Here again.

I've come to another one of those forks in the road where suddenly I feel directionless, again, and my days become this blur of dulled down feelings, continued infertility, tasks, procrastinations. Yes here I am again, I come here more than I would like, and part of me knows that I will continue to come here, that part of the nature of who I am is to search for this space, this space where nothing makes sense and nothing feels like me and I get so entrenched in my comfort zone that I forget all about the person and the love and dreams. This may not make sense to you, but for me, for someone who is constantly seeking out ways to improve my current situation, this is just what I know.

So I switched jobs again, from hospice to oncology, from home care to the hospital, and I'm not going to lie, it's HARD to be new in a completely new profession of nursing, and it's HARD to work nights and then immediately spring back to a day time schedule. It's hard and I kind of hate it but I made this choice and I can't keep changing things around. I'm an oncology nurse now, and I'm not a good one, I'm a new one. And each shift I walk around with my little preceptor hovering over every task that I do, telling me everything I need to be doing differently and let me just say, please let it be over soon! This precepting. I fucking hate it. (and she's sweet, really, should this ever find its way to her). HOWEVER I chose this and being new comes with the territory, as uncomfortable as it can be. And...being tired is hard.

I tell myself that I did this to have more time with my daughter and YES this is what I want! Yet why do I find myself in the mornings being so irritable with her, my love, my little love who has so many questions and so many demands and will simply not listen to "Can we leave mommy alone for just a few minutes please?". So sometimes I get snippy, and sometimes I can't take her to preschool fast enough and sometimes dropping her off feels like the biggest relief and yet I come home and there's this thing that I don't feel right now....myself. I feel lost in this haze of sleep deprivation and life changes and uncomfortable work environments. I feel lost as a wife knowing that as I'm not feeling myself right now, I'm also not feeling any real connection with my husband. Is this too much to say on a blog? Probably. But it feels so fucking good sometimes to just say it.

I love my daughter. I love my husband. They are my family and I want to maximize all of this precious, precious time we have together. But somewhere along the way I lost my connection to myself. Somewhere along the way I started hating myself for being too snippy and for always changing things around and for this newly forming muffin top and for being so unsettled in all parts of life. Somewhere along the way I dulled it all down, stopped letting myself feel things, hid them away in a Sex in the City marathon and vegan chocolate chips and excuses to not run. Somehow the loving, feeling me got left behind just as summer (the season) started to appear.

I want her back...Summer (the me).

So see, this place I'm at is not unfamiliar. I return here so many times in life. But I always find my way out, somehow, something pulls me from the dredges of my own self-imposed drama. And it's not the loving embrace of my husband or the perfect smile of the sweetest (almost) four year old I know. It's my own two feet. My own two feet that can not sit still, metaphorically or physically.

So I guess this is the part where I shut down my computer and just fucking run. Running is the salve to a soul that needs a little extra TLC. It's the only way I know to get rid of the drama and the confusion.

No excuses.  I need to fall back in love with me.

Urban hike, instagrammed

There's a pulse in a city. City people live together, have local businesses, ride buses and lightrails, drink coffee next to one another. There's kindness and there's crime. There's affluence and poverty. The vibe can change in a single city block. But the sum of all it's parts is humanity, coming together in one big group, creating. Denver is not perfect, but there is something very special about this city. That, coupled with the fever of spring, made today a simple, yet extraordinary day of simply venturing out of our neighborhood and exploring other parts to this fine city. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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summerinco

Juice Fast spring 2013 Days 1-2

Juice fast day 1:

I am doing a juice fast. What that means is that all of my nutrients are coming in the form of pure, juiced liquid. Not processed juice, but live, raw fruits and vegetables. Why am I doing a juice fast? 

To reset my body

To lose a few pounds

To look at my emotional eating habits

To feel more healthy

I am so lucky that my friend Annie wants to do this fast with me. On Saturday we bought TONS of produce, devised a plan and psyched each other up for what could potentially be, pretty darn hard. And great.

Lunch

When you create a juice, you use a LOT of produce. Seriously, so much. 

*****************

I was hungry on day 1, but I wasn't miserable. With our form of this juice fast we can have as much juice as we want. The point is not to starve ourselves. The point is to let our digestive systems rest while we feed it straight up goodness that requires no work in breaking down. 

