A day in the life of Meghan

I can't find my marbles

2012-01-26T19:24:00.002-05:00

We're getting ready for a Life Changing Event here at Casa de O'G, mainly the addition of the 4th member of our little family.   Part of the preparation is living on Andrew's salary as much as we can (another part is me drooling over the Beco Gemini. drool. want.) in order to boost up our savings.   He does earn a liveable wage, but we are used to having two incomes and we're quite spoiled. I don't want to tell you the amount of money we have spent on take-out over the course of our marriage.   Living on one salary has had its share of challenges, mainly accepting the fact that we can't go out to dinner once a week and I can't drown my work sorrows in Italian subs and wine anymore.   I've been more stressed out and full of rageful hate at work because of this unfortunate turn of events.

We don't have any ink in our printer, and I'm still not convinced that using a coupon to buy something I wouldn't have bought in the first place will save me money so I'm not couponing (yet.... once I get some ink and someone explains to me how spending more money saves me money, I'm sure I'll join in on the fun).   I am, however, watching sales quite closely.    I have two main spreadsheets, one to track the weekly specials at my local grocery stores (of which there are only 3.   Sad... No Market Basket, Trader Joes, or Price Chopper near me!) and the other to track what we are spending on a particular item over the long term.   I live for Thursday when Shaw's and Stop & Shop release their weekly flier.   Hannaford and Target don't release theirs until Friday and Saturday respectively.    Every Thursday and Friday night I can be found sitting at the computer going over the fliers (does anyone actually use the paper ones anymore? what a sad waste of a tree) and updating my spreadsheets.   I'm sure you are very jealous of my super cool life.

It may not be the most fun way to spend 25 minutes on Thursday and Friday nights, but I have cut our weekly grocery bill from $100-$120 per week to around $75-$80.   If I can sustain that saving and keep the grocery bill to the $75-$80 range, I can save in the ballpark of $1500 PER YEAR.   That's a lot of money that I didn't need to be spending before.

That's like 190 Italian subs.

2 more weeks

2012-01-23T18:35:00.001-05:00

I have an anxiety problem that I learned it from my mother. We both tend to have anxiety over issues that don't need to be given a second thought. I have been known to have anxiety over TV character's problems. I lose sleep all the time over the silliest things. Given all that, I have a VERY hard time watching the playoffs of any sport (if by "any sport" you mean football or hockey. Basketball doesn't exit in my universe and I just can't stand baseball). And now I have 2 weeks to re-live the last Pats/Giants Super Bowl match up. I may not sleep for 14 days. I am so excited my boys are back in the Super Bowl!

In 15 days I find out if Lil Sibling is a Lil Sister or a Lil Brother! Yay! I can decide on a name (HA, like I'm going to tell you) and start buying blue clothes if I need to! I have a very strong boy feeling but I had the same thought when I was pregnant with Baby Girl, so we can see how good I am at that whole mother's intuition thing.

Speaking of Baby Girl - guess who is potty trained! One accident in 11 days! And to be honest, that accident wasn't completely her fault, the bathroom door was closed and she didn't know what to do - apparently asking one of the 6 adults who where around for help didn't cross her mind. Special, that one.

2012-01-18T12:58:00.001-05:00

Really Paula Deen?

REALLY?

You have been cooking and promoting food that is really really really bad for you for a long time.   It's really a shame you developed Type II Diabetes, but you were diagnosed three years ago.   And yet you continued to show people how to follow in your foot steps?   That's awful.

You didn't have to be a spokesperson for diabetes, though it would have been nice if you were.   But the fact that you went on with life as usual, told people how to make DONUT HAMBURGERS, and pretended everything was hunky dory? No. Not cool.   And only coming forward when you are being paid to do so by Big Pharma - even worse.   If you want everyone to know you developed Type II Diabetes, why didn't you say something three years ago? Why didn't you develop recipes that were healthier and diabetes friendly? What, do you not think there is a market for that in the US?   You waited until you were going to be paid for it. Classy.

Not that I ever watched your show before, but you'll probably now be put on the list of people who are Not Allowed On My TV, which includes Peyton Manning (though he can probably come off now, since he and I have a lot in common when it comes to playing professional football) and Sarah Palin.

I rarely watch Anthony Bourdain either, but I might have to now!

2012-01-18T08:02:00.003-05:00

have you heard the news? Have you read the tweet begging for a job and a place to live because his wife booted him out of a house and a job? Dooce and her husband split up. Since I don't know them personally, I can't say I saw that coming, but I was actually shocked to read about it. I'm always shocked when celebrities get divorced (if you can even call Dooce and her whiner husband celebrities) - I'm still waiting for Brad & Jen and Nick & Jessica to get back together. I'll admit, I was even surprised when Kim and what's his name split up after 30 seconds, I figured they'd at least make it a few more months. I'm apparently very naive -

So sad, Dooce.

Other sad news - Wikipedia is down for 24 hours, but not really because Wikipanion still works on my phone. My senator is voting against SOPA (or at least one of them is, to be honest I'm not really sure Kerry is even in Washington anymore, you never hear from him). You should get your Senator to vote against it too.

2012-01-16T18:54:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure when my baby turned into a little kid. I may have been napping at the time, I've been napping a lot more with this pregnancy.

In case you couldn't tell, Santa brought her cleaning supplies. Santa thought she should be trying to earn her keep.

I apologize for my breathiness and horrible Boston accent. I think I have a bit of a cold. I swear, I do not speak like that in real life. And if I really do speak like that, someone needs to hit me.

I gotta go to Saint Somewhere...

2012-01-15T19:11:00.001-05:00

Winter finally came. The temperature was hovering just around 0 all weekend. As you can see, Baby Girl loved it in all her purple snow monster glory. I was in jeans fleece coat. We were not dressed for the same season at all and I was FREEZING.

I was really getting used to the 60 degree weather - I did find it a bit odd that the grass was still green in January, but I'm not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It's back into the 30's tomorrow and should stay there for the rest of the week, so I'm pretty excited about that. 111 more days until Memorial Day Weekend!

Alphabet soup

2012-01-10T17:21:00.002-05:00

We have starting teaching Baby Girl her letters. She knows S, M, and B.    As for A... well, the following conversation happens about 6 times a day

Mama (after drawing an A): What's this letter?
Baby Girl: Yes.
Mama: Yes.... what? What letter is this?
Baby Girl.   It's a .....
Mama: it's an A!
Baby Girl: it's an A!

2 seconds later:
Mama: What's this letter?
Baby Girl: A 'A'!
Mama: cringing at the improper use of 'a' vs. 'an' - Yes!

2 seconds later:
Mama: What's this letter?
Baby Girl:   I don't know!

Seriously, she forgets it in 2 seconds.   I know she's still young for her letters, and I understand this is not going to happen quickly, but seriously?   We probably point out the letter "A" 10 times a day.    She cannot remember it, yet she saw an "O" on our Welcome mat and recognized it instantly - they don't do letters as school yet.   So she randomly taught herself what an "O" is, but cannot get the "A" which is pointed out to her eleventy billion times a day?   Only my kid.   I swear she is doing it on purpose.

In other news, she's potty training.   We're all kind of scarred by it.   Her favorite trick is to sit on the potty for about 10 minutes and not go and then have an accident 30 seconds after she gets up.   My favorite trick is drinking copious amounts of wine to get through it.

HA HA HA JUST KIDDING, DON'T CALL THE AUTHORITIES ON ME! I know I'm pregnant. There is no wine drinking.   There is a lot of complaining about the lack of wine though, don't get me wrong.

Also on the Lil Sibling front, I heard the heartbeat today.   4 more weeks until we know if we're welcoming Lil Brother or Lil Sister!

stuff

2012-01-05T18:59:00.002-05:00

I got hacked on Tuesday. Someone tried to access my facebook from Georgia (the country, not the state), but facebook immediately shut down my profile and my Twitter account got hacked and tweets went out.   That was fun.   So while I'm at working trying to not jump out of the window driven by pure hatred, I had to go on Social Media Damage Control.   And then change my bank passwords as well, natch.

I want to know how some random computer program in Georgia figured out my password.   I guess it's just an algorithm that puts letters and numbers together until it finds a password.... right? I mean how else did that happen?   Someone needs to tell me and then explain why hacking MY twitter feed was a good idea. Seriously my tweets are private and I only have 21 followers.   Seriously. Twenty One.   Was it worth the time it took for that program to hack my account? 21 people saw the Tweets.   Or, more accurately, 21 people may have seen my tweets, they were down in about 20 minutes and it was in the middle of the day so I'm guessing all 21 people did not see them, which brings me back full circle. WHY DID THEY BOTHER?

Now I can't remember my passwords.   Fun.

Tonight is Grey's night! I'm so excited! I'm actually most excited for Grey's next fall (please please please come back next fall!!!!) so I can watch it with my customary and very much missed glass of wine!

Yeah.... um..... my knitting is in my knitting bag. In my room.   I SUCK.   I will bring it out again, I really will. When I can stay awake past 9:15.

I should be sleeping

2012-01-02T14:31:00.001-05:00

Everyone else in my family is napping right now, and I just planned our meals for the week. There's something wrong with that picture.   At least we'll have real meals this week and not our usual "what's the easiest and quickest thing we can have for dinner because it's already 6pm and she needs to take a bath before she goes to bed" version of meal planning.

Not only did I plan the meals, but I also put our shopping list together. Go me. Now I just have to find someone to go the store and buy everything on the list... any takers?

That is my fun Last Day Off From Work Until Memorial Day Because My Company Hates Leisure Time.   I probably should have spent it doing fun things instead of running around doing errands this morning and putting together a meal plan and shopping trip.    That's just how I roll.

Baby Girl and I went for a walk to the park yesterday.   She loved getting back on the swings and I loved being outside in January without a snow suit on!

And on the Resolution front, I went for a walk (which totes means I don't have to Wii for like a week) and I had an entire glass of water yesterday! Progress!

I did it!

2012-01-01T08:11:00.003-05:00

January's picture is up on January 1. I rock. Per usual, it's a summer picture. Nothing exciting happens in January and we all need to be reminded that summer will eventually return. Warm weather is a distant memory and it's still 6 months away, but it's coming! It will be warm again some day!

Resolutions!

2012-01-01T07:47:00.001-05:00

Of course I have New Years resolutions! How else could I break them by the middle of January if I don't make them?

1. Water. Drink it.
(ignore the fact that has been a New Years resolution of mine since... oh I don't know, I was 18 or so? Some day it will happen)

2. de-clutter my house.   We actually did a really good job with that last year, but we didn't keep it up throughout the year, so we're back to clutter again.    We don't have a hoarding situation, but running out of room in closets.   And when you only have 4, and two are bedroom closets, that's a bad thing.   This year I also want to focus on the kitchen.   While there's not a lot of clutter, there's a lot of stuff and I know it could be organized better.
(I know, this is a lame resolution, but I'm a lame person.   That's what you get)

3. Wii Fit. It's so hard to get out and move in the winter. It's dark when I leave for work, dark when I get home from work, and freezing in between.   But the Wii Fit should get me moving at least, even if it doesn't get me the cardio workout I got while training for Falmouth.
(I'm actually kind of sad I can't train for Falmouth this year. I hated every last second of training for it, but I really loved running it! This year I'll watch Andrew do it instead.... not the same thing. Sad face)

And there you go.    Do you think I'll even have a sip of water today? We'll see!!

Happy New Year

2011-12-31T17:31:00.001-05:00

Once Baby Girl goes to bed, we're getting chinese food and watching The Hanover part 2! It could only be better if I had some wine. God, I miss wine.

I could make a single glass of red wine last for an hour. I loved to hold it and smell it and finally sip it. It's the great tragedy of pregnancy, not having a glass of red wine when I want it. Sadly, when I am finally no longer pregnant, it won't be red wine season, not to mention I'll be nursing an infant. Oh, the great sorrows of my life.

So yes, it is New Years Eve! Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is the most fabulous year yet!

Woe is me

2011-12-29T20:56:00.001-05:00

Guess what! I made the purl stitch my BEEOTCH tonight. In that I kind of learned how to do it, but since I am teaching myself how to do this I have no one to tell me if I'm wrong.

I am a knitting god. And I need new needles. This is going to get expensive pretty fast. What else is new?

I have a cold. The only cold medicine I have in the house is the kind I can't take when I'm pregnant. Not taking medicine is against everything I believe in. But it's only 39 degrees out, it's dark, I'm tired and lazy, and I didn't schlepp out to CVS to buy lame pregnancy cold medicine. This kid is already cramping my style. And making me miserable.

Back to work

2011-12-27T21:53:00.001-05:00

Christmas came and went, and per usual Baby Girl was spoiled beyond belief. I'm a little scared to see what will happen when Lil Sibbling arrives.

(for those of you keeping score at home, we find out if Lil Sibling is a baby sister or baby brother on the first Monday of February)

I knitted 3 rows of a big mess tonight, thanks to my new knitting book, needles, and yarn. Not purled, mind you. Just knitted. Purling is chapter 3.

What. I have way too many hobbies and I can't keep up with any of them. What's your point. I can't run outside in the winter in NE, I needed something else to fill my time. Don't h8.

Back to work tomorrow. Maternity leave starts July 3rd! I can make it till then.... maybe.

Merry merry!

2011-12-23T09:30:00.001-05:00

It's Christmas Eve eve! I got Baby Girl all excited about Santa coming tomorrow night, but I'm pretty sure she's already forgotten. She asked me what Santa was bringing me. Oh, if only...

I've spent most of my time at Mass General this week (including over 10 hours on Tuesday) so I didn't get everything done. It's a good thing Baby Girl won't be counting her presents!

I'm hoping for a very healthy 2012!!

