Friday's letters (to russian dancing and immortality, among other things)

To the wedding dinner last night,
It's always fun hanging out with the Covey side of the family, and the russian dancing was something else. As was that authentic Thai. Yum.

To my husband,
You don't get enough recognition for walking 5 miles round trip to work every day so I can take the car. It won't be that fancy porsche you want, but how about a moped? I could see you rocking a moped :)


To myself,
Being a second year teacher has made all the difference. They always say the first year is hard, but it wasn't until this week, now that I'm a second year teacher, that I realize how much more comfortable and easy it is the second time around. I have a good feeling about this school year.

To the summer storm last night,
You outdid yourself. I loved every second.


To my ward of the state,
I'm so proud of you for rocking your first week of middle school! Sam and I are so lucky to have you. Bring on the homework this year!

To this weekend,
You're the sweetest sounding thing I've heard in days. Back to school week is crazy, and I'm pretty sure I only slept at night because Sam made me go to bed. Please be good to me. AKA please let my hours of lying on the couch, snuggling and watching Life of Pi be uninterrupted.


To immortality,
This week my anniversary flowers apparently discovered your ancient secret. They have yet to clue me in.

And to my husband, who deserves five more of these,
I love you.

Happy weekend!

And ah, the weekend never sounded so good.

Follow along on Instagram @brookejanette

a love note, as is only proper

I love the model stadiums you build.

I love your confused face when I wake you up to say goodbye in the mornings.

I love when we look at each other over Jason's head during church and you give me that half smile.

I love how you tuck me in at night.

I love how you run errands and do chores for me and don't expect any praise for it (I'll get there one day.).

I love how you hate bell peppers as much as I love them.

I love when it takes an hour and a half to go to sleep because we're too busy talking and dreaming and cracking each other up.

I love seeing you interact with Jason.

I love how you won't get out of bed on a Saturday without a back rub.

I love how you hold my hand and give me hugs and kisses, even in public.

I love that heart of gold I first started falling for two years ago. I love your priorities and your goals and your faith and most of all, I love the way you love me.

To lovers and future lovers and dog-lovers and blog-lovers everywhere: Happy Valentine's Day!
Let's not celebrate the gifts or flowers as much, but just plain and simple love and how happy love makes us.

letters {to fourth graders and centipedes}

Dear fourth graders,

Time for August so you can be my fifth graders already.

Dear budding photographers,

I need someone to take pictures of me. Really. Email me right now and we'll work out a business deal.

Dear husband,

You hogged the bed in your sleep last night. It was really cute.

Dear anything green or blossoming,

I could kiss you. 

Dear cello,

I love you. Let's do that more often.

Dear centipede,

In my kitchen? What the? I get the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

Dear heebie jeebies,

What a weird expression. Weird to say. Weird to write. Weird to have.

Dear husband, who deserves at least ten more letters,

I love you. That's all.

Linking up here, here and here.

writing letters on a spring evening

Dear spring flowers,

Yes please.

Dear sixth graders,

You're hilarious. Thanks for asking if flatulent is a real word.

Dear neighborhood,

Today on my run, I said hi to three different neighbors. I felt like I belonged. Thank you.

Dear husband,

You make a funny face when you concentrate really hard. It's cute.

Dear cold,

What the? Could you be allergies or something?

Dear old roommates,

I love you. Being together is still such a blast.

Linking up here and here.

Image credit 1 and 2. 

At 2:17am

Tomorrow I leave for Arizona, my very first in-law holiday, and it will be great.

It really will, mom. I'm excited.

But there will not be time to remember. There will not be time to think about two Thanksgivings ago, that last time you really were able to get out of bed and into your wheelchair, when we took those family pictures.

You started crying, mom, when you took a picture with me. Because you were going to miss me. And that's why I love that picture so much. I hate the cancer in your eyes, but I love that picture.

So I'm taking this moment now, mom, this crying moment at 2:28am to think about midnight watches. To think about those times we would sit in the rocker, look at the Christmas lights through the window, and make sure you were sleeping okay.

We were blessed with 19 whole years of shared existence on this earth.

19 whole years, mom.

That's almost 7,000 days.

That's 9 million minutes.

That's 600 million seconds.

That's a long time, mom, and I never appreciated those seconds more than during those midnight watches, in the blue rocking chair, with the Christmas lights soft through the window.

Every breath, every snore was one more second granted to our shared existence.

Do you remember how you asked us to put up those lights outside of the window, to give you a little cheer? I liked those lights.

And do you remember all those cards? We strung them up in rows in your room. We never got around to reading those to you, but that's not the point.

Remember how you would laugh because red dye supposedly causes cancer, and since it was far too late to worry about that, would somebody please pass the hot tamales? That was funny. 