The emotional piece is trickier. I really love to eat. And though I have eaten a vegan diet for the last 2+ months, I still have my vices. I tried to busy myself  for distraction. The hardest part of the day was hands down when my husband made pizza and the wafts of dough and cheese lingered in the air. I went into my room while my husband and daughter ate. I don't want to be exclusionary about all of this, but it was just too soon to drink my beet/onion/garlic/tomato/celery juice and not salivate over pizza. 

I was tired on Day 1. I kind of expected this from juice fasts I had done in the past. On day 1 I took a nap AND went to bed at 8:30. There might have been a psychosomatic component to that, but I just let myself sleep. Sometimes sleep is such a little miracle.

Waking up to Day 2 I kind of expected to feel like shit, but I didn't at all. I felt ready to start the day. Sure it was tough as I made my daughter her typical sprouted raisin bread toast and fruit, and I had to stop myself from eating her crusts which I do so unconsciously now. Instead I sipped my tea with lemon, dropped off my daughter at school and headed over to Annie's where our "juicing headquarters" is. 

Good mornin!

Today we are living large...Sex in the City season 1, no work, kids at school, walking and lots and lots of juice. 

I can do this.

I got to a fork and I picked a direction

Well it's certainly not my style to let the grass grow under my feet, and in my latest announcement this is no exception.

I am so thankful that I chose to be a nurse. It's fulfilling, gives meaning to my life and provides me with a decent living. It ALSO has the kind of insane flexibility and room for change that a fun-loving Gemini like me needs in her life.

I have been a hospice nurse for 4.5 years. I feel strong as a hospice nurse and I will always carry in my heart the many, many patients who touched my life. But I'm ready to make a change. I'm ready to not carry a caseload and put insane amounts of miles on my car as I drive to patients' homes. I'm ready to not have a portable clinic in my car at all times. I'm ready to not work an 8-5 job and be tethered to a phone. But mostly, I'm ready to see people get better.

Here is my announcement:

I'm leaving the world of public health and the world of hospice and I'm going back into the hospital.

I'm going to be an oncology nurse.

It feels really great to be excited about this. There is so much new stuff to learn; I am really looking forward to this challenge of new knowledge. And though I fully acknowledge that this is not the most uplifting area of nursing, that cancer is sad and hard, I feel like my strong background in hospice will help me. By the time people get to me, the hospital oncology nurse, they are usually pretty sick. There will still be a lot of death. But also, there will be people that get better. And now I get to be a part of that.

(I'm also looking forward to working less days in the week than I have off...oh yes I am.)

So that's my announcement. I will say I'm a touched....embarrassed...because I just started with a new hospice agency. But this change of organizations just hasn't felt "right". My heart is pulling me on this one. On a very visceral level, I know this is what I need to do. And when that feeling comes along, you just can't ignore it. At least I can't.

I'll still be part hospice nurse, on a per diem basis with my current company. But now my focus is changed. Now I'm ready to help kick cancer's butt!

New things (spring)

There are new things.

The Earth rotates, back into the
sweet spot of sun.

Winter slowly creeps away, bowing to the 

pink candy blossoms of spring

and me,

this heart, 

bursting with unnamed creativity

of what the new, warmer season will bring.

And see there are new things, 

fresh and unformed

that want to be shaken

out of my body, my fingers,

free to experience their own heartbeat

(ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump)

until it matches my own
and the new things become muscle memory

and habit

and good fortune.

Stronger we are, finding one another,
creating together as no single man could do on his own.
Beating
(ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump)
to the pulse of the Earth,
to the rhythm of collective consciousness
and you, and me, become the
PERFECT POSSIBILITY.

Ritual

Today as I dropped my daughter off at school in my usual hurried fashion (as I am chronically late for MOST things), I was halfway out the door when I realized something very important that I had forgotten. I ran upstairs to the gym and sure enough, there was Ellie in tears hugging her teacher.

I found her and I did it, the thing we had both, momentarily forgotten to do.

"Hugs, Kisses and Eskimos".

So we hugged, and yelled "HUGS!" and then we gave kisses and yelled "KISSES!" and then we rubbed noses and yelled "ESKIMOS!", all in our sing-songy way. Ellie's eyes still wet with tears, but she was happy.

That's what we do. And then she yells out "Woosheegaga" and I say "Woosheegaga" back, and don't ask me why we do this because I really don't even know how it got started.