Christmas? what?

2011-12-20T13:38:00.001-05:00

Christmas is in a few days.   Chances are we will be spending Christmas at the Massachusetts General Hospita (or, "The Gen" for those in the business. Or, "Boston Gen" for those of us who are fictional characters on Grey's Anatomy referencing MGH)

I'm lucky that Baby Girl is still young and doesn't REALLY get Christmas yet. She won't care if after we do out Santa presents, we hop in the car and go to the doctors to see Grandpa. She doesn't know that's not normal. Also, she likes to visit Grandpa at the doctors because there is an unlimited supply of crackers in a special drawer, and she knows where it is.

I, however, do know that spending Christmas in a hospital is not normal.   I don't want to do it.   I don't want anyone to be in the hospital, I don't want to have to drive into MGH ever again,   I don't want to know how to navigate my way around, and I don't want to go back.   I will be back tomorrow thought, if not tonight.   I am so ready for this to be over.

And sadly, I had to turn off the Pioneer Woman's Christmas special.   Oh my god, all that butter, and prime rib, and butter, and cream.... and butter.    Apparently she wants to spend Christmas at MGH too!

Tis the Season!

2011-12-19T18:32:00.001-05:00

This past weekend did not turn out quite how I was expecting it to be.   So when Sunday night rolled around, all I wanted to do was sit on the couch, watch The Christmas Story and zone out (and curse the person who decided pregnant women can't have a glass of wine).   That isn't quite what I got.

Baby Girl was not herself yesterday and at 7:00 when I asked her if she wanted to go to bed she said yes.   So I put her in the crib and 10 minutes later she was crying. Not her normal "I'm a toddler and I feel like I have to complain when I'm in bed" cry, but an actual "there is something wrong cry".   In I go, try to get her to lay down and go to sleep.   Fail.   So I pick her up, go sit on the couch and ignore the blatant warning signs that are repeatedly thrown in my face.

10 minutes later she's doing her best Regan MacNeil impression.   Seriously, I was waiting for her head to start spinning around.

As she was projectile vomiting on me, all I could do was look at Andrew.   He looked back at me.   I started to gag because I cannot deal with the smell of someone throwing up.   Finally he moved and got a towel to mop it all up.    When she was doing puking we moved into the bathroom (right, we waited until AFTER she was done throwing up to do that) and cleaned up.    I managed to not throw up myself, a feat for which I'm pretty sure I deserve a cash prize.

And then Baby Girl went back to bed and I passed out on the couch.

Happy Sunday night to me!

More Christmas lights Mama!

2011-12-16T20:43:00.001-05:00

Baby Girl loves Christmas lights. Luckily for her we don't live too far away from La Salette which is a Catholic Shrine that for some unknown reason is also a mecca for Christmas lights. I have no idea why, but they do have beautiful lights! The pictures below aren't the best, but I only had my cell phone with me, and 2.5 year olds don't stand still anyway. Baby Girl loved it, we went with good friends of ours who have a 1 year old and a 7 year old, and the kids were being crazy with excitement. There was a live donkey there too who came right up to the kids to say hello, but Baby Girl noticed right away that the donkey wasn't talking to us. I'm not sure I'll be able to take that one to Disney World, she won't accept whatever lame answer I come up with when she asks why Mickey can't talk to her. I accepted whatever lame answer my mother gave me, but sometimes I think Baby Girl is way smarter than I ever was!

oh God

2011-12-14T18:46:00.001-05:00

We will be doing Elf on a Shelf next year, I didn't think she'd quite get it this year at only 2.5 years old. But people like this are the reason I'm scared to start the tradition!!

But then I find people like this and I realize I'm not the only normal person on this planet.

How to suceed in parenting without really trying

2011-12-14T18:39:00.000-05:00

My kid doesn't eat pasta. I know, I know - she's wierd. I've never encountered a toddler who won't eat pasta. She doesn't eat rice either, and she's only lukewarm on potatoes.   I'm not 100% convinced she's mine.

One of the last times we had pasta (because, yes, I still make pasta at least twice a week, and no, I really don't care that she doesn't like it) she told me she only would eat the "clean" ones.   Read: the ones that don't have sauce on them.   Tonight I thought I'd outsmart her - no sauce on the pasta! A smidgen of oil and some cheese. Voila! Clean pasta!   Surely she would eat that!

I played it up, made pasta seem like the most exciting thing in the world. I actually had the words "yay! I LOVE pasta!" come out of her mouth.   I WOULD BE VICTORIOUS! The child would eat dinner!

It was only marginally successful.   I had to resort to bribery in addition to clean pasta. I would only give her meatballs if she ate a certain amount of pasta and I did have to bribe her with hershey kisses from her Advent calendar (which little did she know she was getting anyway). But I'd say she ate at least 3 or 4 pieces of pasta.   That's better than 0!

She and I are going to have to come to some sort of agreement.   I'm not going to stop making pasta, and she needs to eat her dinner. I have a feeling this could go on for the next 16 years.

And the explanation

2011-12-11T12:19:00.001-05:00

One of the biggest reasons I haven't been able to keep up with my blog is most nights I'm asleep by 7:30 or 8. I barely stay up later than my 2.5 year old.   I've been battling some awful fatigue. The nights that I do stay up past 8:00, I'm so nauseous that I just lay on the couch like a lump on a log and Andrew is forced to do things like go out in the pouring rain to get a pint of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia.

Have I been obvious enough?

Sometime in early July, Baby Girl will be a Big Sister!   She has no idea yet, and I don't think we'll tell her for a while.   We need to get through potty training first (which, God help us, will start in full force in January)

I'm about 10 weeks along - I need to get a concrete due date from my midwife on Monday so I can at least track my weeks better.   I'm supposed to be due on July 1, but I had an early ultrasound and they said I was measuring more like I was due on July 9th.   But when I was pregnant with Baby Girl they said the same thing - my due date was June 23rd, then they said I was measuring closer to June 27th, but never changed my official due date.   So I'm still a little confused on which date to use, the 1st or the 9th.    I'd love for it to still be the 1st because in my practice they will let you go to 42 weeks before inducing you - well only if there is no medical reason to induce sooner.   So am I looking at July 15th being my last possible day pregnant, or July 23rd??   I'd REALLY rather it be July 15th!   Although Baby Girl was born on her due date of June 23rd, so maybe I will be lucky and go on July 1!

I really, really, really do NOT want a 4th of July baby so let's all keep our fingers crossed.   Although I will find it hysterical when my parents leave the Cape on the 4th of July to come spend the day in a hospital room in Boston!

Keep swimming

2011-12-09T14:18:00.001-05:00

I am still here. I know my posting frequency had dropped dramatically in the past few months. There's been a lot going on, and I've completely run out of time at nights. I even had thoughts of just shutting down because I can't stand when people don't keep up with blogs. It's probably in my top 5 pet peeves, and here I am doing the same thing. But I realized I've been in this position before and came out the other side and things will calm down soon, and I will regret shutting down.

That's my long winded way of saying that I WILL increase my posts and I'm trying to do it soon. Stay with me.

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

2011-12-02T12:41:00.001-05:00

well let's not kid ourselves, there's nothing really wonderful about this time of year.   Christmas should really be in July.

I'm almost ready for Christmas, I'm still about 75% done. Unfortunately I ran out of money, so I'm afraid that I will still be running around like a banshee a few days before, but hopefully I will be in a better place!

We are fully decorated for Christmas, but I'm not loving our decorations this year. I'm kind of sick of everything we have, including 90% of our Christmas tree decorations.   I want to throw everything away and start over.

Bah Humbug.

No matter what I do, I cannot get Baby Girl to care about Christmas. I know she's young, but this kid gets excited over brushing her teeth, I figured I could get SOMETHING out of her about Christmas. Nope. I pulled out her Little People Nativity set last weekend and she tried to put it away. I told her we'd keep it out for Christmas and she's played with it exactly 0 times.   She tried to fit Baby Jesus in her Little People van and he didn't fit and she completely gave up on the whole thing.    I guess we'll try again next year!

Black Friday

2011-11-25T19:04:00.001-05:00

I hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and the mashed potatoes were plentiful! We had a great holiday and Baby Girl was so excited to see all her relatives! This is the first time she would actually interact with them without me practically holding her the entire time.

This morning, for the second time in my life, I braved the Black Friday crowds.   The first time was a few years ago, I woke up at 3:30, got to Kohl's by 4 when it opened and bought the sweater I had my eye on, and went home to go back to bed.   It was pretty uneventful.

This year was slightly different.

We have needed a new TV for awhile, ours tended to do a weird squiggly line thing and be funny colors that was somehow related to the HDMI input. We've tried to fix it, but everything was a short term fix and it was clear the end of its useful life was coming. We decided to watch the Black Friday ads to see what was going to be on sale and if we could get a good deal on a TV, we'd do it.   Target had a 46" Westinghouse for $298 so we had plans to get it.

We knew there wouldn't be a lot of inventory for this TV, it was well marked that each store had limited quantities. Andrew though we should get in line at 9.   I thought he was being rediculous.   9:00? Three hours early in small town NH?

We did a drive by past Target at 8:00 before heading back to the hotel to get ready.   I told Andrew 30 times it was ridiculous to check, that there was not going to be a line.

There was a line.   At 8:00.   Luckily for me, it was still a relatively short line and Andrew hopped out with nothing but a mostly dead iPhone to keep him company. I went back to my in-laws' house to get a camp chair, and some gloves for him. Why I didn't get TWO camp chairs and a blanket is still unknown. Not my brightest moment.

I went back to the hotel and tried to figure out what to do, now that we were going to be sitting in line for 4 hours in the (literally) freezing cold. I put on my flannel pajama pants, put my jeans on over them (thank god I don't wear skinny jeans...), put about 3 shirts on, packed flannel pants, jeans, and a sweatshirt for Andrew and that was the best I could do. I grabbed both of our Nooks (and mine isn't backlit, so clearly it wasn't going to do me any good.   Andrew had requested a coffee, but hello - coffee and 4 hours without a bathroom is not a good combination.

The first few hours were awful. It was freezing - I had to go back to the car a few times to warm up my feet since I decided not to bring my Uggs to New Hampshire with me for this trip.   What can I say, I'm an idiot.   We only had one camp chair, so we had to trade off every 10 minutes.   I couldn't ready my Nook.   Andrew's phone was practically dead. I wanted to cry I was so cold. It sucked. I almost went back to the hotel about 30 times.

At 9:30 the manager came out, explained how the TVs were going to work. They had 43 tickets for 43 TV's. They were going to give out tickets and you'd bring your ticket to the changing rooms and get a TV. Sounded easy enough. Then he handed out Luna Bars and I decided to name my firstborn after him.   (I'll explain to Baby Girl why her name is Manager Jason from Target later).

At 10:00, he actually handed out the tickets and we knew were we guaranteed a TV!   It almost made the past 2 hours worth it because there was a VERY long line and most people had to give up the 46" TV for $298 dream.   Not us though! Just two more hours to wait!

Around 10:40ish, two of my brothers-in-law, my sister-in-law ,and niece showed up to get in line for X-boxes (and they ended up being lucky to get them, they ran out of them before we left the store!).   We chatted for a bit and then the BILs went to get me and Andrew coffee! I have never been so excited to get a decaf coffee.    After that, the time flew buy.

For crowd control purposes, Target was letting 30 people into the store, waiting 30 seconds and letting another 30 in, rinse and repeat. We part of the first 30 in the store, ran and got in line for our TVs, ran over to the x-boxes and grabbed three of them and handed over two when the ILs came in, paid, and hit the road. We ran into a slight snafu when the boxes didn't fit in our car, but some car shuffling today took care of that.

So.... long, freezing, boring night of Black Friday insanity yielded a new TV and somehow Andrew ended up with a new x-Box too.   I'm still not quite sure HOW that happened.

If we had been more prepared it actually wouldn't have been that bad, but we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants. I hope to not need a new TV for a long time... but we desperately need a new laptop.   Good thing Black Friday only comes once a year, and Cyber Monday can be done from the comfort of my house!

Turkey day!

2011-11-22T14:15:00.001-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving!   We leave tomorrow morning for our Thanksgiving festivities.   I'm not ready, I still haven't figured out what I'm wearing, though I'd put money on some sort of grey insurance professional outfit that makes me look like I'm 45.   Baby Girl has a cute dress, although I didn't bother to check to see if it fits. I'm sure it does... or I should say I'm sure she will wear it anyway.

HOTEL!!! TOMORROW NIGHT!!!!

If only I can convince Andrew he wants to sleep on the floor at his parents house... then I will have a King sized bed to myself! And I can watch whatever I want on TV!

oh, if wishes were horses.... I'm not really sure what that saying means, but I think I'd have a horse. And a King sized bed all to myself.

Friday the Christmas tree goes up!! I'm very excited about that. I'm not sure when we'll decorate it though... this Friday seems kind of early to me to be decorating a tree, but we'll see.   It depends on how motivated I am.... so expect it to be decorated sometime in the middle of December.

And I'm about 75% done with Christmas shopping. Don't hate.

Reign Supreme

2011-11-17T18:09:00.001-05:00

We're coming up on the last bit of regular season of fantasy football.   Guess who has clinched a playoff position? Oh, yeah, the same person who is in 2nd place (though I have more points than the 1st place team, which is infuriating).   The same person who beat Andrew (TWICE!! HA!!! SUCK IT!!!!), my brother, and my father.   Oh, and my cousin, and my brother's friend, and one of my father's friends...   Yup.   Me.    I am the best fantasy football player IN THE WORLD! Or the second best in my league, however you want to look at it. And I may only be in 2nd place because I got the first round draft pick and I grabbed Aaron Rodgers, and this particular league gives a lot of points for quarterbacks.   Or it may be because I am the BEST FANTASY FOOTBALL PLAYER IN THE WORLD!!!!

