let's try italian.

John and I were driving around trying to find a place to eat last night.  We were celebrating something so we wanted to try something new.  Our first choice option was closed... so I told him we should try this Italian place we hadn't been to yet.  It's tucked away in a small part of town we never drive by so we always forget it's there.  We went in and we had an amazing dining experience.  The lady who owns the little restaurant is also the chef, everything is made from scratch daily with fresh, local ingrediants.  Sounded pretty good -- we put in our order right away.  We LOVED the pizza and the broccoli parmesan that we got -- the noodles in the broccoli dish were the best I've had... so good!  But this place gets better... we kept noticing people had little plastic cups with wine but didn't see any alcohol on the menu so we asked about it (our waitress was new and didn't know we were new too!) and turns out, the wine is complimentary.  You just serve yourself and leave a tip if you'd like!  Um, what?!  It was so good.  So we cheersed to free wine and to other good things happening in our life and then topped it off by sharing a ricotta & nutella calzone.  We died right then and there from good food and wine and happiness.  We found a new favorite place in our town... can't wait to take visitors there!

simple.

We live a pretty simple life but we live an extremely happy one.  Voluntary simplicity is something that's been on my mind a lot lately.  Scaling back, taking just enough, reduce/reuse/recycle, all that jazz.  John and I have had some pretty serious talks about our values and things we think we do well and areas where we can improve.  We have found that we have never felt more content in our lives and that may or may not be attributed towards our goal of living simply.  Taking the time to make homemade products (cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, shampoo, etc), buying groceries & making our food instead of pre-made food or going to restaurants for every meal (this area we can certainly improve upon, as we like to frequent one of our local restaurants... let's chalk that up to supporting the local economy, mmmkay? ;), buying clothes & household items & furniture at the thrift store, less tv, more books/writing time, recycling everything, buying only "needed" items. Not only do we spend less money, but we find that our level of happiness has vastly improved.  There are still many areas we need to improve upon, but for the most part we love how we live.  We have learned that the acquisition of things doesn't make us as happy as some people would have us believe.  We are far from perfect, but at least we can say that we're happy.  As some guy named Gandhi said, "live simply so that others may simply live." 

cows.

Our landlord asked us to feed the cows for a few days.  There's only seven of them in the pasture.  When he first put this group in they were much smaller, so it's been fun to see them grow.  They are super curious about Rory and she likes to play with them along the fence.  It's fun living with cows.  I'll be sad when this particularly fiesty group leaves, but it's always fun when he (our landlord) brings in another group of babies.

In other news, our neighbors bought a few chicks a few weeks ago.  They are growing pretty fast too.  When we were out feeding the cows one evening our neighbor boy (starting fourth grade this week!) proudly showed us how he takes care of his chicks at night.  I only got this one blurry picture because they were scrambling around the coop.  It will be so fun when the chicks get a little bigger because then they will just roam around our yards.  Our old neighbors had a bunch of chickens, roosters, & turkeys, so I've missed having them dawdle around the yard.  I especially miss the turkeys, maybe I can convince our neighbors to get a couple.  Can't wait to have more chickens around again though... fresh eggs!

random friday.

W-A-T-E-R

Instead of a thankful list, I'll give you a random list.  Here is my week in sentences.

+John and I were reunited after a weekend apart and we celebrated by buying a laptop and The Prince of Egypt at Walmart.  TPoE was only $2.96 and I was way more excited about that than a laptop.  I kept exclaiming my excitement and singing the Mariah/Whitney song.  Don't worry I watched the movie right away, before we even opened up the box containing the computer.  Priorities.

+I drank a ridiculous amount of water (super ridiculous!) and did jumping jacks to get my blood flowing so I could get some blood drawn for labs.  I have really crappy veins so I have to work really hard to not have a horrible experience with giving blood/getting IVs.  My preparation worked!  But then I promptly passed out and laid on a dirty floor for a while.  Success?

+John's friend Pete arrived Wednesday night to visit with us for a few days.  His sense of humor is the best ever.  He has a special OhioHorses.com license plate that has a horse's head on it and it just says "HEY."  Hey-larious.

+We called a spade a spade and just went out to dinner last night at our favorite restaurant in town...  For the third time this week.  Lazy.  (But.  Delicious.)

+It's Friday Friday Gotta Get Down on Friday!  If I were a mom of young children I would want the Fierce Fab to be my babysitters... they are so darn cute.  I found some old pictures, so that's what that is up top.  It's from a play I did 5+ years ago called The Miracle Worker and I played Annie Sullivan, teaching Helen Keller how to spell/say/know "water."  I'm a big deal.

Happy Friday!

lunch.

S and I went to the co-op for lunch today.  We both got the vegetarian lunch special and they didn't have my favorite drink, so I got this instead.  Basically, it promises to give me superpowers.  The slimy grit mixed with the tartness of the raspberry make this kombucha magical apparently.  S and I decided with our new found superpowers we will create world peace. 

Our action plan:
1.  smile and give everyone in the world a hug and tell them they're wonderful.
2.  give everyone a puppy. (or a kitten if they aren't dog people.) (there is no plan for if these people don't like animals in general because we can't imagine a world where this is the case.)
3.  watch the world come together in harmony.

Happy Thursday to you.  I hope you have a beautiful day.  You're wonderful.