Just a note to say...

Hand written cards and notes are things that I can't throw away. I have small tubs filled with them, and have them labeled, "cards from family," and "cards from friends."

When I was a reporter I saved every notecard I received from readers. In the journalism business you rarely get kudos, and acknowledgment from readers is especially rare, unless they are complaining. I kept them in my desk, and whenever I was having a hard day I would pull one out to read. Those notes always lifted me a little, and reminded me why I really did love what I was doing.

Recently I have received two special notecards. One was a congratulations on our engagement from a friend at church. It was very unexpected, and so sweet to receive.

The other one was delivered in December. It was a hand-written card expressing thanks from someone at church who was moved by the Christmas program I helped organize.

I have always loved the written word, and I especially enjoy a hand-written note in the mail. Emails are fine, text messages have become necessary for me, a phone call is preferable for a longer conversation, but the hand-written card still has a special place in my world.

Engaged

It was just a few days before my birthday in October, on a weekend, and Sean and Lilly were acting a little funny and whispering and giggly most of the day, and the next.  I figured it was some kind of birthday secret.

Chuck and I had already been to choose this ring. (The picture makes it look yellow, but it's white gold.) I spotted it at an estate sale, but the estate sale where we found it was for only one weekend. I knew it was the ring for me the moment I saw it, and it is from the 1930s. It has a matching band with channel set diamonds, and a little lock that locks the engagement ring and band together. I plan to get them soldered together prior to the wedding. I absolutely love this ring. I saw it in the glass display case from pretty far away, and couldn't stop looking at it. I tried it on and it fit my finger almost perfectly-- something that never happens. We looked at a few of the others, but none of them compared to this one. I couldn't wait to have it, but I was happy when Chuck put it in his pocket and didn't mention it again.

I really wanted a surprise proposal. I had put the ring out of my mind. I didn't even know where it was. So, I was convinced the kids' giddiness was about a birthday gift or event for me. They brought in some roses and gave them to me just before dinner. Then we all sat down to dinner and Chuck got out of his chair and got down on one knee and proposed.

It was a beautiful moment. I loved the way he involved each of the kids in it. Sean was so overcome with emotion, and so happy, he was laughing and crying at the same time. Of course I was a little overwhelmed, and Chuck was also emotional, and we were all sort of laughing and amused by Sean's reaction.

I figured we would be engaged for a while before we started planning for a wedding, but when I brought up the "when" a week or so after the engagement, he said June sounded good. So we quickly started to plan, and we met with our pastor, and started a pre-marriage conversation that includes day-of ceremony planning as well as some pre-marital counseling type things. And that has become my favorite part of the planning. But the other stuff is really fun, too.

I had a few friends with me the day I made a final decision on my dress. Gwen, another mom at the school, went with me for the first fitting appointment at a place on 6th Avenue in Tacoma, and then she and Shane were with me the day I went to David's Bridal and was about 90-95% sure on a Vera Wang dress. But I wanted to go one more place, so we all went to a dress shop in Puyallup called Something Blue, and Kristina met us there. I tried on several there, and they were all pretty, but I still really loved the Vera Wang dress. So we went to David's Bridal that day and I tried it on again and made the final decision to order it.

I've been all over Etsy and Pinterest gathering ideas. I ordered a veil, but will wait until it arrives to make a decision on how or if I will wear it. I've ordered a pair of shoes, but they are really reasonably priced, so I might resell them and choose a different pair if they don't work out for me.

We've been to one bakery for cake tasting so far, and we just made the final decision on the reception venue. I'm on the way to having all of the colors decided, but still working on some of the reception details.

It's going to be a fun ride to June, and then we'll have a honeymoon, and as soon as we're back we'll have a summer packed full of activities and events.

Photo Card

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Things to Do In Denver When You're...

I always think of the movie, "Things to do in Denver When You're Dead," anytime someone mentions Denver. And when I first started to compile this post more than a month ago I wanted to include more pictures. However, I'm having technical difficulties with photos for this blog.
I've decided to go ahead without them.

This is by no means a comprehensive list of things to do in the city of Denver, Colo. But these are the things I did while I was there for a few days.

I was there at the invitation of my friend Jeannie, and I think we must have walked at least five miles each day. But we would have walked a lot more miles without the 16th St. shuttle bus called the RTD Free MallRide. This is a true leg saver. You can hop on and off whenever you like, and it makes getting where you need or want to go so much easier. It runs the length of 16th Street, and if you make a mistake and don't get off when you are supposed to, no worries, it circles back around.

