I am on a mission, a mission from...myself. I have been thinking more and more lately about San Diego, and specifically the many wildlife parks (ie the Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and Seaworld) and now I really really REALLY want to go! So I am on a mission to convince Hubby to take me for our anniversary this year, which is in June. I've already told him in no uncertain terms that I have a strong desire (who am I fooling? I gotta go!) to go this year, and I sent him a link for tickets and area hotels, now I just have to wait and hope. It's funny, I always seem to come up with these crazy ideas off the top of my head and then forget about them for a while. Then I remember the idea several months, maybe even years, down the road and I just can't NOT do it. I first had this idea while we were still living in Florida (that was, like, a year and a half ago!) and I just remembered it about a month ago when Hubby and I started talking about tax refunds and what we were going to do with ours this year (we usually put some of it towards our anniversary and then the rest goes into savings, yay for stewardship!). We like to bounce ideas off each other for our anniversary well in advance so that we can plan ahead. Last year we went to a super ritzy nice hotel by the beach that made fresh chocolate chip cookies for us in the evening (yay for cookies!). This year I'm dreaming of animals, lots of them! And a plethora of new stuffed toys for my office from the gift shop =0)
Speaking of my office, have I ever mentioned the foremost decoration in my perriwinkle office is my lifelong collection of stuffed animals? I didn't? Well, now you know. I haven't bothered to count them in a while, but I have a lot. Some of them are the little bean filled ones that were sooooo popular when I was in elementary school, but a vast number of them are big and squishy and soft and oh-so-huggable. I've actually found that while they give me a warm fuzzy feeling whenever I go to work, they also are a big help when I'm counseling an upset teenager. People are a lot more open when you give them something to snuggle while they're talking. I even let one of the girls take home my monkey that giggles when you squeeze its paw to help her keep positive while she's getting over a recent breakup (she says it helps, further proof that the Holy Spirit was the inspiration behind the invention of the stuffed animal). I even use them for games sometimes. The favorite of the girls in our youth group is a little roly poly panda (surprised?) that we use to play the memory catch game. The best part is that, while Hubby thinks it's a little weird for me to keep stuffed animals in our house (hence why they all live in my office) he is more than happy to get them for me, even if it's for no reason other than "it's Tuesday". I honestly think my collection has doubled since we first started dating four years ago and the growth shows no sign of slacking off in the forseeable future. =0)
