One whole hand of years

Five years ago today, I was . . .

• realizing I would not, actually, be sleeping, and just gave up
• sending Sam a text asking him how he slept and not getting a response until 9 or so, since he slept great [This after him telling me, quite firmly, that he was in no way going to be able to sleep. Hah.]
• going to get my hair done, little knowing the evil intentions the misty rain had for my curls
• going to the mall to get my makeup done [which sounded like a good idea, but when they were running 1+ hours behind, despite my appointment? yeah, not such a good idea after all]
• meeting Sam at the Oakland temple
• getting sealed to my sweetheart "for time and all eternity"
• getting probably the single shortest talk from a sealer in the history of sealings
• taking pictures outside the temple with a white umbrella, due to the aforementioned drizzle
• being blissfully happy
• driving with my husband to our reception
• getting some impromptu bridals done while Sam went with my dad to pick up the food
• wearing my husband's suit coat and possibly slippers or flip-flops instead of my pretty wedding shoes [which, it must be said, are sadly uncomfortable and ridiculously cute]
• telling people that yes, I actually had gotten married and that the absence of my groom was due to the caterer losing our order and he and my dad (as well as my aunts) having to scavenge around local grocery stores
• putting olives on my fingers [Now really, if someone put jumbo-sized olives in front of you and you loved olives, would you be able to resist? I submit that you would not.]
• driving away with my husband in a car that got sadly graffitied, in the tradition of weddings, despite Sam having parked it so carefully away
• knowing I'd just made the best decision of my life

So, in case you couldn't tell, today is our five-year anniversary [that's a whole hand of years, by the way]. I thought then that I knew what happiness was; I realize now that happiness isn't a static state but a dynamic one, one that increases and intensifies the longer you give it reason to.

Now I'm going to get a little mushy, which is highly uncharacteristic of me [for some reason, the whole PDA stuff just makes me squirm, whether I see it or am the perpetrator], so if that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to stop reading.

Dear Sam,

Thanks for making these past five years the happiest of my life. I love how much I can trust you to always stand beside me and support me, regardless of the metaphorical winds and rains buffeting me and trying to pull me down. Saying yes to you was the best decision I ever made, and if I'd known then how much happiness it would bring me I wouldn't have been at all irritated by the way you led me on the whole day prior to you proposing. ;)

Thanks for being such a wonderful example of Christlike love and service and for always making me want to better myself and prove myself worthy of an eternal relationship with you. You're so much more than everything I ever dreamed up whenever I imagined my eternal companion. Every day I can't believe how lucky I am that you picked me and how blessed I am that Heavenly Father led us to each other.

I love you so much and am so excited about the eternity I have to spend with you. You're the sunshine to my every day, even when it's nasty and snowing outside.

Love for eternity,

Holly

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Holly + Sam + puppy = a very merry Christmas

So, some of you may remember that for Christmas last year, Sam bought me a dog collar as a way of saying he was ready to buy a dog. And, also as some of you may remember, I sort of freaked out when we actually went looking at dogs [some might say I discovered I have commitment issues], and we ended up going home just the two of us.

Well, a month or two ago we started feeling like maybe now we [and by "we" I mean "I"] were ready for a dog now. We started looking at KSL ads and everything, and then I started getting the panicky feeling I got last year. So I told Sam, "If you feel like now is a good time for us to get a dog, you're going to have to get one and surprise me." This is because I can handle the commitment if the commitment's already been made, but to choose the commitment . . . that's much more risky.

Well, it's no longer just the two of us. We've become a family of three! Meet Glorfindel ("Fin" for short--and 20 points to anyone who correctly identifies the origin of his name):

Isn't he absolutely the cutest thing you've ever seen? Sam surprised me with him for Christmas. He was so sneaky about it--I had no idea he'd done it until last night as we were going to bed and we heard whimpering upstairs. Considering our landlady is a firm cat person, I knew the whimpering was for me. Sam tried to ignore it and I tried to pretend not to hear it, but after it'd gone on for a while and gotten progressively louder, he turned to me and said, "Do you want one of your Christmas presents early?"

