Update from Mexico

Wendy is happily snuggled on the couch and I'm filling in with this blog post for today. Hi! We've had a wonderful few days here and have done practically nothing except lay by the pool or beach, read, watch the first season of "Glee" on DVD, and have room service. I feel better than I have in weeks (maybe months) and, other than missing Kylie and looking forward to seeing her sweet self in a few days, I think I'd be content to stay here for at least another month.

I've not had any further chest pain or other weirdness (thank goodness) and while my cardiologist told me there may very likely be at least some blockage in my ticker somewhere, I'm going to chalk up this whole nasty experience to job-related yuckiness and put it behind me. Of course, my doc told me to really ramp up my exercise (which I plan to do once I'm back in the states and nearer to good emergency care just in case) and to really watch my diet, so I'll do that. This whole business is enough to scare me straight (pardon the pun) and I plan on being a very good girl in the diet and exercise arena in days (weeks, months, years) to come. I've got so much to live for with my sweet Wendy and Kylie that I want to make sure I'm doing everything I can to ensure I have many, many years ahead to share with them. Nothing like a "near death" experience (or at least a "oh Lord, please don't let this be another heart attack" experience) to get my butt back on the track of better health and fitness.

My Mom is keeping Kylie this week while we're here and she has sent us two wonderful emails updating us on what Kylie is doing and how things are going while we're lounging around down here. We loved today's note so much that I thought it might be fun to share it with you too. Enjoy...

Hi Girls,

Kylie is down for her nap and I'm thinking about taking one myself. It is a cloudy, cool day but not raining for a change. Kylie has to sing the rain go away song about every day.

She is doing well and is liking Uncle Teddy better everyday. At first she would say he scared her a little bit. Now, she stands at the bottom of the steps and calls him to come down. She likes the Mario Game because the little man jumps. She is enjoying our visit with Mother every night, too. While I was talking to Linda last night, they played hide n' seek. Nana lost her balance and fell on the couch. Kylie thought she was playing and laughed so hard. Papaw is in his own world of sports but Kylie still gets him involved as much as she can. She cooked his food and served him this morning and asked him to change the TV to her show. We have played with the stickers, colored, did work sheets and read several books.

We have not had any accidents except the early morning wet pull-up when she first wakes up. She surprises me being as good as she is at such an early age. I've not had any luck in skipping baths as she is very persistent and will not agree to missing one. I do however sneak lotion on her when she isn't looking. I tell her it is my good smelling soap.

She hasn't cried since Saturday and I think all the crowd coming in delayed her eating, bath, bedtime and just was too much for her to endure. Amy and Emily came by Mom's last night and she was fine.

We are learning a new song but she wanted me to change part of it because it made her sad. We changed it and now she wants to sing it every morning while on her potty.You probably remember Playmate, come out and play with me. She didn't like the part that said --I'm sorry playmate I cannot play with you. She said I can play with her,Nana.

Kylie is the best and we are having lots of fun!


Love,

Mom

Hello from Mexico

We're here in Cabo San Lucas! The sun is shining and the temperature is a wonderful 75 degrees. Our room at our resort is heavenly and we've indulged in pedicures and room service. It's all so relaxing and good.

Thanks again to everyone for your comments and wishes for us to be here.

I'm using this week as an opportunity to step up my workouts a bit. I started my "lose weight and get strong and healthy" regime on December 1st. Since then, I've lost 18 pounds.

I attribute this success on a couple of things:

The LoseIt app for my iPhone. It records my meals and my workouts. And shows me a big red bar when I've gone over my calories for the day. LoseIt offers a friends community. If any of you who have iPhones want to be my "friend", let me know and I'll add you. You'll get to see fascinating things like how much I've been eating and exercising. How exciting! What joy! What bliss!

Wii Fitness
On weekday mornings, I get up at 5:45 to get in a quick workout in my house. My favorite wii fitness programs (in order) are EA Sports More Active, Biggest Loser, Jillian Michaels Fitness 2010.

Jazzercise.
I've jazzercised off and on since the 80's. For me, it's a perfect fit between awesome music, fun dance moves, and sweating a ton. I stared going 2-3 times a week, two weeks ago.