Since I have been MIA from the blogging world lately, here are a few things we need to go over:

1. Occupy Boston (or wherever you live).   GET. A. FLIPPING. JOB.   Seriously.   Stop living in tents on public property. Stop being a waste of space.

2. Penn State.   Sad.   Disturbing. Lesson learned? Call 911 when you see a child being abused. I wouldn't think this is a lesson that needs to be reviewed.

3. Demi & Ashton.   Is it wrong that I kind of want Demi and Bruce to get back together?

4. My kid had her Christmas pictures taken. Not a single smile. I'm still using them for Christmas cards though, you've been warned!

I've got a case of the Mondays

2011-11-13T17:46:00.001-05:00

But it's only Sunday. I took last Friday off (of course I don't get it as a vacation day, don't be silly!) so we had a nice 3 day weekend, and now it's back to the grind for 5 more days. Though if I can hold on till next week, there are only two work days!!! I'm so excited to have a 5 day weekend over Thanksgiving!

Where did November go? I realize it's only the 13th and we're not even halfway though, but Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK! Why doesn't time go by this quickly in January and February?

I'm eating my feelings tonight and getting Chinese food to chase away all my work stress from the coming week. That's normal and healthy, right? Well it could be worse. I could be chasing the stress away with a few scorpian bowls or something like that

mmm.... scorpion bowls.....

11/11/11

2011-11-11T07:38:00.001-05:00

Hug a veteran today!

I just French braided my child's hair - it came out crooked because we were arguing the whole time. Not over the fact that I was French braiding her hair, but because she was insisting that I dropped her waffle and I was explaining that I SAW HER drop her own waffle. Even though I had the facts on my side, it was still a draw. Life with a 2 year old....

Thanks

2011-11-09T20:05:00.002-05:00

By now you've noticed the Facebook 30 days of Thanks, or whatever they are calling it. People are updating their profiles every day with things for which they are thankful, and they are all lame. We all know you are thankful for your health, your family, your friends, your job, BLAH BLAH BLAH. I don't need my facebook feed clogged up with all that lameness. Here's my partial list. I may come back with more.

1. On Demand and DVR. I don't know how people possibly parented without it. I have no idea how I lived without it. I'm pretty sure life without these two things was a big barren wasteland of boredom.

2. K-Cups. Hi. K-CUPS. Do I have to say anything else?

3. The Zac Brown Band. If you aren't familiar with them, hit yourself over the head, and then download their albums. Sic Em On a Chicken is one of their songs - how can you not LOVE that? Also, Chicken Fried speaks to my soul. And not just because I like fried chicken.

4. my iPhone 4s. I love that little piece of computery-phone awesomeness. I love having conversations with Siri.

5. mashed potatoes. O.M.G.

6. The fact that I beat my husband, my father, and my brother in fantasy football. ALL Y'ALL CAN SUCK IT!!!

Small update

2011-11-06T07:12:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago I posted about the Santa's Little Helper app. I LOVE it. It's probably not the best or most intuitive app out there for organizing Christmas presents, but it's only $1.00. Well worth the price of admission. I showed it to my mother and now she's using it too. For a buck, do yourself a favor and get it. Unless you don't celebrate Christmas, then you may be better off putting you 100 pennies towards a candy bar or scratch ticket.

sleep

2011-11-05T08:31:00.002-04:00

Baby Girl went to sleep at 7:30 last night.    I got into bed at 7:45.   I was asleep before 8:00.   Baby Girl was awake longer than I was.

Apparently my body was desperate for sleep.   I slept right through 6:00 this morning.

So now I'm no longer falling asleep standing up, but this cannot be healthy. I can't live on no sleep during the week and do 10 hour marathons on Friday night.   Especially since I was planning on catching up on some DVR'd shows last night!

Rumor has it that Baby Girl will be trick-or-treating AGAIN tonight. She's visiting some family whose trick-or-treating was postponed until tonight due to power outages and she gets to go again! Never in my life did I get to trick-or-treat more than once a year.   I'm beyond jealous.

I broke out the Christmas Carols this morning... I can officially do it now, Andrew can't yell at me.   It's not my fault there are no Thanksgiving Carols.

5 minutes

2011-11-03T19:11:00.000-04:00

I have maybe 5 minutes before a certain co-dependent toddler realizes I'm not watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse with her. I'm relishing the silence. Well.... if you could Mickey Mouse Clubhouse playing in the background as silence.

We lost power for a few days after the random snow storm we got on Saturday. I was less than thrilled with that. We had to leave and go to my parent's house on Sunday, which meant I had to leave for work from Quincy, which ultimately means I have to be out the door by 6am. INHUMANE.

But we are back in our house, we all seem healthy, and I bought two more Christmas presents today. Life is good.

Yup, I bought two more presents! HA! I AM THE BEST CHRISTMAS SHOPPER IN THE WORLD!!!

And on of of them I found a 10% off coupon plus free shipping. So something I thought was going to cost about $31 actually cost me $23.

Oh, and I used a 30 cent manufacturer's coupon (that got doubled) on Chobani, which Stop and Shop had on sale this week. So that means I got 9 Chonabi's at 40 cents each!

I'm waiting for Extreme Couponing to knock on my door to make a show about me.

I know, no new November picture. I'm still undecided. In few days, I promise. It takes a really long time to edit the picures - this computer is practically an antique and doesn't move quickly!

busy bee

2011-10-29T06:56:00.000-04:00

I have been so bad with updating this blog lately. A thousand apologies.   Two illnesses swept through our house this week.   On Thursday I was 3/4 of the way to work when I got a call from Andrew that our Baby Girl was sick. I had to turn around, he had a meeting that had already been rescheduled once and he had to go.   Luckily, my schedule was relatively clear that day, so I turned around and came home.   I spent almost two hours in a car and I didn't even get anywhere!

Baby Girl and I spent Thursday together and she watched way more TV that she's ever watched in her life. I don't think she knew what to do with herself. Andrew stayed home with her yesterday and I think she may have watched more TV than she did on Thursday.   I hope she enjoyed it, because after today the TV is going to be on lockdown.   Not just because she's watched way too much for a girl her age, but because if I hear the "hot diggity dog" song from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I may FREAK THE EFF OUT.

Andrew was also sick this past week, but I think his forced sick day yesterday helped.   He's back to 80%, Baby Girl is back to 90%, and I.... I'm ready for a nap.

It's Halloween weekend! I had a FABULOUS costume idea for a party we are attending tonight, but I completely ran out of time, and even though I did manage to get to Target last night, they didn't have what I needed.   So I think I am going to be Meghan.   I know, I know, LAME.   But my family was sick for a week, doesn't that make me exempt from costumes?

We're supposed to get 1-3 inches of snow tonight.   I really hope it melts before tomorrow morning because I don't have a snow suit for Baby Girl yet.   It was 80 degrees two weeks ago, I thought I had more time! She had two last year, but one was an 18 month.   She wouldn't be able to walk.   I swear her other one was 24 months, but I can't seem to find it... that may or may not be because my house is a disaster area right now.   It's so bad, every room needs to be picked up and scrubbed down.   But who has the time? This is why God invented cleaning ladies. I have GOT to find me one of those.    How much could someone possibly charge for 881 SF of hell? Or maybe we have to pay extra because this is hell on earth? Hmmm.... things to ponder....

One last note - as loathe as I am so see winter arrive, I NEED daylight savings to end.   The sun doesn't come up until I am at work.   I need some sunlight to get me out of bed!

Fall

2011-10-23T13:39:00.001-04:00

We had a fun fall weekend - lots of jumping in leaves and looking at pumpkins! I've heard we may get some flurries on Friday. I guess the Indian Summer is gone, and it may be time to turn the heat on soon. But at the time of publication, only 218 days until Memorial Day!

I'm not actually wishing the next few weeks and months away, but I do wish January through May 24th could be skipped right over.

10 on Tuesday

2011-10-18T19:03:00.000-04:00

1. I'm 2 hours into Room. I think it's a pretty good choice for an audiobook, the main character is 5 and it's being read as a child. It's actually the first audiobook I've heard that has different people voicing the different people. It really works for this book, and I actually wish my commute was longer so I could listen longer!

2. Thanksgiving is coming and I don't really like the dress I have for Baby Girl. I want to buy this, because OMG ADORABLE... but I already have a (boring) dress that will be fine. What to do, what to do....

3. I will probably wear a work outfit on Thanksgiving. Because that's how cool I am. I can make any even business casual. It helps that I only own business casual clothing.   A lot of it is grey and black, and kind of screams INSURANCE PROFESSIONAL.    I only wish I could have a turkey made out of bows on my Thanksgiving jumper.

4. How many more weeks until ABC pulls the plug on Pan-Am? I'm starting to actually like it, so I'm thinking one more week until it's pulled.

5. I'm still bitter that Off the Map was canceled at the end of last season. I really liked it, even if I was the only one!

6. Baby Girl has been calling her teachers "Silly Goose".    I'm still waiting for my parenting award.

7. I really like my iPhone 4s, but I still don't really understand how to use Siri. I don't have bluetooth in my car so I can't use it to its full potential anyway. I like to ask it questions until it gets mad at me.

8. I'm obsessed with watching Disney reveal videos. I want someone to take me to Disney World. NOT Chattanooga

9. I don't actually want to go to Disney right now, because the thought of chasing after a 2 year old in Disney World gives me hives

10. I've had a sore throat for over 2 weeks.   When do you think I should do something about that?

free stuff!

2011-10-16T14:42:00.000-04:00

Want some free K-Cups? Here you go! Sign up soon, they do tend to run out of these samples kind of quickly.

Want a free audio book? (if you've never listened to an audio book, I highly recommend them) Here you go! On that one, you do have to sign up for an Audible.com membership. You will NOT BE CHARGED unless you forget to cancel your membership, and you can cancel the membership as soon as you have downloaded your audio file. If you have an Amazon account (and let's be real here, who doesn't have an Amazon account?) you don't even have to put your credit card information in, it uses your saved one. Just don't forget to cancel your audible account!

I signed up for the free audio book for the sole purpose of getting Room by Emma Donoghue. It's my book club selection for November, and I need to get started on it. Much to my dismay, it was not available in ebook format at Boston Public Library! What? I have a $7.00 late fee at my local library, so I can't place a hold on the physical book. I'm firmly against paying late fees, so I'll probably never be able to place a hold on a physical book again at my library (still can get ebooks though!). What's a girl to do? I don't pay for books. I find it offensive, much like paying late fees. I do have a gift card to Barnes and Noble, and it was only $9.99 in Nook format, but still - $10 for a book? No thank you! Luckily, I remembered about my free audio book that I've been hearing about on the Stuff You Missed in History Class, and Stuff Mom Never Told You podcasts, so off I went. VICTORY IS MINE! Another free book!

love it!

2011-10-16T09:30:00.002-04:00

Before anyone accuses me of being a bandwagon fan: I am not, have never been, and never will be a Celtics fan. Unless, of course, Kevin McHale somehow comes back to play the game. Then I will be in the stands at every game. Regardless, this video is hysterical (not unlike everything else the Super Secret Project does)

2011-10-15T15:40:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure how it's already the middle of October.    It's ridiculous how fast time goes by.   I'm starting to buy into that old saying that they older you are the faster time goes by.

But time going by means it's almost Thanksgiving and then Christmas!!

Speaking of Christmas, I'm tempted to buy the Santa's Little Helper app for my phone (sorry, I don't know if it is available for Droids).   Has anyone used it? Rants? Raves?

It helps you keep track of what you have already bought, how much you have spent, and what you still need to buy.   I usually track all that on a spreadsheet, but I really like the idea of having an app for it.   My idea is that having that information at my fingertips when I'm at the store will help me spend less money.   I can never remember what I've bought and how much I've spent while I'm at the store shopping, and this should help.

It's only 99 cents, so I don't know why I'm so hesitant.   I hate paying for apps though, even ones that are less than a dollar.    I want to know that I am getting something for my ninety nine pennies!

New hotness

2011-10-14T23:06:00.001-04:00

Today's post is brought to you by my new iPhone 4s. My old 3G is now in the unsafe hands of a certain two year old who knows how to use it better than some adults. The 3G is essentially an iPod touch, so she can't really do any damage.

I have had my phone activated since 7:00pm (ish) and Facebook hasn't crashed once. I'm in heaven.

I have returned

2011-10-12T19:31:00.001-04:00

I don't know where I went, all of the sudden I hadn't blogged in a while.

We had an awesome weekend, it was sunny and in the 80's for three days. We went on the boat, went to the beach, had lunch at the yacht club, ate out on the deck. It could have been July, if you ignored the fact that it got dark at 6:30 at night. Sitting on the beach in October in New England was one of the highlights of my life. It was a cruel twist of fate that had me born in New England.

Andrew and I pre-ordered the iPhone 4s and they will be arriving on Friday. I'm bummed that the screen isn't bigger, but we really couldn't wait any longer for the 5 to come out. We still have the 3G -not the 3Gs, just the 3G. You know, the phone that iOS4 killed. The one that came out before I was pregnant with the almost-but-not-quite-yet two and a half year old that lives in my house. I'm so excited to have a smart phone that will do things like load, and turn on, and not crash every 4 seconds. You can imagine the ~~hip and cool~~ nerdy and geeky Friday night that will be happening in the Casa de O'G!

TV will rot your brain

2011-10-03T19:19:00.000-04:00

At least that's what my mother used to tell me when she thought I was watching too much of it.

