the making of me {chapter 2}

"i got an interview at Des Moines." s.mac triumphed.

"oh, honey, if only you could get in there, it is such a good school. i think that is still within driving distance right?" i questioned.

"oh, hon. i can't believe this, they are ranked pretty high and i hear the cost of living is pretty low there, i bet we could get away with out too much student loan debt." he chimes.

"can you believe it? i mean, wow. this is so awesome." i said. i was reveling in the whole process and mostly glad the prospect of pocatello was on its way out the door.

we scrimp and save and purchase the airline ticket for the interview date. the night before he is supposed to leave, the stomach flu hits him harder than an american gladiator. he can't stop throwing up, all night, all day, shaking violently and fevered into delirium. getting ready to leave, with insistance from loving family looking from the outside in, i look him in the eye and say,"not worth it my dear s.mac. call and tell them the circumstances. if they aren't human enough to understand, we don't want to go there."

he cries, and finally agrees.

they rescheduled 3 weeks later because he needed to be here for the birth of his first son, they graciously understood that part too.

right before the flight to iowa, he got the letter from midwestern in arizona. please come, we think you are neat.

"that one is definitely within driving distance h.mac." he lovingly says.

"sure is." i am happy, very happy.

after the des moines interview, our lives will be complete with iowa in it. we can't live without it and must get in there. we tell everyone, we even feel like maybe we should flag down the post man and tell him.

then, the des moines acceptance comes. right before the midwestern interview.

"i got it, i got in, i got in." s.mac rejoices.

i had a very inexpensive apartment picked out, ready to call on.

then he gets back from glendale, AZ at midwestern.

our lives must have midwestern in them, we can't live without it and yes, here is where we are going......

then, the rejection letters from OSU, Oregon Health and Science and Duke. they didn't consider his current job in the medical field....sigh. they don't allow scholastic merit alone........
{he was crushed but never showed it......i only found out years later}

then, the letter from wake forrest in NC. oh mercy, we are in heaven. they want an interview.

then, the acceptance from midwestern. oh, we tell the postman and the grocery clerk along with everyone else we know, this is where we are going. this school is amazing and we CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT MIDWESTERN.

then, the interview with wake forrest. he comes home and wants it bad. real bad. they are amazing, we know some folks out there and i got an hour long video of the place. yes, this is where we will go if we get in.

no immediate acceptance at wake forrest and he gets put on the waiting list. sad, sad, sad.

thru these months there was one place we hadn't heard from. and quite honestly, it was going to cramp our style if the rejection letter from yale came. our conversations wouldn't be the same.


we couldn't say things like, "well, i wish that mailman would hurry and get here, the yale mail is so slow."
or
"well, since we haven't heard from yale yet, i guess we better go to ____ to interview."
it became our common ground for joking and humor. little did we know....

he sits down in the library one day and opens his email only to be greeted by this snippet about YALE UNIVERSITY WANTING AN INTERVIEW! he stood up in the middle of the library and whooped....loudly, in the library, loudly whooping.

then, he calls a very post partum wife and tells her the news. she cries, and replies,"the interview is reward enough for all of your hard work." then, she called everyone she knew, as did s.mac.

i, at this point, knew being post partum in the middle of winter contemplating a large move was going to be emotional. add all of the stress of the school roller coaster and i was a mess. i was mostly alone at this time. s.mac was gone, a lot. tying up loose ends making sure graduation was inevitable. the demands placed on him were just as heavy as the ones placed on me. i am quite sure i was battling a large bout with depression but wanted to get through it on my own. i wanted to work through it and not depend on a pill to get me through. looking back i don't know if that was wise. i was very fragile and the birth of our little guy took a huge tole on my body. it took weeks to be able to walk again as the size of his head has never been on any charts the pediatricians measure by. through many prayers, our own and others, we made it through.

one thing that came up during the whole interview process really made me think hard about who i as a person am.