Running.
On weekends, I go for a run come rain or shine. On January 17th, I ran 4 1/2 miles (the first time in forever) and I did it in the rain. I love my ipod running playlist. All of my songs are at 119 beats per minute or more which really keeps me moving.


Biggest Loser.
I love this show. Seriously. Every time I want to whine about working out so early in the morning or working out twice a day, I think about the people on the Biggest Loser ranch who are working out 6-7 hours a day. They inspire me to keep going.

So I decided to treat this week in Mexico as my own Biggest Loser week. Instead of pigging out on tons of food and even more alcohol, I'm working out hard and eating well.

But I would like to share with you two of my struggles.

Eating out portion sizes and waste. Eating in the restaurant or enjoying room service means looking at a huge pile of food. The portion sizes are immense. And as I'm trying to enjoy my food, I have this little mental conversation in my head that sounds like this, "I'm not going to eat all of this but look at all the waste! Maybe I'll take half of it to go. But even though we have a small fridge and microwave, this is going to taste awful after I heat it up. But look at all this leftover food!" Finally I tell myself to stop it and just try to enjoy my meal.

Working out with a skinny small group. Yesterday morning, I decided to take a "body pump" class offered at the resort. It was at 8:30 (can you believe it? I'm on vacation!). When I arrived, I saw that there were only 4 other women in the class. The woman trainer showed up and began to tell us about the class. But as she was doing so, she noticed a rather overweight man who was trying to use a chest press machine and she made fun of him for doing it wrong. In front of us, she made fun of him. Then she said, "Just wait, somebody else will do it wrong in a minute" and sure enough, someone else did. The trainer shook her head and said, "Some people".

And I had to bit my tongue to keep from yelling at her. You know how you think of what you want to say for the rest of the day when someone has upset you. For the rest of the day, I shouted at her in my head and said, "THAT'S WHY fat people don't want to go to the gym!! We know people like you are making fun of us! Have some respect for the fact that we are trying. And if you can't be respectful, then shut up!"

It didn't help that the other women in the class (who each weighed about 115 pounds) all twittered when the trainer said it. It made me truly reflective for the rest of the day. About how many skinny woman I've been around who make themselves feel better by putting other people down.

I want to be skinny. I want to be healthy. But I promise, I will never have those thoughts about overweight people.

Now, I know that this post has been an epistle and might sound complaining. If you read all the way through it, thank you.

Karen and I are thoroughly enjoying our vacation. I love sleeping late and being responsible only for myself. I love reading for most of the day and smelling ocean breezes. It's all good. Really good.

What Kylie is reading - week of January 11

We got really lucky at the library and have some lovely recommendations to share with you!



Posy by Linda Newberry & Catherine Rayner
This is a sweet book with phrases like: whiskers wiper,/crayon swiper./Playful wrangler,/knitting tangler to describe a cat. The fun part with this book was that Kylie repeated each phrase after me. We read it several times this week.


Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant
I thought this one was delightful not only for kids but for adults too. And it would make a perfect gift for someone who has recently lost a cat.



Wow! It Sure Is Good To Be You! by Cynthia Jabar
This book is about a girl whose extended family lives far away. She receives phone calls and letters from her loved ones. We really enjoyed it. It reminds me of "I like myself" by Beaumont.


Won't You Be My Hugaroo? Joanne Ryder
This book is all about the wonderful and different kinds of hugs you can get.

Some other library books we enjoyed this week include:
Ten Sleepy Sheep by Phyllis Root
Looking for a Moose by Phyllis Root
Hurry Up and Slow Down by Layn Marlow
This Little Light of Mine by Raffi
Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter Yarrow and Lenny Lipton

Thank you and pictures

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes. Here are a few pictures.







And a few scrapbook pages.

Cardiac

Some of you long-time readers may remember when Karen had a heart attack on December 23, 2006. You can read about it here and here. It was the type of heart attack that is called a "widow-maker" and I was 22 weeks pregnant at the time. Karen had a stint placed in her left anterior descending artery, we were home for Christmas and life moved on.

So the #1 thing you never want to hear your wife say 3 years later is, "I've been having chest pains". She had them for around 48 hours prior to Friday afternoon. We hoped that she was feeling a reaction to the immense stress she's been under with her job. But when the chest pains increased and nausea and dizziness got added to the symptoms, we decided it was time for a trip to the ER.