That is us. That's our ritual, mine and Ellie's thing that we do every single time I say goodbye, whether it be to drop her off at school or to simply say goodnight.

I imagine there will be a time when we don't do "Hugs, Kisses and Eskimos". I imagine that the tables will one day turn and she will be the one leaving in the hurried fashion. I imagine soon she'll forget she ever knew a funny word called "woosheegaga".

And that is why I will always stop and let myself be late to work so that I can be there for my daughter. It may be a silly ritual for outsiders, but for us, it's home.

Ding!

The routine,
OMG what time is it?
6am? 730?
Husband says goodbye.
Get up, stretch.
Get coffee.
Start breakfast.
Have child's breakfast laid out to avoid temper tantrum.
Child gets up. Wants modifications.
Morning mitigations start.
Run around getting ready.
No time for shower, wash hair over bathtub.
Ding. Work emails start.
Did something happen to one of my patients?
No, ignore.
Work clothes.
Work bag.
Ding.
Stethoscope.
Computer.
Cell phone. Shit I didn't charge it.
Bring car charger.
Ding.
Don't forget daughter's coconut milk for school.
Poop, everyone stop and poop.
Ding. Ding. Ding.
Get daughter dressed.
This shirt, no this shirt.
I WANT SOFT PANTS!
Mom you hurt me, say sorry.
SAY SORRY!
Negotiations. Time outs.
Ding. Now I REALLY need to go.
IT IS TIME TO PUT YOUR SHOES ON!
I want to wear my sandals.
NO SANDALS, SNEAKERS!
Mom is this the right foot?
No
I want to wear them on the wrong feet!
Fine.
Gather your stuff.
Shit where did you put your cell phone.
Rampage house to find it.
Ding. Found.
Shit where are the keys.
ELLIE TRY TO FIND MOMMY'S KEYS.
Found.
Coconut milk, work bag, daughter's school bag,
Ding.
Ok let's go.
Shit I forgot my sunglasses.
Ok let's go.
Shit turn off the porch light.
Ok let's go.
I WANT TO GET IN FROM THE FRONT!
Fine.
Get in.
Ding.
Buckled in.
Shit I forgot my wallet.
Wait here.
Run in the house.
Run back to the car.
Get buckled in.
Ding.
Drive.

"There's ALWAYS a reason to feel blessed". Or "Nicholas Sparks and His Sick and Twisted Mind"

I'm reproductively challenged. It's no news that we've been trying for a second kiddo for oh, TWO YEARS. It sucks, it's annoying, but it's not why I'm writing this post. But given the challenge, and the fact that I took 100mg of clomid this month (double the normal dose), well let me tell you that the LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO  when you finally get that cursed period is to sit down and watch a  Nicholas Sparks movie. The LAST thing. But what did my hormone riddled and pseudo depressed brain decide to do last night? You betcha. "The Vow" was everything that Nicholas Sparks is good at: eliciting the excitement of LOVE, and then of course a TRAGEDY and then of course a way back to the LOVE. That jerk was made for menstruating women, and probably finds a sick sort of joy out of the ridiculous, convulsing tears that his predictable and completely unrealistic movies extort.

I'm starting a F-U Nicholas Sparks facebook page.

No not really. But I bet one might exist. I'm not the first blubbering baby to be keen on where his power lies.

Moving on, today is Saturday and my husband has just left the building! For 5 days! He's on a work trip and I am getting my very first taste of what being a single mom is like. Well that's no entirely true, her and I do take off on jaunts together quite frequently. Which is the PERFECT SEGWAY into the following pictures of recent mother/daughter jaunts that I am now finding a reason to post. Because you know ya'll want to see pictures of my me and my kid. I mean, am I RIGHT?!

This is the thing about what I've been blessed with in life. It's not two, three, four kids. It's one kid. And I love her with every fiber of my being. And see, I won't lie that I feel like there's a piece missing, and I still carry hope that one day, our dining room table will be filled. But for now, with one, we get to do SO MUCH stuff, that I suspect with more it would become more...challenging. So here we are, her and I doing all kinds of spectacular things, becoming infinitely bonded. Wow do I love this child. And let me tell you, I appreciate every second with the beautiful, special creature. I ALWAYS feel blessed.


Here's some of our mother/daughter fun from the past month:

Golden, CO

Fairplay, CO (about 12,000 feet!)

