An Open Letter to my Knight

Dear Brian,

You are a true rock star.

On Thursday night when I started feeling like I was getting sick, you already knew that the weekend ahead we had planned was quite possibly about to go up in flames. You didn't even flinch. You just tucked me in to bed and told me we'd reevaluate in the morning.

Thirty minutes later, when the chills started in mixed with a cocktail of achy muscles and a fever, you calmly told me to hydrate myself and you hunkered down for next 24 hours, which I can only call The Day I Felt Like Doo Doo with an Extra Helping of Dukey on the Side.

You held my hand, you went to the pharmacy to buy my Tylenol, a thermometer, and Gatorade three separate times. Like I said? ROCK STAR!

You called your sister with whom you were really looking forward to spending the weekend (Mom, aren't you proud of how that preposition was handled?), and broke the news and you didn't even complain about my silly flu once.

That's right, I have the flu. When I got a little nervous on Friday afternoon about the possibility of it being the swine flu, you did internet research and then drove me to the local urgent care clinic, just so we could both rest easy.  

And then you tucked me back in bed and drove to my new favorite Mexican restaurant and bought me chicken tortilla soup because I was havin' a hankering.

You have been the sweetest, most loving caretaker, and I don't really know how to thank you sufficiently.

It was one of those weekends when I so appreciated having a husband who loves me so well. Life with you is exponentially better than life without you. Your love for me is sacrificial, and I love you so much.

This Starshine-in-distress knew she had married an awesome man the day she said "I do", but this weekend she realized that he is a Rock Star-in-shining-armor.

When he said "in sickness and in health", he really meant it, and that makes him more noble than any knight in the land.

Joyous Day!

I had such a great day today.  My mom, sister and Sammy came over to my house today, and we just had so much fun! I love seeing how much my Mom is enjoying being a grandmother. These pictures really say it all!

Sam continues to charm us every day. Lately, he has become keenly aware of music. He loves hearing music, clapping to music and even making music!  Today, his favorite toys were two painted wooden spoons that he tapped together and made some noise!

He is now 13 months old, and has learned to stand on his own without holding onto anything. He's not walking yet, but I think it will be happening soon!

Guest Room

Brian and I spent the weekend (a couple weekends ago) priming and painting this bedroom in our house. It was shared by two little boys before we bought the house, and below the white chair rail, it was painted navy blue. Above it was white.

Shortly after moving in, we spotted this bed-in-a-bag combo in a Bed, Bath & Beyond catalogue. We loved it right away, went out and bought it, and then chose the new paint color to coordinate. It is called "Natural Canvas" by Ralph Lauren, and available at Home Depot.

The beautiful sleigh bed and bedside table were given to us compliments of my mom. She had a bed in a storage unit that she wanted to move back into her house, so she passed this one onto us. We LOVE it! Thank you, Mom!

My New Full Time Job

In case you've been wondering what I've been doing to keep myself busy since I've moved to Texas, here's a little list:

~I've been fingerprinted to get an FBI clearance

~I've had passport pictures taken

~I've been examined by a doctor and had my blood drawn and tested

~I've had more documents notarized in the past few weeks than ever before in my entire life

No, I'm not going to work for the CIA, silly--Brian and I are adopting from Ethiopia! And let me tell you, all this paperwork is keeping me busy! It's my new full-time job.

Since the start of 2009, God has been leading us to internationally adopt from Ethiopia. It's been an exciting process and one of the biggest steps of faith we've taken. If you'd like to follow our adoption journey, you can bookmark our adoption blog: Always and Forever Ours!

I'll continue to post here about my usual Starshine happenings, but the new blog will be our place to post about our adoption journey! 

We are on the front end of the process, and it typically takes an average of 18 months to complete an adoption from Ethiopia. We would so appreciate your prayers as we walk this path! 

"God sets the lonely in families." -Psalm 68:6

Anchor in a Storm

When I moved to Los Angeles in 2005, I knew virtually no one there. I found my roommate through a website and signed a contract to sublet a room from her sight unseen. "Lucy" didn't turn out to be a good roommate at all. She mostly didn't speak to me or acknowledge my presence at all. In fact, once I made other friends there, one of them called her The Dragon, and another friend called her The Beast. She was horrid as a flatmate, and I was there to deal with it alone. 

God has an amazing way of growing us through trials, and I look back on that time as a significant chapter in my becoming a full-fledged adult. In a five month window of time, I had to decide that I would not continue to live with such a beastly person, I had to find a new apartment, sign a contract on it, break my contract with Lucy, hire movers (Shout out to Starving Students:  You're the best!), and then find a new roommate. Did I ever feel like a grown up making all of those decisions on my own!

