I've been busy..

...training for my first half marathon! 10 weeks down of training down and only 2 left before the race. Wish me luck!

Our homage

The Great Wall of Fame is done.

 Actually, I lied. It's not completely done. We're waiting on one more photo from Snapfish. Although we do think the orange flowers in the brown frame below go rather nicely with the room.

We are loving the way this basement is turning out..It's clean and simple and calming. And completely us. So much of out 11 years together has been surrounded by sports that these aren't just photos and ticket stubs. They're memories. It's the Clay Buckholz no hitter that we saw in  2007 from the roofdeck of Fenway. The baseball signed by the 1989 Giants that my dad won in a silent auction, and made me the happiest girl in the neighborhood that Christmas morning. The time we stood outside a bar in Manhattan on a frigid January day to see the Giants WS trophy. It's T's favorite Boston Globe cover that he chose from the 6 bags of 2004 newspapers that he kept from that amazing season. And it's the collection of baseball cards from my favorite player of all time that went missing in CA. My dad replaced them this year by scouring the Bay Area sports stores so Will Clark could take his place on the Wall.

I'm back

This year has started out pretty hectic and I love it. It's been 6 weeks of training, family, travels, and friends. T and I jetted off to see my family in CA and we had a blast hanging out with everyone...especially the kiddos. I love this boy.

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 This kiddo has become a toddler since I last saw her. She is sweet and happy and dances with excitement when it's time to go out. Which we did a lot of! The photo below was our visit to the park.

 T and I took our nephew out on the town for a special day'o' fun. We went to the Academy of Sciences in SF and had a blast touching starfish at the tidepool.

 Watching the giant fish swim overhead.

 Watching the sea lions at Pier 39. I'm amazed that he is 7 years old and is becoming a boy right in front of our eyes. He tells time, he reads, he plays games on the computer and he loves to karate chop everything. But he also isn't afraid to cuddle up on the couch and give out butterfly kisses. He and his uncle bonded a lot on this trip. It was a lot of fun to watch them together and I'm even more convinced that T is going to be an amazing father. We can't wait for our next visit in June. :)

 And back on the homestead, we re-homed our spare couch to the basement.

 Half marathon training slowed down after I threw out my back and caught a cold after coming back from CA. Hoping to lace these bad boys up again soon and get back on track.

 We have the final piece of our sports wall of fame! My all time favorite baseball player is Will Clark and I had hoped to find my collection of his baseball cards while we were in CA. They were unfortunately nowehere to be found so my dad went to several card shops and found new cards for me. Here they are framed and ready for a place of honor downstairs.

Looking forward to the weekend!!

We're plotting...

Our spring trips!

        Our sports memorabilia in the basement..

                        

           And this? This is the shadowbox that will hold my finisher's medal and race number after I run my first ever half marathon at the end of March!

It's shaping up to be an exciting few months. 

Hitting the ground running

I started painting the basement back in November and the holidays dragged the project out much longer than we anticipated. After my morning cup of coffee, we trooped downstairs to get going. The agenda on this beautiful January morning (55 degrees!) was to finish patching the holes in the ceiling that the previous owners so thoughtfully left behind for us, paint the ceiling, finish cleaning out the odds and ends and steam clean the suspicious smelling carpet. I hate painting ceilings. Almost as much as I hate drywall. So you can imagine how excited I was to scratch these two items off the To Do List.  :)

 We developed a system to ceiling paint after I threatened to run away during the bedroom ceiling painting event. I was tired, cranky, had a stiff neck from looking up and had paint dripped in my eye a few times. Thanks to the system, nobody has to run away. I use the edger along all of the corners and Tim rolls in the rest. He bought the paint months ago and when we opened is and saw it was bright pink, we did a double take. It's a pretty great invention, it rolls on pink so you can see what you've completed and it dries to a nice bright white.

 We took off the awful, scratched accordian doors that covered the laundry room.

 Tim handled the laundry while I used our little blue beast to clean the carpets. 7 gallons of black water later and we're feeling really good about our progress! Next weekend we'll work on filling up some of that empty wall space. And start the couch hunt. I'm too tired to think about anything else right now. :)

 With our work done downstairs, we headed upstairs to put away the last piece of Christmas. We are counting our blessings in this new year and loved seeing all of our little friends every time we walked by our card display.



Reset

I knew that when the clock struck midnight on December 31st, I would be thrilled. I couldn't wait to get rid of 2011 and all the emotional baggage that came with it. I spent a low key night with a dear friend in New Jersey while T went to bed nice and early (he had to work at 5am the next day)

We had a wonderful dinner, watched movies, laughed and talked about what our hopes and dreams were for 2012. At midnight, we walked down to the shores of the Hudson River with a glass of wine and watched the fireworks over Manhattan. Lost in my own thoughts, I watched each explosion and marveled at the year that seemed like it would never end. And yet, here I was. I made it. As the sparks from the last firework rained down over Central Park, I felt relief. Relief that 2011 is over and I made it through in one piece. As awful as the events of last year were, I know that they have made me a stonger person. They have made T and I a stronger team. We made it through together and I am so grateful that he is my partner in life.

There is something so hopeful about a new year. Like a big reset button, we have the chance to start over. We don't start completely over however, we pack up the lessons we've learned and bring them with us. We bring our joys and sorrows and loves and these things help us as we write the next chapter of our lives, colored by what we've learned. So thank you 2011, for teaching me to trust in a plan that I don't understand. To tell my people how much I love and appreciate them. To lean on my husband and let him kiss away my tears. And for my angel baby, who I'm certain is being well taken care by my father in law, my beloved Barbie and my grandmother.

I can't wait to see what 2012 holds for us.

Bittersweet

“How very quietly you tiptoed into our world, silently, only a moment you stayed. But what an imprint your footprints have left upon our hearts.’” -Unknown