Happy Anniversary. (almost) 11 years Married. Happy.

Just finished my little creative card thingy for Keith, my husband of nearly 11 years. Friday, the 23rd is the actual anniversary date. This Weekend we'll have a date, eat good food. We'll get to hang out just the two of us. I totally look forward to it.

old scanned photo. bad quality. here we are in 1996 though.

 I love this guy. We met in 1996, well, 1995 really, but more officially in 1996. He's my best friend. I adore his being. I hate when he is not around. The life we have is good, happy, loving. 

But, when anniversary time rolls around I always stress over what to write, make, or do. As I finished this year's card I was thinking it wasn't expressive enough. I can't ever get OUT what I want to SAY. I know it's cliche but you just can't put it into words. Or maybe it's just my lack of college degree. probably. I should read more.

really though, I want to give this man the universe. I really do. Stressing over a card and how I'll make it witty or creative and romantic is, well, not really worth all that much. Certainly not the universe. What I really need to do, what I must strive for as our years of marriage continue is being in the moment with this man more.

Less: "Shit, can you grab a pack of toilet paper?!?!" more: looking into his eyes. (I am literally sideways smiling about thinking about that right now)

I think this photo was on another blog post but I love it so here it is again.

Less: "Goddammit we have ANTS!" more: paying attention to the temperature & feel of the skin on his hand while we sit next to each other.

New Years Eve 2010.

Less: "I guess I am the only one that can fill a Brita pitcher in this house" more: thank yous, for the multitude of things he does for me, for us, for our family. 

Less: hurried smooches and quick "I love yous" in passing. More: hugs goodbye like the ones on super duper bad days, but on the days that are good too.

At Longwood Gardens, Last month.

I need to embrace this man's soul (wait that sounds creepy) AH crap, I need to be more in the moment with him. And that's what my 11th anniversary gift should be. Will be.

Hiatus and what I've learned so far...

I sigh aloud, but the good kind of sigh- of relief. I have wanted to explain my closing shop actions since doing it weeks ago. I still can't really give public details, but I was sidelined by circumstances beyond my control. it happens. To a crafter in their first year of serious business, LLC creation and determined hard work, well, it was a blow. It is wonderful to see the public embracing the giving of homemade goods this season. I truely do wish my hair accessories could be more of a part of that. You can still find a few at Verve Hair Studio in Lancaster and The Lancaster Hodge Podgery, and if you are in Alaska Babes in the Woods also carries Peachy Tuesday. I have been doing my best not to think about how it makes me grind my teeth that they could have been more places...

Another sigh, still slightly relieving with a heart palpitation of irritation on the back end.

I admit the time off has been mostly really super awesome. This time to be freer, more at ease, less stressed, is great, wonderful, healthy. It has given me more time to pay attention to my health, home, husband, children and of course other crafty stuff I never had time to work on! I have even gotten into work at my desk job a few extra hours (twice!) over the past two weeks.

I think Peachy Tuesday will be, less, when she returns December 13th. I think her owner needs to be a hobbyist, not because I think that's what would sell her the most stuff. It will need to be that way for my reasons, personally. They may not be pioneering the Indie Craft movement anyplace, they may not sound the most passionate, but in reality, they are, so Passionate. What I am most passionate about is love. I feel lucky to be blessed with so much love in my life. I adore my family, my home, my husband most in this life. I want to, need to, cultivate that foremost. I want Peachy Tuesday to be a facet that makes us glimmer as the homebody family we are, not make us clouded because Mommy is sitting at the computer or making things tirelessly all the time.

What do I love about my business? When people love my creations and can see the time and heart that went into them. I love when I make a customer happy. I'll still do that. I just won't be shoving the stuff down everyone's throat via facebook posts and I am so DONE with Twitter. I'll keep my fans updated using facebook just not All The Time. My guess is that it won't even change my sales. Either way, I don't care.

ps: That date (12/13) is concrete, so if you wanted to give a Peachy Tuesday items for a holiday gift visit one of the places mentioned above before 12/13 or jump on my shop that day for open-ness. I'll do my best to ship things super duper fast!

Thanks to all of those that are aware of more details about my temporary closing and have sent words of encouragement, and support. I cherish you all very much. Again, I am lucky to have all of you.

10 Years of Married

This post was not planned. I just felt like writing about my anniversary, my husband, my marriage, my life today.

This day 10 years ago I married a wonderful guy. He's sensitive, caring, loving, funny, bold, handsome, creative, inspiring and on and on...At this time 10 years ago I was completely worried about the rain that was coming out of the gray skies, onto the pretty white chairs lined up for our upcoming afternoon ceremony.  The guys helped to dry chairs off before people arrived to watch us vow publicly what we knew long ago.

Ten years flew by faster than any cell in my body ever could have imagined. I love sharing the whirlwind speedy life with my partner, my fairy tale prince, my friend. We have a good life, we fit each other rather perfectly. We have are easy with each other. I guess we accidentally found this ease to work nicely these ten years. Well, and to be honest for the years before those too.

It stopped raining for the ceremony. Those rainy, gray morning skies turned out to be a blessing of bright white light for the photographer. We said our words to each other, holding back tears of joy.

side note: That is one huge regret I have about the wedding. I should have just cried! I am rather and expert at swallowing back and holding down tears and bawls. In my defense, I was doing what came easiest. BUT! I should have let them fall that day, it would have been perfectly fine and less odd-looking on the video. I was repeatedly swallowing and blinking like a wacko...I guess it's something to laugh about now.

