Turkey day and smiling

So.  My last two posts were downers.  Sorry about that.  This week was weird since we had/have Thursday and Friday off, so it felt longer than three days should have felt.  However my week got progressively better since my last post.

Stephen surprised me with flowers again on Tuesday.  I'd had some particularly rough sessions that day, and the flowers are beautiful.  I can't even express how much little things like that mean to me.  Ugh.  So mushy.  Much feelings.

I'd fully expected to be sad all day on Thanksgiving, but it was actually a great day.  I skyped with my family in the morning and it was almost like being at home, except that I could only see a couple of them in the frame at a time.  Haha.  I also got to facetime with them while they were at the neighbors house, and Stephen was able to join me for that.  It's kind of bizarre introducing people over video chat, but it's also amazingly cool.  Isn't technology great?

My new glasses came in the mail on Wednesday, but I wasn't able to get them from my landlady until yesterday.  I am totally obsessed with them.  They make not having contacts okay (I just have't gotten around to ordering them yet).

Stephen had been growing this weird beard/mustache thing for the past few weeks.  Usually I'm a fan of facial hair, but I'm just not sure how I feel about it on him.  Luckily he shaved yesterday, but I must say, I could get used to just the mustache...maybe...

We drove 45 minutes south to his sister's house in Salem.  There seem to be several repeat town names out here that remind me of home.  I actually had someone comment to me the other day (a grown adult, mind you...with a child) that they only recently realized that the Salem witch trials didn't take place in Salem Oregon.  HAH.  Was Oregon even *discovered back then?  I should look that up at some point...Anyways...

Above is Stephen's sister Sarah with her cutie-patootie baby.  She is seriously one of the happiest babies I've met.  SO cute.  It was really great meeting more of the clan, and eating delicious food.  I can't stop thinking about how blessed I am.  I knew God was orchestrating my cross country move, but wow, His plan was much more detailed than I initially thought.  To think that I was originally going to move in with a craigslist rando but instead ended up next door to such a fabulous family?  What would my life be like right now if I had stuck with my original housing plans?  What if I had stayed in Boston?  

I don't want to think about that.  I am perfectly content with how my life is right here, right now.  

God is good.

Life is great.

Today

Today I miss home.

I miss my family.

I miss my friends.

I miss rude Bostonians.

I miss my Karen.

I miss Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.

I miss my students.

I miss familiar streets.

I miss Machine Mondays.

I miss a lot.

Molly had a bad day

So, I started thinking of this post last night, but it's taken me a full 24 hours to think clearly enough to actually write it coherently.

Yesterday I had a bad day.

So there's this guy..

Ok blog-o-sphere.  Those of you who follow me on twitter, instagram or facebook have probably been wondering this for a while, so I'm just going to put it all out there.  Literally the day after I decided I would give up on the male-species and become an old lonely cat-owning spinster, I met this guy.  The details would probably bore you, but let's just establish that he's quite a nice guy.  He also happens to live precisely one backyard away from my front door which is pretty convenient.

His name is Stephen.

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Now, you all know that I'm not the kind of girl to just randomly talk about guys, so you can probably guess that this is going to be a short post.  There really isn't much for me to say that wouldn't be overly personal or just plain weird...but yeah.  He's a pretty great guy, he loves God, is great with little kids and makes me laugh pretty much all the time. He also makes more strange faces than I do, which is a pretty rare find.

The cat still doesn't know what to think, but has gradually grown to accept Stephen as an acceptable visitor in the house.

I don't know where this post is going; I'm pretty tired because I woke up at 4:30am because of the time change (don't ask me why my brain was ready to wake up at 5:30am, it just was) and had a pretty full day.

Stephen was too engrossed in watching Vine videos to notice (or maybe care?) that I graffitied his legs.  I'm so clever.

We skyped with my parents this afternoon and that was pretty terrific.  I think when I lived away from home, but still in MA, I took for granted the ability to drive 45 minutes and visit with my family.  I've been trying to make a more conscious effort to schedule times to facetime and skype with my family, and it's been totally awesome just getting to see their faces and hear their voices.  The internet/technology is not always our friend (either my end or their end causes the picture to blur and the signal to stall out) but that only makes the moments it does work seem all the more precious.

Oh yeah, and I also got to dress up at work this year for halloween.  You know how much I love dressing up in costumes!  I totally forgot that I would be able to dress up this year, though, and didn't think about my costume until Thursday night.  I ended up going to a thrift store and buying a child's cat costume for $1.50.  The tail was small enough to make a comfortable headband for a small child, so I just wore the ears and bow tie.  I think I turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself.  I got to wear the costume a second and third time at my church's harvest festival and again at AWANA tonight.  I also went grocery shopping in my costume (tonight, so days after Halloween) and no one seemed to care because Oregon is cool like that.

So, yeah...there's this guy, and we make each other laugh and each think the other is a pretty swell human being.  Now don't get all excited, we're just dating, but I thought you all should meet him.  Maybe I'll try to talk him into doing a guest post, but considering the kindred spirit that he is, it would probably just dissolve into rambling like my posts inevitably do.

Ta-ta, you beautiful person, you.