Since I'm in the business of appreciating my husband today, and since I'm so enjoying that photo filter I've been trying out, I thought I'd revisit some photos from our wedding. This was at a cabin circa 1880 on the 4 Eagle Ranch outside of Wolcott, Colorado. That's our friend Brynn in the first picture, and her oldest son Emmett in the background.
This is my gorgeous sister-in-law Chrissie and her middle child, Isacah (I can't believe how little she was!).
Me signing my new name to the register.
Boy, I wish I knew about this filter back then! It really suits the setting, doesn't it?
My new husband on a horse called Remington (or Rio...I've forgotten which of us rode which).
We were not married on horseback, but we did ride up to the altar. My mum is responsible for these beautiful shots, by the way. She was our designated photographer.
Crossing the bridge from the main ranch house, where I changed from my riding gear into my dress for the reception.
Basking in the Colorado sun.
Greeting friends after the ceremony.
My husband wrote an amazing speech. It blew me away.
That was a good day. As have been all the days since.

OK, it's kinda random. But I designate it!

Today, a list of reasons why I feel so incredibly, profoundly fortunate to share a life with this man:

- He's a fabulous cook.
- He's stoic to the marrow of his bones.
- He has a copyright symbol tattooed directly between his shoulderblades.
- He likes to garden, and grows beautiful vegetables.
- He is utterly unequivocal. Look up "unequivocal" in the dictionary, and you'll find his picture.
- He once wrote me a note that said "I love you more than bacon."
- He wears converse hightops with the laces undone. He wore them the day I met him (with a cowboy hat) and he wears them still. He wears each pair until the soles wear through and the seams burst, and then breaks out a new pair.
- He has a very deep voice.
- He is a superb father.
- He reads every newspaper he can get his hands on, every day.
- He knows how to make a pinhole camera.
- The other day, when I was under the weather, he brought me a double-chocolate Blizzard from DQ and an Orange Julius.
- He plays a mean guitar.
- He doesn't know anything about cars.
- In his world, there is no "can't". Together, he believes, we can do anything we set our mind to. Anything.
- He follows in nobody's footsteps.
- He has been throughout his life a chef and a journalist, sometimes consecutively.
- He's completely devoted to those he loves.
- He doesn't watch sports, but he's always game for a six-hour hike in the mountains.
- He once gave me a can of SPAM-n-Cheese as a gift. He also once gave me a trip to San Francisco for my birthday.
- He's not afraid to go to the opera.
- He sometimes brings me flowers for no reason.
- He is a brilliant comedian. I've never met anyone with better comic timing.
- He owns his mistakes with dignity and humility.
- He loves camping in the desert.
- He has a work ethic out of another, more diligent era, and he never, ever takes a sick day.
- He gets emotional about dogs.
- He's not afraid to make fun of himself.
- When his mountain bike was stolen, he bought us each a three-speed cruiser with the insurance money, so that we could go on breezy afternoon rides on his days off.
- He has trouble pronouncing the word "wolf", which makes me laugh, and which is (I swear!) only a small part of the reason that I chose a house on Wolff Street when we were looking for our new home.
- He always has a new adventure planned for the next day off.
- He shares the housework with me 50/50, and never has to be asked.
- When I asked him to adopt a little girl from China with me, he said "yes".

How fun is this? By Geisslein has been using these from time to time on her lovely pictures of her nieces (go check them out, they're so pretty!), and they look so sweet I had to try it. This is a photo of me in the 21st century, inside the Shady Dell's fabulous 1950 Spartanette trailer, using a faux-antique photo generator out of somewhere in Asia. Does that make your head spin? So if it's hard to detect an era in this photo, it's no wonder!

No smoking on the dragon boat.
Bats in the Summer Palace.

Buoyancy.

I only post my very most favorite things in my "good things" posts. But this is one of the most special of the special. Once again, I have my mum to thank for introducing me to this artist. Her name is Tricia Cline . She's an instructor at the Woodstock School of Art (with which both my mother and father have been affiliated over the decades) and a part of the Woodstock art community. This is one of those artists that I loved at first sight. I can return again and again to her pieces, and it's difficult to tear the eyes away from them. She is self-taught and hand-sculpts in porcelain clay. This series is called "Exiles in Lower Utopia". I hope you enjoy it as much as I do:



photos via www.triciacline.com

The dylan hotel. Turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts building with a bit of a modern twist on the mad-scientist look inside.
I love the beakers in the bathroom. Sadly, I think they changed the science-lab-style design of their shampoo bottles, which was brilliant.

She's drawing on the wall of my hallway with one of my illustration pencils in this series. I didn't have the heart to stop her.

The bright poncho is a '70s hand-me-down from my husband's family.

Birds in the snow....
...my obsession continues.
These are my photos, taken the morning after the latest spring storm.

Brissac-le-Bas