Before all of that fabulous growth, though, during those dark early days in LA, I remember calling my mom from my cell phone in the Bed, Bath and Beyond parking lot having a serious panic attack, crying so hard I could barely breathe. I felt so alone. I remember my mom trying to calm me, but I knew that the only thing that would make me feel better was having her there with me. The rational part of my being knew that it would be ridiculous to ask her fly out to be with me--she had just flown home a few days before one the heels of driving me out from Texas--but the emotional part of my being desperately wanted my mom! Through my tears, I pleaded with her, "Mom, I just need to hear you say that you'll fly out here to be with me if I ask you to."

"Of course I will, Tracy." 

Those five words, which spelled out my mother's loyalty, were the anchor that helped me weather that awful storm. Knowing that my mom would come for me if I needed her helped me to survive. 

Mom, I would do the same for you in a heartbeat. Thank you for being the best mother I could ask for. Your love and loyalty are gifts that I'll never take for granted. You are a blessing, a true gift from God.

Happy Mother's Day!  I love you.

This photo was taken in February 2009, on her last trip out to visit me in Los Angeles before I moved back to Texas. Now I get to see my mom at least once a week, and I'm so happy that I get to celebrate Mother's Day with her in person this year!

Innocent Flirtation at a Restaurant

Yesterday, I was at a restaurant--the kind where you stand in line to order your food, then pay, and then take it to a table to sit down and eat. As I was standing in line, a beautiful woman walked through the door with the handsomest guy on her arm. He had strawberry blonde hair and the bluest eyes. I couldn't help but stare.

Not one second later, he looked straight at me, his eyes lit up and he waved at me. He waved. AT ME!

"Is he really waving at me?," I thought. 

A few minutes later, he and the woman he was with got seated at the table. My order was taking forever, so I was still in line. I stole a glimpse over at the table and guess what? Yep! There was Mr. Handsome waving at me.

By this time, the woman couldn't ignore his flagrant flirting with me any longer. She walked directly over to me with him, threw him in my arms, and said, "Here! Take him!"

What can I say? I'm in love with my nephew!

Childhood Home

While in San Antonio this past weekend, we stopped by the house where I grew up and knocked on the door. A beautiful blonde woman answered the door with a look on her face that said, “Do I know you?”

“Hi. I lived in this house when I was a little girl until I was 13 years old. Do you mind if I come inside and see my old house? I want to show my husband the room I grew up in.” She graciously obliged, even though the look on her face showed that she was a little nervous with us strangers traipsing through her house.

It was pretty amazing. Nearly every room had undergone some kind of a significant facelift. It looked the same 1940s ranch style house on the outside, but the inside was totally modern and updated.

