent gift and voila... blog material. Win-win.

Without further adieu:

Tickets to the gun show, anyone?

Baby's first fake smile.

I love this one because I'm behind Chris telling him a story. The look on Ben's face as he's watching me is almost enough to warm this mom's cold heart.

The Luke Skywalker look.

The Babe Ruth look.

The one we finally went with, for better or worse.

How I spent my day

2008-12-16T21:48:00.003-06:00

Picture my ass in that chair, a book in my hands and you've pretty much got the idea.

Not too shabby.

Due to some slippery roads, my boss called this morning to tell me not to bother coming in. As soon as the roads clear, I will hit the stores to bring him the World's Best Boss mug he so richly deserves.

At first I was apprehensive, as snow days aren't what they used to be around here. But today was a gift, a sparkling gem of a day that I hope I remember as long as I live. Ben was content to amuse himself with toys and computer games while Chris and I talked and read and baked cookies. In between, we played family choo-choo around the house, built forts, and went on pirate treasure hunts. The fire crackled, the tree glowed, Christmas music played softly in the background, and I kept waiting for the whole thing to fall apart. For someone (who shall remain nameless) to do something horrible like bite his dad or shove salami into the DVD player. But it never happened. Miraculously, everyone was in a good mood and stayed that way even through the highlight of the day - the family bubble bath (today's advent calendar treat). We spent a good forty-five minutes soaking sudsily in the tub, alternately snuggling and wrestling and giving each other bubble beards.

So Santa, if you're reading this, you can go ahead and skip our house next week. Nothing in your sack could beat the gift that was today.

Although you may want to drop off that thing Ben has been talking about for six weeks straight. Family togetherness is all well and good, but to a three year old it doesn't hold a candle to a marble toy.

Yet another thing on your holiday to do list

2008-12-14T06:16:00.000-06:00

Notice the new button over there? The one with the cute bear face? It's designed to lure you in with its cuteness and then horrify you with its message. To put it (much too) briefly, handmade toys are about to become illegal in the US. Click here to read more about the CSPIA act and here to read a wonderful post about the practical effects this act will have on so many people. Then join me and do something about it - Liz' post gives great info about how to make your voice heard where this issue is concerned. Although I do think she left one step off: once the congressmen have been written to, STOP BUYING CRAP for your kids. Letters are well and good, but the world will really hear us if we put our money where our mouth is. While it's still legal, cast your monetary vote for handmade this Christmas.

Iron chef, here we come

2008-12-12T09:40:00.002-06:00

Ben's recipe for strawberry yogurt pops, as dictated to his father:

Strawberries
1 cup flour
yogurt
coffee
1 police officer
1 man
white cups

Throw in some obscure fish species, and I believe Morimoto may have competition.

Every day is Christmas around here! or: boy is January going to be boring

2008-12-10T10:38:00.003-06:00

Hooray for not sounding like a 'sexy chipmunk' (as a friend told me I did) anymore. The snot is gone, though the cough remains and continues to make sleeping difficult. Or maybe I can't sleep because of the snot induced snoring of my husband and son. Wait - why am I telling you all this? Why do I think you care about the state of our mucus?

BOOGER FREE ZONE:

The past few days have been a blur of Christmas-y activities - preschool parties, office parties, gift making, gift buying, and the biggest one of all at our house this year: advent calendar opening. I have been meaning to start this tradition for years and thought that it would finally be appreciated this year. The question was - make one or buy one? I usually opt for 'making' but I found this one on sale after Thanksgiving and knew that a bunch of little tiny doors to open would in itself be the best Christmas gift I could give to Ben. With some inspiration from the 'net, I came up with 24 gifts/treasure hunts/family activities with which to stuff the little boxes. It has been a smashing success, if I do say so myself. Things were touch and go when he realized that not every single door yielded a piece of candy or a present, but he has come around nicely to the idea of family activities. And who wouldn't when they include such gems as "Eat dinner in a fort," "Take a family bubble bath," or "Get in jammies, load up car, and drive around looking at Christmas lights." The only trauma we've had is that he wants to open more than one door each day and screams, "BUT I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!!" when we tell him that he'll get to open it tomorrow. I'm sure anyone who's ever parented a three year old will find that shocking.

Luckily the Christmas tree is up and acts as a beacon of shiny objects with which to easily distract him. We have given up ever having a ~~normal looking~~ beautiful tree and just let Ben and the cat have at it - batting, removing, and playing with the ornaments. Thank god for cheap plastic. I don't know what people used to do when ornaments were made of glass and little eyes lit up at the sight of them. I suppose those people stuck with popcorn garland and pinecone ornaments.

So the holidays have officially begun in Anarchy-land. How about you? What traditions are in full swing in your neck of the woods?

A first

2008-12-05T08:59:00.000-06:00

Ben's first drawing of anything remotely recognizable. It is a picture of our neighbor's son. If he had donuts for ears, four legs, and a giant letter M hanging over his head.

It was so precious I nearly cried. Oh, who am I kidding? I did cry. Or rather squeaked, because I suppose that's what it sounds like when you loose your voice from coughing up chunks of goo the size of compact cars.

I get this particular strain of the plague a few times a year, and I always loose my voice, and I always delude myself into thinking I sound sexy and Kathleen Turner-ish. I really just sound like a tricycle that needs a good oiling. Which is probably okay, because I can't think of Kathleen Turner without thinking of her playing Chandler's dad on Friends and I'd rather not sound like a drag queen when I pick my son up at preschool. I don't have the bone structure to carry it off.

Love is...

2008-12-03T21:16:00.004-06:00

After lunch today, Chris and I unexpectedly found ourselves with an hour of free time - free of work, free of children, free of all demands and responsibilities. So we did what any hot and heavy married couple would do - we ran errands. I suggested we hit the thrift store to do some Christmas shopping because we are ~~cheap~~ ~~klassy~~ earth-friendly-and-reusable-goods conscious like that.

While I was cruising the t-shirts, Chris found a set of golf clubs, bag and all, and had a sad puppy look on his face when he came to tell me about them. "It'd be, like, twenty dollars... I don't really need them... I know we should save the money..."

That's when I grabbed the nine iron and slapped him upside the head with it. You work hard, I told him. If you want a set of THRIFT STORE golf clubs, go ahead and buy it, you big dork. The way his eyes lit up, you'd have thought I told him we could have a three way with Salma Hayek.

We found a few more items and started to make our way to the checkout line (where we stood in amazement as the clerk asked people if they'd like to sign up for the discount card... so they wouldn't have to pay full price for their one dollar t-shirts?) and as we were standing there I saw this hanging on the wall:

"Honey, do we need a random caricature in our house?" I asked

"How awesome would that be?" he laughed. "I wonder how much it is."

"I can't imagine they'd charge a lot for it."

"You should go check. I'll stay in line."

I gently lifted the painting down from its place of honor, turned it over, and nearly shrieked when I saw that it was only $3.

"I'm pretty sure we just found our office Christmas party gift," I said.

Finally it was our turn to be asked if we'd like a discount card. We said no, but I'm pretty sure he gave us the discount anyway as the entire bill came to $10.76.

Walking out of that store, giddy with the ridiculousness of what we'd just purchased for ten dollars, we looked at each other and smiled. For some reason, no doubt brought on by the unmistakable smell of thrift, it felt like we were back in college. In his eyes I could see a glimmer of the boy I married - silly to the point of embarrassing, wise enough to recognize the character of a good second hand item, loving the adventure that was life. I'd just wanted to pick up some t-shirts, but I got to fall in love with my husband again. Not too shabby for a Wednesday afternoon.