The amount of TV that my child watches is one of my biggest day to day struggles.   I still only allow her to watch Sesame and Dora and the very rare Thomas - I don't have a problem with Thomas, but she runs hot and cold on it so I don't often include it in the rotation.

Even though she only watches those two shows, we live in time of DVR and On Demand which means there is always a Dora and Sesame Street available.    She could spend all her waking hours watching TV - and sometimes I think she would, given the opportunity.

I picked Baby Girl up from school today and on the way home she asked if it was TV time.   It was 4:30 in the afternoon and she goes to bed at 7:30.   She easily could have filled those three hours with TV.   I told her that we could watch a Dora after dinner.   She immediately asked for dinner.

When we got home I asked her if she wanted to color and I set up her crayons and coloring books. She was happy enough and soon asked for Play-Doh.   Anything to not watch 3 hours of TV!

Art time is one of the only ways I can avoid the endless hours of TV. I have it on good authority that Santa Clause is bringing this easel for Christmas.   I'm pretty excited about it, it will make art time so much easier (what you don't see on the easel is a chalkboard on the other side. And under the paper with the fish painted on is a whiteboard).   Hopefully our art time will last more than 25 minutes.

As she gets older there will be more things to do instead of TV, but she will also have more things to watch.   Its a catch-22.

I tell myself that she doesn't watch TV during the day, so it's okay that she watches some at night. But the hours after daycare and before bed are the only hours we have with her, so why are we letting her fill those hours with TV?    But she likes it, and both Sesame and Dora do teach her things... so..... what am I supposed to do?   As I said before, it's one of my biggest struggles.

yay!

2011-10-03T18:22:00.000-04:00

As of 5:30 tonight, we can use our water!!! No e.coli in la casa de O'G, but I do have a sore throat... suspect.

I had a physical today - my doctor told me I get to have a mammogram at 35 instead of 40! WHOO HOO!!! How did I get so lucky? It's like winning the lottery, only instead of getting lots of money, I get to start having mammograms 5 years earlier than everyone else.

That was almost as good as when my midwife told me I had to have 2 one hour glucose tests (most people only have one, unless you fail). How do I keep winning these medical lotteries?

I told my doctor that after I have a glass of wine, I have an awful night's sleep. She told me to stop drinking wine. She clearly is not a full time working mother of a crazy 2 year old.

Go me

2011-10-02T19:15:00.000-04:00

Are you impressed that I had this month's picture up on October 2nd? I am. Especially because I brought my camera to the pumpkin patch, but it didn't have a memory card in it. Yep, that's just how I roll. However when I was going through pictures on my camera I remembered I had some pictures that I took for October's picture which I apparently forgot about.

My mother-in-law did have a memory card in her camera and got this shot:

Isn't she cute?

Our town has been under a boil water order since Tuesday night. Today is Sunday. Shoot me. It actually hasn't been as bad as the last one we had, since Baby Girl was really a baby back then, and not having running water when you have a baby who still drinks bottles is a LOT harder than having a toddler. The biggest issue is bathing her, they say you can still shower with the water, but BG has a tendency to drink the bathwater and she's still scared of the shower so keeping her clean has been a challenge. I think we did okay, she may have smelled a bit on Thursday, but we took care of that. And our dishwasher has a sanitize feature on it, so we have been able to use the dishwasher - some people aren't so lucky. It could be a lot worse, but I'm still ready to have potable water coming out of the tap. I'm a first world girl, I can't help it. I need water to come out of the tap. And it needs to be water that I can drink, use to brush my teeth, and bathe my child.

Another 5 day work week coming up, but then a 3 day weekend! YIPPEE SKIPPY!

OMG Y'all!!

2011-09-28T15:48:00.001-04:00

I was reading some older posts (what, reading one's own blog isn't normal?) and I'm shocked at all the incorrectly used apostrophes. Why had no one called me our on them? I swear it's in every post!!

New goal: stop using apostrophes in plural words. Save them for the possessive and contractions. You think I would have mastered this in 3rd grade.

10 on Tuesday

2011-09-27T20:03:00.002-04:00

1. Don't hate... but I'm starting to think about Christmas

2. Today I decided to absolutely introduce Elf on the Shelf this year. Then I realized that I ~~won't~~ can't be the one at home in the morning to look for the Elf, and I made another decision to absolutely not do it this year. I don't think I can handle that right now. I'm currently having a "where did I go wrong in my life" crisis.

3. I.AM.GOING.TO.ENJOY.CHRISTMAS.THIS.YEAR. I will not end up crying on Christmas Day. I will NOT DO IT.   Andrew and I have started taking some steps to make sure Christmas is better for us this year.

4. I've also started thinking about Halloween and Thanksgiving

5. I did get Baby Girl's costume. She tried it on today.    Much cuteness abounded.

6. We are staying in a hotel the night before and the night of Thanksgiving. I am more excited about that than I am about Christmas. My baby is not going to be there.   It's just going to be me and a huge bed.   I may or may not let Andrew in.

7. I love that my town still does trick-or-treating on Halloween unlike way too many other towns that do it on the Sunday before, but damn, the creators of trick-or-treating never thought about working mother's! I'm still not 100% sure how the logistics will work out, but I'm sure everything will fall into place

8. I can't wait to put my Christmas Tree up.   I think Baby Girl will love it. She was still somewhat scared of it last year, and then she ignored it.

9. I have already asked Santa for 3 different things, how many do you think he will remember?

10. what do YOU want for Christmas?

Opine

2011-09-26T19:52:00.001-04:00

Andrew showed me this article today.   Take a minute and read it.

Okay, got that?

Did anyone else become extremely confused by it?    Let's start at the beginning:

But the Framingham mother of two boys, ages 2 and 5, also works full time. She sends her youngest to a local day-care center that serves breakfast, lunch, and two snacks and, like many programs, prohibits outside food.

What? Our daycare doesn't provide any food for infants (I'm not sure what they would have provided since she was breastfed), will provide breakfast (though Baby Girl eats breakfast at home) and snacks to toddlers.   I assume it's the same idea in the pre-school rooms.   But we send in her own lunch - and I'd be horrified if someone told me I couldn't decide what my child was eating. What kind of daycare are these people using?

In Massachusetts, licensed child-care providers - including private and nonprofit centers, in-home day cares and preschools - must follow two regulations aimed at obesity prevention: Provide one hour of physical activity every six hours, and follow US Department of Agriculture guidelines.

ONE HOUR of physical activity every 6 hours? One hour? They are toddlers! They should be running around all day! That's what toddlers do! That and paint really unrecognizable blobs that come home at the end of the day and I squint, stare, rotate, and even ask baby Girl what it is before I throw it away (I'm the best parent ever, obvi)

“Eating a diet that is high in sugar and refined starch can train the palate from a very young age to accept only these tastes,’’ Rostler said. “In these cases, vegetables become bitter and very unacceptable for children, and as they get older it’s harder and harder for them to eat healthy.’’

Now I just have to brag.   My kid loves vegetables.   I don't know why, I think it's a little weird.   But she does. She will eat broccoli or green beans over mashed potatoes.

Mildred Kelley, who runs a day-care program out of her Quincy home, said if she serves carrot sticks or celery, she ends up tossing them out.
“What toddler you know wants carrots and celery sticks for their snack?’’ she said.

Mildred Kelley, you are the worst daycare provider ever. You know what toddler eats carrots and celery sticks for their snack? My kid does.   And do you know why? Because she's a toddler and she eats what I put in front of her. Oh, I've learned not to bother with rice.. or peach flavored yogurt... or summer squash (yet she devours zucchini.... strange), but she eats what I give her.   I give her healthy snacks. Ergo, she eats healthy snacks.   Mildred, I certainly hope you don't charge for your service.

I don't know a parent would put up with not being in charge of what their child eats.   The toddler room at our daycare serves whole milk (because toddlers are supposed to be on whole milk until at least 2 years old), but after she turned 2, we switched her down to 1% because of some other.... digestive issues that she has.   We told them we would provide her milk for her since we don't want her on whole anymore. I never ASKED if it was okay - they don't get to decide what kind of milk my child drinks, I do.   And (because Baby Girl goes to the best daycare ever) they told us that we did not have to provide it, they give the pre-schoolers 1% milk and they are more than happy to fill my girl's cup from the pre-schooler's milk. They rock.

OF COURSE - this is separate from the allergy issue.   Our daycare is a peanut free facility and no matter what we tell them, there will be no peanut or peanut product allowed in.   That's an entirely different (and understandable) issue.

And on that note, we've found Sunbutter to be an extremely good substitute for peanut butter.

help me decide

2011-09-24T08:26:00.002-04:00

Halloween is coming and I have no ideas about costumes. Her first year she was a pumpkin, a cow, and a cowboy

Last year she was a bee:

So what about this year? Her current favorite characters are Dora and Abby Cadabby. I find costumes for each, but they have problems. The Dora one - let's be honest it's a pink shirt and orange shorts, with a wig. But we live in New England and it tends to be freezing on Halloween, and I really don't think she will wear the wig or the back pack.

And the Abby Caddabby one - but again, this is New England where it's cold on October 31st. I guess I could get a size bigger than she needs and put a white long sleeved shirt and leggings underneath it... but that will just look stupid.

And I am back to square one with no ideas. I like the ones at Old Navy because they seem to geared towards those of us that live north of the equator... http://www4.assets-gap.com/Asset_Archive/ONWeb/Assets/Product/858/858497/quick/on858497-00qlv01.jpg sorry, Blogger won't let me upload the picture for some reason.. It's times like these that I wish I let her watch more TV to have more options for Halloween... she doesn't even know what a princess is- though I made her watch the royal wedding, natch. Not that Kate is technically a princess, but insignificant details bore me

And then I need to find a costume for myself since we are going to a party this year. I know that most women just use Halloween as an excuse to be supper slutty, but that's not really how I roll (though I was Britney pre-K-fed my junior year in college complete with my sidekicks Xtina and Eminem - this is one of the rare times I wish digital cameras had been popular when I was in college!), and no one really wants to see a slutty 30 year old suburban mom. That's lame. I need a non-lame, non-slutty, easy to assemble costume. A little help?

this is my life

2011-09-21T19:04:00.002-04:00

When we got married, we bought ourselves what would most likely be the last extravagant purchase of our lives (okay, the last for a long time).   We bought..... wait for it..... a 37" flat screen TV.   I know, you're unimpressed.   But this was 2006, most people we knew still didn't have flat screen TV's.   We paid $1100 for it. And it's a Westinghouse, it's not even top of the line.   $1100 was a deal, it was on sale from $1400.    I don't like to think about what $1100 could get us now for a TV.

Fast forward 5.5 years and our non state of the art 37" Westinghouse is broken.    By "broken" I mean "has psychedelic squiggly lines all over the picture".    It renders the stupid thing quite unwatchable.

We can't afford a new TV.   I know Andrew will wear me down eventually and we will replace it.   We don't have the money to get a good TV, most likely we will end up spending more money than we have and probably won't get a much bigger screen. That money is not going to come out of thin air, and quite honestly we don't have it right now.   We just bought a new car!

So we have our computer monitor (which at 21" is quite huge for a computer monitor" hooked up to the cable and that's acting as our TV now.   It's the most pathetic thing I have ever seen.

And ladies and gegentlemen, that is my life.

4 workdays till the weekend!

2011-09-19T19:37:00.001-04:00

You know it's going to be a long week when you are already thinking about the weekend while you're driving to work on Monday morning.   And to add insult to injury, I worked late tonight. Blah. But Monday is over and there are only 4 more work days till the weekend!! And the the weekend will fly by in the blink of an eye and we will all be in the same place net Monday.

Sigh.

I'm crabby on Mondays.   And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays.   Then on Thursdays I get a little bit less crabby and on Fridays at 4:00 (because I try my hardest not to work late on Fridays) I'm downright euphoric.

It's so cliched, but what can I say.   I want to dance for joy when I leave on Friday afternoons. And in 3 weeks I have a 3 day weekend!

So - The Emmy's.   I can't watch them (or any award show) because they go too late and I need to go to bed. But I was happy that Modern Family cleaned house, even if the critics weren't happy about it.   I'm not a huge reality fan, but please - can we just stop acknowledging Amazing Race even exists? Do people even watch Amazing Race? And I LOVE that ~~Tyrion Lannister~~ Peter Dinklage won.   He is, by far, my favorite Game of Thrones character, in the show at least.    I have other favorites in the book.

And more TV starts tonight! Yay!

speaking of pop culture.... Can the Salarhis crawl back into the hole from whence they came?

back at the Y

2011-09-18T18:20:00.001-04:00

The South Shore YMCA Quincy branch does not require a membership to take their classes. They are more expensive for non-members, natch, but we are eligible. And we happen to be in Quincy most Saturday mornings, so a nice toddler swim class at the Y on Quincy morning seemed way too good to pass up.

Therefore at 9:55 yesterday I found myself in the overly chlorinated pool at the Y. With a squirming toddler who is convinced she can swim and doesn't need to be held. That's fun.

It's also fun to sing the welcome song to about 8 other kids. Including 2 Mateos (seriously? More than one Mateo? In New England?) Because standing around singing stupid songs in the shallow end of the YMCA pool is really how I want to spend my Saturday mornings. I used to spend my Saturday mornings curled up on the couch, drinking my coffee, and catching up on TV. Now I'm at swimming lessons.

Oh, the joys of parenthood.

But - and I totally did this - Miss Maureen asked if anyone had dunked before and wanted to be the first to go. I may have knocked people out of line to get Baby Girl to be first. HA HA HA TAKE THAT MINI HUMAN WHO IS THE REASON I'M AT SWIMMING LESSONS!!

