week in review.

my week was eventful. fun. and challenging. some highlights that took center stage are as follows,

for some extremely strange reason, i keep thinking about this vintage, forest green volkswagen van that housed a driver in his later years. he sported a scraggly grey and black beard as he drove his cluttered van. his dashboard was covered in 'weeds' of some sort (i don't want to go there), misc papers and an alien bobble head. strange, i know. the strangest part? he wouldn't stop brushing his teeth as he drove. only stopping to turn a corner, he started up his compulsive brushing once he rounded the bend. he wouldn't stop scrubbing. and brushing. scrubbing. brushing. the back of his van was smothered in stickers of various messages - some more questionable than others, i'm sure. for one reason or another, i was fixated to his obsession of brushing and his oddly placed van in traffic. after all, he could be one of your great uncles, grandpa or third cousins twice removed. if so, tell him i said hello. and that i think he's just a little out of the ordinary.

another highlight of my week was the plethora of jessa's oddly funny conversations. she seemed so creative this week in her spouts of toddler intelligence and pensive thought. i shared a good amount of them already, but another that i thought should be patented was this,

jessa: "when i get older, i'm going to grow more hands."

brilliant, baby girl. brilliant.

the winner of the week that takes the challenging trophy had to be the bizarre spout of the flu. but actually, i think i narrowed down the culprit. i have decided it had to be the grape tomatoes i purchased from the grocery store that hailed from mexico. i was only sick for that one day and threw up only four times before my stomach felt fine. with those vividly gruesome details, it just had to be in the food poisoning category as opposed to the flu. right? well, if anything, i learned an important lesson. buy local.

my hurrah moment proudly goes to finding a new thrift store. hurrah! i was directed to it by a neighbor of a different block when i ran into her at starbucks a couple of weeks ago. i finally found the time to hunt it down as i was in the neighborhood. and holy cow! it is HUGE! you're not going to believe this, but i was actually overwhelmed when we stepped foot inside. i took the girls and we covered probably only a quarter of its size. walking away with, of course, a few books, a pair of $.80 dress up shoes for jess and two little tykes chairs that match her other two perfectly, we were quickly and shamelessly won over. i now have three thrift stores within two blocks of each other to "attempt" to stay away from. ha. they're not making it very easy.

my husband moment goes to a sacrificial act of kindness that jacob displayed while being bombarded with loads of full time studies. i started to unload pieces to jessa's second bookcase to put together because yes, our book collection has gotten that out of control. anyway, he doesn't particularly enjoy putting things like that together, probably because he does that kind of stuff all day at work. but he put his books down, popped his eyes back into their sockets and offered for me to step back so that he could quickly assemble it. he did the job in a quarter of the time it would have taken me. jess and i were quickly and happily on our way to filling it with books. it meant so much and encouraged my little heart because i know how stressed and overwhelmed he is with studies right now. thanks hunny, for your thoughtfulness! and sacrifice! love you!

well, i reckon that's enough about my week in review. it also included the usual house work, errands...and oh, a fun trip to the valley twice with friends for shopping. starbucks here and there. a savory bagel shop. dancing with princesses. reading books. cozy fires. movie watching. snuggles. and a long, enjoyable, wisdom-filled, lovely talk on the phone with my dad. i love moments like that.

wishing your week was wonderful and enriching too. without the obsessive-tooth brushing-vw van-driving-old-man. *wink.