Happy New Year!

I'm looking forward to 2011. Odd years are usually my best years. I don't know if that's just self-fulfilling prophecy or the fact that so much less is expected of odd years vs. their even counterparts. Whatever the reason, they are my favs. I also love the beginning of anything (the week, month, year) because I feel like I have a fresh start... an opportunity to be something new, to replace bad habits with better ones, and to look forward without worrying about all the baggage I "should be" carrying. I feel like 2011 might give me that chance. Can it be like magic? The clock strikes 12 and miraculously failures fade away into the brightness of new dreams and new adventures to be had. I hope so. That's what I'm holding my breath for. An opportunity to start fresh and try again. To cut back on all the failed goals of 2010 and reach the simple, well defined goals of 2011. I suppose only time will tell.

Happy new year to all our friends and family. We love you and we miss you... especially tonight.

Loves & hugs,

Deb

Gingerbread Houses of Awesome

So our friends the Cechini's had us over to make Gingerbread Houses. And while mine is your traditional house with Hershey Kiss Pine Trees, Joe's morphed into the Trailer of Awesome, complete with pink flamingo, inflatable palm tree and lawn chair. The beer cans didn't make it through the move from their house to ours, but I hope you can appreciate his design! Loving it!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't help but be grateful for...

Joseph
Thank you for your love, patience, hope and belief that someday I will conquer this. Thank you for holding my hand as I walk this path. Thank you for taking us across the country to discover new places, people and things. Thank you for being the other half of this incredible marriage. I am happy because of you.

Josser & Journey
Thank you for having patience when I'm angsty and for being the best cuddle buds when I'm not feeling well. I love you, even if the rest of the world thinks you want to eat them! I know the truth... you are simply the most loving, cuddly dogs on the planet who happen to think they are also lap dogs despite their 80 & 55 lb weights.

Friends
I hope you know who you are... if you don't, I'm not doing my job. I love you. You make my life, my progress and my happiness possible. I am grateful for your support and encouragement. I'm grateful for your honesty and clarity. I am grateful you let me serve you when I can. I'm grateful you are mine (muhahahaha!), even if I do have to share you with the rest of the world. I am grateful for your examples that, regardless of you being near or far, bless me every day. And I'm SO VERY THANKFUL I can be myself, in all my awkward glory, and you love me anyway.

Family
I didn't know I could miss you this much! I love you. I love being related to you. I love learning how important you are to me. I love your MANY DIFFERENT personalities that sometimes clash, but often compliment the rest of the family. My life wouldn't be the same without you. I'm grateful for our experiences together. I'm grateful that as crappy as things may have been (or maybe are right now), that at least we've shared those experiences together. It really is a blessing to have someone to talk to who was in the trenches with me. Someone I can bounce memories off of and reactions to those memories. Thank you for helping me to piece my life back together. Thank you for encouraging me in my pursuits. And though I don't often share what is actually happening in my life, thank you for your willingness to listen when I do.

Church
I am grateful for an organization that made sure we had a place to go when we moved out here. I am grateful for a ward family who has encircled us in their love from the moment we arrived. I'm grateful for home and visiting teachers who check up on us. For a bishopric that cares. For Relief Society and Elders Quorum presidencies who go the extra mile. For friends and leaders and teachers who serve each other with such love and selflessness. I know why they Lord brought us to Maryland... so we could be with you. He knew I'd need you... that we'd need you. Thank you for listening to His voice.

Jesus Christ
I am learning to understand you and your Atonement. I didn't know as much as I thought I did and I know even less about applying what I knew. But I am grateful for your patience. Grateful that you are willing to wait outside my door while I figure out how to open the damn darn thing. I am grateful for your infinite Atonement that allows me to seek and receive oneness with the godhead instead of oneness with the adversary. I am grateful that through you I am blessed with the ability to overcome temporal death, the first spiritual death and, if I am repent (which I really am trying to be!), the second spiritual death as well. I am grateful for the strength you grace provides. Thankful that, although I am too weak to walk this path alone, through you I know I can make it to the end. Thanks for watching over me. Thank you for providing all the people in my life who help save me every day. Thank you for caring about one insignificant human being... one of the billions who need your help. I often don't understand why you care, but I am eternally grateful that you do. Thank you, Jesus, for saving me... for loving me... and for showing me the way to return home. Hopefully someday soon I'll figure out how to give my burdens--and myself--over to you.

Heavenly Father
Mi Padre Celestial. Oh Father! I am so grateful for you this day. Grateful for your presence and your blessings in my life. Grateful for your plan that allows someone like me the chance to be like you. Thank you for providing a Savior. His sacrifice reminds me how much you love me. You know the things of my heart... all the experiences I am recalling even as I type this. Thank you for those. Thank you for being my Father when my earthly one wasn't available... and thank you for bringing him back to me so I can have him now, even if I couldn't have him as a child. Thank you for reminding me of your love. And thank you for creating trees... the big, beautiful, leafy trees that sway outside my window in colors of gold and fire. You knew I'd love them because you knew me so well... you still do. Thank you for staying close even though I try to move far away.

Me
Sounds funny, doesn't it? To be grateful for one's self. But I am grateful. I am grateful that today I can accept myself. I am grateful I'm alive and a member of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am grateful that I am still trying, even when I want to give up. I am grateful I have come this far--climbed this high--even though I have a much longer journey in front of me. I am grateful that I can love others and am hopeful I can learn to love myself with the same intensity. I am grateful I can serve others. Grateful that in some small way I can make a difference in someone else's life. I am grateful I like reading and writing. Thankful for the release those two hobbies give me. Mostly I am grateful that somehow, all the different parts of me are starting to work together--memories, thoughts, emotions, etc. It's good to be on the same page. It's nice to feel things slowly click into place. So yes. I am grateful for me and grateful to be me... at least for today.

Eeeeek!

There are some pretty trippy bugs out on the East Coast. One I discovered while camping (which I think followed me home) and the other is a nasty spider whose web we tore down three nights in a row only to discover a larger web the next morning. On the final night Joe found the spider. Thankfully he was the one who saw it first and hurried me inside before I saw a thing. Just looking at the picture makes my skin crawl!

Behold! The SPIDER CRICKET (top) and the EVIL SPIDER (bottom)!