Celebrations and Renovations

Last week we celebrated our second wedding anniversary. I came home from work to find an amazing little flower arrangement waiting for us from my sweet parents. So so so sweet and pretty.



We toasted to two years past and many more to come... and Wilkes joined in (don't worry, just a drop).







We had an AMAZING dinner at Flight downtown. Oh my gosh... so good. We started with the Ocean Flight, then the Salad Flight. My main was the Seafood Flight and Josh had the Beef Flight. We each had the wine flight that was paired with our meal and enjoyed every bite and drop of EVERYTHING. Thanks to my constantly thoughtful Grandma Lois for the gift of that meal. What a perfect night!

Oh, and in other news... I finally did what I've been threatening for 2 years. Chop chop! That long hair is old news and I am the proud owner of a bob. My 14 inch ponytail will be donated to help make a wig (or part of one) for a woman fighting cancer.



Something about fresh short hair always ups my sassy-ness. Change is fun.



We are off to Austin this week to see my family. I can't wait to see them all! It's been too long. I look forward to the time with Josh on the drive, the conversations, the Chuck Klosterman books on cd, and even the gas station coffee.

If all goes as planned, we might get right into knocking down walls and doing major renovations to the bungalow as soon as we get home. The question is, do I, the ultimate Christmas lover and anticipator, have the strength to sacrifice my tidy perfectly packaged Christmas experience for the greater good of having a home I can nest in come 2010? New walls, floors, and ceilings don't really partner well with nativity sets and glass bulbs. I realize this is one of those marshmallow test moments where I can eat the one in front of me NOW or I can wait a few moments and have two... I wish that marshmallow didn't smell so delicious.

Surrender Dorothy

Some days this all feels so new and other days I can't remember what it felt like to not wait to see Josh at the end of my day or have him roll to my side of the bed on a cold night. I am settling into this married life and getting used to the fact I can never get used to being the same. This is all so gradual. Yes, it is amazing and wonderful and challenging, but as I said; it's gradual. It's a journey, a sojourn, a personal and relational evolution.

My life didn't start when I met Josh, as I often hear people say in movies... but more so it grew. A few years into a shared life I don't feel like life has just begun or I'm now the real me or the new me, but I do feel like me amplified or really, me in Technicolor.

It's like Dorothy's life in the Wizard of Oz. She lives a simple little black and white life. There are the family struggles and occasional villains, but all in all it is simple and sweet and happy. One day that starts out like any other, she is surprised, picked up, and twisted around and around only to land in this new place where everything was in Technicolor. She was still Dorothy, but now she was a girl who wore a blue dress and saw a yellow path and red poppies and an Emerald City. In this new place, people asked things of her, saw things in her, frightened her, excited her, encouraged her, and disappointed her. She walked a path towards what she thought was her answer to everything with companions who were both strong but fearful, smart but foolish,loving but wounded. One day Dorothy finally made it to that Emerald City only to discover that this place of perfection and easy fixes and magic solutions was a charade no one could keep up. There wasn't this physical place where nothing bad ever happened and no one ever hurt you and you never felt alone and everything was fixed by a hidden man with a booming voice. What there was, was a long yellow path that she had to keep following no matter how hard it was and no matter how scary it seemed. There were companions on that journey who needed encouragement and hope because they were scared too. There were second chances, and third ones and forth ones. But mainly there was the realization that Dorothy was the Dorothy she always could have been, it just took someone flipping on the Technicolor and her deciding that no matter what, she'd stay on that brick road.

So I guess that's how I'd sum up marriage so far as we are headed into our third year. I am learning to be the me that I never let myself be in black and white. I am the me who is finding strength in weakness and assurance in the unknown. I am the me who has finally learned to be strong and brave and kind and confident, but to also nurture those things in my partner on this journey and be willing to admit I am lost and need someone else to read the map from time to time. I am learning to surrender the girl I thought I was and release the rights I clung to so tightly only to realize they were such a small fraction of the joy and strength I could experience.

Sweet Spot

It feels like we have been so busy lately, but if you tried to pin me down on what all we've been up to, I'd be at a loss. I guess LIFE is just busy right now. Meetings and workouts and family and freelance and obligations.
We have done several things to our house, but they are all invisible improvements like a reinforced foundation and a heating and air system. Hopefully our next renovations can be a little more cosmetic as I can't wait to finally have a home that feels lived in. Renovations and HUGE modern daydreams = a slow moving train.
I have a very short attention span for anything physical, but I am trying to stick with a new workout plan. The more and more we talk about kids in the future the more and more I want to go into that adventure with a smaller booty and a stronger body. I got a workout dvd a few months ago that I never really gave a chance. I figure it's a 30 day commitment initially, and I can give that a shot and see what happens.
At the end of the month Josh,me, and hopefully my slightly firmer body are going to Austin to see my family. It's been a year since we've seen them, aside from briefly seeing them in January at my grandpa's funeral. Our trip will be quick, but we are looking forward to it.
Before we know it, it's going to be Christmas and another year altogether. Though busyness leaves us exhausted, we've been having so much fun just doing life together. I don't know if this is just some second year of marriage sweet spot or what, but I sure like it.

