Short Post – Big Love

Hi sweetie, this is likely a pretty short post.  I am pushing my second night of working until 3AM on the “new business” stuff.  The product is really working well – better than I even imagined!

So while I am working I have my headphones on listening to my iTouch.  It is amazing how song after song reminds me of you or us.  After about an hour I started making tick marks on my tablet to see how many I came across while in random mode.  In just under 4 hours I counted 16 songs.  I am sure that it is just the way I added songs to my ITouch that causes that, but it was still kind of cool.

It does kind of provide proof that i am always thinking about you.  I was thinking about you when i added the songs to my ITouch, thinking about you when I bought most of the CDs and then thinking about you while I listened to them.  All of the songs mean so much to me and it makes me feel like you are here with me.  I like it when you are with me.

Oh well – I am sure you thinking about me all the time too. Right?

You’re the world to me.  I love you more than anything in the world.

A perfect smile

There is this photo i found on my laptop that i decided to make a my new background.  It is likely a picture you don’t like, but I like it.  It was taken in NYC at the airport.  It is you and the younger daughter acting kind of  goofy as we waited for the shuttle to the other terminal.  She is looking at you with a funny grin (kind of that “oh god mommy sometimes you are crazy” look) and you are literally laughing out loud.

So while the picture isn’t perfect the smile on your face is perfect.

Just having it on my desktop makes me smile too.  Thanks from wherever i am right now.

You’re the world to me. I love you more than anything in the world.

You Are Amazing

My love it was so hard to not have you with me on my big day.  I stressed so much about that very fact last night on the plane and as I tried in vane to get a decent nights sleep.  How could I embark on such a very important part of our lives without?  I know that you wished you were here, but I couldn’t get past the fact that you were not.  Not here to meet my new team, see what I have built and celebrate over dinner.

Then this morning you pulled off your magic.  You did the thing that makes you so amazing.  The perfectly placed surprise.  The thing you do so well.  Plan out ways to make things memorable for all of us.  Just the same way you do birthdays and Christmas.

As I reached into my suitcase to get my “t-shirt” there it sat.  The card.  The card that let me know that you not only wanted to be with me, but in our hearts you were with me.  “Stupid Card” it reads “It gets to be with you and I don’t”.  “I love you” it reads.  “…I will be thinking of you…”.

A big tear or 3 suddenly wells up in my eye.  Instantly I am sad that you aren’t here for this big day.  The suddenly it hits me that this card makes me know that you are here with me.  Maybe not physically.  Maybe not able to celebrate with me.  But here with me all the same.  Why?  Because you are always here with me.  And you did it with a perfectly placed surprise.

So  I embarked on my day with you “by my side”.  While I was still nervous, I had with me what I needed.  I had you.  Nothing is more important to me.  Having you be proud of me and excited for me is all I needed.  Because in the end, every thing we do is about US.

You’re the world to me.  I love you more than anything in the world.

MMMM Truffles?

The event at the restaurant this weekend was really amusing.  We have so many great memories and stories that we will be able to share for the next however many decades.  $100 worth of truffles will certainly be one of them.

I did some research on the whole “white truffle” phenomenon and it turns out we may hot actually received a bargain of sorts.  The truffles we ate came from Alba, Italy (from the Ristorante Bartolotta Seasonal Menu website).  In November 2009 a 1.6 lb White truffle sold for $150,000 at the Alba Food Festival in Italy.  They are actually referred to as “the diamonds of the kitchen” by some French guy in the 18th century.

It is the kind of funny story that really good families share forever.  Since we are a really good family we have a lot of those great stories.  So many are funny – funny – funny.  I figured I would break out a top 10 list of sorts to illustrate.  Using acronyms like D1 for the older daughter, S1 for your sister and N3 for the youngest nephew.  You get the picture.  We have to protect the anonymity of the family right?

In no particular order:

1. There was the one time I let you drive home after a night out dancing and drinking.  I remember the stop at Trinity Blvd and 157 and you laughing hysterically.
2. The emergency “stop” at the convenience store after Mexican food in Ft Worth.  You and D2 in the elevator that night was classic.
3. D1 wondering aloud about the weight of her hard drive with all those “heavy” files on copied to it.
4. D2’s continuous efforts to have milk come out of her nose when she laughs (someday she will have to explain this to us).
5. N3 standing up with his head out of the sun roof and “hey my hat!”
6. D1’s first driving experience on the way back from the BBQ place in sunny Mequon.  So much wrong with this story.
7. Your sister finally letting go at the Texas house.  This one night actually deserves several points.  So include in this one N2 and his chain smoking, N1 “impregnating our house” and the invention of the “stage” upstairs for dancing.
8. Shadow and the “dancing” in the backyard.  Yuck.
9. McDonalds just keeps getting further and further away doesn’t it?
10. You ordering essentially 1 of everything on the menu at the IHOP.

