I Run These Towns

I love Christmas. It's long been my favorite time of the year. I wanted to have a Christmas wedding because I love this season so much. It's the season that also hosts my son's birthday. The Christmas season is filled with magic. Do you believe in magic? Christmas is also a time of reflection. This year I've been basking in the magic of the season and reflecting on magic elsewhere in my life. I see magic in my son's eyes every day as he learns more and looks at every day with wonder. This year has reinforced that love and support are magical. My husband has stood by my side and held down the fort in the roughest health year I've had in more than a decade. His love is magic.  Magic. In a year that could have rattled me professionally the exact opposite happened: I feel more confident in my professional relationships and ability than ever. The incredible affirmation I received from those with whom I've worked the last decade was flattering and humbling...

I've decided I suffer from the most first world of problems that I made up and diagnosed myself: vacation fatigue. We love to travel, and we do so liberally. We are rarely home (maybe 1-2 weekends at month at most), and that's the pace we like. Even after our son was born we have rarely deviated from this blistering travel schedule. There are so many places to see and really so little time.  In the last six months we've spent long weekends in northern Michigan in Traverse City and Boyne City, we've vacationed with my family in Canaan Valley, West Virginia, we've been to Portland, Oregon, Norfolk, Virginia, Las Vegas, and a cruise to the Bahamas. I also went to West Virginia three additional times including a week-long stay in September and an extended stay for Thanksgiving. This amounts to a total of 48 days away from home in a six month period or being gone just over 1/4 of the time. We also had a few getaway weekends in Detroit, and this does not count my husban...

Ten years ago my now husband and I decided to get a dog. We'd been dating for almost a year, and we were looking at houses together. Getting a puppy seemed logical at the time (we'd later learn nothing about puppies are in any way logical). For some reason I insisted we get an Irish Setter puppy. We found one in the classified section of the paper, and I called the breeder. She had one puppy left that she was going to save for us to pick up the following morning (a Saturday). We went to Petsmart and bought all of the puppy essentials. We went out to dinner where we decided we'd name our Irish Setter Murphy after Murphy's Irish Stout. We were ready to be canine parents.  The next morning I called the breeder to learn that she'd sold our Irish Setter puppy the night before. We were upset, but we were already ready to get a dog. We had our minds made up. We shifted and talked about a Golden Retriever instead. I checked the paper and we called about a puppy. Later tha...