I’m glad for the new family that is enjoying the gleaming granite countertops and the newly installed Jacuzzi bathtub, but my favorite parts of the house were the ones that had gone unchanged: the old windows that you have to crank open by hand, the old-fashioned telephone stand carved into the wall of the hallway, and of course the tree house my Dad built for us kids that is still in the backyard over 20 years later!

~~~~~~~~~

A couple of weeks ago, Hubs and I had dinner with the couple from which we bought our new house. They moved less than a mile away, and they have three little boys. I wonder if they will want to come visit the place they first called home. If they do, their swing set is still here for them to enjoy!

A Night in Old San Antonio

The past week was San Antonio's annual Fiesta Week!  I grew up in SA, living there until I was 13 years old, so when I think of my childhood, I think of San Antonio. It has been 18 years since the last time I went to Fiesta there, but thanks to an old friend who invited my mom, Hubs and I for a visit, I got to experience it all over again.  This is my mom (on the left) with her dear friend Pat, who invited us to SA for the weekend.

Fiesta week culminates on Friday night with a big celebration in the streets of downtown called "A Night in Old San Antonio" (NIOSA). Droves of people came out to celebrate (including us)! 

NIOSA celebrates the culture of San Antonio--especially the Mexican culture that is such a big part of the texture of the city. Besides being packed with people, the streets are lined with booths decorated with bright, beautiful colors, selling everything kind of food you can imagine...

...including fajitas, burritos, and (yummmmm) churros!

One of the most fun parts of the fiesta celebration are cascarones!

Cascarones are empty egg shells filled with confetti. If you want to celebrate with someone, you crack one of those babies right on his head! I thought I'd be sneaky and indoctrinate Hubs with a cascaron to the head, but at the same time I was getting him covered with confetti, our friend Pat got me!

It was great fun, as you can see by the way I threw my head back laughing.

Yep, that would be me trying to get the confetti out my mouth that fell squarely in it when I threw my head back laughing.  :)

"Consider yourself indoctrinated!"

Here's another random shot of some girls who got an egg-full of confetti in their hair!

We had a great time. Many thanks to Pat for treating us to such a fun weekend!

Gameroom/Office

The one room in our new house that still had white walls when we moved in was our gameroom.  We decided to make it a sort of tv room/home office. Since the rest of our house has a more traditional feel, I decided that I wanted to make this room the one contemporary room in the house. I decided to leave the walls white and decorate with color in the room.

The red lacquer-finish cabinets are from IKEA.  So is the desk, which is actually a kitchen table. I wanted us to have a desk that was long enough for us both to be sitting at the same time. I also wanted it to have multi-functionality (ie. craft table, sewing table, etc.)

The one missing furniture element has been some kind of a sofa to sit on to watch TV. When I saw this love seat and ottoman, I couldn't get it out of my head. I thought it would be good to bring a tertiary into the room, and I love how it plays with my big sunflower photo!  In fact, the color of the sofa is called "sunflower" (which, incidentally, is my favorite flower!). The love seat arrived yesterday, and I'm still getting used to it. It's definitely a bold color choice, so now my goal is to bring a couple of other design elements into the room that will pull it all together. I'll keep you posted, but this is what it looks like now.

Our New Home

Several of you asked me to post some photos of our new house here in Texas.  I wanted to wait until we had most of the unpacking done and been able to hang some things up on the walls.  Anyway, this is our house!  I love the dwarf Magnolia tree in our front yard. The blossoms are just starting to bud!

This is our living room:

...which opens up to the kitchen (no wall between them). It's my fave part of the house:

We sold our bedroom furniture before we left California, so if this looks a little minimalist, it's because our box springs are sitting on the floor, and our bedside tables are tv trays!  I'll show some "after" pictures once this room is set up a little more:

Our guest bedroom, waiting for our friends to come for a visit:

Okay, California friends, now that you have seen your room...time to schedule a trip to Texas!

Baby E

One of my oldest and dearest friends came over with her family for a visit last week. This is their adorable little girl.

Don't you just love those cheeks?!

Easter Photo Shoot of some Old Friends

One of my long-term goals now that I have my Canon Rebel is to start my own photography business. In an effort to gain experience and to build a portfolio for a website, I'm photographing pretty much anyone who wants their pictures taken.

I have know the B's since 1992 and watched their family grow through the years. They now have 5 kids, and they asked me to take their family Easter picture. Here are a few of my favorite images:

If you live in the Houston area, and want your family or your kids photographed, let me know!

It's a VERY good place to start...a dance revolution!

Imagine walking through the central train station of Antwerp, Belguim on your way home from work and finding yourself the recipient of a massive act of kindness (through art). I'm not entirely sure why, but I can't watch this without crying big tears of joy...this is what happens when someone gets a creative idea and shares it with several others and they all decide to make it happen. Enjoy!

Guess who's 1...

Yes, my nephew Sam is a big boy now! (Actually, he's still an adorable, squeezable baby, and I'm happy for him to stay that way as he'd like!  I love him so much!)

Happy Easter!

I love Easter Sunday!  It is a beautiful reminder that the Light is victorious over darkness, that Jesus is alive, and His love for me is so expansive that He took the punishment for my sins just so that I could know God and live my life with Him and in Him...forever and ever!

Thank You, Jesus, for the sacrifice You made for me.

Amen!

Art Project Prototype

On a recent trip to Z Gallery, I saw a framed work of art that gave me the inspiration to create something of my own for our new home. I haven't made the final piece yet, but these are a couple of prototypes I made.

I like the idea of laying in a clipping from a magazine or a catalogue here and there to give the piece some extra texture and interest.

Can you tell I was needing a little colour?

I'm Bringing Curly Back!

It's true...I got a wild hair yesterday and got a perm. The last perm I had was in 1989. It had been 20 years, people...it was time.

Funny thing:  after 20 years, perms still stink to high heaven, and you still have to wait 48 hours to wash your hair.  I so can't wait for 48 hours to be here!

Kisses for a great weekend!

A little bit of California right in my own backyard!

Some of you have asked me to post photos of our house. I haven't been inspired to snap any of the inside yet, because most of the rooms are still a work in progress. However, I couldn't resist snapping these shots in my backyard the other evening. Although the palms are in our neighbor's backyard, we get to enjoy them every day! They are lovely and nostalgic reminders of the place we just left that will always hold a special place in our hearts.

The previous owners asked us if we'd like them to leave us their swing set, and we said "Yes!". Sammy can enjoy it now, and we hope that one day we'll have little ones of our own who can play on it, too!

Texan Right of Passage

Every spring, Texans are delighted when the grassy areas along our highways become seas of blue.  The bluebonnet is our state flower, and it is basically a right of passage for every Texan child to be plunked down in a patch of bluebonnets for a photo session.

My nephew Sam is no exception, and he is now one step closer to wearing a ten gallon hat! 

We went to a local park on Monday for a little photo shoot of our own!

Well done, cowboy!