There are tons more stories, but these are what came immediately to mind.  Life has been fun together hasn’t it sweetie?

You’re the world to me.  I love you more than anything in the world.

Warmer than Warm (A Surprise Post)

Ok I am on my flight and I was listening to a live Damien Rice concert.  He played the song Grey Room and before the song told the story of the lyrics.

He lamented that he writes his best music when he is really down about life and love.  He hates that. And now that he is on tour basically playing nightly a whole album (genius album) an album he wrote when he was down he thinks his songs have taken a new turn.  Just like a horoscope he is suddenly able to make what was written as sad, sound uplifting.  So he wrote “Grey Room”.

The song is about how when he is down, he knows this “certain someone” who always makes him feel worthwhile.  I gather her name is Desole (see the lyrics below).  Here are the lyrics.  One thought from me to you sweetie - “Warmer than warm, oh yeah” (read below.

“Grey Room” – Damien Rice

Well I've been here before
Sat on the floor in a grey grey room
Where I stay in all day
I don't eat, but I play with this grey grey food

Desole, if someone is prayin' then I might break out,
Desole, even if I scream I can't scream that loud

I'm all alone again
Crawling back home again
Stuck by the phone again
Well I've been here before

Sat on a floor in a grey grey mood
Where I stay up all night
And all that I write is a grey grey tune

So pray for me child, just for a while
That I might break out yeah
Pray for me child
Even a smile would do for now

'Cause I'm all alone again
Crawling back home again
Stuck by the phone again

But I still got you to be my open door
But I still got you to be my sandy shore
But I still got you to cross my bridge in this storm
But I still got you to keep me warm

If I squeeze my grape and I drink my wine
Coz if I squeeze my grape and I drink my wine
Oh coz nothing is lost, it's just frozen in frost,
And it's opening time, there's no-one in line

But I've still got me to be your open door,
I've still got me to be your sandy shore
I've still got me to cross your bridge in this storm
And I've still got me to keep you warm

Warmer than warm, yeah
Warmer than warm, yeah
Warmer than warm, yeah
Warmer than warm, yeah

You’re the world to me.  I love you more than anything in the world.

2010 is an Important Year

Here we go again.  More time apart.  More time where the best we can get together is a phone call or an IM during the day.  By April it will have been 4 years of this back and forth time away from each other.

I can’t wait for it to end.

I left today at 5:15AM.  Drove myself to the airport.  Went through security.  Boarded my plane.  Made “the call”.  And then it hit me.  I missed you.  Yup that quickly.  I looked at my watch (awesome BTW) and it was only 6:10AM.  Not even an hour had passed.

While that may seem like a ridiculous amount of time, I knew what was coming.  The next 3 days I wake up alone.  No wife in the bed next to me.  No trying to quietly take out the puppy and then play with her while you sleep.  I changed my IM status (I have no facebook – so its the best I have) to read “Tomorrow morning is going to suck”.  No one but me knows why.  Well I guess now you do.

Remember when we could claim that we had not spent even a single night apart in our marriage?  That seems so long ago.

I guess you should be flattered.  I really need to be near you.  It makes me so much happier.  I feel so much more a part of your life when i am home.  I want to be with you at home.  Period.

That is why this new business is so important to me.  While the money will be nice, the best part will be having a normal life with you.  It will be so nice to be able to take normal day to day stuff for granted.

So 2010 is the year.  The year we get back to normal.  A life together.  Really together.  No more days away counts.  Scarily we will top 500 days at some point early this year.  500 DAYS!  That is almost a year and a half!  2010 is the “Year of Togetherness” for us.  Count on it.  I will make it happen.

So while this blog entry wasn’t romantic or poignant.  It is important.  I need you to know how important us being together is to me.  How much I want to be with YOU every day.  I just want you to know that is my most important goal for 2010.  It is my resolution of sorts.

You’re the world to me.  I love you more than anything in the world.