A "Best Day Ever"

Once, in Israel, my roommates and I had a "best day ever." I don't actually recall what was so great about it other than every single one of us got letters and/or packages, and it just seemed like every corner we turned had some new happy surprise -- even silly things -- like returning to our room and discovering our curtains had been replaced with new ones. I have a picture of us all standing there in front of our new curtains -- joyfully holding up our letters and packages.

Today seemed like a "best day ever." So far every single thing about today has just been happy. I feel so happy.

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1. It has been snowing -- ALL day. I know that running errands, etc. in snow is no fun, but my mom loves nothing more than a storm -- any storm -- wind storm, rain storm, snow storm; so we were raised to feel excitement at the slightest inkling of a "storm." Storms meant happiness, and fires in the fireplace, and stories to be read. Living close to the mouth of the canyon also meant most nights were quite windy. I was surprised when I married Mike and found that to him a wind storm meant something very different than being cozied up in bed with blankets -- happy as a Lark. It meant shingles blowing off of roofs, or tarps coming off our hay, or other stressful things. So, we would lie in bed listening to the same blustery wind -- one of us tense, the other smiling peacefully as if being sung to sleep.

I admit I don't love old slushy dirty snow, but I always feel a little sad when someone says, "I hate snow." You can say, "I hate driving in snow," or "I hate shoveling snow," or "I hate walking with snow on the sidewalks," but "I hate snow" seems a very rash declaration. When it is falling and covering everything with white. When there is nowhere specific you have to go, and especially if you have Christmas music playing; well, there is not much more lovely than all that white snow.

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2. Christmas music has been playing all day.

3. My Mike is home with us, and with no other agenda than just being with us. Mike works such long hours, that he isn't just home all that often and when he is home, there is generally something that needs doing -- house projects, errands, etc. But, today is Abe's birthday, so our whole plan was just to be home celebrating that. I feel so much more content when I have my husband home with me.

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4. It's Abe's birthday -- and a happy one at that. He told me he woke up at 6:15 and couldn't sleep because he was so excited and couldn't believe he was nine. That is one of the best things about having kids -- you get to re experience things that you've long since outgrown -- like being so excited for Christmas or a birthday that you can't even sleep.

We don't generally have friend birthday parties for our kids. When Abe and Daisy were very small, I would do a big party for them in the day with cousins, etc. By the time Mike got home, it seemed they were all celebrated out. We decided then to make birthdays more of a thing to celebrate with our family. I do try hard to make the whole day special and about them -- the kids secretly make signs to hang the night before. We let them choose their favorite sugar cereal to have for breakfast and do games, etc. with our family.

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With that said, I'm not so rooted in our ways that they can't alternate every now and again. This year Abe asked if he could have a few friends over, and we were happy to oblige. Planning it wasn't easy because Abe questioned my judgement of "cool" at every turn, but in the end, we agreed on making candy trains and playing several games that passed his "cool" test. It went great, and Abe seemed well satisfied with the outcome. He has contentedly been playing with his toys ever since. Mike is sweetly making dinner (after all my party work), and we will finish the night with cake and presents and the birthday boy getting to stay up late.

5. I know this probably seems silly, but I was already thinking how wonderfully happy this day seemed -- with the snow and Mike here and Abe so happy and the party festivities having gone so well (and having been cleaned up), but then, much later than I thought UPS drivers would still be out making their deliveries, THIS came to the door:

I was so giddy with excitement that I could hardly contain myself. Clear back in May, I downloaded the blurb.com Booksmart program to turn my blog into a book. It was fun to work on for about three days, but then I started having dreams. All night long (for several nights in a row) I would dream out an event or happening; then that event would turn into an image that I had to format correctly into a book. It was maddening.

The program "slurps" your blog right up in order, etc. If you have a post that is just words, or just one main picture, or even words with pictures that don't have to be in any order, it works great. It is just that the Booksmart program doesn't work like blogger where you can just drag your pictures anywhere in your post. You have to choose a format -- and the formats don't always jive with your exact post and how it was laid out on your blog. You can just put it in one of their formats, or you can even create your own formats, but it can drive you a little crazy (hence my dreams).

There are advantages though. You can click a different background for each page. You can have pictures that take up entire pages or are part of a collage, etc.

I got sick of messing with it in about June and laid it aside til last week when I decided that I'd done enough to at least print one book. I've only done my blog from Feb. 2008 (when I started) to Oct. 2008, but I have so many posts and pictures that it was already a 180 page book.

Anyway, here are a few sample pages.

It just seems so fun to have it as a real concrete journal rather than just something floating out there in cyberspace. And I LOVE that I now have a journal that actually has pictures of what I am writing about right along with it. My kids were looking through it tonight reading out loud things I'd typed about them, etc. It really is one of the most satisfying things I've ever held in my hands. I wish I could order copies for all of my kids since it is a record of so much of the goings on of their own lives. Maybe I will sometime, but for now that would be a little pricey.

It is some work, but you can make it much easier if you aren't too picky about having everything placed just right. I highly recommend doing this for any of you out there who have a blog. It is such a perfect journal. I am in love with it and can't wait to get my more recent posts put into one!!

Lastly, and totally unrelated, I love to see my kids creative little minds at work. Daisy just whipped up this little hot air balloon for her toys tonight . . . and look, now this picture is here on my blog . . . which means it will eventually end up in a family journal book right in our own home!