The great news was that there was no surgery involved and Karen is home resting comfortably.

But damn! It was a hard, hard weekend-- full of panic and gratitude and then more questions.

I remember the panic I felt with Karen's last heart attack. Add to it that this time, I had a sick baby to contend with and no one to call on for immediate help. I took Karen and Kylie to the emergency room at 5:30pm. I had to let Karen out at the entrance to emergency and then find a place to park and then run with my 2 1/2 year old in my arms from the far-away parking area back to emergency. By the time I got there, Karen was whisked away into a triage area and I was told to wait in the waiting room.

I kept flashing back to the first heart attack where within seconds of arriving, Karen was surrounded by 10 people and they had a crash cart sitting nearby. And now I was in a waiting room with my toddler--trying to project calm around Kylie so that she wouldn't freak out while also worried that every person walking by had the swine flu that was going to infect us all.

Ten minutes of waiting in the waiting room- trying to decide whether to throw a fit and demand entrance to where Karen was or to just cool it a bit.

And then I was led to her emergency room. And there was Karen with only 3 people in the room and a doctor saying her EKG looked fine. I had brought a stuffed animal, a Little Pony, a small lunchbox full of Pet Shop animals, and three activity sticker books for Kylie to play with. I also freaked and brought two washable markers instead of crayons. I settled Kylie into a chair in the room and went to stand by Karen's side and hold her hand.

I can't begin to tell you how upsetting and conflicting it was to want to be a wife, and only a wife, so I could give my full attention to Karen. But I was also a parent. My daughter was calling out to me every minute needing a tissue for her runny nose, needing me to look at the page she colored, wanting to get down and run around, wanting me to wash off the marker she had gotten all over her hands and face. It took every bit of patience I could pull up from my toes just to deal with it all.

The doctor gave Karen nitroglycerin. It took TOO MANY sticks for the ER folks to get a line into Karen and to get the precious blood drawn that would tell us if she was having a heart attack. I watched Karen turn paler and paler and watched her heart race on the monitor.

And then it seemed like things calmed down a bit. Karen felt well enough to talk to me about whether I should call one of the precious few DC moms I had met and ask them to take Kylie to our house for the night. And whether we should call a parent and ask them to start the 9 hour drive this way. Or whether all of this was going to pass and if they would discharge Karen in a few hours.

But then the nitro wore off and the heart pains were back. Another round of panic for Wendy and another round of nitroglycerin for Karen.

By 8:30, Karen's heart pains had lessened but she now had a raging headache and lots of nausea. And we decided that I would take Kylie home and get her to bed.

It was utterly heart wrenching to leave Karen in an emergency room. There were tears, love endearments, and threats (If you have to go into surgery or if you die and I'm not here, I will KILL YOU!") Kylie kissing Momma Karen's hand and then grabbing Karen's foot and kissing it before we left about did me in.

Once I programmed the GPS for home, I called my Dad and asked him to start the long drive to VA. I just couldn't bear the thought of having to balance Karen and Kylie like that for another day. He raced to his car and got on the road.

At home, I got Kylie into bed and then waited from 8:30 until 10:30 for word from Karen. There was no cell phone signal in the hospital. No way for her to call or text me to tell me what was going on. An incredibly hard two hours for us both.

At 10:30 she called and told me that the blood work said that she wasn't or hadn't had an attack. Her EKG was still fine and she was stable. She was in a cardiac CCU room and she was okay. There was LOTS of tears of gratitude.

My Dad drove all night to arrive at my house early on Saturday morning. Kylie was thrilled to see her grandpa. After I had Dad and Kylie settled I drove to the hospital. And in the Cardiac CCU we waited all day. Karen was stable and we were 90% sure she was going to be discharged that evening. But we still had tons of questions. The major one was:

Was she feeling pains because there was a partial blockage in her arteries or heart?

She had a CAT scan (clear) and she met with her cardiologist. He discharged her but she has to go back for various tests to see if we can determine what's going on. By 8pm we were all back home and listening to Dad's wonderful day with Kylie. He took great care of her. And he drove back home on Sunday morning.

It's hard to know how to feel. We are both so grateful that this ER visit didn't result in surgery and yet we are both so scared that surgery may be on the horizon.