Fin is such a good little dog already. He's 1/2 golden retriever, 1/2 poodle (meaning he'll get quite big, we think) and is 10 weeks old. We started him potty training right away, and he's already got the idea that when we take him outside, it means it's time to empty his bowels. Also, he's learned what "no" means and learned that shoes always provoke a stern "no," as does chewing on clothes, toes, chair legs, etc. We went to Walgreen's [the only store open today, I think] and got him a tug-of-war rope and a little rabbit that squeaks, and he fell in love with both. Pretty much they're his new best friends.

Speaking of Fin's best friends, Sam's his #1 best friend. If Sam's laying on the floor, Fin will go lay on top of him, practically, every time. He makes a very good little shadow, too. We're watching Star Wars: Return of the Jedi currently, and he's been so funny during it. Despite being dead tired [We wore him out, so hopefully he'll sleep as well tonight as he did last night.], he'll sit straight up every once in a while and just watch the TV with this perplexed look on his face, like he just doesn't know what to make of it and the sounds coming out of it. I wish I had a picture of it. And he's soooo soft. I love to pet and cuddle him, and he loves to be petted and cuddled. We think he'll be a really good dog, especially if we're consistent with him.

So, welcome to the family, Fin! We're so excited to have you. Pretty much all we need now is a baby for you to grow up with. Family of four, anyone?

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

Why adoption?

On the Provo Families Supporting Adoption blog this morning was a really good link about the Church's viewpoint on adoption. You can read the article here.

While the adoptive-couple-birth-mother setup was a little cheesy, I thought the actual article was really nice, on the whole. I especially liked how much they brought up that placing for adoption is the most selfless, supreme act of love an unmarried woman can do for her child.

I feel like all over the place people look down on birth mothers for taking the "easy way out" or for "abandoning" their child, when really she's broken her heart to give her baby the best possible life she can give him or her--which just happens to be with other parents. I've met several birth mothers since we joined the adoption community and have sort of blog stalked others, and they're among the strongest, bravest, most loving women I've ever met. Like the article says, placing their baby into the arms of another, forever, is the hardest, most wrenching decision they'll ever have to make. I have so much respect and admiration for them, and I was glad the article brought that up.

So . . . feel free to share the link and spread some adoption and birth mother love. Or at least read the article, since it really is well written and may or may not be misty-eye inducing.

Peace.

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.

The woes of my life

So, like many who believe that life is not a life if it's not filled with books, I've come to the point where I have too many books for my bookshelf(ves) and no room for another bookshelf, yet somehow my books keep accumulating. As in, I bring in a consistently good haul at birthdays and Christmas.

Sam's sought to rectify this situation today. He commandeered our ex-DVD shelf (the DVDs having long ago moved to a binder thing), which was just being used as general book overflow, display case, etc. Since the shelves aren't very high, he moved most of our paperbacks onto that and has most of our hardbacks on the main bookshelf. [We may or may not have an absurd amount of hardbacks due to me being something of a snob when it comes to paperbacks.]

Here is the finished result: [Note that these are just our fiction books. We have two bookshelves in the back room with random reference books, textbooks, books on CD, boardgames, etc. Just wanted to point that out.]

Apparently we have even more books than I thought we did, because even commandeering the DVD shelf as he did, there's only about half a shelf on the main bookcase that's empty. It doesn't look empty, I know, but the second half of the bottom is actually our current collection of library acquisitions. [We sort of always have a lot of those. "Always" as in always.]

I know the main purpose of his rearrangement was so we wouldn't have random stacks of books around the house. However, the main thing his rearrangements achieved is this thought going 'round and 'round in my head: Look at all that space. I can buy about ten more books and still have a bit of roominess.

So, really, Sam's an enabler. While I thought we had no room for no books, I could restrain myself from buying them myself--I could wait for birthdays and Christmas. Now, though . . . I know I'll be able to hold myself back through Christmas, but what about after?

I am, simply put, in trouble. We'll see where I'm at in February.

We've been approved for adoption! Check out our incredibly awesome adoption profile at https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/24950903/ourMessage.jsf.