WHAT WE ENDED UP NOT DOING

We went into IKEA looking for two things: something to replace the old hutch in the dining room and some sort of storage unit with a trash can for the bathroom. We found the thing we want to replace the hutch. It’s name is Billy, but they were all out of Billys (Billies?). The storage unit for the bathroom turned into a whole moment of “we’re completely remodeling the bathroom”. New sink. New sink cabinet. New medicine cabinets. We were going to strip the bathroom down and repaint and then put in all of these new things. Except when we got the area to load up all the pieces, IKEA did not have the sink. So, we bought new cushions for the dining benches, a new light fixture for the hallway, and three boxes for our Billy that we will eventually get.

We got home and unloaded all of the things and then I said “Wait. How are we supposed to turn the light on with this new fixture.” Michael said “I don’t know what you mean. You just turn the light on.” Then I said “But you need a light switch. There’s not a light switch in the hallway.” The current light is a pull a string light comes on system. Michael was still confused, so I had to physically show him the differences between having a light switch and not having a light switch. Then his light switch turned on and he said “Oh no.” The next morning while watching CBS Sunday Morning, I put together my three boxes that are intended for Billy and realized very quickly that those boxes were not going to fit in Billy. They are made to fit the Kallax. The only correct purchases that we made at IKEA were the new cushions on the dining table benches and more kitchen sponges.

It’s fine. We’ve decide to put the new light fixture in the kitchen and I did some reorganizing to use the boxes in our Kallax.

I did a lot of reorganizing this weekend. By the time I decided to stop, I had filled three and half garbage bags with clothes, shoes, bags and some other useless items. Michael joked with the Cabbage that he didn’t know what was going on but that he was just happy he wasn’t in one of those bags. Then I heard Michael say something like “Cindy’s going crazy.” and I cringed while trying not to take it personally. He just thinks that he’s being funny, but what he doesn’t know is that there have been so many moments where I am decluttering because my brain has gone a little crazy. Clearing out useless stuff is an action I can fall back on in the moments I am feeling anxious or out of control. My decluttering moments do seem to put him on edge even though it is my own stuff I’m cleaning out and he’s regularly complaining about not having room his things. He doesn’t see it when I am decluttering to make more space for him or that I hear his complaints about not having a place to put his books and things and I am trying to remedy this for him. His failure to see that I am trying to make space for him makes me feel as if I will never be able to clear out enough space for him. It is a never enough situation.

I did not allow that to happen this weekend. I ignored every little joke or comment on my sanity and I cleared space in my house for me. Not because I was feeling anxious or that I need to feel in control. I cleared it because I want to be able to easily access things in my closet and in my dresser. There were a lot of failures this weekend. Some of those failures were beyond my control. We still do not have a couch and probably won’t for another two weeks. I was unable to make any headway with the dining room furniture. Those three and half garbage bags of no longer useful stuff is a win.

Maybe even a bronze medal level of win.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Hope

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Last Saturday, Michael and I went to IKEA to buy a futon for the basement. The basement is becoming a second living space and sleeping room for Michael. He's got our old TV set up down there along with his desk and computer. We had an old couch down there that he was sleeping on, but it reached the end of it's comfort ability. I suggested replacing it with a futon because it's a couch, it's a bed, it's a couch! And yes, we live at IKEA okay. Jeeze, get over it. Any way, we get in a check out line with our flat bed cart and then I peek around the people in front of us to see what's holding up the line. There is a woman at the checkout counter with two flat bed carts and one full (like Walmart on a Friday full) shopping cart. I convinced Michael to slide on over to the line next to us.

As we stood in our new line, I watched the show of getting this woman's stuff checked out. Her face looked so haggard and embarrassed at the chaos she was creating. We made it through checkout just as the woman and her teenage daughter were attempting to get their carts towards the exit doors. The mother was trying to push one of the flat bed carts with one hand while pulling the full cart. Her teenage daughter was behind, doing her best to maneuver the second flat bed cart. I don't know if you have any experience with pushing IKEA carts, but those things require skills. The wheels are designed to roll in any direction. If you are pushing a full cart, you are using all of your core muscles and arm strength to steer that cart in a forward motion that will not send you careening off into a display of vardagens, shattering them into a million pieces. Maneuvering two carts at once is suicide. 

