Holi

Indian celebration I have never, ever heard of. "Holi" Where friends throw colored powders on friends. Somehow things get wet, and the colors mix into rainbow gravy, because people roll around in the mud before getting sprayed down with a fire hose...I'm fuzzy on the details. But how amazing and beautiful is this?

I LOVE it.

Two co-workers in the bottom right, George and Libby with our Six stained clients!

March Dad-ness

My dear ol Dad's birthday is today. For about four years I was the worst daughter about birthdays for him considering our basketall tourney runs were always smack in the middle of March. Which I'm sure there was never a better birthday present than getting to yell at the occassional referee in the middle of March Madness, but still I am remiss on celebrating my pop.

Larry Bruce is the most handsome 54 year-old I know. Not just because he's my dad, but because it's true. My mom says he reminds her of Harrison Ford. He's pretty much the best dad ever. He recently trapped a GIANT groundhog out of my backyard. So big and hissing and nasty that he had to pick up the cage with a broom handle and walk it out to the truck. He set it free in the grassy woodlands of Bonne Terre. With a floppy thud, it rolled out of the cage and scampered to freedom.

My dad taught me so much, when I let him. How to attempt left-handed hook shots more often than really necessary. How to bait my hook. How to play golf, how to drive, how to mow the yard... that last one didn't go so well. He would always let out an impressed chortle when I would really whack a drive on the golf course. How to dance. He would say he taught me how to dance because I just looked at him and did the exact opposite. He is a master griller, in the true Dad fashion. He knows how to "rig" anything. He once fashioned a uni-suspender out of the strap of his man-purse when his belt broke in Switzerland. And if you ask my friends, he is the best insurance man they have ever had. He gets letters in local papers for the nice stuff he does for his customers that he really doesn't have to do and really doesn't talk about it much. He is a servant. He also loves my mom really well. They are stupidly happy.

He taught me to be critical to a fault, and now I get paid to do just that. He taught me to help people who need help and he broke many destructive cycles by himself, with no help. He is Bootstrap Bill.

He climbed into my bed once when I had lost a big basketball game as a freshmen in high school and for a big, man's man dad, he said all the right things to his hormonal teenage daughter lying prone on the bed, sobbing in the dark, and she never forgot it. I don't say it well or often, but thanks, Daddy. I know who I am, because you told me, sometimes with words, mostly without...everyday.

Love You. Happy Birthday!

Nups and Naps.

Wish I had a camera. Or a phone with a camera that could hold a charge. This weekend two of my very favorites tied the knot. Casey and Angela are now holy and matrimonious as well.

It was a great wedding and many people cried, including myself. They did steal my favorite song perhaps of all time for their first dance, which is "Falling Slowly" by the couple from Once. Best song ever. Never heard it for a wedding first dance, but well played you two, well played.

Also well played was the reception table decor. Angela, the brilliant connoisseur of English Literature that she is, created a table that was SO them! She named the tables after their favorite books, but little quotes from each book on them. (Our table was "Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius") She made her own "Mad(ly in Love) Libs" and the little wedding favors were a teachers pencil and a carpenters pencil with the inscriptions "Building our Lives" and "Writing our Story". So very original.

Love you guys and am blessed to have been a part of your special day. Even though I tried to cut in on your "swing dancing song" you were gracious and let me cut in later :)

Lovely as well to meet the wonderful Arnold family and hear their story.
Nate, you are a bum. You missed a helluva time.

Ashley, Liz and I were more than conquerors of the electric slide. We had good practice the Thursday before at the Wild Country place for the bachelorette party. When you know the dance already... the song seems sooo much longer than when you are trying to learn a dance while being taped on CMT.

I am trying to be less, well..."me". Read the directions to weddings before you go. Don't rely on your iPhone that wont hold a charge. Don't leave your keys hanging in the front door. Don't be so full of yourself. Don't sleep on Sunday from 12-4 and then from 5:30 to 9 and then for the whole entire night. (I think it's a medication I am on that has turned me into a zombie). Yes mister Lumberjack, that is a dollar I owe you.

I am weary. I continue to travel and be occupied a bit. But it seems the thing to do. How could I pass up ski-trips? How can I not go see Sara? How THRILLED am I that Marc is visiting soon? How important is it that I go to New York to peddle the business? How important is the women's retreat for the health of our weary church? How precious are the little ones I am trying to carve out time to teach the game I love? How important is being in shape?

How can a laundry pinata have exploded in my room? Like weeks ago? Still with the cotton/rayon shrapnel, I live. It's the least important, I'm certain.

FYI

Hey guys. It's "Hall and Oates"...

NOT "Haulin' Oats"...

Glad I got that cleared up.