Everyone Needs a Hug, Right?

I come from a long line of huggers.  Everyone in my family… bunch of huggers.  Trees and people alike, we’re non-discriminatory as long as our arms are wrapped around something.

This was a little awkward for the Davester, both the hippie tree hugger stuff and the actual hugging. 

His family? They don’t really do the hug. I think that has softened a lot with grandchildren though, there seem to be a lot of hugs going round lately.

My family? Everyone hugs.  I’m guessing every time I see my mom or dad, I hug them, same with my siblings.  There has been a long standing joke that the Janet gave Dave and my ex-brother in law a hug when we were in St Martin. While wearing a bikini.  Henceforth known as the mother-in-law bikini hug, it still makes all of us laugh.

We’re huggers. 

I’ve had this discussion with my girlfriends, how I find it odd that people don’t hug.  Mostly because Nikki and Noelle are notorious anti-huggers, so is my friend Amy, and I feel compelled to make sure I hug them just for that very reason.  {By the way, Nik, prepare yourself, the hug it is coming.}  For me, it seems like such a natural thing to do.  I think sometimes, it’s just an assumption that, of course everyone behaves in a certain way, because your family does.  Maybe though hugging doesn’t feel like a natural thing to do for you?    

Hugger or non-hugger?  Does your family hug?  Your friends?

Finnisms.

Dave: Quit throwing your pliers!

Finn:  It’s like an orangutan.

Dave:  What?

Finn: Ya know.  Like an orangutan.  Wooosh then it comes back.

Dave: I think you mean a boomerang.

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Finn:  My dad never lets me eat Jimmy Johns and it’s my favorite.

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Finn:  I don’t even want to get married, I just want to stay with you.

{I am guessing I don’t have very long for him to feel this way, but I’ll take it.}

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Finn had a conversation with my brother Christopher about the fact that we won’t let him get rollerblades… except he has never even asked either of us for rollerblades.

Finn:  My mom and dad are so mean.  Well, not my mom that much, but my dad is.

This made my brother laugh so hard because he obviously knows that Dave is totally the nice one and I am the mean one.

The Dish.

I have a house ‘to do’ list a mile long.  Please tell me I am not the only one this happens to, you make a list and then life gets in the way and you just stop seeing the glaring mess in front of your eyes.  Desensitized to the fact that you have twelve sippy lids that no longer have cups.  Dave and I are making our way through the list and one particularly nagging item was to re-arrange our everyday dishes cabinet.  Another project I eventually want to tackle is painting the inside of the cabinets like Megan did, though I am definitely not brave enough to take the doors off.

Our kitchen is small and we both love to cook, so that we let this go for so long is absurd because we are aware that space is at a premium.  It had become a catch all for all kinds of miscellaneous items that didn’t belong.  I’m super short so it’s hard for me to reach the things on the top shelf which is exactly where things like Tate’s plastic dishes and the coffee cups are stored.  Things we use daily.  If that wasn’t enough of a reason, do you see those shelves bowing in the middle?  The middle supports had broken off, oh ten years ago?  It was a porcelain accident just waiting to happen.

Worst housekeeper ever.

So Dave and I took everything out and started over.  I lined the back of the cabinet with a thick, matte wrapping paper I bought at Old Navy years and years ago, just because it makes me happy.  It was a good compromise to wanting to paint the cabinets and knowing that wasn’t in the cards at the moment.  Dave replaced the center brackets and we re-configured shelves to be a better fit for smaller items.  We moved everything that we use daily to the lower shelves and all of the less frequently used items to the top.  All of my bigger entertaining pieces, cake stands, platters and such are stored on shelves in the basement.

I keep going in there and taking a peek, wondering why we put this off for so long.

Moo.

Weird things make me smile.  It is probably why I am friends with all of you.

Our house is filled with quirky little things.  There is art in the bathroom.  We have a real, live, fruit producing lime tree in our kitchen.  For ages, until I let my sister have it, we had an art deco desk serving as our entertainment center.  A sundial side table sits next to a chair in the living room.  And the most hideous plastic beaver you will ever see in your life hangs out in our garden.

Dave doesn’t understand things like sundials in the living room acting as a table.  In his world, a sundial belongs outside in the sun telling time and a table is a table, damn it. So you can understand that when, exactly one year ago today, I purchased this cow that matches nary a dish in this whole house, Dave would be confused.

It’s a cow.  A cow creamer.  Get it??  Milk.  Out of a cow.  I mean, it’s her mouth, but Dave, it is magnificent.  Don’t you love it?

Davester? Wasn’t so enamored with the cow.  As with most things that make me ecstatically happy for no reason whatsoever, he smiled, shook his head, muttered under his breath, and the cow came to live at our house.  He even puts up with the fact that every time we open our cabinet, that cow is staring him right in the face.

Moo.

I for one, love this cow.  She is a such a jaunty little fellow.  Isn’t she?

So obviously, you will be on my side when a poor cow-matching-rooster was sitting all alone on a shelf just waiting for his forever home a year later and made his way into my cart?

I’m thinking of having a whole menagerie.  Look.  They are friends already.  Don’t tell Dave.

You would totally come to my house for coffee, wouldn’t you?