"recipe for love"

(Thanks, Mary!)

For six hours this afternoon, I was without wedding rings. If you've ever worn a ring or other piece of jewelry daily for five years, you know that feeling of the lost appendage. I took it off to get ready for kneading dough and then an hour later could not find them anywhere. I searched the whole kitchen, the bedroom, bathroom, living room, dining room, dishwasher, fridge (you never know), ANYWHERE I could think. I knew they had to be in the house somewhere - I remembered taking them off; I knew almost the exact minute I took them off.

After small group, I came back home and pulled down the cookbook with the really good Italian cheese bread recipe I had made for Bible study to give a copy of it to one of the girls, and lo and behold - my rings. Tucked into the cookbook. What relief!

I have nothing particularly insightful to share about this experience except that great saying, "It's always in the last place you look." Duh.

I have plans to go to Toledo tomorrow evening to spend the night with my hubby. We are overdo for an evening together, and my mom is planning on coming down to watch the kids. I have mixed feelings about this -- 95% of me is rejoicing because I haven't seen my husband for more than an hour on any given day since February 6. The other 5% is sorry that I'm bailing once more on my kids. Lydia is especially aware of my absence lately - not that she is particularly difficult to deal with when I am gone, but she verbally recognizes that she misses me and loves that I'm here with her. It's so sweet it just cracks your heart into a million little ol' pieces, dontcha know!

Elvis quietly exited the cling-tight-to-mommy phase and has entered the see-ya-later-mom phase. He'll be playing with an excavator or mini-farmer when I'm getting ready to leave, and I'll say, "Bye, Elvis!" and he'll say, "Bah!" without even looking up, and then when he realizes I'm serious, he'll get up and run arms outstretched toward me for his parting hug. And then he's done - ready to play some more. Is this the same child who cried the ENTIRE time I was gone a few months ago?

They are getting so big. So smart. So beautiful. So irresistable.

I'm most definitely smitten. I just did a search to make sure smitten was the word I was looking for, and here's some news - there's a product called "Smitten" -- it's a mitten for two! This has to be made by the same people who created the wearable blanket.