Since I won't have time on Thanksgiving, I'm taking this moment at 2:40am to cry. I'm taking this moment to think about you, and write about you, and erase it all, and not worry about My Public Blogging Image, and to thank you, mom, for those 19 years of shared existence.

Kiss my future children for me. Kiss those chicklets right on the face. Maybe then they'll be able to remember their grandma when it's their turn to come to Earth. I hope they'll remember who you are. 

I remember.

Happy Thanksgiving, mommy. I love you.

why to get the post on Sundays

This weekend I got the loveliest surprise in the mail. 

Picture this: a stroll to bring in the post on a bright Sunday morning. It was post that had not been picked up yesterday (if there's anything Harry Potter taught me, it's that there's no post on Sunday). Imagine my surprise when I saw a handwritten letter addressed to none other but yours truly. It was from Mama O, the amazing, the illustrious, the hilarious Mama O.

Want to see what she sent me?

This super cute note:

Plus this money (real life money, people. Not even of the monopoly variety).

I'm making it big in this world now :)

What a lovely start to my crazy week. Thank you so much Mama O!

P.S. With this newly kindled flame for handwritten letters, I am having lots of ideas for cute stationary and letter giveaways.... thoughts?

P.P.S. I don't know why I'm calling it post. I live in America, where they call it mail. Maybe some sort of latent desire to be British? Another Harry Potter influence? The fact that it's 5:45am?

love letter

Sam teased me about blogging tonight. I hate to admit he was right, but I could hardly start packing without wasting time first. So here's the post {and he was right}:

Dear Mr. Almost-Husband,


Thank you for taking me to the temple today. It was the best thing we've done together so far. Let's go again soon. Like, how does your Saturday look?


xo,


B

Catarina

Dearest Caitlin,

Happy one-day-late birthday!

Thank you for doing strange things with me all the time

and for playing with me at the cabin

and for raising my endorphin levels with 30-second hugs

and for your thoughtful notes that I hang on my happiness board

And also for being beautiful

and soft spoken

and a calming influence in our apartment.

I hope you know that nobody can sing like you

or have beautiful hair like you do

or love like you

or make homemade quilts for me like you do.

And even though you’re obsessed with ironing

and you broke my ice trays the first day I met you…

I love you so much.

Happy birthday Cait Cait!

Number 26

Dear iron,

You and I have had lots of interaction lately. I took a quiz on you today. You have 30 neutrons, 26 protons, and 26 electrons (assuming you’re stable, but really, can we assume that about anything, or anyone, these days?).

Also, I’m proud to say that I’ve been taking your pills every day! Twice every day, actually. You should be proud of me because now I have enough energy to make it through my busy school and work days, and then even have energy to go to the gym at night.

And speaking of gym, I have been lifting a lot of you lately. Not tonight, because the gym was crowded and made me claustrophobic and did NOT help my strange new anger problem. But thanks to the help of Johanna, I’m using you to build muscles and trim fat from places I didn't know existed.

Incidentally, there’s a small bruise on my leg from where I ran into a railing made of you on campus today. Can I blame you please?

As far as having an iron will… I’m working on that. I’m good at doing and thinking about the things that I’m supposed to. But, I’m doing horrible at not thinking about the things I can’t have or am not supposed to want right now.

That’s all.

Hello, Hello

Dear Hello,

Hello! Can we please rekindle our long-lost friendship?

I’ve been spending entirely too much time with your counterpart, goodbye. I know, I know, you can’t have one without the other. Okay. I get that.

Which is why I tried not to sigh too loudly when I had to say goodbye to my roommates, to my college, to everything. Not to mention THE goodbye which people take extreme measures to avoid talking about in my presence {maybe they think that if they don’t say anything I’ll forget what happened?}.

But I’m really really really done with goodbye. I even said goodbye to my history of music assignment as I submitted it today {which is saying something, since I put off saying goodbye to that blasted essay for at least four weeks}.

And I am extremely ready to say goodbye to the pair of pierced lip, college guys whom I had the (dis)pleasure of talking to at the grocery store. Although they did have the extraordinary linguistic gift of making conversation entirely out of four-letter explicit words.

So much talent in so skinny jeans.

So I gave goodbye a swift kiss on the cheek to show my appreciation for his efforts, and then escorted him out. And I would please like to escort you in.

I’m ready to say hello to sunshine again!

And new running and workout schedules!

And more friends!

And dates!

And a million other things.

And so, my dear hello, I look forward to your imminent arrival.

Cordially yours,

~B

P.S. I even listened to a faster, remade version of Hello Goodbye by the Beatles on my run today, in a half-hearted attempt to speed your arrival. The only thing that happened was the slimy death of a small bug that flew into my mouth… this doesn’t mean anything, right? Right??