(and before you call DYS, yes, she has dunked before.... kind of)

2011-09-17T15:31:00.003-04:00

watch this.

then take me to Disney.

thanks.

this is your life

2011-09-17T08:02:00.000-04:00

They "I don't really know who "they are) are re-paving our road.    The pavement was not new when we moved in about 5 and a half years ago and has only gotten worse.   We leave near an industrial park (are you jealous?) and we have 18 wheelers and other trucks up and down the street 6 days a week.   The road was barely paved anymore.   We were overjoyed to see that our road was being torn up.

Until this morning.

At 6:00. IN THE MORNING.

The trucks are quiet on Saturday and Sunday mornings, and there is no traffic from the offices within the industrial parks. I guess I can understand why they felt it was a good time to pave, but holy god.   There are three different condo complexes on our street.    From my best estimate I would say there are probably 450 units on this street.   Let's just assume there is an average of 2 people per unit (one of the complexes is comprised of townhouses and there are a lot of families in them), which brings us to 900 people trying to sleep on a Saturday morning.

At SIX AM!

My girl is now glued to our window staring - they have finished grinding up the road and flattening it down. It's the beginning stages of pouring the new pavement, and there are 4 18 wheeler dump trucks parked outside our window doing god knows what.   It's a toddler's dream, but not Mama's.   Mama wanted to sleep.

you ARE the weakest link!

2011-09-15T19:30:00.001-04:00

Goodbye!
(mmm... 2003 reference...)

I think Parenthood is getting the axe from my DVR lineup.   I watch TV to be entertained, not to be stressed out.
There are just so many problems with this show. In no particular order:

* Amber: really? AWFUL haircut aside, REALLY?   You are like 19 years old, but somehow you have enough money to get your own apartment and live on your own.   WHATEVER LORELEI GILMORE.   And Amber? You're mom is right, you really do need a fridge.
* Hattie: OH MY GOD WHY DO YOU HAVE PERMED BANGS? no, really, why did you do that? Your plot line is passable. Barely.
* Adam: I'm sorry, I have enough work stressed on my own. I don't need yours. And oh my gawd, is it 1964 and I missed it? "I don't mind if you work".... WHAT? First of all, does that happen? I'm not lucky enough to get to stay at home with my kid, but I would if I could. However, if I was working because I wanted to, not because my mortgage holder wants me to,   the last thing I would be looking for is my husband's approval.   It's 2011. Women get to work if they want to.   (also, some women have to work even when they would rather be home with the kids. See: MY LIFE).   So your drunken ramblings allowing Cristina to work made me want to watch whatever your biggest competition is.
* Crosby: The whole "I don't have a clue how the world works, but I want to go into business with my brother" storyline is lame.
* SwimFan (I can't remember her charater's name):   Buying children is creepy. Don't do it.   For reals.

TV

2011-09-14T19:20:00.000-04:00

I am so excited that the fall season of TV is starting!

Parenthood started last night, but it comes on after I go to bed so I haven't seen it yet. I'm going to try Up All Night which premieres tonight, and everything else starts in the next two weeks!

Along with Up All Night, I'm going to try Pan-Am and The Playboy Club.   That's in addition to my other regulars:
the aforementioned Parenthood
Law & Order: SVU (though I may not follow through with it without Stabler and limited Benson)
Greys (natch)
Private Practice
Modern Family
Big Bang Theory
The Mentalist
NCIS
NCIS: LA
The Biggest Loser (but I'm not thrilled with Anna Kournikova as the new trainer, so we'll see)

I know, I know, it's a lot of TV.   But what else are you supposed to do at night in New England during the winter?

Plus, I'm only halfway committed to Parenthood and Private Practice.

What did we do before DVRs were invented?

Testing...

2011-09-14T15:33:00.001-04:00

I downloaded the blogger app for my phone. I'm just testing it out, seeing if the kinks are worked out.

Are we all seeing my girl at the beach?

Formatting okay?

Fabulous.

10 years later

2011-09-10T07:51:00.002-04:00

10 years ago was September 10th, and I can't really tell you what I did that day.    But 10 years and 1 day ago was the most beautiful September day imaginable.   I enjoyed it for about 2 hours before everything went to hell.   But we've been down that road before and in the past 10 years I've answered the "where were you" about eleventy billion times.

Sometimes I wonder what the weather was like in other parts of the country.   The sky over Saint A's was that same crystal clear blue without a cloud in the sky that was over New York City. That in itself was a bit strange, as Manchester, New Hampshire and New York City are over 5 hours apart. The weather is very rarely exactly the same.    I wonder if it was a dreary drizzly yucky day anywhere.

Some day I am going to have to explain the whole thing to Baby Girl. How do you explain 9-11 to someone who didn't live through it? The same way I learned about tragedies I didn't through, I guess. I wish there was some way to teach how it felt to watch the twin towers fall to the ground on live TV.    Though I hope she doesn't have the same thought process that went through my mind at about 10:30 after the second tower fell

"uumm.... they were both AMERICAN airlnes?    But... Dad flies American Air.    And he leaves on Tuesday morning for california ALL THE TIME.    Was he going to California this week? HOLYFRIGGRNCHRISTWASMYDADONTHATPLANE? No... he flies to northern California up near Cupertino, weren't these planes headed to LAX? He doesn't fly there, does he? FVCKFVCKFVCK"

Then I raced back to my dorm room, to find messages from my aunt who apparently just had a similar thought process that I did.    And later finally reaching my mother and confirming that no, he did NOT fly out to California that morning, and even if he did he wouldn't have been on those flights, that wasn't his normal route.

Thank god.

My fears could have been put to rest much easier in today's world than a decade ago.   A few simple texts or emails from my phone would have gotten me there much quicker.   But that was then and this is now.

I really really really want to go the 9-11 Memorial at Ground Zero.   The museum is slated to be opened on 9/11/12 and I would love to go down next fall and see it.   Baby Girl will still be young enough that I don't have to explain it to her, and I'd like to not have to explain every little thing we see.   I went to Ground Zero two years after 9/11 and even two years later there was still dust covering everything in the area, they were still just two huge holes in the ground and the clean up effort was still going on (though winding down), the building in the area were all still closed, and there were still broken windows and glass everywhere. I went back a year later and it was starting to be transformed from a disaster site to a weird gaping hole in the middle of a huge city.   I haven't been back since 2005 and I'm dying to see it now.   I want to see the new 1WTC, though I don't think that is scheduled to be finished until after 2012.

I don't know if it is still there, but I saw the huge antenna that was on top of the North Tower at the Newseum in 2009.   GO TO THE NEWSEUM.   I cannot say it enough times.   The next time you are in D.C. go there. Spend lots of time there. I can't recommend enough times to enough people.    Even if the antenna isn't there anymore, it's still worth it.   And if it is there, even better!! (GO.TO.THE.NEWSEUM.)

Okay, now in addition to going to NYC next fall to the see the 9/11 museum, I must also return to D.C and go to the Newseum again.   I'll get back to you on how I plan for paying for all this...

eek!

2011-09-08T19:55:00.004-04:00

Football starts tonight, which means I have my first panic about my fantasy team... who do I start, Ryan Grant or Felix Jones? I went back and forth and ultimately went with Ryan Grant which was my plan all along.

I don't know if I am up to this kind of pressure. What if I lose? What if starting Felix Jones would have made all the difference? WHAT IF I DON'T WIN A SINGLE GAME ALL SEASON?

I need some wine.

In other news, I had a heartbreaking conversation with my daughter tonight:

Baby Girl: We go down the cape soon?
Mama: No sweetie, we're not going down the cape this weekend
Baby Girl: We go down the cape later?
Mama: no, sweetie. Not later either
Baby Girl: We go to the Ought Cub? (yacht club)
Mama: No baby, the yacht club is closed
Baby Girl: WHY MAMA??

Oh, if only I knew why summer had to come to such a quick end.

Ten on Tuesday

2011-09-06T19:06:00.002-04:00

1. Labor Day Weekend. Wow. Went by fast. I'm having a mini mental breakdown over the loss of summer, and I may have drowned my sorrows in a margarita or two last night.

2. Hurricane Irene sucked the life out of Falmouth. Literally. I'm sure there is a very scientific explanation for it, but I don't know what it is. All I know is all the leaves on the trees and the shubbery has died. It looks like November down there, which is sad.

3. I haven't gone for a run since the road race. I keep meaning to do something about that...

4. I have started my Christmas shopping already, in a futile effort to not get so stressed out around Christmas and running around like a chicken with its head cut off in the days leading up 25 December. I'll let you know how that works out.

5. I got sucked into another Lifetime show - Against the Wall. Not great, but not terrible. In the summer I'll watch about anything.

6. Game of Thrones is actually pretty good. Long and confusing with all the different characters, but good.

7. I'm going back up to Saint A's on Saturday under the pretense of going to visit and meeting up with friends, but in reality it's all about the fries and ranch. I'm still trying to decide what to get that will best showcase the fries and ranch.

8. I may buy my Baby Girl a Saint A's hoodie, but let's be honest, only if I don't find one for myself.

9. Most of the decorations are still up from Baby Girl's birthday party, which was in June. I can't say when they will come down, but it could very well be next year when I have to put up different decorations for her birthday party.

10. Baby girl is starting swimming lessons on the 17th. We are skipping soccer for now, and will probably do it over the winter. I know baby girl will really love swimming lessons, but I really wanted soccer. Soccer doesn't involve me getting wet.

I blinked

2011-08-31T17:30:00.005-04:00

and somehow it's the last day of August.

I may need some anti-depressants to get over this.

But now that it's fall, football is back! And this year I am participating in a fantasy football league. My first match up is against Andrew and if we both play all our starters, I am projected to win! HA! IMMA BEAT YOU!!!

We'll see how this season goes, I'm really not the ideal fantasy player - I gloss over stats and just watch the game. I can't do that and keep on top of my fantasy team and since Andrew and I are in the same league, it's really not fair for him to help me too much. I'm recruiting help elsewhere though, because I want to beat him.

Tomorrow is my last day of work and then it's a 4 day weekend for me! I hope to make it to the beach twice more this summer... we'll see if the weather cooperates.

quick question

2011-08-28T19:07:00.002-04:00

I finished rereading the Harry Potter series (and yet again I'm still left underwhelmed by the ending/epilogue) and I have no library books. Even though I have a Nook and don't have to worry about space, I'm still not down with buying books. Andrew has the Game of Thrones series in epub format, so I can read it on my Nook.

Has anyone read it and liked it? There aren't a lot of genres that I flat out refuse to read, but I can honestly say fantasy is pretty far down on my list, so I'm hesitant.

Opinions?

Irene

2011-08-28T09:46:00.002-04:00

Pour me something tall and strong
make it a hurricane before I go insane
Alan Jackson, featuring Jimmy Buffett

Irene made it up the coast, weakening all the way. It's still a category 1, though my particular town is only in a tropical storm watch. From what I gather, we're still in for a windy day, but it shouldn't be too bad. Our electricity has flickered a few times and it went out for about 30 seconds, but so far it's been okay. Granted it's still before 10am and things could change, but I'm hoping for the best.

Yesterday was humid and rainy and blah and we completely ran out of things to do after naptime, so we packed up the child, drove all the way around the world to avoid the traffic from the Zac Brown Band and Kenny Chesney concert at Gillette, and went to Monkey Joe's to pass some time. Kids 2 and under are only $5, so it was a bargain that we couldn't pass up. For $5 she can run around and go on bouncy houses as long as she wants. There were two smaller ones dedicated to the 3 and under crowd which she LOVED, and we let her go on some of the bigger ones too. No one over the age of 12 is allowed on the bouncy houses, unless you are accompanying a kid under the age of 4. We still needed to go on them with Baby Girl, but I'm pretty sure by the time she is 3 she will have no problem going on them by herself. On her 3rd birthday, the price goes up to $10, but honestly, it's still a good deal. She made it an hour and 20 minutes before she had enough and we'll probably get 2 hours out of her when it's time to start paying the $10. It's a half hour away and is a madhouse of screaming children, but it's so worth the money.

They even have free wifi and an area for parents with comfy chairs and a flat screen TV! Of course it's beyond crowded on a rainy day before a hurricane, but I was okay with that. Baby girl loved it, we got out of the house for a few hours, and she was so tired by the time we got home, she fell asleep immediately.

I will definitely be going back during those long cold boring winter weekends!

suck it Irene!

2011-08-26T19:45:00.003-04:00

Not that there is ever a good time for a hurricane to come through, but this was a particularly bad time. My father's boat is still in the water, so clearly something needed to be done about that. However my father was not in a position to be able to take today off from work - but I was. So I burned a vacation day to go down the cape to take my father's boat from one harbor to another so it could be pulled and stored for a few days. Sounds easy enough, right?

In theory it was easy. But I also did a ton of work today. I drove to the cape, met my mother at the marina so we could leave a car there. We drove to the harbor where the boat is moored, and I rowed out to the boat, brought the boat back in from the morning (towing the rowboat), but the docks were full of people trying to get their boats out of the water at the public ramp. So I took someone's empty slip, and then rowed the rowboat back to the dock where it belongs. We took the boat to the marina where it was going to be pulled, took everything off the boat and carried it back up to the car. We drove back to where the mooring is so I could properly secure the rowboat. We went to my grandmother's house to take everything, all the outdoor furniture, tables, pool supplies, etc and put it in the garage. We went BACK to get the rowboat, and I rowed from the dock where it is kept, down to the bottom of our street. I pulled it out of the water, dragged it through the marsh, to where my mother was waiting for me with a dolly and we dragged the dolly back up the street to the house (we only had to stop about 5 times to rest - that thing was heavy!) Oh, and I went to Walmart to buy some food and water (no flashlight to be had!) and some more toys for Baby Girl since I think we will be stuck in the house for a few days! I also brought the 5 gallon gas tank up to be filled and then had to carry it back and forth between the car and the pump.