Visit the Tattered Cover Bookstore. I already posted about this place, but this is the most amazing bookstore. In the era of digital books, finding a real independent bookstore that has two floors of book shelves and tables filled with books is comforting to book lovers such as myself.

See the Kirkland museum. It is located at the studio of Vance Kirkland, a Colorado painter who was a synesthetic artist. It showcases some of his large paintings, and visitors can go into his studio, which still has the straps hanging from the ceiling that he used for his work. He put the canvas flat on a table, on roller skates, and suspended himself over the canvas so he could reach the middle.

If you love decorative art, this is the place for you! This museum has the most comprehensive collection of modernist decorative art on this continent (North America). It's a mere $7 for adults, and the museum includes art from 1880 to 1980. You'll see furniture, paintings, Art Deco glass, some plastic, ceramic, metal, wood and dishes. I spent a little time there, but could've stayed longer if I'd had the time. (You can learn more here.)

But I wanted to make it to the Unsinkable Molly Brown exhibit. The home was owned by Mrs. Brown and her husband J.J. though she wasn't living there full time at the time of her Titanic tragedy and subsequent survival. The tour guide was very informative and knowledgable. The rooms in the house are small, however the home was quite something for its time. It always had electricity and running water, and the Browns purchased it for $30,000 in 1894, a price the tour guide said was equivalent to $800,000 today. Despite the bad rap she has as someone who did not fit in with society, she was a very educated woman who spoke six or eight languages, I can't remember for certain what the guide told us. She was a proponent of women's rights, and raised money to help build the Catholic Cathedral, and she helped transform the juvenile justice system in Colorado, and the rest of the country used it as a model.

I will stop there, because it's a pretty cool place to see.

Here's a link

If you love architecture, and Victorian architecture in the Italian Renaissance Style in particular, then you have to tour The Brown Palace Hotel. This beautiful hotel is so grand, and includes six tiers of balconies with cast iron railings, and a 2,800 square foot sky light of stained glass.

Some things have changed since its 1892 construction, but this hotel is unbelievably ornate and opulent. There's a lot more about this hotel here.

The Oxford Hotel. This hotel has the original 1930s Art Deco design. It is also really beautiful. You can check it out here.

No doubt you'll be needing a little pick-me-up snack, and I recommend a stop at Little Man Ice Cream. This ice cream shop is on 16th Street, in Highland, and you can't miss it. It's the one shaped like a big metal milk can. The ice cream is so good, and you can choose flaxseed, Parmesan Garlic, or Chipotle-Lime cones on their BOBO menu. The BOBO is a scoop of lunch in a cone. So inside one of those tasty cones you can choose a scoop of White Cheddar Mac and Cheese, Southwestern Sweet Potato Hash or California Chicken Club Salad. You can see more about it here.

I'm probably forgetting a few things, but these are some of the fun things we did. Denver is pretty cool, and I can't wait to go back sometime soon.

Oh, OH!! And the people there are amazing. I mean really, really nice. We both agreed the people in Denver are some of the nicest and friendliest we've ever encountered. 

Denver, I miss you -second in a series of three

Denver is such a great place to visit that I'm dedicating three posts to it.
I'm going to back up a bit and take you on a little chronological tour. I arrived on Thursday night and ate a very light dinner with Jeannie in the wonderful restaurant Panzano that was downstairs in our hotel. I don't remember the name of the dish, but it was a pasta with feta cheese, I think some dried cranberries, some nuts and something like sour grass, but I really can't remember. It was very tasty.

The next morning Jeannie was at her conference, so I was on my own. I knew it was going to be a great visit, because what can go wrong when you have a wizard wandering the streets of a city?

Later, when Jeannie was out of her conference, we took off on foot to see some of the city. There were signs around the city that said "Organ Trail," and looked blood-spattered. We asked about it and were told the city would be crawling with zombies as they tried to break a record for the most zombies on Saturday.
On Saturday we had a food tour scheduled for later in the day, but first we wanted to walk to a "Made in Colorado," store and pick up a few things. We thought it was not very far from our hotel, but it turns out it was very far from our hotel.

We walked a little more than three miles just to get there. Three miles is a lot for me these days, but I was OK. However, the air in Denver is different. It's a bit thin, and just felt different to walk that far. Some of it was a bit hilly, but nothing like here.

