home again home again, jiggity jig!

we are back on land after a wonderful few days on disney's newest ship, the dream :)  we had a great time! (although i worked every night all night, i got to hang with everyone during the day which was nice).  i'll post pictures once photos of the ship are more commonplace, but it's a gorgeous gorgeous ship and we had wonderful weather!
laura will be arriving this week with fletcher (we'll miss you drew!) and several other family members will be showing up in florida over the next few months.  we're looking forwarding to all of the visiting and beaching :)
the cleo calendar has arrived and we'll be shipping out copies this week so expect one soon if you are in the cleo fan club :)  this year, our goal is to take the pictures gradually through the year instead of banging 11 of 12 months out all in one day! :)  we'll see...

e-i e-i o....

nate:  we'd have been really great farm owners
bri: because we hate manual labor and love sleeping in?
nate: okay.. maybe store owners.  we could have owned the general store because we're good at math and could tell people how much their nails cost.
bri:....

I Want by Kim Konopka

I Want

to shove my clothes
to one side of the closet,
give you the bigger half.
Quietly I’ll hide most of my shoes,
so you won’t know I have this many.

I will
rearrange furniture to add more,
find space on my shelves
for your many books,
nail up the placard that says
poets do it, and redo it, and do it again.

I want
to share a laundry basket,
get our clothes mixed up,
wait for the yelling
when my reds run wild
into your whites
turning them a luscious pink,
your favorite color of me.

I will
move my pillow
to the other side of the bed,
lay yours next to mine,
your scent on the fabric
always near me,
even on nights you’re away.

I will
buy a new bureau to hold your
thousand and one black socks,
find a place for all those work boots,
the ones I refer to as big and ugly.

I want
more pots and pans to wash,
piles of them leaning high
from late night meals
cooked naked and drunk,
red wine pouring into
a sauce of simmering
tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil,
kisses bitten between bites,
and platefuls of our late hours,
stacking up into dawn.

I want
to stock cupboards, closets, and
     pantry,
fill the house with us.
I want to gain weight with you
     because our love,
     our love makes me fat.

well here we are at pismo beach! and all the clams that we can eat!

the FLY foundation

A very good friend of mine was recently diagnosed with cancer. She is fighting back (and if you've been following her blog that's linked on the right, Adjusting the Sails, you're well familiar with how inspiring and wonderful she is)! And while she is fighting her own battle, she and her husband have established a foundation for young adults who have also been diagnosed with cancer. From their website: 

Young adults, aged 19-39, make up less than 10% of all cancer patients, but this age group is the least likely to survive. Several factors contribute to the low survival rate including delays in diagnosis, a shortage of age-tailored treatments, as well as lack of patient health insurance and financial resources.

Such a great cause, I wanted to share with you all.  You can find the website here: http://www.theflyfoundation.org/

new year and new resolutions!

i've never been a fan of resolutions... but i'm starting to understand them.  coming off of a string of holidays where i was entirely too indulgent all around, i'm feeling like a little reorganization is in order :)  remember last spring when i blogged about losing weight?  well it's BACK!  so i'm back on the wagon!  it's all veggies from here on out.

okay, maybe not all veggies, but i am definitely going to be eating healthy and exercising!  i'd say exercising more but that would be a joke.  i haven't experienced sweat due to aerobic activity since last march!  but in the name of the new year, nate and i did head out for a bike ride yesterday and it was so so beautiful outside.  to quote our neighbor "THIS is why we live in Florida, not these crazy cold snaps we've been having!"  stop laughing northeners, it was unseasonably cold here!  we lost several plants to the great drop below 32 degrees of 2010!

i also intend to: blog more recipes, locate my masters degree (i suspect it is somewhere in the garage), gather up a bunch of stuff for good will, restart our 1+ night a week of vegetarian meals, and find a really great pair of jeans.  i guess that's less of a list of resolutions and more of a to do list, but what do you want from me?  i have the attention span of a gnat!

happy new year ;)