Mountain drives

My little snugglepuss

Fairplay, CO

Breckendridge, CO

Point Reyes, CA

Point Reyes, CA

Limantour Beach, CA (with her cousin Jacob)

From mountains to oceans, how do you not just ADORE life?

Always choosing

You must know this about me, I don't stop moving. There is either some big idea, new project, or life change that is up my sleeve MOST of the time. I find new horizons exciting, challenging, compelling, motivating. It is probably one of my best and worst character traits.

I left a job that I love and people that I LOVE. I did it mostly for the career growth and pay increase, but it was hard. Really hard. I've struggled on a deep, internal level with this change, wondering if I did the right thing, It was one of the moments where you step on the edge of the diving board and go for it, praying there is smooth, tepid water below to greet you. So far it has been great, and in my new job I'm surrounded by young and vibrant nurses, social workers, management, etc. I've laughed so much with these new people, and in the world of hospice that's saying a lot.

Change is hard. I think that people might think that I embrace change, and I do, to an extent. But they don't see the neuroses, the sleepless nights, the tightly wound ball of anxiety that comes with each new change.

I've learned in my life that when you make a decision you have to make it and move forward. You can't look back and wonder about the what if's. Things will continue to move, whether you're there to experience it or not. I often second guess my choices, and this brings me nothing but frustration.

That's the funny thing about life. It's full of so many choices, so many new roads, so many new people. Everyday we make choices that greatly affect us, from choosing to stop and talk to the barista to accepting a new job to eating that donut. I look around and I see choices. People are choices. Who they are, where they are, what they wear, what they eat, how they act, are all a product of their personal choices.

It's kind of an empowering concept.

Today I choose beauty, wisdom and trust, that all will turn out the way it should.

I also choose to do this!!

On being happy

Old people are funny. Sometimes they're cantankerous, sometimes their witty, sometimes they go on and on and on and on about their days of yore. I like old people but my busy world and their slow routine don't always mix. I am around them a lot. I enjoy getting to know them, truly. But I come into said old person's home, interrupting their rather uneventful day, and I am a barrage of questions and movement, assessing, answering my phone, emailing, charting, medicating. Sometimes even in my listening I can be distracted. What I must be to them. A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! (love you if you get this reference).

Watch this little interview snippet below with Terry Gross from NPR's "Fresh Air" and Maurice Sendak. He talks about his greater appreciation for life, how he has fallen in love with the world, and his advice for Terry is "Live your life live your life live your life". 

I mean, we're all out here living our lives. We're not dead. But we can be disconnected. When I think of living my life I can jump to the freedom of being on vacation, of camping, of discovering a new city. Yes this is good living, but it is not every day living. Yet I think, know, that in every day living we can experience the same sort of wonder that we have in the relaxed vacation style state. It requires a very simple technique: Stop. Watch. Listen. Feel. 

There is a pulse to life, even the stillness of my living room at this early hour, there's a pulse, a gentle hum of electronics, a gray sky beginning to change color, the thunk of the newspaper being delivered. Maurice, in his golden years, learned to love this. And this is a lesson we can learn from a "happy old man": Live your life. Even the parts you don't like, the parts you wake up dreading, embrace them as a moment that you GET TO HAVE. You are NOT DEAD. That's pretty great, right? That can change in a moment. Just yesterday I sat with a patient and watched her die in front of me. That will never not amaze me. And it ALWAYS makes me appreciate the fresh air, the trees, the pulse of the blood in my own body. 

I like being alive. And I much prefer being happier while I'm doing it. 

Because Right Now I Can

I've been writing the songs, yo!
Garage Band is so completely fun. Time consuming, but fun.
I'm not trying to be a professional anything here, so there's some mistakes. And talk about a random montage of pictures. Honestly I'm too new at this to know how to work out all the kinks. I got me a real job, too!

Take a wissen!

Here's another one. (I like this one better)

Another matriarch passes

Dear Ellie,
Last thursday, January 31, your Great Grandma Bette Dutton Richards passed away. I will admit that her and I were not that close, we didn't see each other very often, but I was fortunate to see her 3 times in the last 2 years. Grandma was my dad's mom, and you never got to meet my Dad, and this will always sadden me because he was a great man. When I saw Grandma it reminded me so much of my father, her mannerisms and facial features. I won't say that I'm incredibly sad that Grandma died; she was ready. But I'm sad to not be able to see my father in her anymore. Although now, depending on what you believe, they may even be together.

