weekly gratitude

thank you thrifted ll bean boots for traction on my icy porch
((photo from instagram @laurenjeanallece))

For anyone who follows me on Pinterest, I'd like to take this moment to officially apologize for taking over your feed last night. 

A while back, I found myself with a newly devised yet entirely unintentional system: like now, pin later. It was going swimmingly until I realized my "likes" were getting out of control (let's take a moment here to really think hard about these and other first-world problems, shall we?). Anyway, last night in a bout of apparent and transient insomnia I hopped to it... And I think I pinned about a hundred things in the span of two hours (including plenty of stuff to private boards - anyone else out there love that feature as much as me?).

Anyway, now that we've got that cleared up, onward with things of some actual substance...

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1. Thank you for Frankie & Matty getting married Friday night! Pictures to come soon, but let me just say for now what a wonderful, perfect day it was. Starting with the enormous and delicious brunch they cooked up for us that morning (goodness gracious, they need to open a B & B), followed by a seriously entertaining car ride up to Vancouver with Jared behind the wheel (alternating between standstill traffic and him peeling around cars to get into the carpool lane, followed by him shouting "Carpool violator!" every time he saw someone riding alone in said lane), which ended in a fantastic meal at Blue Olive downtown (oh hey, amazing house cocktails for $7.50, how you doin'?) and Jared pushing Dean over the edge. 

2. Thank for this delicious crisp, cold weather. And this:

3. Thank you for time to read! So this time of year is not exactly prime wine tasting season, I get it. It's cold, the roads are icy, maybe it's not the best time to be drinking wine. Totally fine by me because it gives me the chance to read at work (because there is only so much dusting, wine-rotating and cheese-eating you can do in a day). I read Forgotten God last Monday when - I kid you not - not a bloody soul came in all day until fifteen minutes before we close. Yeah, 4:45pm... I see headlights in the driveway. I nearly croaked. But whatever, they were super nice people and it was a good note to end the day on. So win-win. Also, you should read Francis Chan. He's amazing and I miss the days of hearing him speak in person very much. 

4. Thank you for this:

These kids are incredible and this song makes me cry. There. I said it. I cry when I'm sad, sure, but when I'm pushed to joy? Good Lord. Literally. I'm a mess. 

5. Thank you for my upcoming trip to California! I'll be back in the homeland in one week and I've not been this excited to go to California in a long time. It's a good feeling. 

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For my closing statement, go see Django Unchained. Jared and I went to see it last week and I'm pretty sure neither of us has been able to stop talking about it since. Or listening to John Legend.