It's almost his birthday.

Next Wednesday would be Miles's birthday. He would turn 7.

I've thought that no less than 30 times today and yesterday and Saturday.

The thought of him not being here to celebrate his life takes my own breath away.

How am I going to get through that day?

We won't be able to give him Cotton Candy, which is the only thing we could give him because it would just dissolve on his tongue. He won't be here to take to the zoo. I usually used his birthday money from his aunt and uncle to buy a yearly zoo pass and then we would take him to the zoo. He loved being pushed around in his wheelchair outside. He won't be here to get all these kisses and hugs we have stored up for him.

It's not getting easier to be without him.

Is it possible that it's getting harder?

I'm walking around and going about my day, but it feels like my heart is aching with such intensity that I'm surprised other people can't feel it. It's so strong in me that it seems like it should be contagious.

How is it possible that all the days I have left on earth will be without that sweet face to kiss? It will be without his perfect curly hair and his innocent spirit.

4 Months

4 Months.

It's been 4 Months since Miles died. 

Here are some quotes that Inspire Me a little to keep going 

or quotes that bring some Truth to my situation. 

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY... 

Pearl Street

(Photo from Silvia Pettem's book called "Positively Pearl Street." 

This morning I got to go window shopping in downtown Boulder, Colorado on Pearl St. 

In the evenings, especially the weekends it's usually packed with people and street entertainers. This morning it was mainly locals. Pearl Street is a great mix of Hippies, Yuppies, Homeless, Tourists and Weirdos. There's lots of coffee shops and bookstores. There's art galleries and neat places to shop. Bars, clothing shops, lots of places to eat. They have shops where you could buy trinkets and places where something could cost you a month's salary. 

I couldn't find the Hotel Boulderado to snap a picture, but I did find this little plaque that talked about the hotel. Several years ago Miss Melody was made here. : ) 

Shopping and Mountains. 

Pearl Street is a fun place to shop, eat and people watch...and make Melody's. 

Ugh, bad dreams.


I dream about Miles almost every night. The dreams usually have the same theme, but alter a little bit. 


Several times I've dreamt that we forgot to bury Miles. I've dreamt that I went to the cemetery and unburied him because I felt like he was still alive. One time I dreamt that I had him back for a minute, but then he died again. Recently I had a dream that he was healed, but then he died. Last night I dreamt that I knew Miles had died, but I never did bury him and we just kept carrying him around in the wheelchair and acting like he was still alive. 


The dreams are not uplifting. They aren't as devastating as they were at first, but at this point I'm dreading going to sleep and having another dream about him being buried or not. 

I Miss Him.

Lunch Time in Boulder

This afternoon my sister-in-law and I went to lunch in Downtown Boulder at a place called Mediterranean Restaurant . The place was really nice and totally not like any place I had been to before. The "thing to do there" is to order a bunch of small appetizers and then share them with everyone on the table. Each of the appetizers were about 3 bites of something. Now, normally when I think of restaurant appetizers I think of cheese sticks or something else fried. That's not the case here. These foods were so exotic (to me) that after looking over the menu for a minute I asked if she would just pick out what to order. I felt adventurous enough to try new things,  but I also knew that I could have a turkey sandwich at home if I didn't like the food.

I put a link to the lunch menu, but this is what we shared for lunch:

• DATILES- Bacon wrapped dates with parsley garlic sauce
• PINCHON MORUNO- Lamb brochette, calabrain chili mustard & sliced cucumbers
• CAPRESE- Fresh mozzarella, tomato basil
• FALAFEL- Chickpea croquette & tahini
• POLENTA- Crispy Polenta, Avalanche Cheese Co. Midnight Blue Cheese & sherry black pepper honey
• PROSCIUTTO & MELON- Sliced prosciutto, shaved cantaloupe melon, aged balsamic vinegar & parmesan blend

Whew! Even my spell check doesn't know what a lot of those things are! I'm serious! I think I ate at least 30 ingredients today that I've never eaten before in my whole life!!! First of all I've never had lamb before. I really liked it. It was a little hard to get out of my head that it was lamb, but the flavor was amazing. The chickpea croquettes were delicious and curious. My favorite was the polenta. It was strange. At first bite the polenta was sweet and then it had a savory texture and flavor and then it left you with a spicy taste in your mouth. It was so delicious. 

This place had a one page front and back menu for the food, but it had a four page front and back menu for the wine and beer. I should have had a glass of wine...I'm still kicking myself over it. However, I had to drive home from Boulder so I didn't want to take any risks, but really, one glass of wine would have been fine. Dang It! I was going to put a link to the wine list, but they just have a downloadable version...I guess because it's so dang long! 

Part of me wants to tell you that the place was Uh-Maz-Ing, and part of my wants to tell you it's WEIRD. I enjoyed the environment, and of course the company. I really enjoyed trying new things without saying, "Ew, that's yucky!" The food was great, but also confusing to my mouth with all the new things going on. I would totally recommend going though. It's a gorgeous restaurant with foods that you don't get to eat everyday. Or in my case...ever. (Until today) 

A Little Shopping Today

I went to a charming little shop this morning. I asked permission I snuck around and snapped some photos of some of my favorite things in the place. 

The shop was in...

The name of the store is JACQUE MICHELLE. 

If an orange bicycle with a basket full of stuffed animals is in the window then it's pretty much a guarantee that I will like the place. 

