'california is a great big nation. . .'

On Thursday, we'll be here! Yes indeed, Dan and I are taking an anniversary trip this weekend to San Francisco, and we're so terribly excited! If we get on the flight we want, we'll leave at 7:30-ish our time and arrive at 12-ish west coast time. So today, I'm researching bus passes and vintage stores and restaurants and beaches and farmer's markets and all sorts of lovely things like that. And tomorrow, I'll pack Miss Veda with all my favorite dresses and a journal and, of course, Dear Friend Pablo Neruda, who's going with me everywhere these days.

Hoorah for one last piece of summer fun!

(ps: the high in sf this weekend is going to be 60. . . I don't think I can even process that right now. It's forty degrees warmer here!)

i love my wife

this is my wife watching fireworks.

oh Caitling, how I love you...

about us

we live in a little yellow house

with a blank wall that waits for a piano

the grass is usually a little too long, but secretly we like it that way.

we believe in color, local produce, and letting things be what they are.

we listen to james taylor, the weepies, regina spektor, bach's cello suites, and blossom dearie.

we're in and out of our local branch library all the time;

we read in bed most nights.

there's a train yard at the end of the block

and an ice cream man with a small blue pushcart.

there's a lake nearby

and a thrift store

and a rosemary plant waiting to be potted.

we make biscuits with my great-grandmother's rolling pin

we drink more tea than coffee and use more honey than sugar

we make silly faces and forget to answer our phones.

"people like us were meant to go round in pairs"

Right about now, four years ago, Dan and I were falling in love, becoming an Us, in complete wonder at the seamlessness of our connection with each other. My memories of that era are inextricably bound up with a song: Summerbreeze, from Love in the Time of Science, by Emiliana Torrini (a Great Favorite of ours). I've had it running through my head lately, and I wanted to share it partly because it's Ours, and partly because it's such a luminous little gem. Enjoy--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oB3WrodLKCg

this weekend

Pondering: courage, tolerance, renewal

Listening: Deb Talan

"Haven't we all got a place where we belong?

It could be a sidewalk crack or a sad song."

Rejoicing: for Morgan and Brett

Reading: my classmates' stories and poetry- so many peer reviews to write. yipe.

Going: to Santa Fe for a badly needed overnight getaway tomorrow (a belated Valentine to ourselves, since we never had time to celebrate it). So looking forward to it! It's our first non-family-friend-or-church-related trip together.

Have a peaceful weekend, everyone. Love you all.

Happy New Year from The Little Yellow House!

We think 2010 is going to be RICHARD SCARY'S BEST YEAR EVER!!!

(that is our silly way of saying that this year will be fancy, fabulous, fantastic, fun, flirtatious, felicitous-- in short, packed with all manner of cleverly alliterative virtues)

Welcome, 2010!

First Anniversary-- August 9, 2009

Our anniversary fell on Sunday, so we went to church and were sung to-- good ol' LPBC is rather spunky about the "Happy Birthday" song and adapts it to all of life's little occasions. One time we actually sang "Happy Blessing To You" when a couple announced that they were expecting a baby. Anyway, when we got home, we celebrated with tasty snacks and the long Pride and Prejudice, which we watched all the way through. It was lovely. Our snacks were the top layer of our cake, fancy cheese and bread, sour patch kids, gummy worms, fancy chips, chocolate covered pretzels, cherries, and espresso beans, champagne, and nice beer. We thought it was a most successful anniversary.

Dan's phone screen, with the counter he started to count down to our wedding showing 365 days since. How has it been that long, and longer? We've been so happy together-- God is unfailingly, abundantly bountiful to bless us with a life this good.