I am EXHAUSTED. This hurricane has kicked my ass and it hasn't even hit North Carolina yet.

And let's review: I own neither a house nor a boat.

I probably should admit that in the middle of the day my mother and I ended up at the yacht club for lunch and to sit on the beach and take a break. And what a break it was, I enjoyed that hour at the beach more than I did any beach trip all summer!!

And after it was all done, I drove back home and was met by my daughter who had a VERY stinky bum. Mama got home just in time to change a diaper! I have the best timing...

oh what a night

2011-08-25T19:16:00.002-04:00

Tonight has not been an easy night in the Casa de O'G. Baby Girl is so whiney. I consider myself to be a fairly easygoing parent, and I'd like to think I have patience when dealing with my toddler. But I cannot stand whining - it goes right through me and sets me on edge. Tonight has been one whiney freak out after another. The only thing that made her stop crying was putting on Dora, so right now the Map is singing his annoying song.

I had to take tomorrow off so I can go down the cape and bring my father's boat to the marina to be pulled, lest hurricane Irene eat it up and spit it out somewhere in Mashpee. Because that's how I like to spend my precious vacation days... And speaking of this stupid hurricane, if I have to drive 60 miles in the remnants of a hurricane on Monday morning, I'm going to lose it. Irene better be somewhere over Maine or the Atlantic at 6am on Monday!

a conversation

2011-08-23T18:47:00.002-04:00

Mama: Baby Girl, do you want to watch Dora?
Baby Girl: Yes! Dora!

Mama: okay, let me turn it on
Baby Girl (steals remote from Mama): No Mama, I do.

Mama: um... okay
Baby Girl (quietly, to herself, while studying all the buttons): Dora.... Dora.....

Mama: Can I help?
Baby Girl: No Mama, just me

Baby girl them presses 3 buttons on the remote and points it towards the TV. The TV remains blank.

Baby Girl: It's coming on
Mama: well.... can I help?
Baby Girl: no Mama, it's coming on

Mama: well, let me see if I can help
Baby Girl (sighing and letting Mama think that she can help): okay Mama

Mama puts on Dora

Baby Girl: I did it myself!!!

touch up

2011-08-22T20:08:00.000-04:00

I edited the last picture in the post below. Which one do you like better? (can you even tell the difference?)

happy summer

2011-08-22T17:56:00.003-04:00

These pictures are courtesy of my mother-in-law who is not afraid of bringing her camera to the beach.

The kid loves the beach and the pool. We're trying to get her into swimming lessons this fall, but it's really hard to find Saturday morning lessons, and even harder to get a spot in the ones that do exist. I don't understand why working parents aren't allowed to do fun classes with their children... but that is another rant for another time.

Mission Accomplished

2011-08-17T19:11:00.003-04:00

So... when we last were together, it was Saturday night and I was pretty much dreading the entire experience. I went to be bed really regretting my decision to run the race and trying to auction off my number to the highest bidder. My father one at $0.01, but then he wouldn't pay up. He would have awful eBay scores if he was into that sort of tableau.

Anyway, I woke up on Sunday to my almost perfect running conditions. It was cloudy, cool, a hint a breeze, and possibly some showers. The one problem was that it was slightly humid, and I cannot run in humidity.

My mother kept telling me I wasn't giving myself enough time, wasn't considering traffic, etc etc etc. When we finally left the house, I realized with a very large pit in my stomach that she was right. There were almost 11,000 runners and they were all trying to get on the same 40 buses to Woods Hole. We sat in gridlock as the clock ticked closer and closer to 8:45, when they said the last bus would leave. I finally got out of the car around 8:30 and jogged up to the school. What I saw when I got there almost made my heart stop. The line of runners queuing up to get on the buses was probably a mile long. If the last bus really was leaving at 8:45 I was going to miss the race. I knew that they couldn't possibly leave thousands of runners stranded, but they were pretty emphatic that the buses stopped at 8:45.

But to keep a long story short (and a pretty boring one at that), I got on a bus and got dropped off at Woods Hole. It was pretty unorganized down there, but I did finally get to the street where my heat was gated. We heard the elite runners start... the grey heat... the orange heat... the green heat... and finally the blue heat. They announced our start, and it took me two minutes to actually get to the start. As soon as I hit the starting line, I was able to run.

Wait..... everyone told me I would walk the first two miles! I wasn't supposed to start at the very beginning of mile 1! Oh, but I did. That first mile and a half were brutal. Mentally and physically, I didn't think I was going to make it. But I kept pushing... it helped that other people were walking up the hills after the first mile and I was able to keep going. I'm not a very fast runner and I'm usually getting passed, so passing other people was a new experience for me.

Right after the first mile is Nobska Lighthouse, which is at the top of a pretty big hill. As we were struggling up it, I heard the Rocky theme song being played on repeat. It was hysterical.

At the first water station I threw water over my head, and I ran under every hose that was going - I'm told this isn't very common, but I wouldn't know if that's true or not - many of the homeowners along the route spray their hoses out into the street to help cool off the runners. There was not a hose along those 7.1 miles that I didn't run under. I was sopping wet by mile 6, and my socks were squishing in my shoes.

Around mile 2ish, I heard some guy say the next 1.5 miles were the worst, but after that you are back on the water and there are lot more people and you can practically see the finish. While I knew this, having traveled the route by car about 1.5 trillion times in my lifetime and running it twice, it kind of sunk in when I heard someone else say it. I could make it another 1.5 miles if it was going to get easy after that!

I kept going... The people were awesome, there were only a few stretches down in Woods Hole where there was nowhere to stand that I didn't hear people cheering for me. People were doing their own water stations in addition to the official water stations at the mile markers. I "low fived" about a million kids along the route.

I hit mile 5. This was where I started to get really nervous. I had never run more than 5 miles before. I was hot. I was soaking wet. I was exhausted. People all around me were walking at this point, but I kept going. Luckily this is in the heart of town and there were walls of people on the side of the roads screaming. There was a guy with a blow up Stanley Cup that people were slapping as they went by. There were bands set up on the side of the road playing live music, and people were well into their 3rd or 4th or 5th drink. It was pretty much a party that I was running through.

When I got to mile 6 and the 10K mark, I knew it was in the bag. I knew I was going to finish. I kept my eye out for my uncle and aunt who have a place on the Heights. I turned the corner for the last hill and actually started to laugh - I had just run almost 7 miles and I never stopped.

Running down the Heights to the finish (I'm the short chubby girl in the purple)

hi family!

bonus

2011-08-13T20:57:00.001-04:00

I was playing around with picnik and made this. Isn't she adorable? Ignore the red faux crocs that clash with her plaid shirt!

here we go

2011-08-13T20:38:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow morning I have to get up, catch a bus, and wait for few hours to run a race. I don't know if I am ready or not, but it's tomorrow so there's not a whole lot that I can do about it now.

I'm not nervous, I'm just kind of dreading it. I wish it was over - or that I was running it with someone else so I don't have 3 hours of alone time tomorrow morning. Well, alone time with 10,000 of my closest friends.

bleh.

In other news, I have been to the beach 5 times in the past 6 days. Fabulous. I love summer! Also, I've just about run out of sunblock - I guess that means it's time to go back to cubeland and waste away in the fluorescent lights. Meh. I really need to work on becoming independently wealthy.

It's August!

2011-08-11T07:35:00.002-04:00

Okay, well we're almost halfway through August, but I have the new picture up. It was a tie this month, Andrew ended up picking for me. Here's the other one:

I like the color of the water better in that one, and since I don't have any photo editing software, with the exception of cropping the size, my pictures are SOOC (straight out of camera) so I have to take the color of the pictures as they come. Well, I can have picasa turn it black and white if I so choose, but I don't have anything that can play with the color of the water. Blogger also doesn't let me choose where the blog title is and what color it's going to be, and I don't love the gray color on the title picture, it makes the title hard to read. But Andrew thought it was a more interesting picture and I couldn't decide, so there you go. A more interesting picture with meh colored water.

This was my helper when I was taking the pictures. We went down to the end of the street to snap some pictures, my whole idea was to get some really great marsh photos, but it was high tide when we got there and I couldn't get down into the main part of the marsh.
Isn't she a good sport? She kept telling me "Don't get muddy Mama! Be careful Mama!".

So the Road Race is this weekend. Since I have seriously started training I have put in 20 hours and 12 minutes of running time, which ended up being 94.16 miles. My average pace over that time is 12 minutes and 53 seconds (hey, no one said I was a FAST runner). I have been slowly getting my average pace down, it's closer to 12 minutes and 40 seconds now. According to Nike +, I've also burned 11,390 calories in all that. I have run in the heat, humidity, rain, cold, and everything in between. I have run the Woods Hole hills, practiced running up the Heights, and iced my knees a million times. The only thing I have not done yet is run 7 miles in a row. I'm confident in my ability to run 5 miles, as I can do that without much of an issue. And I am in the last heat with all the other slow runners, so everyone tells me that I won't run for the first 2 miles. There are 10,000 people running the race and I start at the end. The road to Woods Hole is very narrow, only two lanes with no breathing room. The gridlock is crazy - and I will use that to my advantage and walk as much as I can in the beginning so I can run up the Heights and down to the finish!

WOOOO

2011-08-06T19:47:00.004-04:00

I am blogging from the laptop! The power cord has been obtained! The laptop is fully operational! (okay, admit it, who pictures Admiral Ackbar when you see or hear the phrase 'fully operational'? no? just me? righty-o)

For awhile I have been contemplating giving Baby Girl a haircut. As you may remember, girlfriend was born with a full head of hair. Long hair. Oddly long hair for a newborn. She was actually born in a little bit of distress and she was whisked away the second she was born. I didn't get to hold her right away because she was being poked and prodded by the doctors, but I did see her as she was quickly taken away and literally the first thing I noticed about her was her oddly full head of hair.

See what I mean? This is her on the day she was born. When have you see that much hair on a newborn? (and no, i was not choking her, that's actually how you burp a newborn, it just looks really really weird in this picture)

To make a long story short, she has had long hair since the day she was born. Around 7 months I had to give her a quick trim because it had grown out oddly, and that's all the hair that has been cut off her head in 25.5 months. Imagine if you hadn't had a haircut in over 2 years. It was getting bad.

Neither Andrew nor my parents wanted me to cut her hair. They all acted like I was going to physically harm her if I dared cut off her baby curls. No one wanted to admit her hair (in addition to being ridiculously long) was uneven and scraggly. All anyone sees are her gorgeous baby curls.

I love the curls too, but I can't let her become Repunsel. Something had to be done. So I picked up some cutting shears at Wallyworld today and after bathtime, when he hair was combed out, I attacked.

okay, "attacked" may not be the right word. "Barely trimmed" may be a better way to describe it. Because the hair was uneven, I had to cut more in some places than others, and I had to cut about an inch off in some places. But she looks like a normal kid now.

A normal 2 year old with hair halfway down her back...

almost there

2011-08-04T14:44:00.001-04:00

Good news! Andrew ordered a plug for the laptop! We don't have it yet, but we should be all set by the weekend.

In my recent departure from regular blogging, Andrew and I bought a new (to us) car. Goodbye awful 2003 Sentra! I never liked you! Hello 2010 Ford Fusion! I enjoy your leg room! And Bluetooth! And Satellite radio hookup, even though we don't have it!

Yeah. We bit the bullet and took on a car payment. I was loathe to do so, but what choice did we have? To continue to make Andrew drive around in the smallest car known to man and put about $300 of work into it every few months just to keep it on the road is not really a choice. The thing gave us almost 8 years – that's more than I ever thought. Plus now we can keep the weekend and travel miles off my Carolla in the hopes it will last a few more years.

I'm a little sad I don't get to drive it on a daily basis, but my turn will come. Hopefully it will come in the form of a Lexus hybrid SUV…

ugh

2011-08-02T17:11:00.004-04:00

As you may be able to tell, the laptop is still unusable. I mentioned that I would go to Walmart and buy a new cord, but Andrew was very against that idea and said he would buy one on Amazon. Clearly that hasn't happened... I'm giving him till Friday and then I am stopping at Walmart on my way home and picking up a new power cord. I don't understand his reasoning, or his delay in getting a new one and enough is enough! My blog is suffering!

That's also why there is no new picture up for August. At this point, I plan on putting one up next week when the laptop is up and running again. I had the same picture up last year for July and August and it still haunts me, I can't do that again. It will just be a little late.

I have no idea what is going on in the world. The last I checked, the debt ceiling bill had passed in the House, but the Senate hadn't voted yet... I wonder if the world is coming to an end. I'm willing to be the Senate passed it though. And on that note, can we talk about how batshit crazy those tea party nutjobs are? Seriously? I mean, I can get behind some Republican ideals, and I can at least understand the reasoning behind others, even if I don't agree with them. But those tea baggers are just crazy people. CRAZY PEOPLE.

Also... I shouldn't be looking forward to this since I am so far behind on my summer shows, but fall TV starts up in about 6 weeks! I'm so excited. I'm going to be watching Pan Am... and maybe the Playboy show too, I haven't decided on that one yet. Oh... the cold dark endless winter nights filled with TV!

Okay, I can't deal with this computer anymore - it has frozen up no less than 7 times while I have been trying to write this post. I will be back soon, despite Andrew's unexplained reluctance to have a power cord.

sorry

2011-07-27T19:50:00.003-04:00

I know I haven't been posting much lately. We no longer have a power source for the laptop, and the desktop is 7.5 years old and is so full of crap that it literally takes 25 minutes to start and then for a program (ie firefox) to open can be another 10 minutes. We are talking painfully slow. Until we replace the power cord to the laptop, I'm afraid posting is going to be way lighter than usual.