We desperately want to go to on our vacation in Mexico. We are supposed to leave this Friday and be gone a week. This trip has been the light at the end of our tunnel for some time now. We are praying that Karen will get a clean bill of health in the tests that are scheduled for this week. As her cardiologist said, "We have to rule out various things about her heart's health. But the best way to see if this has been about stress is to go on vacation and see if you feel better." We are praying that vacation will the be answer.

In the midst of it all, I remembered my picture-a-day goal. This year, I want to take pictures not just of Kylie but of all aspects of my life. So I shot this one with my iPhone while eating lunch by myself at the hospital cafeteria. The brochure says "Smart Hearts." I like the angles and lines in this photo and am proud that I took it. But every time I look at it, I want to throw up.


I'll keep you updated and hopefully also share some fun stuff that Kylie has been up to. Until then, please take a moments and send us your prayers and best wishes. Thanks.

That was blog worthy

Have I got a story to share with you!

Last night, the three of us went out for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. We ordered our meals and were playing with Kylie when we hear, "Excuse me" from across the room. There was a woman dining by herself about 10 feet away from us. I shall refer to her in this story as the Crazy Lady or CL for short. She had the very wide-eyed look of the crazy folk.

CL: Excuse me
Me: Yes?
CL: Is she yours? (referring to Kylie)
Me: Yes. (with a sociable smile on my face)
CL: Are you together? (gesturing to me and Karen)
Me: Yes. (with a questioning look like "Where is this going?")

CL: Are you lesbians?
Hear Karen choke on her Diet Coke. Remember, this lady is 10 feet away, shouting at us to be heard.

Me (matching her loud voice): Yes.
CL: How did you conceive her?

Me: Are we going to have this conversation shouting across the restaurant?!
Karen whispers to me: Maybe you should walk over there.
Me: Let me come there.

Walk across the way to her
CL: How did you conceive her?
Me: Are you interested in becoming a mother yourself?
CL: Yes
Me: Do you have a partner?
CL: No. Where would I find one?
Me: (baffled) You know I just moved here. I don't know any place to suggest where you could meet someone.
Me: (gratefully noticing our food has arrived) Ah, I see my food is here. Enjoy your meal.

Walk back to my table.
CL shouting again to us: How did you conceive her?
Karen: IUI
CL: What?

This part cracks me up
Karen points to her eyeball, then makes a U sign with her hands, then points to her eyeball again while saying: IUI
Me: Laughing
CL: I don't know what that is. (still shouting at us)
Karen: You know, after we finish our meals, perhaps we could meet you in the lobby and answer any questions you might have.

CL gets up and walks to our table.
Karen and I exchange glances like "WTF?"
CL: I don't know what that is
Karen: A procedure
CL: What are your professions?
Karen: I'm a computer analyst
Me: I'm a stay-at-home Mom
CL: Where do you work?
Karen: A local company
CL: Which company
Karen: I would rather not say.

I've stopped chuckling and just want this woman to go away.
Me: You'll have to excuse us now. We are in the middle of a conversation over our meal.
CL: You are a good parent. (walks back to her table).

Karen and I start eating while acting noticeably nonchalant. At this point, every waiter in the restaurant and the chefs from the kitchen start walking past our table to check us out. I realize that the shouted question, "Are you lesbians?" and my shouted "yes" has probably been heard by everyone in the place.

Now, with the staff all walking by, I feel like I'm representing the Lesbian Nation and the crazy thought that goes through my head is "Well shit. I should have worn my earings". Then I start laughing at myself. At the same time, I'm trying to feed Kylie, eat, and talk with Karen so the crazy lady won't see a pause in conversation and come back over.

Then the manager of the place comes hurriedly over and introduces himself. We smile and say "hello". Then he says, "I want to make sure you are all right?" And we smile and say, "We're fine". I ask him, "Is she a regular?" Hell, I was thinking she could own the place for all I knew. He said, "I've never seen her before". I smile and say, "Okay". He says, "If there is anything I can do let me know".

Now I know that this is a common and nice thing to say. But I'm struck by the sheer ludicrous of it and think to myself, "What do you want to do? Body slam the crazy lady to the ground and wrestle her away?" This gets me chuckling again but I manage to say, "Our meal is tasty. We have a good waiter. We are fine, thank you". He smiles and goes away.

