2 Hours Traffic

They are here...

Bob and I received our memorial rings last week.  They turned out beautifully.

They are very intricate and quite subtle on our hands...perfect

Earworm for the day: Kasabian

Finally, a "little" snow!

Our first storm of the year!  Above:  Today, Jasmine accumulates some snowballs on her belly!  We had to put her in the tub and spray her with warm water to get rid of the offending snow mass.  The trees are part of our yard.  We got about 13 inches of snow!

Left:  We had plans to go out with Ken and Amy last night.  We debated whether we should still go, but we decided to brave the weather. I am so glad we did.  We had such a blast!

We headed to Minneapolis and went to the Oceanaire and afterwords we went to a couple bars/pubs.  We ended the night at O Donovan's and we watched The Wild Colonial Bohys.  We enjoyed the music so much!  We asked the guys to sing Spancil Hill.  It isn't one they perform,  but the lead singer sat with me and wrote down a few verses of the song and they sang it with no rehearsal.  They are extremely talented and incredibly nice.  We will definitely seek them out again.

It was a very quiet night in Downtown Minneapolis.  It was actually pretty fun having the bars to ourselves (well, not quite to ourselves, but it was very quiet.)  We had a treacherous cab ride back to Ken and Amy's, but we all agreed it was a fantastic evening.

I snapped a few photos last night of the storm and downtown. 

Spancil Hill

Well, I tried to submit a layout to BHG.  I haven't submitted for a very long time, but they had a call about music ...and that is "so me" so I had to try a layout.  I actually used part of a layout I did before and then added a really bad photo of an Irish singer and I did a funky edit (great way to hide a crappy photo).  I took the photo in Kenmare, Ireland. 

I thought it turned out pretty cool , but I tried to submit it three times on three different days, but I never received a confirmation E-mail from BHG, so I assume they never got it, so I thought I would post it here.  You should be able to read the journaling if you click on the layout.  Prior to traveling to Ireland, I enjoyed Irish music and knew a few songs (or parts of songs).  Since my trip (and spending an evening listening to the above singer and many others), I fell in love with the music.

Since it is St Patrick's season, I want to share some favorite Irish music.  One of my favorite songs is Spancil Hill and one of my favorite signers is Christie Moore.  This is a version of Spancil Hill with Shane McGowen...who is perfectly happy being drunk and toothless. 

Another Christie Moore song (looks pretty recent). Beautiful!

Three Months...

WARNING: post and video could be a downer.  I don't want to bum anyone out....so take that as you will.

It was three months, today, that I gave birth to Beckett.  It seems like last week and at the same time, it seems like a lifetime ago.  A quarter of a year sounds like such a large expanse of time, and the amount of healing that has occurred is equally immense.  Sometimes I feel like I am doing "too" well.  Some days are pretty calm and gentle and my thoughts of Beckett are simple, fleeting and bittersweet, but some days things are a little more raw and intrusive.  It is on those serene days that I worry about when the next wave of pain will engulf me.  This grief will never go away...it just lies dormant like a sleeping giant and it is the most random things that wake it.  I can talk about Beckett and my experience and have no problems, tears etc..(in fact, I want and like to talk about it.  I know that a lot of people do not want to talk or hear about it...and this is a whole other topic for another day.)  It is silly things like looking at magazines in Barnes and Noble and seeing pregnancy magazines, hearing a song, seeing an ambulance, seeing a lumbering 35 week pregnant woman heavy with child, or watching a cooking show that I watched in the hospital.  These are the simple things that might set me off.  ...and sometimes I want to be set off; sometimes I need that release; sometimes I want to remember every little detail or tap into that universal well of pain.  Sometimes I want to feel sorry for myself, Bob, Beckett, my parents who would be grandparents soon for the first time.

This week I finished our letter to Beckett.  I hope to read it at his memorial on March 17th.  I am not ready to share that here, but I did decide to share Beckett's video that I made (it has been revised and you can see the revision and a much better quality version of the video HERE at Photodex.com  type in Careyayn22 in the member name box and my videos come up.  It is obviously the Beckett one.)  It may ask you to download the viewer.  This is a completely safe file to download.  This does not work on Macs unfortunately.  Otherwise, the above video gives you a mini version of our video.  We used the song "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol because the day after Beckett passed and we were released from the hospital, we heard this song on the radio on the way to the funeral home and it hit a cord with both of us at the time.

