and when i'm left at home, i'm all alone, but i'd rather be alone with you

I have to say that thinking about what I want to write about and then racking my brain for a song lyric to go with it as a title is immensely enjoyable. I kind of doubt anyone notices this little touch or knows all the songs I'm referencing but it makes me happy nonetheless. This particular one is "Alone" by Lisa Loeb, from all the way back in roughly 1995.

After the movie Reality Bites came out, "Stay" was all over the place even though Lisa Loeb hadn't officially released an album of her own yet. I didn't see the movie right away but I definitely had the soundtrack and when Nine Tails was released, I snatched it up and listened to it until I had every word memorized. The song "Alone" was always my favorite because I imagined I would meet a guy who would scour the sky for me so the stars would shine bright. I did, and I married him.

While we were finishing up the madness of getting out of the apartment, I stumbled across a small pile of cds that I hadn't realized were missing. I have a really bad habit of sticking cds in cases that they don't belong to. This drives my treasure custodian husband crazy and I am wary of taking his cds unless I know I will bring it right back inside when I come home. In any case, there was a mix cd I had made in 2005 because once upon a time people used to think I had good taste in music and someone requested a sampling of some of my favorite songs. Seeing the title didn't jog my memory as to what was included, but popping it in my truck's stereo was like greeting old friends.

I love how music speaks to my soul. When I hear a song, I'm transported back to the first time I heard it or the memory of who introduced me to that band or what was going on in my life when I was obsessively listening to that album. It makes my heart happy. There are a lot of things that make me smile even on the worst day but the three things that make my very heart happy are my husband, my baby, and a capital G good song. We'll go over the criteria for a capital G good song another day my friends.

This weekend, through various conversations, I realized that Ki and I are the strongest we've ever been and it's just such a nice solid feeling to love someone, be in love, and be loved back that I felt like it was worth mentioning. I don't think we're the traditional cutsey couple, but I also think what we have works very well. We do nice things for each other and treat each other with kindness and I just don't get tired of him.

If we have a girl, Ki will need to take her out on dates so the bar for how she expects to be treated is set high. If we have a boy, I need to do the same thing so he knows how women should be treated. And in either case, we need to make sure to continue to treat each other kindly and do nice things for each other and take our kid along so they grow up seeing how it's done. I like that although we are nervous about becoming parents and what the first few months especially are going to look like that we can plan to be intentional about so many things with our little one.

This is going to be great.