The parade of people past our table continues. Karen and I start laughing out loud. Kylie joins in for the heck of it. It was one of the most unusual things that has happened to me.

We were extra cautious as we left the restaurant and walked to our car. Because you never know if a crazy person is going to come after you with a bat or something. But mostly, we just laughed and enjoyed the moment.

And it was soooooo blog worthy.

Menu

For Soupy and Marion and M--thanks for your comments. The lunch menu post is for you!



Monday
PB Jelly - cut into heart shapes
Pretzels
Peach cup

Tuesday
Roast beef sandwiches - cut into stars
White beans
Cucumbers
Grapes

Wednesday - Pictured
On Wednesdays, we have swim class. Kylie is ravenous after her class and eats lunch in the car during our 45 minute drive home. So I put her lunch in this container for her.
Ham and cheese
Crackers
Mandarin oranges
Blueberries

Thursday
Turkey sandwiches - cut into flowers
Black beans
Pepper strips & celery & dressing
Grapes

Friday
Mac & cheese
Hot dogs
Jello cup

Saturday
Saturdays are our indulgence days where we usually eat fast food.
Cheeseburger or chicken nuggets
Fries
Apples or oranges

Sunday
Cheese toast
Sun chips
Pineapple cup


Go in there Mommy and count to 10 so I can hide.
Okay, static-hair girl.

Now chase me around the table Mommy. Chase Me!

Hello Harvey

Say hello to Harvey. Harvey is Kylie's imaginary dog and he lives at the end of this pretend leash. This used to be a belt of mine but it now is part of Kylie's collection of ribbons and necklaces and other "glittery things" as she calls them. When she stumbles across the belt, out pops Harvey. She feeds Harvey from her plastic grocery foods and takes him for walks. Oh, and she came up with the name all by herself. Quite imaginative don't you think?

Over the weekend, I completed two projects that have been on my mind for weeks.

The first was to create a menu for Kylie's lunches. I have no memory these days and I worry that I've offered her the same thing too many days in a row. So I finally wrote a menu out, taking care to make it well-balanced and varied. And then I posted it on the refrigerator. It's going to be such a relief to look at it each day and know what I'm going to fix her. Instead of looking into my pantry and thinking, "What in the world did I feed her yesterday? Was it peach cups or oranges?"

If anyone is interested, I can post her lunch menu here. I've not gotten many comments lately and am not sure if writing about her food would interest anyone or have them run screaming from the blog.



Another little project that I completed is an activity clipboard. Each card you see is laminated and has a Velcro circle tab on the back that corresponds with a Velcro tab attached to the clipboard. That way I can easily change the cards for our activities. For this picture, I put up the activities we normally do after Kylie wakes up from her nap. I’m trying to encourage her to play by herself during “free play” time instead of expecting me to entertain and play with her. It will be helpful (I hope) to point to the clipboard.

Lastly, here are two recent scrapbook pictures:

Thank heavens for bugs

This week we are back to a full schedule for Kylie. Hurray! Here's what it looks like:
Mondays: My Gym
Tuesdays: Ballet
Wednesdays: Swimming
Thursday: Art
Fridays: Gymboree.

It has been so challenging to have Kylie in the house ALL DAY during this very cold winter break. I become her constant playmate and that can be exhausting.

A few things made it easier:

The At Play Cafe that blogging friend Beth told me about. It's a sweet little indoor playground and coffee shop. It's a bit pricey per visit but well worth it. Kylie has a great time playing there. In this picture (shot with my iPhone) she's trying on every hat and outfit in their costume box.


Kitchen play/help. Kylie really wants to be in the kitchen with me and help make our meals. To help her feel involved, I have a baggy of dry pinto beans that I have her move from baggy to bowl and stir around. If she finishes with that, then she gets a baggy of dry macaroni noodles. Occasionally, she does a bit more work like in this picture. Here Kylie helped me by washing some grapes and then pulling them off the stem and putting them onto the paper-lined plate. I love how intent she is on her task. She sort of sucks in her bottom lip a bit when she's concentrating. The look reminds me of my grandmother.


Another big help was the Alex Little Hands Paper Plate Bug set that I got on sale from Borders. Kylie loved making these bugs. We would do one every couple of days. This kit was fabulous and I'm so glad I got it. We also got the Crafty Cars set but Kylie hasn't enjoyed it as much. Alex Toys has several other kits that I look forward to getting.