Pets I'm not allowed to have

If I could just have one or two of them, my life would be complete... I swear it would.


Miniature pony (which I would name Al Capony)


Hedgehog... even though they are nocturnal.


Hairless Sphynx kitten (that I would name Abraham Lincoln, since my dog is named Wilkes and would probably try to kill it)


Finches... despite my fear of touching birds... or more specifically them touching me.

Family time

JP and Jaime visited us last weekend (with Yoko and Lucy) and we all had a great time. We wish Austin wasn't so far away!

...right back where I started from

Josh and I just got back from an awesome week in Santa Cruz and L.A.; seeing friends and family... and meeting all those new babies!Is it gross that we ate IN-N-Out twice in seven days? We had a blast, but were in for a harsh reality getting home to triple digit heat and a house full of stuff that had to be moved that week.

Josh, in all his awesomeness had a contractor come to the new house when we were gone who built me a pantry and got me a brand new washer and dryer! So I'm basically just busy livin' the good life! Couldn't ask for a better husband.

We have a ton more cleaning and unpacking to do, but soon the new place should feel like home. I'll post pictures of the house as it comes along... but for now enjoy a few pictures from Santa Cruz and L.A.

One step deeper into the American dream

In the past few months several things have happened... most of them not notable. One thing very notable though, is that we bought a house!
Though we planned to wait till this fall to buy a house, we found one in the perfect location for a great price in a time when we could get an unbelievable interest rate. We couldn't turn it down. Our new place is in Evergreen in Midtown Memphis, walking distance to the zoo, the dog park, and the school future babies will attend.
We have a lot of plans to renovate, paint, and even build up and have checked out tons of "modern bungalow" books from the library. It's been fun dreaming up all we can do to it.
We are so excited and so blessed. We close in 3 weeks and can't wait to get settled in. Did I mention Wilkes will have her very own yard? That's the best part.

L.A., D.C., and Steve

We are two months deep into 2009 and already a lot has happened.

I said goodbye to the sweet babies I nannied and started a new job working for a law firm downtown Memphis. I love the change in my life, I feel like i live inside of a John Grisham novel.

In sad news, a few days after Christmas, my amazing grandpa passed away. He was truly the most amazing man I have ever known, it's always hard to remember that to be absent in this body is to be present with the Lord. I will miss him greatly, but I am blessed for the 25+ years I had with him.

A blessing amongst the heartache of losing him was that in attending his funeral in L.A., I was able to see a ton of my family that I miss being so far away. I had a great time with my parents, brother, grandmas, cousins, aunts and uncles, and even one of my closest friends, Brandy, with her husband Mike who just so happened to be in town from the Bay area for Christmas. I wish I was able to run off to L.A. more often. It's funny how nowadays home seems to be in more than one location.






A few weeks after I got back from L.A., Josh and I went to D.C. for the inauguration. We have awesome friends there who put us up and showed us around. We had an AMAZING time... though we were freezing and a little claustrophobic from the 1.8 million people who decided to show up. We went to the 'We Are One' concert a few days before the inauguration and saw everyone from The Boss, to U2, to Stevie Wonder, to Beyonce. Getting to the inauguration ceremony proved to be quite the challenge, but after what felt like days on a crawling metro and walking in slow motion behind a million other people, we arrived. We had to stand on our toes (toes that were freezing to a point of numbness) just to see the edge of a jumbo-tron. But when all is said and done, it was so worth it. It was such an epic moment in history... and we were there. Whether or not it proves to be, it felt like such a redemptive, healing moment in history. I will never forget seeing young African American children wear 'Future President' shirts or the tears rolling out of their grandmothers' eyes.







When we got home and back to work Josh started another fun little side project. As Steve Jobs made his major anouncement that he is a) not dead, b) fighting a serious illness, and c) taking a leave of absence form Apple, Josh, his BIGGEST fan made some shirts in his honor. He created a site Steve Jobs Lives . He sold a ton, and it's been a lot of fun.



Wilkes is great, in case you were wondering, and she is still spoiled rotten. When I got home from L.A., it became rather apparent (by the whimpering and clawing) that Josh had let her sleep in my place in the bed the entire time I was gone.