My first sneaky photo was of this precious Owl. I heart Owls. (Not the actual Owl animal, but anything decorative or crafty in the way of Owls.) 

Also, I love these kinds of bird decorations. They've grown on me. 

This is why I wanted to start taking pictures in the first place! This picture frame is made from all sorts of old keyboard keys. Later I'm going to post this picture on Pintrest. I just love this frame. It would be fun to make and pretty easy to get a hold of old keyboards at garage sales and Goodwill...or even our storage building. 

Aprons...you know I love aprons. I like to get ideas for new designs when I see them. 

Oh my goodness I Love these hats! Someone locally makes them. They have a crazy price of $75 each. I don't love them that much! It was a perfectly overcast and cool day to purchase such a lovely hat. It makes me want to learn to knit, but I'm not really actively looking for another hobby right now. 

They had lots of unique journals. One of my very favorite things on the planet is stationery products! 

Then my last little fav. from the store is this Awesome Record Cutting Board! How adorable is this? 

Love Love Love it! 

Anyway, I just wanted to share a little Colorado shopping with you today. 

The shopkeeper was delighted clueless at my picture taking. 

I'm sure she wouldn't mind a little free advertising though. 

Our New Kitchen!

Over the Labor Day weekend Randy and I with a lot of help from the kids redecorated our kitchen. While on our wonderful vacation this summer I had the idea of re-doing our kitchen using Vintage Board Games. I spent one whole evening drooling over old board games on eBay. The problem was that they were so dang expensive on there. Even if the games were cheap it was going to be around $10 to ship them. I was slightly bummed until I had the brilliant idea of checking at Goodwill for used games. I spent about a month checking out Goodwill for board games. I found plenty of them! The amazing thing was how cheap they were! It was so fun shopping for them because not one of the games were over $2. Heck, most of them weren't even a dollar. I bought one of them for only 10 cents! I also went to a garage sale and bought several for next to nothing. I'm actually going to miss buying the games because it was so exciting to buy something so cool for so cheap!

This was a super fun project. It is so cheerful in my kitchen/dining room now. It just feels happy in there. This was my idea and I did help with getting it done...However, it was my husband who deserves a lot of credit on this project! Without him (and all his awesome tools) this kitchen could have come out really cheesy. Randy worked really hard for 2 days, used his tools and a lot of work scraps to make our kitchen come out as cool as it did. That guy has such a great eye for things. He came up with some awesome ways to display things. Basically anything that looks really cool or expensive Randy thought up and made out of nothing. We love doing projects like this together. We feed off each other's creativity.

This was the first idea that Randy came up with..We bought several Trivial Pursuit games then Randy cut them up into fourths and made a tile design on the wall. This was the first thing we did in the kitchen. I knew we were onto something special after this was done! 

Randy made this awesome Clue display. He ripped down a 2x4 and stained it. It looks so good in person. I made a changeable picture frame out of a Scrabble board. I also put the Community Chest and Chance cards on shelf that I already had in there. Randy made that little box on the shelf. He made it from a Chutes and Ladders game board. I found that idea on Pinterest. Then I filled the jars with the leftover games pieces. 

I love how this Clue board came out. I love that the box is with it. 

I love this stack of shelves. I think it looks so much better in person. 

I painted this little shadow box and filled it with pieces from different games.

We bought this shelf from Salvation Army. It's a shelf and a chalkboard. Melody and I played tic-tac-toe on it. 

Jocie made this dice. It was a little wooden box. She painted it white and then I cut out the dots using the Cricket. We glued the dots on together to make it look like a dice. 

This right here is my baby! Spencer set up the game Just Like It Is Here. He put all the pieces out and had a whole idea of how the games was being played. He wanted it to look like we had just been playing. I glued everything down. While I was doing that Randy made a frame to go around it. After he was done I spent the next hour or so gluing money, community chest, chance and property cards to it. It took so long, but the results were worth it. I love it! 

This is a cheesy game I found. It's called HANGMAN. We made it where we can still change out the tiles to say different things. 

I'm not sure how these two pictures fused together. This Operation game is just like the one I had when I was a kid. 

 Here's a blurry picture of Joey as he jumped in front of my iPad...on purpose. Why does he always think this is funny? : )

 Here's the awesome Star Wars game that the boys donated to the cause. This game actually came with a VHS to play along with. 

 Above my sink I have the game Girl Talk. I had this game as a Pre-Teen. It's a truth or dare game. It's also tells your future. I kept asking Randy and the boys questions from the game. We were cracking up. Apparently Randy will be meeting the Boy of his Dreams any day now.  

This is a cute game called Head of the Class. Randy cut out part of the box and I glued it to the board. 

This Peanut Butter and Jelly game is one of our favorites in the kitchen. It came out so dang cute!

I really like how Randy mounted this game partially on the ceiling. 

I took this shadow box and filled it with all kinds of trivia cards. This was the last thing we added to the kitchen. It's right next to the UNGAME! Have you ever heard of this game? Dr. Dobson promotes this game. It's a "Game of Feelings." Our kids Love to Hate this game. 

I like these boards Randy put on the divider wall. He had to cut them down a little bit to make them fit. 

This Pin the Tail on the Donkey was something that Spencer found. We bought it for 10 cents! The box is really cool. It's called Donkey Party. 

One more last look at the kitchen from the door way. 

 

Fun Fun Fun! 

I love it! 

It Makes Me Happy.