2 Month Hiatus: Wrap Up

photo.net

*****I only need 6 more yay's and my hubby will blog about wine for a month.  Click HERE to leave a comment and say Yay so I can read all about David's wine thoughts.  Thanks for voting!*****

I'm one of those people that goes all out gusto and then burns out like a match in the wind.

My field travelling hubby?

Steady-eady.  Consistently pushing through.  Plans ahead, schedules events and reminders, even sets his alarm.  He approaches this with pretty much everything.  When we dated, he took his time saying I love you.  He proposed when he was ready.  He thought long and hard about moving us to Portland.  His timing is impeccable, probably because it's thought out.

Me, on the other hand, I'm a racer.  I race through everything.  I see how much I can get done and how fast I can do it.  I compete with myself.  I litterally cram as much as I can into as little as I have and maximize everything until one day...  I burst into tears and say I can't keep this up. 

One of the reasons I stopped writing over my 2 month hiatus was so that I could give myself even a few more minutes of time during the week to do other things.

Like work.  More. Every day.  Ew.

I can't keep this up. 

Sometimes it's worth it to keep up with a hobby so you can abide, enjoy and recharge those juices before the alarm sounds the very next morning.  Sometimes it's worth delaying an email or two (or 15!) so you can hit the gym and energize your spirits.  Sometimes it worth it forgoing your phone and being engaged and present with the one whom you'll grow old with.  Sometimes its worth it, so you can keep up with the life and the place God put you in right now.  Sometimes it's worth it.

I'm still learning how to do this.  But over my 2 month hiatus, I realized...

I can't keep this up.  And it's okay.

As I press on towards the goal to reach the prize in which I'm called to in Christ Jesus...  I must be steadfast and consistent in order to do so. 

So here's to turning over a new leaf in being consistently okay with having an open schedule.  With being okay to relax the standards I've created for myself in my mind.  Being okay with not keeping up-- while maintaining excellence.  This will be a challenge for me.

Thank you for joining me on my 2 month hiatus.  This concludes the series, and I'm grateful you've shared it with me!  Stay tuned for more travelling stories, house adventures and budget blunders.  Thanks for reading!

2 Month Hiatus: Benefits of Field Traveling

I still wish he was home.

I wish we had a normal life where we ate dinner together, went for walks, exercised, did yard work, cuddled up and watched TV on a Thursday night or something.  I'm excited for the day when we will be able to do those things.  For now, I appreciate it when he IS home on the weekends.

There are, however, some benefits to field traveling. :)



Companion Passes!  David flies so much that I get to fly for free.  Our trip to Florida for Amy Lo's wedding?  Free.  His ticket was free too since he used frequent flyer miles.  And on the way back?  Our flight was over-booked, so we opted to take a different flight (which got us home earlier!) and Southwest gave us $200 each for giving up our seat.  $400 total and a ticket home to arrive even earlier?  Not bad!



Sweet hotels!  I grew up staying in modest hotel rooms and am certainly not afraid of a motel or a stiff bed.  But I have to admit.... It's really nice to get upgraded or stay in a super fun nice hotel.  If we were footing the bill on our own, there's no way we would pay those dollars to sleep!  Not when we're mostly out of the room anyway.  But hotel points are dripping out of David's rear (okay that was a gross analogy) and so we were able to stay in a sweet hotel in Florida.  Lazy river.  Water slide (legit too!).  We loved the pool so much we decided to skip out on Disneyland and just veg in the sun!

A man who loves to be home.  I hope I can still say this even when he's not field traveling one day! :)  Right now David loves to be home.  We have such a nice time together on the weekends, which is why it's so hard when Monday rolls around and he has to leave again.  I love his face. :)  Sure, we have our moments.  It takes some time getting used to each other again after 4 days apart.  But I love the fact that he loves to be home.  He demonstrates that to me by helping me with laundry, mowing the grass, washing dishes, and listening to my week.  Drinking wine with me.  Telling me stories from the road.  Bringing me  peanuts from the flight (did you know Southwest now has honey roasted peanuts?!  They switch off every year or so between honey roasted and dry roasted.  We're on the honey ones again!).  I love this man.

I long for the day when he'll be home every night.  But for now, I'll rest in where we are be grateful for hotel points and free flights, and a man who doesn't take this home for granted one bit. :)

Ah! You're traveling AGAIN?!

2 Month Hiatus: Out on a Limb

Over my 2 month hiatus, I got an email from a gal I didn't know.