Michael managed to swerve our cart around the woman and her daughter and make his way to the exit. I was following behind with nothing in my hand except a plant (that Josephine has already pulled out of the planter, by the way. I cannot have houseplants). I looked at the woman trying to push a cart while pulling a cart and I said "Can I help you push one of these carts? All I have is this plant." The look on her face was one of suspicion, but she agreed. We followed Michael to the elevators and he corralled us all on to the platform so we could make it all in one elevator trip. On the way down to the parking garage the woman told us that they had driven three hours to come to the store today and that one of her friends had requested some items. The woman said that she'd had no idea it was going to be so much stuff. She shook her head at her carts and looked slightly embarrassed. Michael and I shrugged off her embarrassment and reassured her that it could easily happen to anyone. We always go in to that store for one thing and then leave with a whole new bedroom.

The elevator doors opened to the parking garage and I continued to push the woman's cart over to her car, which was parked very close to where we had exited. When we all got to her car, she looked at me, placed her hands together and said "Thank you so much for your kindness." Her words were so genuine and the look in her eyes was of such gratitude. I replied "it was no problem." and I went to catch up with Michael. After we had loaded our stuff in the truck and Michael was pulling out of our parking space, I said "You know, I was really helping everyone when I was helping that woman." Michael nodded and said "Oh, I know. You were thinking globally and acting locally." That woman and her three carts were in the process of creating quite the traffic jam for those exiting the building, but also I could see the frustration on this woman's face. I could see her struggle and I recognized how easily I could be in her place. 

I am guilty of taking on more than I can chew more often than I can count. I will carry all of the grocery bags into the house in one trip as if I am a pack mule. Asking for help is not an option, but that doesn't mean I would not accept help if offered. Well...I might hesitate slightly at the offer, but eventually accept it. The description of 'pack mule' does not only apply to my ability/determination of carrying all of the things. I think that many of us can relate to this, that it is slightly easier to just accept help being offered than it is to ask for it out right. It feels nice to be the one offering and giving help and it was such a simple thing to do. It reminded me that the gift of gratitude is very powerful. Every week, I end this post by saying that I am grateful for you. I am grateful to those of you who read these posts without judgment. I do not ask you to read or follow this blog, but you do. So... thank you so much for your kindness. 

COOKIES

I made cookies

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Saturday, Michael and I went to IKEA because we have an illness. No really. IKEA is the best place to buy picture frames and we needed some last minute gift picture frames. They are not paying me to say that. They have a wide variety of reasonably priced frames. Some might even go as far as to say cheap. Depends on your idea of cheap. Any hoo...Micheal parked the car and I looked at him and said "We are going straight to picture frames. We don't need anything else. Picture frames. That's it." He nodded his head in agreement and we walked into IKEA. We only briefly browsed the kitchen area because Michael wanted to replace his old lunch box. They did not have a replacement that he liked, so we quickly moved on straight over to frames.

Okay... we made another stop in the new pet area and almost bought a retractable leash for Josephine. Then we went over to frames.

The tricky part of IKEA is getting out of the store with only the things you went in there for in the first place. I have yet to succeed at this. We picked up the picture frames we needed. I wanted to look at Christmas wrapping paper. Michael wanted to look around the second chance area. He found a giant map of the world and I found Christmas cookie cutters. I just want to put it on the record here that my impulse buy was way cheaper than his impulse buy. Though I will say that the giant map of the world does look nice behind our TV. I saw those cookie cutters and all I wanted to do was go home and make pretty cookies. Which is strange because I am not the type of person who makes pretty cookies. But I saw those cookie cutters and imagined making beautiful, lightly frosted bears, moose, wolves and snowflakes.

I don't bake. It's not that I can't bake. It's that I don't bake. My kitchen is small with limited counter space. Making pretty cookies means making a mess. Also we do not need cookies in this house. I might eat one cookie and then I'm good on my cookie intake for a half a year. Pretty cookies require work and weekends are for not working. The internal struggle of wanting to make cookies versus my laziness is real. Finally I decided to make the cookies because I knew I could take them to work and it would be a nice treat. My first cookie cutter attempts did not turn out well. The cookie dough stuck to the inside of the moose and wolf cookie cutters. I sprayed all of the cutters with cooking spray. This worked for the bear and the snowflake, but I had to give up on the moose and the wolf. Moose are mythical creatures any way and probably jerks.