all my life i was taught we honor and respect the sabbath day. it is a day of rest and worship.
we weren't able to get away much but when we did, i think on our honey moon, we went to an amazing brunch in the park city area. we saved and talked about that being our reward once he got into a school and to celebrate in our own little way, his graduation. after all, i earned a PHT {put him thru}. the only day this particular place hosts this brunch is on sunday. it certainly wasn't common for us to do this but it didn't seem that big a deal as it was a once in 4 year event.
i remember giving that up thinking, if we want great blessings and miracles in our lives we have to live great lives. we can't go to that brunch.
sounds silly, maybe stupid. i'll take it. but i could feel the weight of living right during this critical time. i knew if we wanted great blessings, we had to live worthy of those, even if it was as little as a sunday brunch.

so we never went.

he called me after his yale interview and told me how amazed he was to be there and what an honor the interview was. told me about the beautiful architecture and the buildings in the city. he was telling me about his interview with the program director, mary. he said her questions were straight forward and were really trying to examine who he was as a person. she asked him one particular question that provoked a heartfelt answer. he threw aside all of the interview coaching he had received from numerous sources and gave a heartfelt answer with a very personal meaning too tender to share here publically. he shed some tears, but mostly he conveyed to her who s.mac was. why this career meant everything to him as a husband and a family man. he told me this later in a private and quiet moment. the day of the interview, when i got off the phone with him i went to the computer to balance the checkbook, when i was greeted with our email i saw something from yale. weird, i thought, he just finished his interview, like 3 minutes ago. i clicked it open to see the words acceptance and s.mac in the same sentence. the tears flowed....

i got to make a very important phone call......

my thrifting finds...

i have been on a barstool hunt lately.

we inherited a cosco vintage stool in blue from s.mac's gma when she moved. i fell in love. i have become obsessed with these things. i love the stool, the colors from the time period and just mostly that it says "h.mac"

i have ventured to many antique shops, shows and other arenas one might find some more of this love. i finally ventured to ebay to find a few of them, but they are so heavy that they are a bugger to ship.

so, of course, i find them here, being recreated and brand new. ahhhhh....

yes, one in red, blue and yellow - vintage love

{love letters from h.mac}

dearest "winds of love",

you are the sparkle in my eye. and my little helen the other eye.

i love that you cuddle still, it is cool at 7.

i love how determined you are. case in point, last year you were insistent on short hair when no one had it. this year, all of your friends are sporting a fancy a-line and you have a long pony every day.

i love your gentleness.

i love your giggle, oh that sweet, belly roaring giggle.

i love your eyes, they tell me a story....

i love your cute hour glass figure, that cute little waist and a junky trunk, you couldn't be more lovely.

i love that you are taking piano when all the world seems to be taking dance and you don't want to do both. whew.....

i love when you are tender with bud"e" and helen, oh how they love you.

i love your love for life, there's just not enough time in the day for you.

i love when you were 3 going through your helpful stage of always looking out for others and you told me i should get a jazzy wheelchair and i could get around better. then recited the number to call and the benefits. shortly after, telling me i need new colgate with extra whitening bubble action because my teeth were yellow.

i love how much forgiveness you allow in the way of how i parent you, you make me better



i love your thoughtfulness, like how you gave all of your piggy bank money to UNICEF, that was tender.


i love you and could go on and on.....


much love,



h.mac your motha

a very hapy birthday....

to you!

oh, my little helen.

i love every chubby piece of you.

i know we are both so glad to have the experience of these last 2 years behind us, we now have communication on our side, lovie.

i love how you can now focus all of your incredible intensity on the following:

*kisses and hugs and kisses and hugs
*words
*eating real food, no more momma's milk or the "mawowees" as you so lovingly called it
*marching
*singing
*coloring on papo
*wearing manties{panties} and figuring out why easton was given a squirt gun and you weren't
*holding hands when we go places
*saying no and meaning it
*being such a bright spot in our lives

the last weeks have been like day and night with her. the kid inside is coming alive and making me see that one day, she might have a sibling. {one day -very, very futuristically speaking}

happy birthday helen, we love you and every part that comes with it!

am i the only one...

in love with amy butlers new mikasa line?

{pics courtesy of amy butler design}

the making of me {chapter 1}

"if you could choose dear, where out of anywhere ,would you want to go to school?" said s.mac

i was busy, although i can't remember the exact task, so it was something said in passing.