We Three Hortons

We are gearing up for Christmas at the Horton home. We pulled out the awesome nativity set we got last year in Amsterdam and got a really pretty, fairly overpriced tree. Last night I had over some of my girls and we had a printing party, complete with TONS of homemade treats and champagne-pomegranate cocktails. I printed stockings I had sewn and plan to print on my canvas grocery bags later this week.
All the busyness of the past weeks has left Wilkes utterly exhausted. She tends to sleep, take a break to lick the low hanging ornaments, sleep some more, go to the dog park, sleep again, eat, and then sleep all night. It's sort of pitiful.
I think Christmas will be a good one this year.

Lately

In the past month, that silly little website Josh and I thought up and then made with a few friends ended up turning into something WAY bigger than we thought. YesWeCarve.com got mentioned on everything from CNN to Fox News to the Wall Street Journal, to this weeks edition of Newsweek magazine. Josh did a few interviews for local news shows. We hosted a BYOP party at the local Obama headquarters and I was asked to speak at the Memphis Obama rally this weekend with local congressmen and mayors. We suddenly are some of the most politically active people I know and it totally came out of left field.

I am so eager for Tuesday night to roll around and Lord willing, for Barack Obama to claim the role of President. After such a crazy year in America, well really a crazy last 7 years, We are all so hungry for things to start moving in the right direction. As I said in my speech, I want the American dream to come back to life. I want it to be as real for my children as it was for my parents. America is ready for change, not just for the sake of change... but the RIGHT change. We are at the cusp of a huge awakening... both spiritually and socially. We cant keep going on as a Godless, passionless, lifeless, selfish group. Our apathy and sloth have dug a hole so deep we can no longer feel the sun on our skin. I pray this is the year we start climbing out.

This whole ride has been fun, but we are both ready for it to come to an end. I am ready to not go to bed alone as Josh works into the morning and he is ready to not be running on coffee and pumpkin fumes. Even poor Wilkes is ready for it to end. Her daily park visits have been cut in half and she has worn a little spot into the corner of the couch where she lays with her head over the arm to look into the office.

On Friday we took a little brake for Halloween, I mean it IS like half of the website after all. We went to Josh's parents to see his niece and nephew in their costumes. I brought my famous Ten Bean Turkey Chili and Gary grilled hot dogs. Later in the night we met up with my friend Maggie and went to a party and then to karaoke. I don't want to brag or anything, but we might have won a costume contest at karaoke. I spent a few nights making our costumes to be Ms. Pacman and a little blue ghost. Maggie represented the nannies everywhere by being Dora the Explorer. We had so much fun. 

We are looking forward to our first anniversary in the next few weeks, and also visiting my family in Austin for Thanksgiving. We are loving the cool weather, loving hot tea, and loving being the owners of a kitchen table(finally). Things are  coming along nicely. 

Barack'O'Lantern

Last Friday night Josh and I were laying in bed and I told him I wanted to carve a pumpkin. When he asked me what I would carve, I was my usual weird smarty-pants self and said, naturally, "Obama's face". Josh said, "Youre going to make an Obumpkin?"... and not to be outdone, I told him, "No. It's a Barack'O'Lantern!". We had a good laugh and went to sleep. 

The next day when I was at work I got a text from Josh that said, "Don't hate me". Then a second text came, "I bought barackolantern.com and YesWeCarve.com". In the span of that day alone, Josh got together two friends to help him out with the logistics and extra wittiness (Yes We Carve! Jason rules.).

Thanks to several sleepless nights, Josh had graphics, stencils, and photos up on an amazing site and two days after that THOUSANDS of people had laughed at our silly bedroom banter. Yesterday it was mentioned on a Newsweek blog and today Josh and the boys did an interview with The Hill.

This has all been such a blast and we are so stoked that this has brought a little touch of joy into such a CRAZY week in America.

Visit Yes We Carve and carve away!

Cooper Young Ladies

Josh's sister Beth had a booth at the Cooper Young festival this weekend. We spent the whole day there slinging bags and going in for the up-sell. It was a fun day and she made a killing. :) 

Vigil Virgin

In Memphis we have this little thing called Elvis week. People come from all over the world to impersonate, celebrate, and mourn the death of the beloved American train wreck: Mr. Elvis Aaron Presley. The week of ridiculousness is capped off with a little thing his devoted fan club call "the Vigil". A fellow nanny friend of mine who has a great sense of humor and a love of that which is kitch, made us AMAZING shirts (mine said "vigil virgin" as it was my maiden voyage) and we spent 3 hours in line at Graceland inching towards Elvis' grave and watching the freak show unfold.

Millions of peaches... peaches for me

We spent our afternoon at Jones Orchard today. The girls LOVED picking peaches... well Laila loved picking them. Maddie loved eating them. It was an awesome day.

Hot hot hot

In hopes to beat the heat me and the girls I take care of hit the sprinkler park. Beth brought our awesome niece and nephew along too. Fun day.