The Happiest Day of Our Lives

Wednesday is my wedding anniversary. We would have been married eight years, but this will be the sixth year I have observed this day by myself.

When I had to purchase a new laptop about three years ago, I purchased one that does not have a CD-ROM/DVD player. I only mention this because in that time, and for that reason, I have not been able to view the majority of our wedding photos. Today I decided that I would fix that by purchasing an exterior drive, and I'm considering it my anniversary gift to myself.

There are several hundred photos from that glorious day. I'm not exaggerating - it was a glorious day. It rained cats and dogs the day and night before, but we woke up to clear blue skies and it wasn't too cold for us to have the garden ceremony we'd planned after all. We felt incredibly fortunate. Originally, we had wanted to marry on Saturday, the tenth. But that date was already booked. So we took Sunday the eleventh instead.

Anyway, there are several hundred photos. As I started to look at them, I came across a series from the moment we first got to see each other before the ceremony. I'm so thankful for the things these photos captured, because I truly can't remember all that much from that brief moment in time. But what I cherish now as I look at these pictures are the wonderful expressions on Michael's face.

See for yourself...

Being a widow sucks year-round, but especially on your wedding anniversary. Nevertheless, I look at these pictures and I am reminded how much he loved me, and how happy we were if only for a short time.

Though lovers be lost, love shall not; and death shall have no dominion. ~ Dylan Thomas

And then it was November...

Wait. What?! Where did October go? Whoosh! It blew in and outta here like a hot, dry Santa Ana wind. (Like my attempt at descriptive writing?)

While being a middle school teacher is seriously much more manageable for me ('cause middle school is AWESOME) than being an elementary school teacher was, I still find that I am busy, busy, busy. I'm just busy with other stuff. I was elected as vice president of my teachers association last spring, and that means I have additional duties after school in that capacity - not every day. But several days a month I have meetings related to that.

My other new endeavor is a little eBay business I'm dabbling in. That's a post for another time, though. Suffice it to say, Michaela and I spend some of our "free" time thrifting after school and on the weekends. We have high hopes for our little business.

October wasn't all work. We did manage to have some fun together. A couple weeks ago we visited Riley's Farm in the local mountains for a taste of fall. It actually cools off there and feels like fall a little bit. Here are some pictures from our day trip with Grammy and Papa:

It was a beautiful day! I seriously love getting out of our urban sprawl and into the rural areas. If it weren't for my family and my job, I'd move in a heartbeat. Wide open spaces...

And then it was October...

My, oh my! It's been more than two weeks since my last post. This is the way it is when I'm teaching.

It's too bad, really, because I spent the summer trying to get this little blog going strong. I even hoped it would become an income stream for me eventually. But I have to say that I don't think that I have the kind of time and know-how for that at this point. Maybe I'll try again next summer.

In the meantime, I'll post when I can. I come up with good ideas for posts when I have absolutely no time to write them, and then when I have time I don't seem to revisit those ideas. Sigh...

So here's a sort of lame update on life lately:

Today we attended not one, but two birthday parties. Michaela looked forward to this day all week and she had a blast. I had a good time, too. We still managed to get a couple of errands done, so tomorrow won't be too crazy.

Thursday night was my twentieth Back to School Night, but my first as a middle school teacher. It went well. Now that September is a wrap, I feel like we're really in the swing of things at school. It's a good feeling. I absolutely love my new school, and my colleagues are great to work with.

Michaela asked me if we could decorate the house last weekend. So, despite temps in the 80s and 90s, I said yes and we put out the autumn-themed decorations. If it would just cool off a bit now...

Lastly, here are some recent photos off the iPhone of Miss Michaela. She's really into mermaids and Ariel these days, so she was overjoyed to find this Gymboree mermaid costume at the local thrift store a couple weeks ago. (What we're doing at the thrift store is for another post sometime soon, but you can check out my Pinterest feed in the sidebar to get an idea.)

Michaela used to take a gazillion selfies every time she got her hands on my phone, but she rarely does so anymore. I was actually happy to see these on my phone tonight. 

What a goofball!