I did a second version of the video too.  I find that one too painful to watch.  It is the same video but with a different song.  I used the lullaby, "All the Pretty Little Horses."  First, have you ever listened to the entire song?  It is very sad, melancholy and a little disturbing.  Also, when I was holding Beckett, it was the song that kept going through my head. I wanted to sing it out loud so bad, but I just couldn't get the words out of my mouth. I knew I would regret not singing to him (and I do), but I just didn't have the strength at that time to do it, so I sang it for him in my head. 

I told my friend Amy this story a couple weeks ago and we were laughing through our tears.  We just had to laugh at how pitifully sad it was.  Does that make any sense?

OK, sorry for the downer post.  I just felt like I needed to share.  I guess today is just one of those raw and intense days.

FYI:  I noticed that the menu on the video posted at Photodex is for another show.  Sorry,  I will try to fix that later and upload it again.  The video still works though.  Also, if you go to that site, will you let me know if the music works for you?  For some reason when I check out videos lately, the music skips a lot.  I don't know if it is just me or the website.  So just E-mail me either way...thanks!

Moms and Bombs

We had a bomb threat today at school. It was the first one in 10 years!  So, we all had to get on buses and go to the middle school and spend an uncomfortable day.  The students were herded into the gym and community center and the staff got to play bouncer all day.  The psychology is to make it uncomfortable and a nuisance so it deters future copycats.  It certainly wasn't fun.  The students were unable to go back into the building so most had to leave bags, homework, coats etc... there.  they had to take the bus home, get a ride home or take a bus to the school to get their cars.   Obviously all is OK now.  Hopefully we will deter the students from any excitement tomorrow.

On a happier note, my mom turned 60 yesterday. We went to Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis for brunch on Sunday to celebrate:

It is a another very simple digital layout...pretty much the only thing I can muster enough effort to do lately.

The journaling reads: I seriously cannot believe that my mom turned 60 yesterday, Feb 12th.
She really doesn’t look it or act it.  I know sometimes she feels it, but she is a trooper.  We had brunch at Hell’s Kitchen in Minneapolis
and did a little shopping.  Matt and Kathy joined us for the day.

I love my mom!  I hope you check in and see this and know I am thinking of you!

Beauty Blooms...

My aunt and uncle, Paula and Mike, sent this Amaryllis to us back in December in memory of Beckett.  It is now in full bloom and gorgeous...just in time for Valentines Day.  Every time I look at it and see its beauty, I think of Beckett. 

What an amazing gift. (you will need to click on the photo to see it all,)

On another note, here is my ear-worm for the day....The Silversun Pickups and "Lazy Eye."

Football, Friends, Freakin' Colds and the Fratellis

I am still dealing with a horrible cold.  I now have laryngitis...this is starting to bum me out.  I thought I was on the mend, but this hit me Sunday evening.  At least we did get out and about on Sunday and Bob watched the Super Bowl with Ken. Amy and I mostly just chatted and made and ate some good football food.

I took a few photos while I was there:

Ella is an amazing kid....she loves to eat peppercinis!

Jack thinks it is pretty funny to hide from my camera....

Sam, on the other hand, has no problem showing off for the camera:

******On a completely different note...have you seen the new IPod Commercial?  It features a Fratellis song!  I predicted back in April that the Fratellies would make it big.

New Ipod Commercial!!!!!!!!

April Link

Pan's Labyrinth....

Children of Men, The Last King of Scotland...

Pan's

Last King of Scotland

Children of Men

I love this time of year...all the critically acclaimed movies finally get to my local theater.  I have a few more to see, but these are the three on my list that I saw in the last month.  Each of them was haunting ; each of them had fantastic acting and beautiful directing, and each of them made me cry...even sob a little.  I am not afraid to cry at movies, but I feel a little connected to what I call "the universal well of sorrow and pain."  I don't know if it exists, but I feel like, through our recent loss, that I have tapped into something greater.  It goes beyond empathy...I am normally empathetic; I feel like I have tapped into other's pain as well.

Ah, yeah....feeling a bit "too" introspective tonight...

Anyway, I recommend all three movies (and the subtitles on Pan's were fine).  Bob dislikes subtitles, but he thought after the first couple minutes, they were really easy to follow.

Oh, and here is my earworm of the day....  I am not sure what is up with the mustache...I hope it is a passing phase or joke....please? 

I saw the Killers in concert a while back.  They are one of those very few bands that sound in concert just like they do on CD.  I think they are perfectionists.  My friend Melissa thought that they were almost too perfect...not that they were lip-syncing, but I think she said something about them almost be "Disneyfied" .  It just isn't natural how good they are.

Also, In the Pioneer Press today, there is an article about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and Heather Lombardo, our photographer: ARTICLE  If you click on the photo gallery, there is a photo of Beckett being "edited" by her.