 What have I learned in a 10 year marriage? what has the easiness taught me? Inadvertently, it has instructed me to take care...even the smoothest of relationships require careful attention to detail. This partnership still requires special isolated moments. Dedicated smiley moments, thoughts, words, actions to remind one another what got us to this easy place.

I think we do a pretty nice job keeping up with finding those snippets of this fast paced life. We stop and look into each other's eyes and silently remind one another how we adore sharing it with a person like them.

I took some moments yesterday to compile all the images I could find of Keith and I together over the past 10 years. I added our "first dance" song from our Wedding reception. I thought I'd share it with you today. The song is rather fitting if I do say so myself.

Fairy Tales and Shadow Boxes

Hey, just wanted to say, I am a hopeless romantic. 110%.
I believe in fairytale endings and if they don't happen I am sad/pissed/disgruntled.

My husband, Keith and I were a "fix up" couple. I was hesitant to meet him, this was certainly not how I pictured a fairy tale to play out.

He was enamoured with me months before, but I was 'taken' at the time. I was sitting in a basement at a punk rock show, his brother's first show actually. I had a grumpy look on my face. I had fought with my, then, live in boyfriend the whole way to this show, who knows about what? doesn't matter, we always fought. Keith was apparently staring at me the whole time. I didn't know it.

Fast forward 5 months. Live in beau & I are split. I live alone, paying rent with my credit card. I am SO over men & relationships. I am giving up on fairy tales. I vow to just be alone, and am liking it! (despite not being able to pay my bills appropriately). I just did not want to meet him.

Begrudgingly, I decided to go ahead and meet Keith. He greeted me with a black eye and a brown UPS tee. He looked right in my eyes a few times lending pure electric. He said goodbye with a hug... and I was a goner.



From there we got to know one another through a long distance relationship. For a year we wrote (real paper snail mail) letters and had a nice long phone conversation once a week. This was LONG before email and cell phones. I adored the letters. I looked forward to the phone talks. One of us would travel the 4 hours to visit one another every other week. After a year of bliss, we moved in together in the outskirts of Pittsburgh. In another year we moved back "home" to Lancaster County together.

I could go through our history in more detail, but just know this:
I still believe in fairy tales. We have evolved ours to not have a happy ending but a happy eternity.

On our first wedding anniversary we put together a shadow box. The box, from Ikea. Inside are flowers from my wedding bouquet, A wedding program & invitation. A few photos of us on our Wedding day. A pack of matches with one of the phrases we used in our vows "this day i will marry my friend" It was given to us from a close friend, and Usher in the wedding. We did this as part of our one year anniversary "date". We also ate our cake top with was still really friggin' good!!

Since filling the interior of the Shadow box I have added various things on top. The candle was the first gift Keith ever gave me. The change purse, from our Honeymoon in Vegas. The cork from our 9th anniversary dinner. The card, one of many Keith has made for me over the years.





So are you a romantic? I'm a sucker for a good love story!

In addition, Have no idea what to do on your anniversary? Need a special handmade gift idea? Do a shadow box. they look great hanging, you can stuff them full of meaning. And, after plucking out bits and pieces of things you are saving, you can toss the larger part and de-clutter in the process.

Formspring Me

OK so since the beginnings of Jen, on email I have always been 100% dorky over those questionnaire thingys people send out, you copy paste, answer yourself, send back, forward on. You know. You may be annoyed by such things. But I LIKE knowing what kind of ice cream you love most of all. I admit I don't care what you are wearing, and I know about half of each of the question emails are ridiculous junk but there are always at least two questions answered that make me smile/ponder/wonder. And that, in my book is a WIN.

I also must add, my first letter to Keith at the very beginnings of our long distance relationship was 100 questions. He answered, and asked me 100 back. I was HOOKED. IN. L♥VE Well, that and he left poetry on my answering machine, which I still have a cassette tape of and have nearly memorized...

Fast forward-social networking. First MySpace eventually I eliminated MySpace was since it got all low class/ flashy headache inducing. Onto Facebook. When I first joined it was the 'era' when everyone was filling out “25 randoms things about me”. Remember?

Oh. My. Golly. I ADORED this!! I say those lists of 25's I read about my friends were my most favorite thing on Facebook as of yet. This adoration comes from my dorky love of the email questionnaires way back when.

I admit It took me like a month to type up 25 things but I enjoyed it, yammering about myself, self indulgence, who cares? We all need some. If some good happies can be drawn from typing out a list of stuff about you and making it public, psh. That's perfect.

And most importantly I knew how much I loved learning these little bits about people that would probably never have come up in conversation. The little bits that make each of them unique. The yummiest bits.

So, last weekend during a nearly asleep moment at like midnight I was on a crafter's blog, I will be a very bad novice blogger here and not link to her, sadly, because I, for the life of me, cannot find which blogger it was...Anyway this gal had joined Formspring.me and I was really intrigued. It sent my fancies right back to email questionnaires, and I had to join too. I needed some yummy bits.


Formspring Me




So here's what you do, join Formspring.me, and follow people (like twitter), and ask a question, maybe people will ask you a question, and you answer these queries. It's NOT a time suck to set up. 5 min tops. it's quick, it's fun, you can link it right to your Facebook and see which Facebook friends are on it.

Oh, and Just an FYI, You can ask people stuff anonymously too, if you feel all shy about admitting your questionnaire love dorkiness like me.