That Made in Dever shop also had a specialty chocolate shop called Roberta's Chocolates. But as we walked and kept checking my iPhone to see if were were getting any closer, we knew there was no way to make it back for our food tour on time if we walked, so we caught a cab back. We only bought a few things at the store, because by the time we got there we were both so tired and hungry we had lost interest. They had chocolate dipped Jalapeno peppers, but I opted for a small box of truffles. I also bought Chuck some chocolate covered bacon.

While we waited for the cab we walked across the street to the Mexican restaurant.
Our taxi dropped us at our hotel just in time for our food tour, and as we walked from one restaurant to the next we saw thousands of zombies, and some zombie killers. There were zombie babies, zombie umpa loompas, a zombie Queen Elizabeth and even a zombie banana. Some of the costumes were very realistic.

Oh, and the food was good. I truly can't remember the names of the restaurants. The first one was a desert place. It was OK. The second one was the best, and they brought out a real spread of foods. I had the salmon, and it was really, really good. And this is coming from someone who is used to very fresh and wonderful salmon. I also enjoyed the side dishes. The others in our group enjoyed a few meats that I don't eat, including pork. The presentation was really nice, and the dishes I had were just perfect.

From there we went to a pizza place. Not my favorite. The vegetarian option was a small salad that was nothing special, and the carnivores were served Trotter Pie, which is made of pig's feet. I didn't hear any of the feedback. They offered a couple of beer samples as well. It was OK, but I'm not a big fan of dark beers.

Jeannie and I met a couple of really nice ladies at our hotel lobby, which hosted a happy hour with something tasty and free wine, as well as a neck massage. They were so nice, and invited us to share lemoncellos with them to celebrate their birthdays.

Denver was a lot of fun, and it was great to reconnect with Jeannie after so many years.
Now I'm back and in the groove of work and life again. But I look forward to another adventure sometime soon.

In my next post I'll provide a list some great things to do in Denver.

Denver, I love you!

Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.

I'm in Denver, staying in this quaint and unique Hotel Monaco and enjoying myself immensely. There are free massages in the lobby in the afternoon, we have fluffy robes and loads of pillows on the beds, and everyone is friendly.

My childhood friend, Jeannie, invited me to join her here while she's attending a conference. It was so nice of her to invite me along, and tomorrow we'll be able to spend more time doing fun stuff. (This summer was the first time we had seen each other since we were kids.) Today we took a short jaunt to the incredible Tattered Cover Book Store. I felt so at home I could have stayed all day! In fact, I stayed a long time after Jeannie had to leave and get to her conference. I decided to browse and browse, and then I got hungry so I ordered a Tangy Tuna sandwich and a water and sat in the cafe area and took it all in. I have a soft spot in my heart for cafes that serve whole foods, and have their menu handwritten on a chalkboard. I used to work at one of those.

It's been a long time since I was able to hang out in such a cool bookstore. We have them, of course, and have a wonderful one in Seattle, but I haven't been there in a long time. Plus, there's just something about embracing a place you've never been. The wood floors, and the wood shelves, and the books that seem to go on from floor to ceiling, and the staircase that leads to MORE BOOKS! Ahh. Just wonderful.

I eventually did need to mosey on down the street and see what else there was to see. I passed by some really cool looking restaurants and shops, went in to a couple of shops that were way outside of my budget. $499 for a sweater. Umm, no.

Feeling the shock of that tag, I ventured farther and saw the Federal Reserve money museum. It's free! That's within my budget, so I went in. Now, granted, there is not a lot to see once you get in there, but what can you expect for free, right? There is a display of shredded money and dirt, and info on how they put shredded bills that are taken out of circulation into compost. There are some metal insets with raised images you can make your own money by placing the paper over it and rubbing a crayon over the top. There's a display of $30,000,000 in $100 bills, and a newspaper clipping of the robbery in the 1920s and a description and cartoonish drawing of the suspect.

And hey, they give away free bags of money! Well, it's shredded and worthless, but there's $165 in that bag.

Sick Day

Sean is sick today, which means I'm home as well. I find sick days to be a blessing and a curse. Though  I have some time to relax and do housework I wouldn't be able to do if we had a normal day of work and school, I know that this time off will make tomorrow a busier work day.

So today I'm puttering around, doing some laundry, monitoring my email in case I can do some work from home, and watching TV. I can't even say how long it has been since I watched mid-morning television.

I'm also chugging Airborne and taking vitamins because I feel a little scratchiness in my throat and that sickish feeling in my head.

What do you do on sick days?