"well, i heard martha stewart lives in connecticut, maybe that would be nice."

not really thinking too much about that particular statement i felt a little warm fuzzy inside thinking i was grateful he would think of me. truth be told, any mention of moving anywhere with a 2 year old and a baby in my belly ever growing made my head spin.

i had never lived anywhere but at the foot of the rocky mountains. not to mention i had never lived on my own. life elsewhere only happened in the movies for me. before s.mac and i were married i had lived solely with my parents. many reasons kept me there. 2 being a sister and a brother that were only 1 and 2 when i graduated high school. i feared them never knowing me well if i left right out of high school for college. i also had a steady beau who kept me tied to the area. so, here we were, years later, pondering moving somewhere. not knowing where, but surely putting faith in a process so much bigger than us.

the next day i got a daily phone call from s.mac saying,"you'll never believe what school in connecticut has a PA program."

"where" i replied.

"yale."

we both died laughing. and i am sure there was some joke made about majoring in playing tennis or croquet with a stiff collar.

"i actually meet the requirements hon, i think i am going to apply."

i never thought to look on the map, nor study the geography of it. i was up to my elbows in basement living, 2 year old tantrums, diapers day in and day out and a whole lot of making it on my own. his undergrad was busy and we made a lot of sacrifices. i had my eyes set on his graduation from the local university that had taken 4 long years to get through. we were married the month before his 4 year undergrad journey began. 4 years of taking every semester the college offered, s.mac working to be the top of his class for 2.5 of the 4 years thinking he would be taking on medical school. here we were, the summer before leaving to go to some unknown destination and praying we would get it right. yale was the farthest thing from my mind.

the summer of 2003 was spent solely working on applications and research for every school that offered a PA program. we were shooting for the university of idaho in pocatello, id. that was where we envisioned ourselves and thought anything better than that would be a step up. not that there is anything wrong with that school. it didn't have the clinical experience s.mac was looking for but we had a limited budget- okay that's a joke. we had a below poverty budget. i had quit working my part time job to be with our little "winds of love" and the bud "e" growing in my belly. our goal was to have our car paid off that we could take to school with us and once we hit that goal, i quit. s.mac was working part time as a clerk in the radiology department and going to school full, full time. like 21 credit hours his senior year, he is a determined fella. so, back to the budget. the more schools you apply to, the more green that needs to be in your radar. we needed one ace in the hole and U of I was it for us. s.mac studied very carefully 11 schools he was qualified for, looked at the acceptance pattern and settled on those specific schools. yale being mostly a joke, humoring me.

the application process began. we didn't even know a PA. s.mac had seen them in passing at the hospital. we figured it was our way of having a family life and s.mac fulfilling his medical dream.

we were young and naive when we were married, i don't think that is abnormal. s.mac is goal oriented and i have a lot of intense energy. together we get things done and take a lot on. by our first year of marriage we were preparing for a new baby girl that we were over the top thrilled to be having. i was mostly relieved to have a good excuse to quit a job i considered to be on my list of worst years of my life list, if one exists. well if it does, that time in my life spent at the alarm company would be at the top of the list. thank goodness s.mac rescued me from that. by the third year of marriage we found ourselves overjoyed to be blessed with 2 babies as at one point in my life i was told it would be next to impossible to ever have any kids bearing my genetic make up. we lived thin and loved large to make up for the things we didn't have. it was a hard time for both of us. life came at us fast, ever cliche but ever true.

one night in the winter months of 2002, s.mac came to me after years of having his sights set on medical school and told me that it wasn't the life style he wanted anymore. he worried about the tole it would take on our marriage as we rarely saw each other as it was. he was in a lost state. he took a few months wondering what career choice would fit the family lifestyle he longed for best. he loved teaching. he looked into it and after seeing the reality of not being able to keep a wife at home with the kids that was quickly abandoned. that was a big deal to us.