I made a few bears and a lot of snowflake chocolate sugar cookies and then delicately piped icing onto each one. And you know what? They all turned out just as I had imagined. They weren't perfect, but they were very pretty and tasty. The people at work loved them. I almost want to make and decorate more cookies. 

Almost. 

RUGS

New rug

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The living room rug was the same rug that sat under the dining room table in my childhood home. It is a large braided rug of different shades of blue. Maybe there is a glint of yellow here and there. That rug has to be at least the same age as I am. I don't remember a time when it was not in that house. The braided mix of blues are twisted into my memories just as tightly as it is woven. I think there was a time that this rug was in the den or maybe the living room. It moved around the house depending on my mother's moods. Mostly though, I remember it under the dining room table, the place my family would gather around every Sunday until one by one, us kids flew the nest. The dining room table remained the central gathering place for holiday meals and birthday celebrations and just regular visits, but the frequency of gatherings changed as our family shifted like tectonic plates, forming continents of our own.

I don't know the circumstances of how that rug came to be free right around the time Chris and I moved to KCMO. Mom had put a new rug in the dining room ages ago, but still held on to the blue braided rug, moving it around rooms. Any way, we moved with hardly any real furniture and needed a rug. Mom gave us the rug. Just another piece of hand-me-down home furnishing. I am the Peter Pan of home furnishings. I didn't buy my first couch until my late thirties and even then it was more of a love seat than a couch. Up until then, couches and bed frames and even some chairs where all pieces that friends or family had grown tired of and replaced with something new. Between hand-me-downs and thrift store finds, our house was a miss matched quilt of mid century modern, industrial and 80s style. This Peter Pan has started to grow up and buy her own furniture. Sure a lot of it has come from IKEA, but at least I have put more thought and care into the pieces Michael and I have purchased. Now our style is more mid century IKEA. I still have the metal office credenza that we use for a TV stand partly because I still really like the hidden storage and partly because it is the heaviest piece of furniture on the planet. I was barely able to move it far enough from the wall to paint and even then, I moved it just enough to fit myself and a paint roller. If we one day turn this house into a rental, that credenza will be part of the deal. It stays with the house. 

Our house is morphing and changing. Michael has cleaned out and set up a space for himself in the basement. The Cabbage has six cubes of toys in the bookcase now. Her clothes have taken up one of the large drawers under my bed. That draw needs to be lifted slightly when pulled out so as not to catch on the rug. Catching on the rug causes the screws in the front of the drawer to come loose and eventually the drawer falls apart when being pulled open. I got fed up with putting the drawer back together once a month and took all of her clothes out of that drawer. I gave her two drawers in my dresser. I've spent the last two weeks constantly opening up the wrong drawers in search of my own underwear. I decided that it was time that the Cabbage had her own small dresser, so Michael and I made a trip out to IKEA to see what our options were. We picked out a dresser and then headed down to the first level where I got distracted by the rugs. It was decided that after we had touched every single rug in the department, that we would move the yuck brown rug from the dining area to Michael's new set up in the basement and the living room rug to the dining area. Then we would put a new rug in the living room. 

We rolled out the new rug yesterday. We placed old dumbbell weights on one edge to flatten the end that wanted to remain curled from being rolled into a tube for so long. The weights are lined up along the edge like a fence. Michael and I stood on the hardwood looking down at the new rug. Josephine laid down just on the other side of our 'fence'. We joked about how long it would take her to get out. It is different. I am still getting used to the idea of it in that space with the old rug moved to the living room. I walk across the new rug with my bare feet and notice how different it feels compared to the old rug. The old rug has been worn smooth. You cannot feel the braids in the rug. The new rug has texture to it. You can feel the individual cords that make up the pile of it. It feels nice under my feet.

My house has become our house. It is more layered and textured. A mix of controlled cluttered chaos. A mix of us. 

THAT'S SOMETHING

Morning

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Michael and I bought a new couch. Really, I guess I should say that we are in the process of buying a new couch. IKEA was out of the arms and chase section of the couch we wanted. Now that I think about it, I have to a pause and ask "what the fuck, IKEA?" We were able to buy the two seater section, legs, and all of the covers, but no arms or chaise. I get that they'd be out of the chaise because the couch is modular, but ARMS?!? I went back on Sunday and got the arms. Michael will go after work on Tuesday and get the chaise. I put all of the pieces we have for the couch together yesterday, with the exception of attaching the right arm because that's where the chaise section goes. My knuckles are scraped and bloody from putting the covers on the arms and I have a paper cut from the cardboard box that stretches all the way across my forearm. We sat on half a couch last night. 

