Olympic Sadness

When I was posting earlier I completely forgot to say that I've been thinking so much today about Nodar Kumaritashvili, the athelete who was killed. On the news they showed his little town and his father and my heart is so heavy with thoughts of them. What should have been a triumph instead is a tragedy. As a parent, I cannot imagine their pain and am tossing up little prayers for his family and friends. For them to find the strength and peace that they need. For the memories of him and knowing his joy in getting to the peak of his sport to overcome the grief soon.

More of Our Valentine Home

A selection of the vintage and vintage style holiday cards that I collect:

A decoupage box that I made for The Child years ago:

Vintage looking plates that I picked up a couple of years ago after Valentine's Day at Target for a SONG:

Yes, I even have holiday theme TOWELS. I am insane.

The 'small tree' (insane):

Our Valentine Home

More of our Valentine’s decorations:


That big glass vase is full of a paper chain that I made:

It’s just pastel paper that I printed appropriate saying on and then made a chain with.

Mr. Kim Spoils Me

We love holidays and decorating for them. Well, Mr. Kim mostly loves Christmas and looks a little askance at my multiple boxes of Easter, Valentine’s Day, Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations. But he loves me beyond the bounds of what is sensible and totes all the boxes up and down stairs and even indulges me with gifts of little lovelies that I fall in love with. Yesterday we were in Carytown to have breakfast with The Child and afterwards we wandered around in some of the shops. We got a couple of cupcakes at Carytown Cupcakes (the flavor was good, but they were so dry – like ‘most every bakery cupcake I’ve ever had), some Japanese candy at Tokyo Market, herbs at Penzeys and looked for Valentine ornaments for my shiny pink St. Valentine’s tree (I know, I know) at Old World Accents. We found a couple of adorable little glass Conversation Hearts:

They are about 1 inch across.

And then I noticed this little dude:

And I was LOST! The artist is Ginny Betourne and her stuff is truly magical and amazing. Mr. Kim snatched it right up for me and he’ll be out for Easter.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Blogging is quite possibly the most frustrating thing I've ever done. The last time that I loaded pictures, I could see the pictures while I was composing, so that I could make comments between the pictures. Right now, all I can see is a bunch of computer language gobbledygook. I have no idea where each picture begins and ends. I'm not sure how much longer I am willing to deal with this. It was supposed to be a way to keep track of memories - not another aggrivating chore.

We started Valentine’s day with breakfast, of course. Cream cheese and fruit stuffed French toast, Benton’s bacon, scrambled eggs and bananas with yoghurt and local honey. The fruit in the French toast was either bananas or sautéed pears. Tonight Mr. Kim is taking me to Mezzanine , a fairly new restaurant in Carytown. I'll post about that later and also some of our Valentine's decorations.

Jonah

Please say a little prayer today for The Child and Jonah (the grandkitty). She took him to the vet yesterday and they are afraid that he has kidney cancer. She is taking him for additional tests next Monday. She's only had him for a week and we've only met him once, but he's already a part of our hearts. This is something that her vet discovered in a simple examination. I don't understand why the damn SPCA vet didn't bother to check. I won't go into my rant about the hypocracy of so called 'no kill' shelters who limit their intake to maintain that policy. At least I won't do it now. Another post later, maybe.

I haz a Grandkitty

Meet 'Jonah'. It looks like he ate the whale. The Child foolishly went down to the SPCA on this snowy day and fell in love. She thought that she was looking for a kitten, but Jonah gave her the old Silent Miaow:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/305230.The_Silent_Miaow_A_Manual_for_Kittens_Strays_and_Homeless_Cats and she was lost. Boo-hoo'd and everything. He's a gorgeous brute and I can't wait to get my hands on him. We are without pets just now and want to keep it that way for awhile. With The Child moved out and no animals, we are looking forward to some spontaneity in our lives - travel, especially. But I've warned Mr. Kim that if we end up sitting around the house, going nowhere and waiting to die, I'm becoming the crazy cat lady. So I will be available for babysitting Jonah. And, knowing The Child, that was part of her calculations.

More backyard snow shots

Snow Deux

This was our backyard last night. And it’s still coming down. I know that I’m a grown up and I’m supposed to be disgruntled about all this stuff. Two weekends in a row, our city is paralyzed. It’s bad for the economy – people can’t shop. We’re supposed to go to friends for the Super Bowl tomorrow. I can’t help it. I LOVE this stuff. I want more. I want a two foot blizzard. I wish we lived in Northern VA where it’s even ‘worse’ today. OK – I am concerned about folks who are stranded and cold and I always worry about animals in severe weather (there is a special level of hell for people who leave their animals outside on days like this). But I can’t help but enjoy sights like this:


We loaded up the bird feeders and the cracked corn dish and the birds and squirrels are having a huge party:

For some reason, I can't post more than 5 pictures in any post, so I'll do another post with more shots of our yard.