sometimes i wish we would have had more support when we were pursuing the medical school dream. all we were bombarded with were divorce statistics, memories told of never seeing a dad even on christmas because rounds were being made and doctors bombarding s.mac with talk of not making the same career choice if they had to do it again. i look at the amazing people we have met that have gone thru medical school, internship and residency and know if we would have had the right circumstances it would have been okay. we are happy how things have turned out however. there is that part of me that is still tugged at when s.mac comes home from work being approached by doctor after doctor who tell him to go back because he has what it takes. that part of me still mourns that for him. at the same time, fills me with love knowing what he gave up to see more of us.

i suggested one day that maybe he should look into PA school. i knew the schooling was significantly shorter than that of an MD and he would still be able to dabble in the field that made his smile curve in just the right way.

so he did. and forever grateful am i for that life altering decision.

{a new weekly installment}

for a long long time, well about two years now, a project has been brewing in my wee little head.

a project including all of my life altering experiences that happened to me in new haven, CT {sniff, sniff, weepiness happens at the mention}

i had the chance to visit with gma helen a week or so back. one of my favorite things.

she was talking about a family member who had a rough childhood and how in the depths of their self inflicted misery was taught a very life improving lesson by a hard decision imposed on him by his mom. grandmas statement about this particular story has rolled around in my head for a few weeks. she said, that tough love was the making of oliver {names changed to protect the innocent}.

i have had the chance to think about the making of me.

i've been fortunate enough to be given a lot of amazing tools thru out my life and our journey in connecticut was the making of me. i got to use all of the tools i was given in a really tough situation. thru it i found who i was, what i loved and what made me happy.

i have always wanted to write a book about how that experience shaped me but as that sounds too lofty i always put it off, so thru the course of many, many weekly installments, a blog book will be born.......

the latest thrift find...

came from a new thrift store that opened up about 10 minutes away, {locals email me, it is a killer find}

anyway.

bill the dad called me and said h.mac, go to the salvation store now. there is a old tin flour bin that you will want for your new kitchen and it is $5.99, it's good. thrilled every part of me was.

admission: i don't usually peruse thrift stores. i once had to sort stuff at a local one on a volunteer basis and after my friend natalie opened a bag with living things flying from it, i had halted all charity shopping.

my love of kitchen items got the better of me - so, after i grabbed the tin i shuffled with the kidlets thru to the kitchen part. and i found these beauties.

when i got home i looked on the back to find a made in england label with florentine on them. after some searching i found they are hot babies {thanks bill the wise dad}

there are 12 pieces, just right for the eclectic collection i already have going.

more vintage goodness coming next week as i have enough to last for a few months worth of posts....

the anger boils over....

sometimes i get to feeling mad about something. and sometimes i can't put a finger on exactly what......

sometimes i feel plain angry. i was wondering why today, when i was feeling my blood boil about an outrageous phone and cable bill, why i couldn't let it roll off my back. no, instead of letting it roll, i gave into the feeling and cancelled the cable, on the spot.

customer service, if you are not being sympathetic to the error you made to the tune of hundreds of dollars and you refuse to credit me for it, i am canceling. they didn't care and it made me more mad. i held my voice down, but indeed my cheeks {which by the way are growing ever fat with this cold weather, have you seen the yummy recipes here} were bright red and blood was rushing thru me. i told the cable guy, give me a minute here while i gather myself so that i don't yell and you don't go home in a bad mood. he still didn't care, he had all of my money.so i showed him, i cancelled.....
and i showed my point even further by telling the kids what gomers work at the cable company and how they were being dishonest and we are going to show them. their tears haven't stopped. (we've only had cable a few months and it has made us LAZY)
then,

my family must be part whale. when i clean the toilets i feel like they must sing the song, "splish splash" and let's just say, the males in this house are no longer allowed to stand with the rest of the bathroom using male population. the men folk here have been banished to sitting unless they want to be on splash removal, i am done.

and yet another.....

while i love my husband, i do, i do. when i am angry, he snorts too loud, chews wrong and slurps too much. and i say, h.mac, s.mac is simply eating, you have to chew to eat. but something about his loud mastication unnerves my blood to no end. i do, however, keep my mouth shut. i know i am the problem.

so, tonight, after questioning s.mac's laundry procedure of shoving 27 pair of pants into the small washer, i said - ahah! i know the problem.