Lastly, as you can see in the above photo, Kylie's hair had gotten to the fuzzy/bushy stage. It was so hard to brush and comb in the mornings and in her eyes and face all day. So today she got another haircut.

During (taken with my iPhone and tweaked with an iPhone app called Shake It which puts the photo on polaroid paper--fun!):

After:

Hope you are having a great weekend.

School

Each day after Kylie's had her nap and her snack, we have "school".


I tear out a page from the bridge activities book. Kylie traces the letter of the day with her marker and then colors the pictures that start with that letter. I've been increasingly impressed that she knows all of the pictures. Yesterday she surprised me when she knew the eggplant picture and proceeded to color it purple.


Then we move on to the Book of Easy Mazes. Kylie completes the mazes on both the front and back of the torn-out page.

Then we do a page from Kumon's "Sticker and Paste" book or the "Let's Cut Paper" book or Kylie does a water color art page.

At then end of school, Kylie proudly puts her schoolwork on the steps so that she can show it to Momma Karen. I really enjoy my interaction with Kylie as I teach her and help her through her lessons. It's often the highlight of my day with her.

Yesterday it was warm enough (in the 30's) for us to go outside for 30 minutes. There is still snow from where we shoveled our driveway.


Kylie likes the crunching sound it makes as she steps on it with her new snow boots.


She still likes sneaking around eating bits of dirty snow. She'll hide behind trees....


or run and hide behind the car.


Perhaps if I mesmerize Mommy with my hypnotic eyes, she won't see me get more bites of snow.


Nice try kiddo but you are busted!

Cold and crazy

I've been going around asking strangers, "What is up with this wind? Is this normal?" and "What is going on with this bitter cold weather? Is this normal?". And I know Karen's tired of hearing me say, "I'm cold. It's cold here. This house is cold. I'M COLD!"

Seriously, this lovely older home has the cold wind whipping through it, particularly in the basement. The cats and I practically live in front of our space heater. Yeesh!

We joined MyGym this week and Kylie loved it. I'm probably going to me known as "the crazy cold mom" because that's all I could talk about with all the other parents. Kylie loves the ball pit at MyGym. On her first class, she got to do a supported handstand, do the long jump down a mat and hang on a zip line. She was in heaven.


Here are a few more pictures, some scrapbook pages, and a widget of what she's been reading from the library.

Strategy and more

Here's a funny story for you.
On New Year's Day, Kylie had been a bit whiny and tearful.
We all decided to go for a ride.
As I was loading Kylie into her carseat she exclaimed, "Momma, I'm crying".
Karen said, "I've got a surprise for you" and handed Kylie a lollipop.
Kylie smiled at me and said, "That was my strategy".
We cracked up.



The other night we were eating at a restaurant together and Kylie was playing with some of her princesses. She held two of them together. I asked her what they were doing and she replied, "They are hugging and kissing." Aahhhh......what an interesting life my daughter is going to have.




Kylie loves her "just add water" coloring books. She likes to paint them first thing in the morning while I'm making us breakfast. She usually brings a friend, like Curious George in this picture, to witness her painting expertise. She will whip through 3 or more pages in 15 minutes or so. I think she would color these pages all day if I'd let her.

Lastly, here is a sweet video of Kylie dancing in a circle soothing her baby doll. The song is "Mockingbird" by Melissa Errico.

365 project for 2009

For 314 days, I picked up the camera and fired off a shot of Kylie as part of my 365 project. I think I'm a better photographer for it. I think I'm a better Photoshop user. There were some days when picking up the camera seemed like a chore and I only shot a couple of pictures. There were days filled with beautiful light when I would take close to 100 pictures and then get to pick which one was "best". I'm so very grateful that I decided to do the project. I think I captured some really memorable moments of Kylie's life. Now I get to decide if I'm going to do it again for 2010.

Here are the 314 pictures along with some favorite quotes from the year:

In picturing the subject, you are also picturing a part of yourself. Rick Sammon



Design Less Think More. Ellen Lipton



It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones. Jean Webster



The good mother is a great artist ever creating beauty out of chaos. Alice Randall



Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it. Julia Child



The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes. If you foolishly ignore beauty, you will soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life.
Frank Lloyd Wright