She was interested in starting a young married's group with couples at church, and were we interested?

Um, yeah!  David and I had talked about this with some other friends of ours at church but never took the plunge.

So she invited a few couples over, without knowing any of them.  Talk about going out on a limb.  Talk about being intentional to abide! 

I love meeting new people, and am excited any time I make a new friend.  But she cooked us a hot meal and invited us in, and now we're getting this married's group off the ground starting next week!  She went beyond saying hi and sending an email.  I want to be like that.

How can you bless a stranger?  How can you be intentionally hospitable to someone you don't know well? 

2 Month Hiatus: Birthdays and Soon-to-Be Weddings

Over my 2 month hiatus, I flew out to California and Florida.

Grandma's birthday

California for many reasons:

• It was my Grandma's (in-law) 70th birthday. It was a gorgeous weekend.  Grandma Nancy was surrounded my her entire family, which was beautiful.  It was special to have our family come together and celebrate.  I feel so connected and a part of my husband's family, I love them so much.
• It was Mother's Day!  I miss my mom all the time so it was so nice to go home.  It was a quiet afternoon of a BBQ and wine with my parents and brother and sister.  Going for power walks on the beach.  Driving around Long Beach and looking at real estate for when we move back. Coffee and long chats with my mama :)
• My brother recently got ENGAGED and I was DYING to meet my new future sister-in-law!  Jenny fits perfectly into our family and I can't wait to be sister's for real. :)  Like officially sisters.  I always wondered who Jake would end up with.  She's perfect for him!

A couple weeks later, we flew out to Florida.  We extended the trip to make a vacation out of it, but it was really for one main reason: Amy Lo (one of my best friends from Florida State) got MARRIED!!!

Amy was the friend who I called in the middle of the night when my roommate was sick after a night out and I didn't know what to do.  She slept on my air mattress with me while we took care of my roomie.  We made sushi together for the first time.  We stayed up LATE wondering who our future husbands would be and what they would be like.  We baked.  She became a soul sister.  We started "tastes of heaven"-- sharing with each other moments that felt like heaven was so close we could taste it.  I loved hearing her tastes. :)  We read the bible and studied together.  And now she is MARRIED to a wonderful man and I couldn't be happier for her!

Sometimes, taking a hiatus to abide is worthwhile.  :)

2 Month Hiatus: Abide

I know, I'm totally copying the Nester and her chalkboard featuring the word abide.  There is something that I just love about that word.  It insinuates relationship, community, conversation...  Warmth, giving, receiving, taking pleasure in...  Abide.  Maybe that's why God calls us to abide in Him.

"I will abide in your tabernacle forever.  I will trust in the shelter of your wings. (Psalm 61:4)

"If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed." (John 8:30-32)

"As the Father loved me, I also have loved you; abide in my love." (John 15:8-10)

"If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love has been perfected in us." (1 John 4:11-13)

We cannot abide alone.  The word in and of itself beckons us to enter into something great.  When we abide, we spend time.  We learn and give.  We enter into a two-way conversation that goes beyond words and gives us... Joy.   On my 2 month hiatus, I enjoyed a few moments where I slowed down enough to abide:

A hug initiated by the husband I just snapped at.
Content silence on a plane ride.
Deep conversation moments later on that same plane ride.
Girls from all over the world giggling and painting toes- celebrating a common friend's wedding day.
Sinking into Genesis- reading its stories.
Designing a cork board with the husband who is happy to help.
Morning walk with a dear friend.
Sushi rolled by fabulous friends.
A gentle affirmation to return to God's word.

I want my home to reflect a place where we all may abide.   A place that beckons us to sit, to be, to rest...  To abide in the One who knows and loves us.

"And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." ~1 John 4:15-17

2 Month Hiatus: Kitchen Re-do

During my 2 month hiatus, I finished painting the cabinet doors.

Yes, I finished!!!

Here's what it looked like prior to the love we washed it in:

Before the paint!!!

I went online to Younhouselove and they recommended oil based primer which made things go by way faster.  And I mean way faster.  My Kiltz water based primer was seeping into those doors, and 5 coats later I was still left wondering if it needed another.  The oil based counterpart?  Two coats of primer and then I was able to move on to paint!  Wahoo!  I felt  like a speed demon with that roller!

I told David that by the time Michelle and Kevin came out to visit us, I'd have the cabinets done.  He smiled his "riiiiiiiggggghhhht," smile indicating he didn't believe me.  Did I ever mention I'm competitive and looooove a challenge? 

