A long time ago.. um.. I think it was oh, spring of 2005, I started blogging back when blogging was a new thing or maybe I was late to the game and it was just new to me. Doesn't matter. I read a lot, I followed other bloggers and they followed me. I had tales of broken hearts over friends and lovers, jobs changed, I moved from place to place in Seattle and then I think life got a little more settled and calm and eventually, the drama and chaos faded. I'm hoping I grew a bit in all that time.
I still have the blog and up until last year, updated it almost regularly, but when I really fell in love and began to plan a life with my then boyfriend, that seemed to shift. I didn't have nearly the kind of time. I wasn't in a corporate job any longer so I wasn't in front of a computer all day and if I spent the time reading how I needed to in order to keep up on blogs, the kids I nannied could've gotten up to all sorts of shenanigans that would've rendered them in the hospital and me unemployed. Therefore, I kept an eye on my charges while the blog gathered virtual dust.
Within the last year and a half, not only did I fall in love with the man who turned out to be just as awesome as I thought he was on the first date, but we were engaged on our one year anniversary, planned TWO weddings in the three months that followed (one in Chicago where he's from and one in Seattle where we've both lived - me for 18 years and him for seven.) and relocated to Oxford, England less than a month after the Seattle ceremony.
Phew! Tired yet? Yeah, welcome to our lives.
The blog is an homage to just one type of pub naming scheme popular in the UK where everything is The Rose & Crown, The Lamb & Flag, The Eagle & Child, The Angel & Greyhound - two things that don't always seem to go together but do somehow once explained - and to my love, Mike, who at heart is a scientist, but one who loves birds and flowers and has made me love them too.
The puffin is a bird I know from the Oregon Coast where I grew up and where we had one of our first vacations with my extended family. It was the center of our first um.. 'discussion' we disagreed because he was certain, as we approached Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, that puffins weren't native to the area. Having gone to high school on the coast and vacationed at Cannon Beach the last few years with family, I knew he was wrong and in about 200 feet as we approached a park ranger's truck, he knew it too. We've been using Puff as a nickname for each other ever since.
The iris is just one of his favorite flowers. We both like tulips and peonies, but just like gerberas, one of my all-time favorites, they didn't seem to fit. Either way, in this scenario, he's the flower and I'm the bird. It may not make sense, but it works for us.