While we were in IKEA trying to decide on which couch to buy, I looked at Michael and said "we're buying a couch together." He thought about it and then nodded. "We are buying a couch together." I feel like that's even more serious than that time he bought a scooter.  We're taking my home and turning it into our home, which is more than just cleaning out a couple of drawers in my dresser so he'll have room to put his socks and underwear. Though, I am getting those drawers back because we also bought Michael a new bed with large storage drawers under it. When he opened up the drawers on my side of the dresser, which are crammed full, he asked me "how long have they been like this?!" I looked at him out of the side of my eye and said "since you moved in." 

I'm still guiltily surprised at how easy it was for me to stretch out into this space after Chris died. I had been so careful and consistent in getting rid of clothes so that the clothes I kept fit neatly into my half of the dresser. It is not that I stopped cleaning out old clothes. I just got less selective in the things I tossed even after I moved back into just the three drawers. I stretched out, spread out and then had to real it all back in. Things that didn't get tossed during the shrink back phase suddenly found new homes stuffed into nooks and crannies. There have been times when I have felt overwhelmed by confining myself back into my old space because it doesn't fit the way it did before. My house went from all mine, quiet and orderly to Our house, noisy and just on the brink of exploding into chaos. Containing the clutter is an endless task. I throw out mail and neatly stack the things Michael ends up dumping onto the table daily.

And there have been so many bitten tongues. "Can't you see I eat my breakfast there every morning?" "How many cups do you need in the living room?!" "You really think it's a good idea to put knives, pointy side up in the dish drainer?" These are all things I have thought and not said out loud because I recognize the bitchy nagging sound of those words. But there have been moments where I've felt myself snapping and on the verge of yelling "OUT! GET OUT!" We can be together and not live together right? Instead of snapping, I notice how hard he's trying. I notice that he's doing his best and that he has spent a long time living in this space on my terms. I am no longer making this space mine. We are making this space ours. There is no moving backwards now. We've bought a couch and in order to split that couch up, we'd have to buy another pair of couch arms. 

And who knows when IKEA's getting more of those. 

GREENISH THUMB

Watering the orchid. #365

"Watering the orchid. #365"

Friday night as we were putting the Cabbage to bed, Michael asked her what she wanted to do on Saturday. The Cabbage replied "I want to go to that place that has the big pillows and plays movies." Michael and I were perplexed. After further investigation we realized that the Cabbage wanted to go to Smaland in IKEA. We really had no need to go to IKEA, but Smaland is a free indoor activity on a cold rainy/snowy day and it's hard to say "no" to free. I looked at Michael and shrugged "We'll look at kitchen displays while she plays in Smaland." We dropped the Cabbage off at Smaland and headed up to browse kitchen displays. Except all of the kitchens were closed because they were putting in new kitchens. Michael decided he wanted to look at lighting so we headed back down stairs. Then I remembered that I wanted a wooden cutting board to turn into a laptop desk. Michael found an awesome travel backpack and then before we knew it we were in the plant section. 

You guys know that I can't walk through this section without deciding that I need a plant of some sort. On this day, I was drawn to the orchids. I stood there hemming and hawing with Michael hovering nearby saying "just get one." This is where I confess. I am not all that great with houseplants. The ones that I have in our house are surviving, but not really thriving. I don't fertilize. I barely remember to water them. If I take them to work, all of this changes. They sit in a window that gets plenty of light and they are watered on a regular basis. I don't know what happens at home. I'm more focused on keeping us alive than the plants? I have no idea, but the plant I put in the bathroom is dead dead and has been dead dead since the bathroom remodel. Yet I'm standing in IKEA looking at orchids. ORCHIDS! The most intimidating house plant ever imagined. These things require more than attention. My favorite teacher and adviser in undergrad, Dr. Magrath, was a botanist and president of the National Orchid Society (or something like that).  He was always trying to give me one of his orchids. I refused every time because the last thing I wanted to do was kill a plant given to me by the person who decided if I would graduate college. I would never have been able to ask him for a letter of reference. And Michael's all "get one."  I will kill this plant. This is an expensive plant that I will kill. I say all of this. 