Family is so important, and I hope as you grow older you realize this. My Dad and Grandma's legacy lives on in me, my brother and sister, my aunt Marybeth, my uncle Paul. These are all fantastic people and the small few that really knew my dad and Grandma. I hope you grow up knowing these people, for they are your family. Family takes care of each other. They have history together. They will watch you grow from the adorable three and a half year old you are now to a woman.

Our families do not live close together, and this saddens me, just as it saddened my father so deeply when I moved from Maine to California. So with distance you must keep relationships alive. You call. You visit. You write. You keep knowing each other. With your Grandma I'll admit I did not do this very well. But I loved her. Her passing is a reminder to me about the small time we have on Earth together, and the importance of knowing your family.

You get to grow up going to incredible places like Maine and Los Angelos and San Francisco and Bozeman, MT, because that is where our family lives. It takes more effort to travel to see family, but it's worth every trip.

(RIP Grandma Richards. Give my dad a hug for me please.)

Love, Summer

Grandma and her son John (my dad): 1949

You meeting Grandma for the first time: 2011

You are here.

Do you ever look at your life and wonder "How did I get here?"

I never thought my life would be centered around so much grief, grief of dying families, grief of my own. I never thought that GRIEF would be such a pervasive emotion in my life. I always thought myself to be a happy person, a positive person, yet here and now, my heart tries to navigate its own way through other peoples' dark places, as well as my own. 

I'm not a broken person. I don't believe any of us are broken people. But as we get older things start sticking, neural pathways are carved deeper, and the stories we tell ourselves start to feel true.

There is a lot of sadness in this world that also contains so much joy.  Every person you meet is hurting, in someway, in some capacity. Some are very vocal about their pain. Some keep it hidden. Some are excellent at working through it. Some internalize and let it fester.

But to each person that gets up each morning and that goes out into the world, I call you a warrior. Life is fucking hard sometimes. People hurt us. People die. People say mean things. People kill each other. It's hard to be sick. It's hard to be a caregiver. It's hard to take without giving. It's hard to give without taking. It's hard to know if our decisions are the right ones. It's hard to hurt other people with the decisions that we make.

Now that I'm a mom and can't take off and do whatever the heck I want whenever I want to do it, that adds up. Sometimes I want to take my car and drive straight for the mountains and climb to the top of one of them and let myself yell out my feelings, my anger, my grief, my frustrations, my responsibilities, my hurt, my pain, my past. That's how I want to rid myself of things I call bad. But this is hard to do now. I work. I mother. I have a partner. I need to make money. I need to listen to people that are so darn sad. And I need to listen to them with a present mind, the only kind of mind that does anyone any kind of good.

So what does this all mean? Am I different than you, my reader? Am I different from my patients that are dying? Am I different from my patients' families who are suffering? Am I different from my three year old daughter who screams and cries because she wants to lay on my arm? No! I AM NOT DIFFERENT! We all suffer. It all means something to us. Our individual suffering is our own house of pain and we can live inside of it and shut out the world and let those stories we tell become more and more true for us, or we can be warriors and put our big girl/boy pants on and get out there. We can leave our houses and walk amongst each other, knowing that we are all carrying some kind of grief. We can walk with our heads down or we can walk with eyes up and even smile at each other. The point is, we keep walking, moving, participating, trying. We are all the same in so many ways. We all suffer, because we are all human. And we all love, because that's what we do. 

I am writing this because I want to feel BETTER. I want to walk in the world with my arms wide open, not hugging them tight to my body to diminish the person that I am. I am a warrior! I fight, every day, to do the right thing. I don't always succeed, but I always keep trying. And this unites us. We all get a new day. We all get to start from scratch. We all have a map that says "you are here" and you can take that map, recognize that this is where you are now, and go wherever the heck you want.

We are all warriors. And we will all be okay.

The Powerful Force of Grief

The Powerful Force of Grief
By Summer Nicklasson, RN, CHPN

Grief is something that happens to all of us. Anyone who goes out into the world and loves will eventually feel loss. The loss may seem overwhelming for some, tolerable for others, but for each person it is an emotion that cannot be skirted or forgotten. It comes up and hits you in the face, demanding its attention.

