Heaven in a tupperware

Yesterday Jake visited his parents and returned home with THESE! These, these, little morsels of heaven. So delicious, so beautiful, so fresh you could still smell the dirt. There's no denying that all food tastes better when it comes straight from the garden. We've known this for a long time. Yet I still find myself making special trips to the Dollar Store to pickup a bag of Heart Attack. I mean, a bag of Hot Fries. My body has become more and more ruined over the years and there's no denying that fact either! This tupperware full of raspberries inspired me to make sure we have a garden next year. We're not sure where we'll be living then, but at the very least we can manage a small windowsill herb garden and some hanging tomato plants. Jake and I would both LOVE to have a gazillion fruit trees and a bagillion acres of vegetables but we have faced the reality that we've been bitten by the travel bug and for the time being we can only take on projects that aren't too time sensitive. But I see lots of berries in our future, wherever we may be. Blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, whateverberries, there's just something so wonderful about berries that can't be replicated in anything else. Grannie Annie's berries were killer!... In the complete opposite sense of how Hot Fries are killer. Thanks for the little piece of your garden Mother-Ann-Law! This was the best treat I've had in a long time.

I love someone with a good SenSe of humoR

A few days ago I saw this lettering on a marquee outside of a Baptist Church that was under construction:

COMING SOON

NEW BUILDING

AND JESUS

I'm a Pepper

About 15 years ago I had a shirt similar to this. It was white with red lettering and also way too big for me but I loved wearing it. It was really old, really worn out and so thin that it was pretty much see-through. It was also really soft and super comfortable. For some reason I want to say that it originally belonged to my Grandfather (it was probably just my mom or dad's shirt). But the reason I loved the shirt so much was because I thought I was wearing something of my Grandfather's. I didn't get to spend a lot of time with him in this earth life, but everything I remember about him remains a good memory. He had white hair, a big belly, tattoos, a deep voice and a kind heart.  I was just a little kid but I knew he loved me.  He was a perfect Grandfather.

A few years ago a friend of mine and my brother's noticed something similar about her two Shumway friends. She said that we hold a lot of meaning in certain personal items, which everybody does but we make it all seem more important. I thought about this for a while and realized it's very true. I don't have a lot of extra junk laying around, and most of the possessions that follow me from house to house, year to year, hold a special meaning to me. After thinking about my reasoning for a long time I came up with two conclusions to why I give importance to physical objects. I definitely take good care of everything I own and I keep it for a long time, until it is broken and unfixable. Maybe that's because my parents taught me the value of a dollar and having something to call my own was a privilege. Or perhaps it's because my family moved around so much while I was growing up that I associate memories with physical items. Since I haven't grown up with the same friends and the same town my whole life I take a little piece of them with me when I leave. Or maybe there's another reason.  What do you think?

The other day Jake made a really cool gift for one of his friends. He held it up and said, "This is awesome, I want to keep it." I think those are the best kind of gifts to give and receive, ones with feeling behind them. I remember visiting a friend a long time ago and telling her how beautiful I thought one her table lamps looked. She said, "You really like it that much? It's yours!" I've enjoyed that lamp for over ten years now. I don't need gifts from people and I don't need them to have some crazy creative idea to impress me. I just figure that if I'm going to have "stuff," it may as well have special memories of friends and family connected to it. Even when I haven't corresponded with good friends for long periods of time, it's nice to think that there's a little piece of them hanging out around me. Does that sound too serial killer-ish? This really turned into a million tangents. What I'm trying to say is, I feel lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life and anything that reminds me of them is worth keeping around.

Homemade drumsticks

Just a regular old day at the Boucher house.  

Jake making drumsticks and adding pots, pans and jars to the drum kit.

Sorensen-Studios.com

Our totally awesome friend Selena took pictures of Jake at his last concert.  As you can see, she's a great artist and photographer.  Check out  her website!

j

Going Gangster

So we got the windows on our Subaru tinted.  I told Jake that if we were going to be traveling across the United States with a bunch of stuff in our car and also sleeping in the back of it, I didn't necessarily want people to be able to see perfectly into our living quarters.  I feel pretty gangster driving this around now.
Hopefully this will also help extract some of the summer time heat from our car and the brightness of oversized truck headlights in the rear view mirror.  Sometimes I think it would be fun to carry around a huge spotlight in our car-- then turn it on and shine it through the back window at trucks that have annoying headlights. Ya, that's my idea of (twisted but fun) good times. Did I mention that my awesome husband also just changed the CV axle in our car? He's amazing. Everyday.

Spokes and Smokes

     This week I noticed 2 people on 2 different occasions riding their bikes around town while smoking a cigarette. Huh?  I guess I don't get it because I've never been a smoker, but the sight of them made me laugh both times. It seems to me like:
     1.) A smoker wouldn't be smoking after choosing a mode of transportation that makes them more aware of their damaged lung capacity.
     2.) If I were going to smoke, or text, or tie my shoes, then I would pull my bike over and get it done before I try and weave my way through traffic.
     Who knows, maybe the bikers were on their last cigarette and their spouse had taken their only car so they had to get to the Maverick gas station ASAP before they ran out of their addiction.  Or maybe they don't even own a car because all their money is being spent on a stinky habit with no positive benefits.
     Whatever their reasons, I'm glad to have seen the smokers on their bicycles because it made me laugh, and I've never heard of there ever being too much laughing happening.  Recently I attended a class on journaling and one idea that was shared was to make a "Laughing Journal."  The idea is to have a separate journal where you write down everything that made you laugh that day.  Then if you ever need a pick-me-up you can go back to that journal and have a good laugh about something!  
     I've started doing this by writing short drafts in my phone of funny things I see happen during the day and then I transcribe the story into my journal when I get home.  I'm liking it... I wonder what my posterity will think of my journaling style change?

The Heaviest Cat T-shirts

I completely forgot to post a picture of the T-shirt I designed for Jake's birthday present! This is the first Heaviest Cat t-shirt ever made, a prototype if you will.  I especially like the enormous cat on the back! It turned out pretty much exactly how I wanted, except the actual shirt is just a little to small for Jake and a little too big for me. Jake said it was okay because he would probably never wear his own bands t-shirt anyway-- I had never thought about it before but that makes a lot of sense.  The Heaviest Cat
It's a really good band name, don't you think?