So I called her up.  "You're my inspiration," I said all dramatically. :)  "I have to have these done by the time you come up!"  Michelle was, of course, super encouraging and motivating.  I love that girl.

So I painted.  And painted.  And PAINTED!  David was gone one weekend climbing in a glacier.  I was... Painting.

I counted 39 cabinet doors total.  39!  All painted by yours truly.  When David came home from the glacier and noticed I'd actually made progress, he went online to amazon.com and picked out knobs.  I was all stressed out about picking the right ones out, so I asked him to decide.  A couple days later we got these on our front door...

  

He knew I was serious.  And getting the knobs in the mail made me even more motivated.  I finished spraying the hinges.  I spray painted the old gold hinges black and let some of the gold seep through to give it that rustic oil rubbed bronze look.  Then David got out his drill and at attached some of the new knobs onto the newly painted cabinets. 

Oooooh.  Aaaaaaah. :)

It came together!!!  So now here's a before and after:

And another since David just installed our stove and he finished the floors!

I happen to love the blue island contrasted with the dark floors.  David worked hard on those floors and I love them!

And I adore the new stove.  It works like a charm. 

Eventually we'll install a new fridge (the old one now looks yellow against all that white!!!) but the one we have now functions.  Even though we were tempted to just replace everything, we're trying to slice it thin.... And stay within budget.  I'd say overall, we've only spent about $850 (plus flooring- which we bought for the entire first floor of the house and covers much more than the kitchen.  We spend about $2200 on flooring for about 1400 square feet of our house) and we've totally revamped our entire kitchen.  People spend tons of money on new kitchens.  I spent a weekend away from a glacier with my arms up in oil based primer and new shiny semi-gloss white paint.  Time really is money... Money saved.

Yay for a new kitchen!

And we had a blast with Kevin and Michelle.  :)

2 Month Hiatus: Oven Adventure

I'm almost halfway there to 40 comments on this post about getting my hubby to write for one month!  If you haven't said yay or nay yet, click here to do it!  40 'yay' votes and I'll get to read about what my husband thinks about wine. :)

So...

During my 2 month hiatus, while one of my very best friends was visiting from socal, in the middle of making my friend who'd just had a baby dinner, while the pasta was just supposed to start boiling-- our oven broke.  Like broke in the sense of a big "POP!" and then suddenly just turned off.  Pasta didn't boil. I was microwaving things like a mad woman.  Homemade mac & cheese doesn't really do well in the microwave.

We went online to craigslist, found this shiner above in Battleground.  Drove 38 miles in the rain to get it, only to realize we didn't bring anything to cover or protect it for the ride home.

No, I didn't strap myself to it in the truck bed but I sure thought about it.

Instead, we went to a gas station and looted their recycle bin like it was our job.  Some twine, a few boxes and cardboard pieces later, we were ghetto fabbing our way home (in the rain no less).

No dents!  What a bonding experience. :)

2 Month Hiatus: I'm Conflicted

flannelphotographer.com

As I shared yeseterday,  I'm completely conflicted on how to manage my career and home-- to have balance and peace between the two.

My work is something I don't really like to talk much, because it's way more fun to talk about houses and homes, projects and cooking and friends and the man. :)  But if I'm totally honest, it's something that I struggle to keep boundries with in my personal life.  My job is something I really enjoy and want to excel in, but when I'm at the empire state building on vacation responding to emails, something is out of whack.  And that's a personal decision; no one is making me respond to emails on vacation.  I'm kind of married to my iPhone if I'm real with you.  Not proud of it, but admitting it finally.  It's hard for me to separate work from life.

During my 2 month hiatus, David and I went on vacation.  Before we left, I made a decision to take a break, a real vacation.  I will admit, I checked my phone... But I didn't send emails and I often left it back in our hotel room so we could enjoy the pool or have a quiet dinner.  It was a real vacation.  And you know what?  The work was still there when I came back, so I was glad I didn't worry about it while I was away.



I have this internal conflict because it's hard for me to keep up.  But I want to.  I want to excel in everything-- in my job, in my marriage, in  managing our home, in my friendships, with my family relationships, in my bible study, in meeting new people, I could go on forever.  And even though I have no kids, my husband travels and I really only have to care for myself-- I struggle.  I feel like I'm always behind.  The laundry needs to be done.  The house is a mess and I'm the only one who's lived here for the past couple days.  I need to go to the gym.  I come home from work and I'm exhausted.  I've been "on" all day.  And I think... This shouldn't be so difficult.  You just need to be more disciplined, Rachel, and it will all come together.  Or will it?