i haven't blogged for 2 weeks, and blogging makes me look at life happily instead of the above.

glad to be back.

in my blogging mind i would translate the above as the following:

no more cable! yay! we can be a family again and talk and fight and go outside and play, whew!

maybe the next family night will entail target practice with cheerios for the boys....

and i am just happy a husby is happy to help his little wifey, even if it entails sniffing, overloading, loud mastication and snorting......

so, there you have it.
the males here at the mac house might be joining the standing world again soon.....

the making of be {by chapter}

click on each of the chapter headings to read

chapter 1



chapter 2



chapter 3



chapter 4



chapter 5



chapter 6



chapter 7

did you see the contest...

my marbles won?

no, go here and check it out!

go hella......

to redeem myself....

okay. so the haircut.

no, she didn't get a hold of the scissors.

it was me, really. what was i thinking?

i'll tell you what....

1960 campbell soup girl haircut.

i was cutting from looking at a weird angle and not head on. i about died when she looked up at me, really. i was in fits, giggling then wanting to cry in the next breath.....

then, an image of maria von trapp entered my mind,

only to be followed by marbles.

what, you have never seen marbles, you are not living my friend.....

anyway, we are pinning and hiding the bangs for a while and hopefully before her 2nd birthday in a few weeks, they'll be picture worthy!

i weep watching this, {everytime}

weep with me here....

bowl cut.....

oops, we might be pinning them for a couple of days........

{love letters from h.mac}

dear mom,





i love you.





i love that you had any children after the trauma of my birth, it would've scared me spitless.





i love that you made me a hot breakfast every day of my {living with you} life.





i love that you had six kids because you knew that is what a higher power called on you to do, not because it was easy. that fills me with hope and happiness when noses are runny.





i love that you and dad instilled in us all a deep love for every living thing that surrounds us. it helps when a stress free escape from this tired momma is needed and i can feel happy enjoying a tree.





i love that you cooked a meal every night and had it ready by 5:00, that made me love food and appreciate how much you must have loved us.





i love that you never try to sugar coat anything, even if it doesn't make me happy.





i love that when i almost married someone other than s.mac, you didn't say a word and let me figure it out myself, even tho it was painful.





i love that you taught us fierce independence, even tho i come over and call a lot......





i love that we can laugh ourselves into a spitting, snorting oblivion. i love making and hearing you laugh.....





mostly, a letter can't express all my love and thanks, but a shot in the dark is better than nothing at all.......





much love,


h.mac

6 quirks....

really? okay. brooke tagged me, and so i will impart.

{6 quirks}

* i am sentimental to a fault, hence crying when i think and old house won't have an appreciative owner. my gma helen says that's okay to be so sentimental. anything means everything to me, and i am proud of it...

* i am scared spitless to have another baby, really, spitless.... {i don't know if i'll make it thru, and the other part of me is desperately baby hungry, not enough yet mind you}

*i am pretty lax on a lot of things. i am really good at prioritizing and saying, this is totally not worth ruining my day over, sorry i can't go to 49 things today, and i don't feel guilty about it.

* i waste endless amounts of time thinking about the SLR camera i will never own. canon or nikon?

*i ponder if i will work when my kids grow up and wonder what i want to be, a lot. i would love to teach but worry i will be burned out, maybe hair, hmm i do love photography though? i think about it all the time.....

* although i am constantly propositioned to go into the food catering industry, i will NEVER do it. well, not on anyone elses terms. i cook with so much love, it would have to be appreciated, A LOT. possibly a small cafe with limited hours, just to keep me happy when the kids leave me. but, no dinners, no receptions. i only cater for those i love. so, there you go. i give a killer shower and paige, maybe your reception and/or wedding dinner......... {it pays to be my friend, i will fatten you up in no time}

13 years ago......

if you would have told me i was going to have 3 kids, i would have cried in unbelief.

true story...

many of my young years being told {miracles of mighty means might all work together in your behalf and grant you one little babe.......}

in the early years of motherhood, every day was such an experience for me after spending many days thinking of being without....


