after the rain

today was a beautiful and relaxing day. it rained yesterday, really hard. but today, ahhh - the day after the rain - was glorious. the week hit me hard on monday when i had to drive from paradise to chico, to oroville, back to paradise, then back to chico, and then to paradise again... for appointments and things.. man. i was exhausted and overwhelmed big time. so, come tuesday morning, i canceled the rest of my appointments for the week and decided to take some "time off."

today joey and i went shopping and just relaxed. i gave myself permission to let my mind float away into the realm of creativity for once... and away from the realm of stress = phone messages, appointments, doctors, milk and egg free recipes, and the like..

we went to safeway for breakfast. i really like the safeway on east ave. they have a starbucks AND a jamba juice, and they have a great deli. then we went to barnes and noble. i read magazines while feeding josiah his breakfast, and then he just played on a blanket on the floor while i looked at more magazines...

after all that inspiration, i needed to pay a visit to good ol' TJ Maxx... the only way josiah was going to tolerate one more mommy-must-do was to put him in the ergo - so in the front pack he went, which meant no trying on clothes for me :( but what i was really there for was some gorgeous decorating items that i was determined to copy from my magazine frenzy, so that was ok. i did, however, find a sweater that i barely managed to "try on" with a now-sleeping baby on my chest, and i LOOOOOOVE it.

i also found joey some cute blue shoes that he had to have :) and a pretty blue transparent glass vase for my living room console table. yes, my living room needed one more "pretty" :)

oh! and i ran into kristen, which was a total surprise since she's usually working like crazy right about that hour of the day.... but she had the week off. lucky.

ANYWAY, got home, played with joey a lot, cleaned the house, even opened some windows and doors for a few minutes to let some fresh air in!!!! Then I lit some candles, made an AMAZING dinner with a seriously melt in your mouth cod-fish that we got from steve watson - he cought it himself on the oregon coast where he lives... it was DE-LISH... both babies sat up to the table with us in their high chairs. joey even tried some fish, and liked it!! haha.... and James had a PB&J, but at least he kept it in his tummy.... which meant a happy dance for the whole fam...

then seth worked on his man room - ok, his man cave - in the garage, while james sat on his big-boy-potty, and i nursed josiah while watching a bit of TV, and then when Seth came in for the night, i put joey to bed, and james picked 2 books and we all three read them together, which was a special time :)

told you it was a glorious day :)

oh, and now i'm browsing photography and design blogs.... if only i had an extra 2 grand laying around, i would SO go to this workshop: http://www.martalocklear.com/blog/index.php/2009/12/09/workshop-on-the-waterfront-the-savvy-photographer/