The One Where I Brag on My Man

Last week was terrible.

Awful.

It stunk.

It's all a post of it's own - but the point is that I came home from work almost every single day disheartened and all around bummed out.  The best part of that?  I only technically worked for 3 days!  It's also the cause of my lack of posts - I had NO energy to get things done!!

That's where Brian came in.  Something was a little different in him last week and whatever it was, I hope it sticks around!!

See, Brian is an all around amazing guy.  We fight like hell sometimes - but he really does treat me like a Queen. It's just that last week, my pedestal was a little bit higher than it usually is - which makes me want to brag a bit and always remember the week from hell turned awesome because of him.

By Wednesday morning I wanted to throw the alarm clock away and call in sick to work. But as any teacher knows - it was the day before Valentine's Day, we were off of school on the actual VDay, and that means that I had already promised my kids their VDay party that afternoon.  I was screwed - work here I come.

My morning started off shitty again - until around 10 when I got a call from the office that I had a delivery.

The red ones are my favorite!! 

My sweet fiance had my normal VDay flowers sent a day earlier because he knew I'd be in Parent/Teacher conferences all day Thursday and wouldn't really get to enjoy them.  I got a beautiful bouquet of red, white, and pink tulips (one of my faves!) to stare at all day long.

Thursday morning I somehow managed to turn off my alarm and woke up over an hour late.  I was in a COMPLETE panic with only 15 minutes to get ready and out the door.

Nothing says f$#&ing awesome like getting to meet with parents ALL day without having had time to shower!! YUMMY!

Again, my sweet fiance got up with me, packed my gym bag for me (although he held up a tank top and asked "is this a sports bra?" - at least I got to laugh a little!), packed my lunch, packed my school bag, AND made me breakfast. (See why I have to get up so early? I'm a procrastinator and spend most of the morning gathering my random crap to shove into the right bag!)

As I got to work and pulled out my laptop I noticed it wasn't closed all the way.  I immediately turned bitchy again thinking "juuuuust great it wasn't shut all the way and now it's probably broken from being shoved into my bag".

Wrong!

I opened it to find the cutest note ever telling me that it was all going to be ok.  Topped with one of the tulips out of my bouquet! That sneaky man of mine somehow found time to do that as I was rushing around the house like a pissed off hurricane.

Swoon!!

I came home from the gym to find the house completely spotless. When I left it looked like a tornado had gone through it!  My love had gotten off early, cleaned his heart out, gotten a low calorie dinner started for us, and there was another big pot of flowers on the dining room table for me.  

Can you tell what my favorite color is?!

He then asked what he could get for me.

Would I like a beer?  A glass of wine?  A cocktail of some kind?

Could he start a nice hot bubble bath for me?  Get me my Nook so I could catch up on my crap ass gossip magazines or finish my current book?

And did I mention that this was all less than a week after he got all 4 wisdom teeth pulled AND had a run in with dry socket?

Anyway - we had a nice dinner and a completely relaxing evening.

Friday went off without a hitch, thankfully.  I don't think I could have taken much more!  I only had to work a half day, was able to get to the gym, come home and nap before Brian and I met with my Dad and brother for dinner.  Even then he made me smile again by sneaking our server his card to pay before she even brought us the check.  I love that he thinks about my family so much and wants to do nice things for them too, even as simple as picking up a tab.

Disclaimer: I feel the need to say that obviously our relationship isn't perfect, it's far from it.  Most of the things that happened last week involved material things - and my point in writing this wasn't to display all material things - but the thoughtfulness and love behind them.  Brian is constantly doing small things for me and I appreciate each and every one of them more than he'll ever know.

It's just that last week was a small taste of hell in my world and each and every little thing he did for me helped to turn it around. I am so in love with that man!!

The Cabin

The holidays were a little bit different this year. We've done the family balancing act in the past - but this year my Grammy decided to spend Christmas with my Aunt in Arizona. Read: my side of the family wouldn't be getting together since Gram is the anchor. 

Since both of Brian's parents birthdays fall right before Christmas, and his mom was turning the big 6-oh this year, we decided to do something a bit different.  We decided that we'd all head up to the family's cabin the week before Christmas to just plain ole relax.  

Side view of the most peaceful place I know!

I ended up lucking out and being able to take the last 2 days before break off of work.  That in itself was a small miracle.  It isn't looked upon highly for teachers to have subs in their classrooms right before a huge break!  Thank you, Principal! You made my holiday rock!!

So, Wednesday the 19th, aka Carmen's birthday, we headed up as soon as I could get out of work. Carmen and Ervey were already there with Samuel and Della.  Jenny, Jeff and Sofia headed up about an hour after we did.

Let me just tell you....this cabin is like a sanctuary. Up until about 6 months ago, there wasn't even cell phone service.  It's just that isolated. On our last trip up in October, Carmen had DirecTV installed because we figured it might be smart to catch the news every now and then and not be totally cut off from civilization. It's the one place where we can go and NOT worry about work, what's going on at home, what we're stressed about, ANYthing. Most of the time I don't even wear anything besides PJ's or sweats.  We shower when we want to, if we want  to, and it's fantastic.

Matter of fact, this time, we had NO running water.  Period.  It was cold, and snowy and we didn't want to risk the pipes bursting.  So we went running water free. I never thought I'd say this - but it was pretty sweet "roughin it".  We always bring drinking water, and Carmen's cousin Chrissy lives at the bottom of the mountain - so we were able to fill up jugs for dishes and things like that.  

Anyway - cabin trips always start out the same.  Get there, unload, put food away, set up drink station, drink.  Then we mix in a little snack eating, old school board game playing, and VHS movie watching. Have I mentioned how great it is yet? No?

Just a small sample of our drink station for the week.

This time we took all of our dogs since we'd be up there for almost a week.  They had such a good time playing in the snow, and it was my little Molly-Mo's first time seeing the white stuff!  We lounged, had a snow ball fight, made snow angels, and attempted to make a snowman but the snow just wasn't ready yet.

Molly enjoying the snow and trying to steal her Dad's hotdog!

"Look Aun Sam! I a snow angel!"

Our nights were filled with eating (we made a full-on turkey dinner with all the fixin's for one night!), stroking the fire, and setting up our fire pit on the deck.  We'd sit outside and roast some 'mallow's, drinking to our hearts content, and just enjoying being together as a family. 

Christmas lights, the deck, the fire pit, life is GOOD

The kiddo's and I made a gingerbread house, which Haus-Pooch promptly ate, and we even set up a Christmas tree complete with a small white elephant gift exchange.

Sofie Jo decorating our tree

Haus (Background) decided he liked gingerbread, he ate everything in the front!

We had such a good time that Brian and me, and his parents decided to stay an extra night.  We came back the Sunday before Christmas Eve.  This trip was so amazing that I'm still thinking about it, weeks later.  It was just what the doctor ordered before the craziness of the holidays and having to come back to work. It has definitely got me looking forward to the next time we can escape! Family vacations are the best!