That's when a lovely young man standing within ear shot pipes up and says "One to two ice cubes a day. That's all they need." I turned around and said "really?". He shrugged his shoulder and waived his hand and said "Really. They're totally easy. One to two a ice cubes a day and no worries." I turned back to the orchids and hesitantly reached for one that had two blooms, and several buds. I looked at Michael and said "Well, you heard the man. I can't kill this." So I bought that orchid, the most intimidating house plant of all house plants. I'm going to try really hard not to kill it or fuss over it. We'll see. 

Oh, by the way, I lied about Smaland being free. It cost us $65 that day. IKEA knows what it's doing. 

I'M AN IKEA NINJA

Night stands!

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OK...maybe that's an exaggeration. I know a lot of you think I'm all over the moon about IKEA especially how we used to make special trips to the one in Dallas all the time. Chris and I did spend a wedding anniversary there once. Having an IKEA store four hours away is so much different than having one twenty minutes from the house. Four hours away IKEA is like a vacation or a get-away. It is a tourist destination. IKEA twenty minutes from the house loses that tourist novelty real fast. Except it's still a tourist destination. If you go into IKEA with a clear mission to get one or two specific items, you must contend with the IKEA tourist and IKEA does their best to make sure that you have to contend with the IKEA tourist. Here's how they do that.

It's really a very brilliant sales tactic. There is a specific path and layout to an IKEA store. Ideally, the people at IKEA would have you start on the top level. You follow the path through various displays starting with couches, chairs and what you can do with 550 square feet of space. The path twists it's way into wall units and media display, followed by kitchens and appliances. Then you have home office things like desks and chairs. Next comes all things bedroom before landing in all things for a kid's room. By the time you've completed the tour of the top floor, you'll probably be a little hungry. No problem. IKEA has placed a cafeteria right there as you exit the kid's section. Swedish meatballs for everyone! 

From here, you travel downstairs to the market place section of the store. This is were you can actually pick up and buy the things you saw on display upstairs. The store continues with their path starting with all things kitchen (dishes, utensils, pots and pans), travelling into textiles and bedding, turning a corner into bathroom stuff and then into all things storage and organizing. Then you follow the path into lighting, on into home decor (picture frames, candles) and house plants before the path spits you out into the warehouse section. The warehouse section is where you pick up the larger things that you have to assemble (there's an Alan wrench in every box! We now have five of them!). Then there's check out and by now you're probably feeling a bit peckish. That's OK too because after checkout is a snack bar and a Swedish grocery area. The snack bar is where you can buy the cinnamon rolls which you can smell throughout the store. It's how they keep everyone so calm. Ah, the soothing smell of fresh baked cinnamon rolls.

Now, I'm not a big rule breaking type of girl, but when it comes to IKEA I will look at their path designed to herd and say "no thank you." Don't get me wrong. The path is great for the tourist. It blows monkey balls for someone on a direct mission. I mean I get what IKEA is doing. They want me to go through kitchen utensils to get to storage boxes. While walking through the kitchen utensils, I may suddenly decide that I desperately need yet another UPPHETTA and if I had gone straight to the other thing on my list I would have missed getting that. Again, I say "no thank you, IKEA." Here's what you need to know about staying on course in IKEA. First of all, never trust the online inventory list. It is a liar. There have been three trips made to IKEA in the past three weeks with the sole intention of picking up two FORHOJA wall cabinets. Every time inventory has shown that yes, indeed there are at least seven FORHOJA wall cabinets in stock and yet every time we've trekked down isle thirteen to bin fifteen, we've been left staring at an empty shelf and cursing. Now since this has happened to us one too many times, we've learned to skip the market place path and go straight to the warehouse. This is exactly what we did on Saturday and low and behold they DID have the FORHOJA wall cabinet (Michael was prepared to chew someone's ass. We are all very grateful that this didn't have to happen). Always go straight to the exact item you are going into the store for first. If they don't have it, turn around and storm out. Just do it. You'll stew over the missing item all through the store, end up buying the three pack of TROJKA and stabbing someone with them.