My 20-year old self was dead set on having an amazing career, one day having kids and doing it all.  Putting a gourmet meal on the table while giving slam dunk presentations during the day.  My almost 30 year-old self is slowing down and wanting to taste every moment.  To be like Anne instead of Ivanka.  To drink in each mundane task and give thanks for the opportunity to give of myself-- to the people I love.  And I struggle because deep inside, I don't know if I can do it all and maintain my sanity. 

I was sharing this with Krista a couple weekends ago.  "I forget to include God in this struggle- to pray about it and lay it down before him," I said.  "I need to talk to him more."

"Prayer is good," she responded.  "But don't forget where you will truly meet him.  I know it feels good to tell the universe what you feel and lay it before Him, but you will truly receive Him when you meet Him in His word.  Being in His word is where he promises we will find Him, and where he will speak.  Go back to the word, Rachel." 

Did I ever mention how amazing Krista is?  I am thankful for her Godly heart and that she shares it with me. 

I don't think this is a struggle I will overcome immediately.  I don't think God's asking me to either... But I do know that he's convicting me to meet him in his word every day.  It's a goal of mine over 2011 and I've definitely fallen short these last couple of months, but Krista is right.  His word is where He will meet us. 

Every. Single. Time.

Let me see these things through your lens, Lord and guide my steps as I mitigate through this balancing act.  Direct my heart and focus my mind.  Prepare the way for me and keepn my eyes on You.

***As always, thanks for reading.***

2 Month Hiatus: Ivanka vs. Anne

These are the books on my nightstand.  Yes, that's Ivanka Trump in there.  But wait, there's Anne Voskamp in there too, and Michael Phelps and Timothy Keller...

It's happening again. 

Just when I finally think I can get my arms wrapped around balancing work and home, I get the notion that I can somehow be a super woman and do it all.  Like Ivanka Trump.  Or Anne Voskamp.  Two amazing women, in entirely different ways.

Perfect manager.  Doting wife.  Rockstar at the office.  Martha Stewart in the kitchen.  HGTV gal.  A real life "Apprentice." Community group, maybe highschool youth group, 20's group, hopeful junior college instructor, gym lifer, healthy eater...  The list goes on and on and on.

I want to do it all.

Somewhere inside I tell myself I can, I will, and I must-- be excellent at everything.  I envision everything I want and tell myself I won't have to sacrafice anything to get it.

Room mom (someday).  Soccer mom (someday).  Meal plans.  Clean house.  Bible studies.  Deep friendships.  Intimate marriage. God time. Blogging time.  Social time.  Family time.  Work time.  Growing career.  Busy days, filled with...

I've already talked about being busy.  Yet somehow, this struggle between managing my life, resting in the Lord and my career continues to surface and has been ever so prevalent over my 2 month hiatus.  I'm conflicted, and it shows... Even by what I've been reading.

Ivanka.  Here's a gal who's actually a rock solid business woman, indpendent of her last name.  She can work the sale and close a deal just like her father and she was one of the youngest executive VP's in the country for a major corporation a few years back.  She's got an impressive education and her work experience is totally legit.

She also works on the weekends and leaves for work 2 hours before her start time.  She's married to her job.

Anne.  She's a stay at home mom, mother of six and wife of a farmer.  I can't relate at all.  She's a woman who discovered the path to Eucharisteo, the table of thanksgiving.  A holy experience.  Each mundane task is received as a gift, each dish washed and laundry basket is tended to with a spirit of gratitude for the opportunity to give glory to the One who made and loves us.  I feel safe reading her words, humbled and completely out of place. 

She doesn't have a glamorous high rise in Trump tower in New York City.  She works weekends, nights, mornings, pretty much never gets a break but she's married to a farmer, not a job and her work is her family- whom she adores.  Grace, thanksgiving, joy.

I'll talk a bit more about this internal conflict tomorrow, but for now...

Ivanka vs. Anne... I'm certain that I don't have to choose one way over the other, but I'm not quite sure if I can have my cake and eat it too. 

How do you manage work and home?  What works best for you?  As I struggle to balance these things, I pray that God would lead my heart... And yours too :)

2 Month Hiatus: Houses and Homes

Thank you to everyone who is "Yay'ing or Nay'ing"!  If you haven't voted yet, click here to leave a comment and "yay" or "nay"!