but since the last grand entrance of my little hella, there are days my mind can't recall being stricken with thoughts of being barren.......

i have been reflecting and trying to change my burdened attitude of parenthood......

i think sometimes when you are in the depths of diapers, shoes {who knew shoes lost and found could cause such extreme highs and lows from a mother?}, unwanted meals, tears, fits and baths it is super easy to loose sight and hope from things like*

*tying their own shoes
*doing their own hair
*cleaning themselves in a hygienically acceptable manner
*getting their own meals if mandatory
*cleaning the dirty toilet

and on and on.

thoughts of future tasks conquered from my kids bring me extreme highs and then the lows to accompany, like*

moving out
college
grand kids
weddings
missions
discovered strengths

such a journey, parenthood, and~{ how lucky am i that three are in my life right now }

i will gladly take what i can get.........

so proud....

of my winds of love.

she is so grown up.

today, i got to listen to the kidlets as i laid in bed {with a migraine, blah}. i was in bad shape and knew that she could handle things.

it was such a warming thing to hear her get hella some lunch, change her diaper and get her dressed. okay, the dressing part was hilarious...... because, my little hella is a fashionista. she must pick it out and no matter if you line up 49,0000 million outfits in a pretty little line, she yells, "on, ON, ON" and throws a fit until you let her pick what she wants to wear from the pajama drawer. winds of love was so patient and loving with her. lifting her up to see everything in the drawer until she settled on 2 mismatched items she loved and squealed with delight to put on.

and who knew a 7 year old could change a diaper? not this mom. and she did draw the line at a dirty but was happy to do the damp removal. and you know....

as barney and friends as this sounds, she was so happy to help. i thought from my sick bed about the whole concept and felt warm and fuzzy for a minute and said, yes, everything about this is right. the end.

saturday bliss......

is getting a call from a friend informing you of a local home show going on.

not a new house to grace this show, no siree. only my most favorite kind...

HISTORIC!!!!!
yay, now let me impart what i loved, come along if you like....

the owners of the house we are recreating let us in!!!!


the entry had me at hello!

the shutters, the wood detail......mmmmm
that perfectly round BAY, OH MERCY!
the creeping chimney
those perfect dormers...
okay, now onto the heritage home show, sorry, i got side tracked....

i love a good built in.....
isn't that crown fancy? i was drooling...
everyone needs a pretty yellow door with some bead board in their cooking space..
we loved the woodwork and detail in the dining room....
aaaahhh, and open airy stairwell.
large jetted tubs are for the birds! we all need a claw foot tub to unwind with at the end of the day!
a copper kitchen hood send me into weepiness....
open exposed beams make me want to sing an opera~!
pretty rounded windows are so comforting.......
i love built ins, i love them, i love them......
okay, you are getting me started on the quirky room lines...........
another sitting window, the good books that have surely been read there...
and the built ins below the window seat.....
the lighting is dark, but i love the 3 windows above the kitchen sink....
built ins, built ins, built ins....
pretty roof lines and that blue, happy spot.
pretty metal flower boxes that say "WELCOME"
pretty bay windows and plantation shutters, let us all partake of plantation shutters..
the end. thanks for coming along. are you weepy? i am.....

got grunt?

no, well some people on the first sunday of every month do.

it is a joke among some people i love who will remain nameless, ahem.

but, it is a problem I think a presidential candidate should address.

in our church, once a month we fast for 2 meals, then donate the money we would have used for those meals to the welfare fund to help families in need. this is a wonderful thing, and it is a good for the soul practice.

but, coming with it is something never spoken of on sunday, and....

it should be.

when you wake up in the morning if you have any fries in your happy meal, you brush your teeth, right?

and, if that doesn't help because you have halitosis, why then, you take to the altoids, the wrigley's, the spearmint or for pete's sake eat a mint leaf!!!!!

because when you don't, you get the grunt. that is what it smells like, GRUNT.

so, please people, save yourself, save others and get a mint, STOP GRUNT BREATH!

a burning inferno....

happened at my brothers wedding. a very exciting wedding might i add. i mean, it was the first in my family since mine, hello, there are 3 kids involved now or something. anyway......

