Pocketful of Sunshine

I haven't posted in ages. Blah blah blah. Life is busy. Work is crazy. And I'm exhausted by the time I get home. You've all heard it before so how about we just skip over that part and pretend like I haven't taken a three month hiatus? Perfect. Thanks.

 I could spend this entire post catching you up on what you've missed but instead I'll just do a quick recap:

Christmas was fantastic. Quality time in Oklahoma City with Brad, my mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law. Brad went to Arizona for New Year's to watch the OSU Cowboys in the Fiesta Bowl. I spent that week in Vegas for work, which despite being in that city about four days longer than anyone ever should, things went really well. And since then it's been nothing but work and school for Brad and work, work, work for me.

Bam. Caught up.

Dallas has had an unseasonably warm winter. I actually have a bit of a sunburn at the moment. No joke. But it's dipped into the 30s from time to time requiring us to dust off our coats for those chilly mornings. Don't you love when you reach your hand in the pocket of coat you haven't worn in awhile and find money? I love it so much I almost want to go put $5 or $10 in every coat I have just to set myself up for some awesome days next winter. I must have had the same mentality before moving back from Germany because I seem to have left myself little surprises in every pocket.

In my winter white peacoat, I found a stamped metro ticket from our trip to London. And in my tan raincoat was a stub from visiting the Louvre in Paris. My "everyday" jacket just had some euro change that I'm sure was leftover from walking to the gelato place around the corner from our house. In my black military jacket was a little brochure from visiting a castle in Cochem, Germany. In my grey peacoat was a ticket stub from seeing a movie at the Taunus theater on the base. In the red jacket I wore almost every morning that I took Stella out, I found a "doggie bag" with instructions in German on what the bag was to be used for and where to dispose of it. (Yes, a poop bag put a smile on my face.)

I refuse to take these things out of their respective pockets because every time I reach my hand inside, I'm reminded of that specific memory. And I love that.

Clearly I'm all about the nostalgia and taking time to reminisce. Another perfect example - the work trip I took to Barcelona where I unexpectedly ended up traveling directly to Rome for the next program, I had to have the Ritz dry-clean some of my clothes to get me through the next week. Pajamas included. The hotel put little stickers with my room number listed just inside the tag. Those stickers are STILL there and every time I wear one of those shirts or that pair of pajamas, it takes me back.

Stop judging me. I am well aware that I'm a bit of a sap.

I feel the need to re-name the blog since "Adventures of the Bingham's" doesn't have the same ring to it that it did when our "adventures" consisted of traveling Europe, festivals every weekend and well, actual adventures. But at this point in time, I'm okay with the fact that life is...different. It's merely a new kind of adventure. Now I don't currently have anything exciting or interesting to leave in my pockets for next year that I'll look back on and say "oh, remember last year when we..." but adventures are on the horizon. And that's enough for me.