In my absence, Amy Winehouse has died, which was tragically not surprising. Sad, yes - but not surprising. The woman had a very public battle with drugs and alcohol and she either had no desire to attempt to get her addiction under control or it just proved to be too much for her. Either way, her life was cut way too short because of her addictions.

Which brings me to my point. I cannot stand Katy Perry's song "Last Friday Night". Call me old, call me a prude, whatever - but that song sends the wrong message to kids/tweens/teens/college students.

There's a stranger in my bed,
There's a pounding my head
Glitter all over the room
Pink flamingos in the pool
I smell like a minibar
DJ's passed out in the yard
Barbie's on the barbeque

There's a hicky or a bruise
Pictures of last night
Eended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a black top blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled

Last Friday night
Yeah we danced on tabletops
And we took too many shots
Think we kissed but I forgot

Last Friday night
Yeah we maxed our credit cards
And got kicked out of the bar
So we hit the boulevard

Last Friday night
We went streaking in the park
Skinny dipping in the dark
Then had a menage a trois
Last Friday night
Yeah I think we broke the law
Always say we're gonna stop-op
Whoa-oh-oah

This Friday night
Do it all again
This Friday night
Do it all again

Trying to connect the dots
Don't know what to tell my boss
Think the city towed my car
Chandelier is on the floor
With my favorite party dress
Warrants out for my arrest
Think I need a ginger ale
That was such an epic fail

Pictures of last night
Ended up online
I'm screwed
Oh well
It's a blacked out blur
But I'm pretty sure it ruled

That is not the lesson I want my Baby Girl learning. I don't want her thinking it's okay to get so trashed that you black out, you wake up with someone you don't know in your bed, max out your credit cards on alcohol, etc. I know, it's just a song, I shouldn't be so up in arms about it... but abusing alcohol KILLS PEOPLE. IT RUINS LIVES. Having fun with friends at a party or a bar - that's fine. That's more than fine. In fact, I'm counting the minutes until Friday night when I am going out with some friends for margaritas. But living the life in Katy Perry's song isn't that far off from Amy Winehouse's life - only Amy also did hard core narcotics - and it's not okay. It's not a good message to send to the listeners of top 40 pop music. Not knowing if you have a hickey or a bruise and having no idea who is lying in the bed next to you - that makes you a ho-bag. And no one wants that kind of reputation.

Okay, I'm stepping off my soapbox. My beer is getting warm :)

chugga chugga choo choo!

2011-07-20T17:46:00.003-04:00

yeah. There's a "choo choo" episode of Dora on right now.

Come on, Vamanos!

I gave in and let Baby Girl watch ONE episode of Dora. (Don't tell my mother that the TV is on during daylight hours. She may disown me). I told myself it was because BG hasn't been feeling great lately and this is a nice thing to do for her. But in reality I'm letting her do it because the opportunity of sitting on the couch directly in front of the AC sounded way too good to pass up.

I'm a good mother though. Really.

It's really hot. as in REALLY HOT. Hotter than the northern most edges of the arctic circle in which I reside normally gets. And tomorrow it's going to be even more hot. Fun. My little AC can barely handle these temperatures.

BUT I LOVE THEM!!! HEAT!!! SUN!!!!!

Yes, I sit in a cube 9 hours a day, but it's an air conditioned cube!

ow!

2011-07-19T20:17:00.003-04:00

I got shampoo in my eye! meh! ow! It still hurts!

My knee also hurts and is crunching weirdly - even though it was so hot out tonight I only made it 2.5 miles. Too bad I need to do 7 in less than a month. CRAP.

And I have an odd sharp shooting pain in my stomach.

Clearly I have some weird disease and must check myself into a hospital and stay bed ridden for a few weeks. Just me, a nice comfy bed, some TV, some internet, and my books. Oh, but I can still go to the beach on weekends. natch.

eh, dreams never hurt anybody.

I also really want to check into rehab in Malibu or somewhere fun like that. As I'm not actually an addict, it will really just be me in a nice fancy hotel for a few weeks. I can pretend I'm addicted to something... I'll figure it out. As long as they have wifi.

I'm here!

2011-07-18T19:48:00.002-04:00

I haven't gone anywhere. My time, however, has disappeared. I can't believe we are in the middle of July already. I had been waiting for so long for my vacation the week of the 4th and now it's July 18th and summer is half over. I don't understand where time goes. Except during the work day - I'm pretty sure time is moving backwards during those hours.

We need a new computer. It's gotten past "want" and "would be nice to have" and "wow, this computer is really slow" and even "huh... I wonder why it takes 20 minutes for Firefox to load". It turns 6 years old this September, which is pretty old for a laptop. When I got it in 2005, it was state of the art. Now in 2011, it barely turns on - though that may be more of an issue with the thousand of pictures stored on the hard drive and less a function of an old computer. I'm thinking about suggesting to Andrew that we get a decent middle of the road computer (though Andrew and I have very different notions of what a middle of the road computer is) for Christmas as a present to ourselves.

I really want a MacBook Pro. I have a feeling we will end up with some sort of HP notebook. But hey, as long as facebook loads.

Speaking of which... facebook doesn't load on my iPhone anymore. Granted I have a 3G that is 3 years old, but shouldn't it still load? It crashes, won't update, and freezes all.the.time. It just doesn't work anymore and I don't know what to do. Well I know what to do, but Andrew wants to wait for the iPhone 4 to come out, so I can't get a new one for a few more months. Any ideas for the meantime?

this morning

2011-07-13T11:56:00.002-04:00

This was a rough morning. I had to get Baby Girl up and out of the house and to daycare on time. This is not my normal responsibility, it is always Andrew's job. Even on the days I work from home, I try to not to interfere with their normal routine, otherwise baby girl senses that this is a different sort of day and she wants to stay home. But this morning I had no choice, Andrew isn't here to do it.

It was a huge failure.

I overslept. By the time I got my baby out of her crib, it was 7:30. Baby Girl needs to be at school at 8, and I can't have her be late because I need to work. The morning schedule was messed up, I had to give her a Nutragrain bar for breakfast instead of her normal waffle, I had to pick her up and drag her to the car with her crying "no Mama! My do! My do!" the whole way. I had to drop her off in her classroom, the room she's had a hard time going back to after vacation last week, and she clung to me, buried her face in my shoulder and cried. I let her cry for a few minutes, but I had to go. Staying there with her was only making it worse. I had to peel a crying 2 year old off me and hand her over to a teacher and walk out the door. That sucks. It sucks in a way that you can't understand unless you are (or were) a parent of a child in daycare.

As much as I want to stay home and be with her all day, I can't. I have to work. I don't' want to, but I have to. Usually the fact that her daycare is fabulous and she's flourishing there gets me through it. She's learned so much and has been exposed to so many things - I'm thankful we have such a wonderful childcare facility, and that we can afford it. But mornings like today make me want to quit, let my condo go into foreclosure, and live on the street so I don't have to do a drop off like that ever again!

10 on Tuesday

2011-07-12T20:00:00.004-04:00

1. Lots of stress and very little sleep lately.

2. Baby Girl has had a rough time re-adjusting back to school after vacation. Her regular teacher is on vacation this week and drop offs are not going well. My poor baby. My mother is doing drop off Thursday and I have a feeling she won't be able to leave BG if there are tears. It could be a long morning for Nana.

3. I need a haircut. Very badly. My last cut was in... April? March? And it was just a trim.

4. Baby Girl desperately needs a haircut, but I can't bear to cut off those curls. Also, I'm deathly afraid she will end up with bangs. I think it's time for me to buy hair cutting scissors and trim it myself.

5. I miss being on vacation

6. My daughter is essentially blond now. I think she spent a smidge too much time in the sun last week. Oops.

7. I had chicken nuggets and mac & cheese for dinner tonight.

8. By mac & cheese, I mean Easy Mac. (commence gagging now)

9. My dad thinks he invented Malibu and Pineapple. FOR REALS. I can't decide if it's funny or not, but he seriously believes he invented a new drink.

10. My dad also took us out to breakfast at the Black Dog and bought Baby Girl a new t-shirt because he was concerned her shoulders were getting burned, so I let him think he invented the drink :)

back

2011-07-09T08:01:00.003-04:00

That was a much needed vacation! Now it's back to real life - or it will be tomorrow when I go home, but today is just a regular Saturday on the cape. We did everything this week - tooled around on the Vineyard on our very overpriced Jeep rental, went to the beach, went out to lunch, out to breakfast, played in the yard, took naps in the hammock, and went in the pool a lot.

Now I'm broke and heading back to work. Vacation coming to an end is such a downer!

It's a grand old flag

2011-07-04T07:25:00.003-04:00

Per usual (at least for this year) today is cloudy, a smidge bit foggy, and in the low 70's in Olde Cape Cod.

In the past 48 hours I have gone to the beach, gone in the pool twice, gone to Smitty's, read my book the hammock, eaten practically every meal from the grill, and forgot to reapply my sunblock. I've been avoiding the yacht club so I don't spend any more money, but other than that I've pretty much done everything there is to do and I can go home now.

The weather isn't cooperating to give us a super 4th, but in the immortal, but very overused words of Dave Matthew's Band..

celebrate we will because life is short, but sweet for certain

4th of July Family Picture, 2008

Happy 4th!

2011-07-01T13:12:00.001-04:00

The 4^th is my favorite holiday. Yes, Christmas is nice, but it's cold, it's busy, I get stressed out trying to figure out what to buy people, and I have to spend a lot of money. I do LOVE the Christmas Season though – the Christmas lights, the cheesy made for TV movies, the Christmas classic movies (Rudolph! Grinch! The Christmas Story!), the ads, and magic of Santa for little kids…. I love that part.

Okay, back to the point.

I love the 4^th of July. It has been my favorite holiday since I was a little kid. When I was younger, my father and all his cousins would spend the whole day at my Grandparent's house and I would play with all my cousins and second cousins (as a kid I saw some of my second cousins on my father's side more than I saw my first cousins on my mother's side!). We had a family parade up and down the street that the neighbors would come out and watch, we'd have a cookout, there were games (shuffleboard, putting greens, horseshoes, impromptu touch football game) and loads and loads of food. Once people left, my uncle would break out the fireworks he inevitable brought up from Florida and we'd have our own personal fireworks show and then go see the fireworks from the beach.

These days the celebration is much quieter. Many (okay, the large majority) of my great aunts and uncles and my grandfather have passed on. Some of my father's cousins have stopped coming, and the ones that do still come have mostly grown up children and they do their own thing. But my own cousins, immediate family, aunts and uncles, and my daughter and niece and nephew still do it up. There's still a parade, albeit much smaller. But the neighbors still come out to watch us march up and down the street, there's still music blaring, there is still the obligatory family picture to take at the end. There may be a shuffleboard game or two, there's still great food, and we (okay, I) still go to the beach and watch the fireworks.

Let me tell you this: watching fireworks over land is pretty much the same as never seeing fireworks. I watched them up in NH once and I was so disappointed. If you've never see fireworks launched from a boat, over a large body of water (large being key) start saving now to spend next 4^th of July in a beach town!

strange

2011-06-29T18:52:00.002-04:00

People tend to stumble upon this blog when looking for other things. As I'm not a famous blogger (apparently people don't flock to blogs with numerous typos and grammatical errors) I appreciate the traffic from wherever it comes.

I just hope this Google searcher found what they were looking for (aha! another grammatical error)

"girl with anxiety tv june 22nd june"

Well, I am a girl. A woman, really, but I can be called a girl. I also have a Baby Girl who has been the main focus of this blog for the past two years.

I often have anxiety, both irrational and rational.

I have a TV. It's been mentioned on here once or twice, but the post from back in 2009 about our new TV stand is the most viewed entry of this blog.

It is June.

It was June 22.

It is June.

So, really - I have everything this person wanted, but I'm guessing he or she didn't stick around very long. It's a shame really, we could have had a wonderful dialogue about girls, TV, June, and June 22!

2011-06-29T08:56:00.003-04:00

I'm on vacation next week. I told Baby Girl about it a few days ago. I brought it up again this morning and the following conversation ensued

Mama: Baby girl, we're going on vacation next week!
Baby Girl: TO THE CAPE!
M: yup, to the Cape!
BG: To see Nana and Kitty?
M: well... Nana will be there for a little while and I guess we'll keep Kitty there for the week, so yes.
BG: And Grandpa?
M: Um... Grandpa has to work
BG (getting annoyed with me): CAPE WITH NANA, KITTY, AND GRANDPA!!
M: Would you like it if Daddy and I stayed home?
BG: yes.

okay. Well. Sorry kid, I'm the one getting up in the middle of the night to drive 60 miles to a job I hate so we can afford things like this, SO I'M GOING TOO!

I did think about the kind of vacation we could take if we weren't paying a second mortgage in daycare costs.... I would be a whole hell of a lot closer to the equator!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

2011-06-23T13:09:00.002-04:00

Michael Jackson died two days after Baby Girl was born.

On her second birthday Whitey was caught and OJ confessed.

I wonder what will happen on her fourth birthday?

Oh my dear god. Baby Girl will be 4 in two years.

I can't think about that.

More pictures of Baby Girl when she was still a baby!

Baby Girl, about 3 weeks old. Yes, that head of hair is on a 3 week old. MY GOD.

Baby Girl at her Christening - November 1st, 2009. I honestly didn't realize how hot and sweaty she was until I saw these pictures. Luckily we took her out of her dress as soon as we got to the after party.

Baby Girl in spring of 2010. Her hat doesn't match her outfit. Oops.