Something I learned over my 2 month hiatus if that I really do love real estate.  Houses.  Homes.  All of the above.

At first I thought I was interested solely because my husband is drawn to it.  He started buying property before we were ever married or even knew each other, before the market tanked and before he became a field traveler.  While our investments are both a blessing and a headache, real estate has become a fun and interesting hobby of mine.  I love looking at new and old homes and dreaming away. I enjoy determining if I think it would be a good investment.  I LOVE finding ways of updating and creating something new out of old walls. I thrive on reading design and house blogs and then in my spare time, little by little putting into practice what I've learned.

Why?!

Because life starts at home.

I love going through open houses and experiencing someone's life there; then envisioning my own within those walls.  I enjoy hearing house-hunting friends' wish lists and dreams of what their home will be like.  I occasionally pop onto RMLS to check out whats for sale and always walk in an open house in our neighborhood if there's one going on.  Not because I'm not content where I'm at.  I love our home like Paula Deen likes butter. 

Why then?!

Because life starts at home.

Home is where everything happens.  The walls of our homes endure our tears, our excitement, our joy and anger, our accomplishments and disappointments.  Home is supposed to be a haven where we are safe to just be, to let our guard down and open up.  Home is where the people we love are.  It's where we should want to be and look forward to returning to after a long day at work.  It's where we dream and plan and rest.  To me, it's the most meaningful and the most sacred of all places.  It's where precious life happens!

Maybe that's why I enjoy beautifying our house and starting improvement projects.  Maybe it's why I constantly move furniture and rearrange things.  Maybe it's why I'm constantly in conflict between career and home and finding balance between both...

During my 2 month hiatus I finished painting the kitchen.  I'll show you pics here shortly, stay tuned!  It looks like country farmhouse meets polished Portland :).  I hung a chalkboard.  I painted my kitchen island BLUE.  I made rolled flowers again.  I enjoyed playing house in our home.  All these pictures you see are "before" pictures- before all the improvements that I'll share here soon, the risks and mistakes and small victories we've made here!  That's what home is- a place to be creative and take risks and just be who you are- content with where you are- because it's the place where it's safe to just be.

www.aliciadart.com

 Alicia, a dear friend of mine and also my realtor, recently made a bold move and went out on her own in the Real Estate biz.  Don't worry, I'm not trying to sell you anything and she honestly doesn't know I'm writing about her in this post (sorry Alicia, I can't talk about my love of real estate and homes without bringing you up!) but I have to tell you, if you're thinking of selling or purchasing a home, Alicia is amazing.  In a spicy garlic shrimp kind of way (more to come on that soon!).  She treats everyone like they're her only client (and she has many!!!).  She has the experience and knowledge that are hard to come by in this industry. She found us our home now, when we we're on a tight budget and crunched for time (can I just say $8k tax credit?!) and landed us in a house perfect for us in a neighborhood we are thrilled with.  And she would do the same for you because she just rocks like that.

Again, I'm not trying to sell you Alicia but I just had to mention her amazingness because without her, I don't think we'd be where we're at.  We love our home.

Why do you love your home? Is it the people that live there, the architecture, maybe both?!  Whatever it may be, you can have your perfect home right now no matter where you are...  because life starts at home.

***And if you haven't voted yet, click here to comment on this post to "yay" or "nay".  40 'yay' votes gets my husband to blog for 1 month and I'd love to read what he has to write.***

2 Month Hiatus & Wine "Yay or Nay" 40



Well hello dear blogger friends.  I've missed you so!

2 months have passed and not a word on the web.  I haven't been "super busy" or "stressed" or "unable to handle my life" (for the most part!)...  Just full to the brim-- so much so that writing took a back seat for a bit. Sometimes I wish I had a mother duck like the sign above, someone to lead and mentor me as a wife, worker, friend, family member, etc...  That sign is right outside our neighborhood and it doesn't lie- you will actually see ducks crossing exactly where that sign is on the road.  And they always follow one another.  In this season of rest that I've been in I've noticed that I don't really rest very well.  I'm constantly looking ahead, wondering what's next, mitigating through decisions that maybe aren't even mine to make quite yet.  All these things and more while I was on a 2 month hiatus from writing. (So much for the goal of blogging 2x/week! I'll get back into it.)