my mother had instructions. a brown dress. a brown dress for the mother of the groom must drape your body to make all our dreams come true....
{and they did, you can see it here}

it seems simple enough, but not to my mom. no, she knows every strength and weakness on her body. she knows exactly where to shop and what to buy. she always looks great. unfortunate that i didn't inherit that like to dress up and look nice gene isn't it? anyway, i am working on that.

bill the dad took her shopping every saturday from the announcement of the engagement.

h.mac the daughter and paigey lou took her cyber shopping to every cyber shop possible.

ash the in law suggested every shop from here to space trying to find what she would feel her best in.

in fact, i bought a brown dress just because i had looked at every brown dress ever to grace a machine and felt the need to be in brown....

and then...

{finally} she found something. she wasn't head over heels for it mind you. in fact, she was keeping it as a stand by unless something else grabbed her and wrestled her to the ground screaming {mother of the groom, mother of the groom}!

mind you, nothing else did.

so, the day of.....

my mother and i didn't get the picture orders right. no, we were dense as to the fact that we needed to be dressed on the temple grounds in our appropriate attire, so we wore regular sunday best. suddenly realizing our oversight, we rushed in to change making everyone wait, sorry.

the day wore on and my mom received more compliments on her dress i tell you. it was really beautiful. as we were winding down the day, we were sending the bride and groom off with some sparklers in a little arms raised tunnel for them to walk thru.

now, by this time, my mom has decided she really likes this dress, yes, it was a good choice she thinks. maybe i will wear it again.

this thought was quickly extinguished when i heard, "the mother of the groom is on fire!"

yes, in our sprinkler tunnel splendor, a stray spark flew into her arm, burning every part of the sleeve it touched. hole after hole as a glowing red ember smoked its way thru her new found fashion statement. we were expecting tears and sadness to cover her face, but instead, incessant giggles from her, me and all who were in on the fashion saga..........

bent over, giggles and giggles, slobber and eyes watering.......

{love letters from h.mac}

dear co-parent,

i love you sister.

you are who my kids call mom when i am absent.

i love your grandma norma instincts that endear you to every child that comes within 10 feet of you.

i love how anticipated your arrival in our family was.

i love that we shared that big huge bed until i up and married s.mac, even though you peed the bed sometimes and i always said "oh hell paige".

i loved your crooked little eye and cute glasses as a baby and love your pretty patch free eyes today.

i love that you were worth every day of the 16 years i had to endure 3 brothers before i got a highly anticipated sister.

i love that you will have 10 children one day {unless of course my darlings have scared you senseless} and that i will hire a nanny to pay you back {c'mon i'll be worn out by then!}

i love your beauty, your beautifully lit eyes make me happy.

i love that in all the pictures i had of you, i never, ever found you alone, always like this....



much love,
h.mac

announcing...

a coupon class, here at my house with the world's genius on coupons.... HER!

next thursday night at 7:00 P.M.

come near, come far - JUST COME!

email me directly to let me know you are coming and spread the word too.....
{ i have a good large gathering space }

scott4heidi@aol.com

i know i have spoken of the power of coupons before as a great way to get your food storage and such but there is also an extreme high that comes with it too....

{even if you are a lurker and have never met, there will be no better place to meet}

see you there,
h.mac


p.s. there will be a grocery give away that will boggle your mind as well as some FOOD!

{love letters from h.mac}

dear mountain man,

i think you are rad.

you have been the funnest friend and best compadre an older sister could ask for.

i love how you love the mountains and how happy they make you.

i love how you flew across the country to visit my lonely family many times.

i love that even though hella was so sick in this picture you still wanted the picture despite the screams and face smacks you received.

i love that you love my kids into a silly oblivion.

i love that when you were innocent and unknowing you let me drag your diapered bottom around the house by your ragged little ankle. {oh the fun i had}

i love how you would always insist on your top button done up all thru jr. high.

mostly brother, i love how we are still friends. thru the thick and thin of life, we still like each other and enjoy being apart of one anothers lives...

much love,
h.mac

don't you think...

these items would be so classy....


{dishwasher below}

in this kitchen?

yep. so do i!