That means, you may be going through the store backwards. This is totally possible if you follow a few courtesies. This plan works well if you are getting something reasonable like the wall cabinets. It will not work if you are buying something that requires that flat bed cart to get out of the store. I repeat. Don't do this if you're buy a bed. You will wreck and kill someone. The key is to do this with things you can carry. If, once inside the marketplace you realize you need a cart, do not panic. Look up and around you. There is always a hidden section marked by a giant shopping cart. There are rows of shopping carts tucked behind that wall. Speaking of hidden sections of shopping carts. The market place section has several hidden cut through options. They have them upstairs too, but you will appreciate them more in the market place. These short cuts allow you to cut through kitchen supplies straight over to textiles. There's one at lighting too that goes to the storage stuff. The key is to be alert and look along the outside walls. If you're going backwards, avoid the main herding path. You will basically be going the wrong way in a one way if you try taking that path. You will make everyone angry, including yourself if you try taking the path backwards. Again stick to the outside walls (furthest from the center of the path). This will also give you easy access to all cut throughs. Always yield to oncoming traffic, be polite and say "excuse me" and you will have very little trouble sticking to your mission of getting only the things on your list.

Saturday was by far the easiest IKEA trip we've ever made. They were taking the "we are full" sign down at  Smaland right as we walked up with the Cabbage (who was taking her shoes off as we approached the door, because she was READY!). We dropped the Cabbage off for an hour of supervised play and headed straight over to the warehouse. We picked up all of the items on the list and even had time to run through the grocery section before one of us had to go retrieve the Cabbage from Smaland. All items were in stock. No one got stabbed with scissors and we all high-fived as we loaded the car. 

I am now thinking of hiring myself out as an IKEA personal shopper. Yes, I am totally patting myself on the back right this very minute.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Rescued from IKEA. I think I'll name him Maxwell.

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I've been pretty low key around here about the recent opening of IKEA. Surprising because I am an IKEA junkie. I even toured the one in Dublin when Mom and I were there last year. I bought the salmon paste that comes in a toothpaste-like tube and we sat in our hotel that evening trying to convince ourselves that we were not eating cat food on crackers. With cheese. (I think my body is trying to tell me that it needs some Omega3s, because that actually sounds good right now and it is not good). IKEA opened here a couple of weeks ago and though I have been very excited about all of this, I was not excited enough to be one of the crowd camping out for the store opening. 

Back in the days when Chris and I were planning our escape from Oklahoma, we had started creating a list of things we'd like the new place to have. Number one thing the new place had to have, absolutely, was a Trader Joe's. The next thing on the list was to be close enough to an IKEA that a trip there would not require a "weekend getaway". The rest of the list was more like Christmas wishes. An REI store. Public transportation. Lots of green space. Curb side recycling. Portland Oregon. Food trucks. You get the idea. Kansas City had none of the must haves from the list when we moved here. They were in the process of building Trader Joe's though, so we had hopes. It is unfortunate that Chris didn't make it to see some of the other things from the list show up here. Actually...he's be really disappointed with our REI store. It's tiny. But I'm sure he's up there some where happy to know that I can now rescue plants from IKEA any time I want. IKEA puts all the house plants in the darkest dankest corner of the store. It's always near the warehouse entrance. You pass this section and you can't help put buy a plant because you feel sorry for it. IKEA should totally team up with a pet adoption service and put pets there. I am certain I'd leave with with some sort of philodendron under one arm and a puppy under the other. He's probably also very happy that he didn't have to be the one to put together the bed we bought on Saturday. I think I had Michael almost brainwashed that IKEA was the most fabulous place on earth until he opened the box containing the bed pieces and the bazillion parts required to hold it all together. He needs some time before our next IKEA visit. 

Though I am thankful for Michael's patience and ability to follow IKEA instructions, and I'm thankful for everyone in this house having a bed that they sleep comfortably on now, I'm really thankful for the plant I bought to go in my office at work. I know this sounds like an odd thing to be thankful for. I bought two plants when we there on Saturday and re-potted them into some pretty pots. I took one of them to work and set it on the windowsill right outside my cubicle. Every time I look over towards that window I see Maxwell (I named him Maxwell) and I smile. When the guys I work with noticed it they all agreed that it was so nice to have Maxwell in our office. And it really is. It's amazing the difference a houseplant can make. In fact...I think Maxwell might be lonely. It's possible that he'll get some new friends soon. For now, I am thankful for the joy he brings to our office. 

I am thankful for this weekend getaway I'm taking to Oklahoma to surround myself with framily. Sometimes there are people in your life that you just need to be around at certain times. I need to be surrounded by these people this weekend. I am beginning to feel the broken pieces stitching together and I think this weekend may be just what the doctor ordered. I am thankful for rainbows without rain, my yoga mat, and you.

Have a truly lovely weekend, but a perfectly Thankful Friday.