Bluebonnets

Grandpa took these pictures on a beautiful spring day in Texas. They make me smile.

Wheeeeee!!!!!

Springtime in Texas

I took Ruby to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens the other day with one of my best friends, Tom, who is a really fantastic photographer and also a dancer with Texas Ballet Theater. He took some great pictures of Ruby enjoying the beautiful weather.

I love this sweet girl more than anything.

The weather has been beautiful, so we will enjoy our spring by walking to the park in our neighborhood, grilling for dinner just about every night, shopping at the farmers market and pretty much spending every minute of daylight outside. We hope that you have a fantastic spring too!

Time makes you bolder...

Today is my 2-year anti-versary. This one kind of snuck up on me, unlike the last one. I've decided that I'm going to celebrate rather than mourn. We shall see how that works out throughout the day. This past year has been solely focused on me and Ruby. I chose to remove all of the other accoutrement that had been cluttering up my life. And it has been glorious.

I have officially been on zero dates in the past year. Zilch. Nada. And I couldn't be happier about it. This has given me time to strengthen relationships with my friends, rebuild my damaged self-esteem, and spend every waking minute that I'm not at work with my little munchkin. You know what? I really like my life just the way that it is. I get an entire closet to myself - how could this possibly be bad? I don't anticipate this situation changing any time soon. Like they always say, if it ain't broke.....

Ruby has grown up so much in the past year - she's now using words like "treacherous," "constellation," and "dramatic," which is pretty hysterical to hear coming out of a 2-year old's mouth. She keeps getting cuter every day. Seriously - I don't know how it is possible. The best part about it (selfishly, I'll admit), is that I don't have to share my time with her. It's all mine. I love it. We make quite the little team.

In the past year, I was laid off from a job that I loved and was incredibly passionate about. It was sad on both sides, but a business decision is a business decision. The biggest blessing was that I found a new position that happens to be much closer to home with an animal health company. It is working out really well and I'm enjoying learning about a different side of the industry.

I've grown tremendously in my faith over the past year. It's amazing what God can do in your life if you just let him. I realized that he probably had a better idea of how everything was supposed to work out than I did, so I quit trying so hard and focused more on praying. That was a good decision.

So, although this past year wasn't quite the dramatic roller-coaster that the previous ones had been, it was perfect. Sure, it had challenges, because come on - this is life. But the challenges were easy to take on with Ruby's hand in mine. I am so proud of how strong and confident that I have become - and Ruby is a lucky girl to have a super-woman as a mommy.

After writing this post, I've decided that today isn't my anti-versary. Today is the 2-year anniversary of the purchase of my sweet little home and the 2-year anniversary of the start of my life.