Here it is, my one-year blog birthday! One year ago today I started this little venture and although I’ve floundered the past few months (and made a whopping $25 in ad revenue, HA) I’m happy to say that at least it’s still up. Ha!

Moving on, I said farewell to one of my dearest friends this weekend. We’ve been friends since the very beginning of college. That’s 12 long years now. We have both gone from 18 to 21 to college graduates to married folk to mothers together. All pretty much at the same time and living in the same town. Now her husband has graduated from grad school and they’ve moved about 5.5 hours away. Not too far I know but still, it’s not just the other side of town either.

I went by her house on Thursday to drop of a belated birthday cake for her husband (whom I’ve also known 12 years) and neither of them were home. As I walked through their boxed up house I got a little teary-eyed thinking of my friends leaving—friends that are more like family. Her wedding dress was hanging by the door and I unzipped the bag and took a look at it. Remembering being in her wedding eight short years ago. I remember how beautiful she looked, and how terrified she looked walking down the aisle until she reached the end and met her husband there. (She hates that story, btw, the part about looking terrified. Because she really did, my husband jokes that he thought she might bolt. :P)

I also feel like we somewhat squandered this last 18 or so months with our childern. Her son is 6 weeks younger than Boog. We’ve seen each other some but the boys really haven’t spent all that much time together. They are only now getting to an age where they may want to play with other children. We had different schedules and just never really made too much of an effort to get together all that often. I guess I just always thought we’d have more time for all that. I want to visit though. After all they did move to the beach. :)

We have this tradition of taking photos of us together with one of us holding the camera. We took them in college, at weddings, birthdays and births. Of course, on Friday as they were loading their truck we paused to take another picture of the two of us to mark the occasion. I know it won’t be the last but it still makes me kinda sad. Another friend moves away from the cursed college town.

after my wedding in 2004

after having Boog in 2006

holding Boog, I love this picture

taking a break from packing up her house

missing in action
little blog writing for me
just not inspired

it became a chore
just one more thing on my list
I need a short list

not sure what has changed
I have more things to distract
also less to say

not shutting it down
I’m still reading all my friends
I’ll be around

This would be a picture of the last big purchase made in the spending spree. My husband is a drummer so we agreed that he could get a set of electronic drums with part of our windfall and it would be his birthday and Christmas for this year. We agreed on a price and he proceeded to bid on a set on eBay that was approximately $1150 more than the price we’d discussed. :| He kept saying, “but it’s like finding a Porsche for the price of a Ford!” or something to that affect. And I kept responding, “yeah but you don’t NEED a Porsche!”

And then he won the auction. I was ill about it at first but I stuck to my part of the cost and the rest he has agreed to pay off by selling the bulk of his Star Wars toy collection. He’s been wanting to do that for a while and now he has a reason.

The only thing that irks me is that my nice, empty credit card is no longer empty. Oh well, it had a zero balance for a day or two. I did take all the credit cards out of my wallet however. I really, really, really do not want to get back into the habit of using them again. And realistically with less bills I shouldn’t need to.

My husband does love the drums so it’s hard to stay ill about the purchase. He’s played them more in the last 3 days than he’s played his old acoustic set in years. He says he’s going to join a band again and try and make some money with them. However, knowing how long it took him to set that kit up that falls firmly into the “I’ll believe it when I see it” file. I do like to see him doing something he loves though.

He will, however, be getting a nice wrapped box with the above picture inside for his next birthday, Christmas AND anniversary. Maybe even the next two or three. We’ll see. :)

What can I say…I’m a copy cat.

This is a Wordle and I’m copying Precarious Tomato by posting one today. I figured it’s a neat idea and I’m having another one of those uninspired days so why not. Apparently I discuss my husband more than Boog. Who knew!? And it seems I say little more than anything here. Maybe I do talk about my little man/person/boy more than anything else after all.

What does your Wordle say?

what’s with all the spam?
the content is disturbing
eww, ugh, why this blog?

back in therapy
tackling daddy issues
oh they do abound

he’s 19 months old
such a big boy already
he’s growing so fast

slow down little one
not ready for you to grow
mama’s little boy

Ok, so this blog has been getting an inordinate amount of disgusting spam comments of the boy or girl on animal variety and eww, just eww. Why? what about my blog has now attracted this particular brand of freak. The spam filter isn’t catching them either so I am greeted by the most disgusting subjects in my e-mail each morning when I check it. Blech.

Anyway, I ended up taking about two weeks off counseling because life got in the way. It is still one of those things I dread and then I feel better afterwards. We’ve decided to start tackling my abundance of daddy issues first. Woo hoo! Let the water works begin. Ugh. My first assignment is to write in a journal for a set amount of time. I’m starting with thirty minutes. So I have to write, non-stop for 30 minutes. No interruptions, no stopping. This will be a challenge. Let’s see if I can get 30 minutes to myself without interruption.

My little one turned 19 months old this week. He’s changed so much just in the last month. It’s amazing. He’s so full of words and has so much to say. It’s like a whole new experience, talking to him and having actual conversations. He’s such a sweet, cute, funny little man and it makes me excited about him getting older and more and more fun. At the same time I know I will long for these days when he’s small. These fleeting days that seemed to drag on forever (say when you aren’t sleeping) but then just like that they are gone. I want to hug him and squeeze him as much as I can because I know the day is coming when he won’t want my hugs and kisses. They’ll become embarrassing and be followed by exasperated exclaims of “mmmmmmooooommmm!”