I did learn over the past two months, however, that I truly do LOVE TO WRITE.  I missed it dearly.  So much so I've committed to writing every week day for the rest of June, to get reacquainted with you all and the pen (or keyboard I guess I should say).  So here is the first of what I'm calling the "2 Month Hiatus" series in which my two months of writing hiding are followed by two straight weeks of writing, writing and more writing! I'm writing for 2 straight weeks, every week day.  So here's to hello.  It's nice to meet with our coffees (or wine)  in hand over the world wide web and catch up!

During my hiatus, we had Memorial Day.  At the Lillard home, that always means wine tasting.  And when I say always, I mean since we moved to Oregon.  We never were into wine until we moved.  If you gave David wine when we were in California, he was always passing it off or looking for a Red Bull and vodka instead.  Wine was definitely not our thing.  "Cough syrup" is what he called it.

When we moved to Oregon, suddenly we were surrounded by the Willamette valley in one direction, Columbia valley in the other.  David's dealers sponsored wine events.  It was only a 20-30 minute drive to get out to rolling vineyards.  We could literally drive home from church on Sunday and stop by a winery on the way home.

Suddenly David started bringing home wine.  At first, it was wine he'd received as a gift from the dealerships he was working with.  Then slowly, over the course of the first year, he'd start buying bottles that he'd tasted at dinners or on the road.  When he was home, we'd open up a bottle over dinner and he'd share its story.  "This was my favorite at L'Ecole" or "Jeremiah said you'd like this Orange Muscat" he'd say.  It quickly became a hobby.  Now David can taste a wine and tell you what kind it is.  He's kind of crazy like that.  He'll know if it's a Zinfandel or Malbec.  He can tell between a Syrah and Merlot.  Well, most of the time he can.

Me on the other hand, I'm still learning.

Then last weekend when our friends Michelle and Kevin were visiting, we went to Powell's books (if you've never been there, please come visit and we can go.  It's Portlandia amazing) and David bought a book.

For those of you who know David, he doesn't read.

At all.

Okay well maybe he reads the newspaper and the bible.  But that's about it.

Guess what the book was about?!

Wine.  He bought a book about wine.  And he's been reading it!!!

We were on a plane out to Orlando earlier this week and he was reading on the plane.  He even read the section on Champagne.

"But you don't even like champagne," I said to him.  "Are you going to skip this part?"

"No," he replied.  "I want to read through the whole thing.  It's kind of fun learning about all the different varietals and grapes."

"Well why don't you write about it?" I asked. "You'd be so good at writing about different wines!  And I would love to read what you have to say.  It would be fun!"

I'm not sure that he appreciated my enthusiasm, because he responded:

"If the people who read your blog think that a wine blog would be interesting, then I'll do it for a month," he said.

"Oh you're on," I replied.  I totally thought I had him...  But wait for it...

"But only if you can get 40 people to 'nay' or 'yay'.  Deal?!"

I stared at him with my wine in hand.  Nay or yay?  What the heck?

"What are you talking about," I asked.  "Nay or yay?  Like you mean you want people to say nay or yay against you writing a blog for a month?"  Tsk-tsk.  I felt his competitive spirit coming on.

"Exactly," he said.  "If you can get 40 people to comment on your blog and say 'yay' or 'nay' to whether or not a wine blog would be cool then I'll write one for a month."  He grinned  a purple teeth grin (we were in the middle of tasting a Malbec- and a yummy Malbec it was).

"You've got yourself a deal," I shot back at him.  This is going to be a challenge, I thought to myself.  40 comments?!  I don't even know if 40 people have even looked at my blog!  And why 40?  What's the significance to that?  He said he picked a number that was out of the range of possibility (What a supporting man he is, eh?!)

So friends...  Will you join me on this?  Will you 'yay' or 'nay'?!

40 comments is all it takes, and David will blog for a MONTH about his wine adventures.  I would love to read about these adventures, because he's full of interesting knowledge about the wine he drinks and also because he's just so darn hilarious when he talks about wine.  Will you join me? I have till the end of June.  If 40 people yay or nay by the end of the month, my hubby will write wine and I will be able to read all about it.  You can read about it too because if I win this challenge, I'm going to set him up with his own blog (that he'll write on for a month.  But who knows?! Maybe he'll enjoy it and stick with it!).  David doesn't read or write (normally) so I think it would be fun to hear what he has to say.  And this might be my only chance. :)

Comment below the word 'yay' if you think it's a good idea, and 'nay' if you don't.  No hard feelings either way.  I'm just hankering to get to 40 so I can read what my man writes!

As always, thanks for reading.  I've missed spending time over this virtual space and am looking forward to getting reacquainted with you all. :)