As a hospice nurse I see a lot of death. People often say to me "I don't know how you do it", to which I reply, "It's not my family. I can handle that". Grief to a family member and grief to a hospice nurse will surely look different. To me, it's an accumulation of loss and sadness that yields to the tightness in my chest and the solid, cathartic cry that I need every few months. For families, it's the loss of a person you loved. Very often a solid, cathartic cry is just not enough.

I did experience a great loss once. In my late 20's my father passed away. It was difficult and heartbreaking and my first taste of the great beast of Grief. My sadness was profound, and I walked in the world of people who were NOT grieving, who really had no idea how I felt, and I noticed how isolated grief made me feel. I realized, in retrospect, that grief is a terrific force, a monstrous headwind that you must walk through. On the other side of the headwind is a new you, perhaps a more jaded you who experienced such monstrous grief, but there is a peace on that side. It could be within arm’s reach, or it could far, far away, hidden behind the layers of tears and memories and achings of your heart. After the death of my father it took me a solid year to feel even somewhat normal. Years later I would still cry when visiting my memories. Now, over 8 years later, the emotion I most associate with my father is gratitude. He was a good man, and the people that you lose are good people, each with their own offering to the world. The loss of a human being is a loss for all humanity. It's not something that is easily forgotten.

My point is that grief happens, and sometimes it happens hard. So you do your best. You get up each morning, you get dressed, and you go through the motions. Sometimes this might feel hard. Sometimes you might just want to stay in bed. That is okay. Be gentle with your grieving heart. Sometimes all you need to remember is to just breathe.

There is no limit on grief. There is no perfect formula letting us as humans know how long we will grieve. It's an individual, unique experience. It is your experience and whether big or small, heavy or light, long or short, grief is your own headwind to walk through. I'm here to tell you that you can do it. If there are people you trust that want to help you, let them. If there is a support group that beckons to you, go. Just know, that one day when you are ready, (whenever that may be), you may wake up and realize the holes that grief carved are now filled with gratitude.

The quiet center

Over the weekend I visited the Museum of Nature and Science along with my daughter, my friend Annie and her son. While there, Annie and I played a game where we both strap electrodes to our head, electrodes that control a ball in the middle of the game table. The more meditative you can get, the further along you can push the ball. Annie won.

The exercise had me thinking, rather ironically, about trying to get into that place of meditation. Granted being surrounded by people including our own children didn't create the sort of space where one would go deep into a meditative state, but it was a moment where I made myself  try to actually relax. It was a challenge for me. I don't relax well.

I live my life with the knowledge that meditation is a life giving activity that helps to center our busy minds. But I neglect to do this. I make excuses that there's no time or space that helps induce a meditative state, but really those are just excuses. A meditative state can come by simply closing your eyes and slowing down your brain waves..

This world is so damn busy. My days are so busy, but I make them that way. I often say that I thrive under stress, that I get more done when there's more to do. This baffles me and makes me wonder if really I'm just running from that quiet place. In the quiet place there is no doing, no planning, no processing...just being. It's a state that I avoid throughout the day, filling up my hours with a constant barrage of thoughts and activities.

Humans are funny like that...always thinking, always doing. We run from the quiet place and try to find harmony in piling more thoughts and activities on our already burdened minds.

I know that there's a beautiful diamond inside my quiet place, a jewel of contentment and peace. Like a diamond in the coal, one must break through the dense thoughts to reach the beautiful center. Getting there can be challenging,, but like all things in life, easier with practice.

This is good to remember, and better to actually do.

Lucky in love.

Nothing like a fantastic Colorado weekend to rejuvenate the ol' soul. For as much as I can get caught up in my own emotional cycles, I live each day knowing how blessed I am. I do believe that life is what you make it, your own empty pot of potatoes and veggies, and you can get as creative with that as you wish.

And me? I am blessed with the sweetest little love. She enchants me every day.

At three and a half.....

I have a 3 year old girl who is so funny and light,

Who absolutely LOVES to dress up

Who loves taking pictures

Who loves her daddy

Who takes a LONG time to hike due to important need to draw, always

Who is very artisic

in both print and fashion

Someone who is a fantastic snuggler

and a collector of fine things.

She has the most beautiful smile

that I find completely irresistible.

She loves to ride her bikes

and pretend she's a cowgirl.

She lights up my life

and I love her with all that I am. 

Very lucky, indeed.