I still can't believe she's two. I guess I can stop counting her age in months and start doing it by years. Where did my baby go??

less cranky

2011-06-22T08:53:00.003-04:00

well, no, I'm not any less cranky, but I am going to try to come across as being less cranky. It's all about perception!

I may be trying to be less cranky, but I am getting a little scared about the road race. My longest run to date is 4.25 miles. I'm still running between an 11.30 and 12 minute mile so time is of some concern too, but as much as the distance is. I have basically 3 more miles to go before I could even feasibly finish the race. And the begging of this race is extremely hilly. Everyone who has previously run it keeps telling me to practice the hills, they are deadly. I'm trying, but there aren't a lot of hills in my area. So I have anxiety over adding in hills to my workout and getting my workout to at least 6 miles.

In other news, my daughter turns 2 tomorrow. There will be a full post dedicated to that, but for right now, Happy 2nd Birthday Baby Girl!!!!

Baby Girl the day she was born. Isn't her little hospital hat cute? It's covering the unnatural amount of hair she was born with.

Baby Girl at her 1st birthday party, completely disinterested in what is happening around her.

Baby Girl about a month and a half ago, not quite 2. I wish I had a better picture of her close up so you could see her adorable blue eyes and curly hair (born to parents with brown and green eyes and straight hair....). But it's impossible to get a 2 year old to sit still!

cranky

2011-06-21T13:00:00.000-04:00

I am so tired.

Working all day and running for an hour at night is physically exhausting. Plus there's an early human of the toddler variety who is constantly asking for attention. And lately there have been meltdowns if she doesn't get exactly what she wants, when she wants it. Even my mother, who normally spoils her shamefully, admitted that Baby Girl has been "in a mood" lately. (by "in a mood" I'm pretty sure she means "Satan's spawn").

So I've been tired.

And the Bruins took up a lot of my time lately. (WHOO!!! BRUINS!!!!!)

And it's FINALLY summer, which means we're gone a lot, so my house is in a constant state of…. unwholesomeness.

Did you know I spend 2 hours in a car every day?

I need a vacation. By myself (or as my daughter would say 'my byself!'). On a beach. With drinks. For a week. (ahem, if you happen to live where it's warm and you see me sitting in your backyard some day, getting some sun and sipping on a pina collada, don't be alarmed. I'm sure I will go home in a day or so)

I need a time out!

Adventures in toddlerhood

2011-06-15T08:32:00.002-04:00

We have entered into a new phase in the Casa de O'G. Elmo and his Muppet friends have been pushed aside (not banished, just no longer loved), Thomas is just sitting where he always was - in 2nd place, and Dora is reigning supreme.

If you aren't acquainted with Dora, here's what you need to know. She is, by far, the most annoying animated character that has even been created. I would rather watch Jar Jar Binks star in his own kids show. She screams everything she says. She doesn't have a normal speaking voice, everything is yelled. And the whole show is repetitive. And the whole show is repetitive. And the whole show is repetitive. I understand that repetition is fantastic for toddlers and it's a large part of what draws them in... but Mama doesn't need to learn by repetition. In fact, it makes Mama want to jump out of a window.

I'm the map!
I'm the map!
He's the map!
He's the map!
I'm the map!

That's Map. It's a good thing they have Map, because they need him to tell them the way on every episode. But he doesn't just tell them, he repeats it ad nauseam. River. T-Rex. Dino Island! River. T-Rex. Dino Island! River. T-Rex. Dino Island! River. T-Rex. Dino Island!

It makes me long for the Elmo's World days. Oh Dorothy - what a great sidekick you were... you never spoke a word.

Let's go B's!

2011-06-13T20:22:00.002-04:00

It's do or die night, Broonz. Let's see some hustle!

Well my "weekend" away (ahem... 24 hours) has come and gone. The hotel was everything I wanted it to be. King sized bed, lots of pillows, a TV you could watch from the aforementioned bed, free mini shampoo bottles, NO TODDLERS... basically heaven. The Duck tour was good - it's something I have wanted to do for many many years and I'm glad I did it. I learned nothing about the city I didn't already know, but it was fun. The weather wasn't great, but we only had to deal with pouring rain when we were walking home from the restaurant. We had a super lazy Sunday morning... we watched TV from bed which is something we never get to do, as we only have 1 TV. We didn't bother getting up and no little footsteps could be heard running into our room to get us. To be honest, I didn't want to leave and go collect my child. And to be even more honest, my kid was none too thrilled to see me. She wanted Nana and Grandpa and more of getting everything she wanted.

All in all, everyone had a super weekend. And it cost us less than $50, thanks to some generous donations to the "weekend away" fund and Marriott rewards points!

And in other news, I ran 3.7 miles today. That's half the mileage I need for Falmouth and the longest run to date. I'm still a little afraid that I won't officially finish since you need to do it in 2 hours and I did 3.7 miles in 50 minutes (I know, it's really slow. It's my slowest time yet - I added more hills in today and I was not doing well on the hills). But in the very wise of Dory, just keep swimming... I'll get there.

Nook!

2011-06-08T08:29:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I changed my opinion on E-readers is the Lendme option on the Nook (which I believe is now available on the Kindle, or will be shortly. Don't quite me though, once I decided on the Nook I stopped keeping up with Kindle updates) and the ability to borrow from the library. I've said it a million times before, but I would go broke if I had to buy all my books, so it was pretty important I still had a way to borrow them.

My local public library doesn't have a ton of eBooks for borrowing right now, but the number of books is slowly increasing. I have heard it's worth paying money to join a larger library just to get more content, so I need to look into that. When I was in high school, anyone in MA could belong to the Boston Public Library, so that might be an option. I was in high school a long time ago, so clearly more research will be needed.

A week or so ago I went through my library's catalog of eBooks and placed a bunch of them on hold and one of them was available for check out today. Getting the right software installed on my computer was a daunting task and there is no way I could have done it without Andrew's help. But now I have a nice new book waiting for me on the Nook! The one drawback - it will disappear in 14 days. Good news: no late fees! bad news: I may not be done with it!

My mother gave me a Barnes & Noble gift certificate for my birthday and I already bought a book. I was still trying to plug through The Secret Garden (I'm a sucker for all those older free books that are available!) so I never started it.

Now I need to start 3 Willows: The New Sisterhood Series, Book 1. When I'm done with that, it's on to Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffin. I have no idea what 3 Willows is about - I'm not even sure why I placed it on hold. It looks like a young adult book, but that's never stopped me from reading a series before!

4 workdays

2011-06-06T20:42:00.003-04:00

No, I won't keep a running countdown till the weekend..... or will I?

4 workdays! Till the hotel! and the mini-shampoo! and the tour! and the NO KIDS!

If we were traveling via plan and could visit some airports, I'm pretty sure it would be Nirvana.

Anyway. I'm done now. I know you're all dying of jealousy.

Last Thursday Baby Girl got sick. She threw up sometime during the night and projectile vomited later in the morning. This caused havoc in the Casa de O'G, as my mother is not yet on summer vacation and my father still won't watch her all day (okay, he would, but I know he's very apprehensive about it and I won't ask him unless we literally have no other options). We needed to juggle work schedules, I was already 60 miles away at my desk, the whole thing was a nightmare. Plus - baby girl was sick. That was no fun.

We managed though. She went to school the next day.

dum de dum, live our lives, arrive 1:30 Sunday morning.

Andrew is stricken with the stomach bug. Sunday is less than fun for Mama since she is the sole care giver of the baby girl. Andrew is not feeling well at all, naps a lot, but does pull through at the end of the day. It looks like he will survive, but he had a rough day.

Sunday Sunday Sunday. Mama and Baby Girl.

6:20 Monday morning - Mama is stricken with the stomach bug. But what's that Mama? You took a half day last week to go attend to your child so Andrew could go to work too? Oh right. You know you don't have any personal time left, right? And you've used your sick time? And your boss is cool about emergencies, but you cannot push it since you need your boss to remain cool about emergencies? Right. Go to work then. Have fun on your hour drive in, try not to throw up at your desk - but don't forget you have a meeting at 11 that you are running!

So.

That was today.

I made it through though. And I'm feeling a little better.

Nothing like a working Mama getting the stomach bug at 6:20 in the morning.

5 workdays

2011-06-05T19:36:00.004-04:00

I turned 30 last week, Andrew turns 30 in a few months, and our 5th anniversary is two weeks from today. Most people that I know would be going on some sort of tropical or European vacation to celebrate any one of those things. Andrew and I are spending a night in Boston - for free (love Marriott points!!) - going on a Duck Tour and going out to dinner at a semi nice but not SUPER nice restaurant. Baby Girl is spending the weekend with Nana and Grandpa. I am so excited!!!

I love hotels. (I also love airports. I'm strange, what can I say). I love that I am staying in a hotel next weekend! King sized bed! Free mini shampoo bottles! Does life get better?

I have wanted to do a Duck Tour since they first started them in Boston. I am so excited to finally be taking one. I super puffy heart tours - any tour of anything - I love them. Back when my brother started looking at colleges and we did the obligatory New England college tour - I was the 13 year old kid in the front of the tour group, intently listening to every word the tour guide said. I could make the walking backwards joke before she/he did. I could tell you pretty much anything about Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Middlebury, and Amhurst (excuse me if I'm missing one). Now that didn't help me much in the long run since I myself didn't apply to any of those schools, but that didn't matter. It was a tour, and I had no problem giving up a week of my life to tour New England colleges when I wasn't even in high school yet. So, yes, I grew up in greater Boston, I already know all the historical facts from countless other tours, and I've seen the sights a billion times before.... I am giddy about the Duck Tour.

Did I mention the hotel?

Baby Girl isn't going to be with us? (love you baby girl, but I am so excited for my night away!!)

And of course, we're having dinner at a NON family-friendly restaurant. No. Kids. Anywhere.

I am so excited!!!

My mother gave me money towards this weekend for my birthday (AND she's watching my kid, fabulous), we already paid for the Duck Tour, and the hotel is free, so this isn't even going to cost us that much money!

Yes, I wish I was going to sit on a pink Bermuda beach for 3 days, but that isn't feasible. 24 hours in the next town over is. So I will take what I can get and love it!

Happy June!

2011-06-01T09:35:00.002-04:00

New month, new picture. This photo was taken down in the Outer Banks last year. I want to go back, hence the picture. I looked up condo rentals in Carolla - we can't go this year, but possible sometime in the future...

So, it's June. We're almost halfway through 2011. It's been a very long winter and a cold and wet spring, and I am ready for some warm and sunny weather!

June also means I have 2.5 months to get ready for Falmouth Road Race. I can now consistently run 2.4 miles, which I don't think is that bad considering I only started this crazy ride on April 24th. I could barely run for 60 seconds back then.

However my accomplishments don't seem like much when I still need to be able to run 7.2 miles by August 14th. I have 2.5 months to train to run another 4.8 miles. eeek! What was I thinking?

Of course Andrew (who started c25k about 2 weeks after I did) can already run further than I can. He also runs faster, but at this point I'm not worried about speed, I need to focus on distance first. If I can't do it in the time allotted, that will be next year's goal. I just want to be able to run the 7.2 miles this year.

God help me!

all about me!

2011-05-29T06:37:00.006-04:00

I taught my girl a new song:

happy birthday to..... MAMA!
happy birthday to ..... MAMA!
happy birthday dear...... MAMA!
happy birthday to Mama!

It's our current favorite song. But Tim McGraw is better with words than we are:

I think I’ll take a moment, celebrate my age
The ending of an era and the turning of a page
Now it’s time to focus in on where I go from here
Lord have mercy on my next thirty years

Hey my next thirty years I’m gonna have some fun
Try to forget about all the crazy things I’ve done
Maybe now I’ve conquered all my adolescent fears
And I’ll do it better in my next thirty years

My next thirty years I’m gonna settle all the scores
Cry a little less, laugh a little more
Find a world of happiness without the hate and fear
Figure out just what I’m doing here In my next thirty years

Oh my next thirty years, I’m gonna watch my weight
Eat a few more salads and not stay up so late
Drink a little lemonade and not so many beers
Maybe I’ll remember my next thirty years

My next thirty years will be the best years of my life
Raise a little family and hang out with my wife
Spend precious moments with the ones that I hold dear
Make up for lost time here, in my next thirty years

In my next thirty years

Through the Years:

hmmm.... circa 1986 or 87 I think.

Fall, either 1994 or 1995. I'm leaning towards 1994

Our wedding, June 18 2006

My little family, April 2011

yuck

2011-05-25T09:01:00.002-04:00

I ran out of K-cups today and had to dip into Andrew's supply. We don't exactly have the same taste in coffee. His Donut Shop Extra Bold makes me want to gag. But it's either that, or no coffee today, so I'm forcing it down.

It's gross.

My daughter says everything is gross now. I can't imagine where she learned that.

I'm doing w6d2 today of c25k. I thought it would be easy, since it's back to intervals after running 20 minutes straight on w5d3. From everything I've read, that doesn't seem to be the case. For reasons I don't understand, this is a hard interval workout, even though it seems easy. Run 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 8 minutes, walk 3 minutes, run 5 minutes. It's less running than my 20 minute straight run, so it doesn't make sense that it would be so hard... but what do I know, I just run when the nice woman inside my app tells me to.

Speaking of apps, I was thinking about doing the Bridge to 10K app (because as we remember, Falmouth is longer than a 10k!) after I'm done with c25k, but I downloaded Nike + last night (it's free right now!) and I may just go with that. It has a mapping feature which my c25k app does not have (Andrew has a different c25k app and his does have the mapping feature and I am super jealous), and it has features that you can run against a specific time which will help me because I'm a pretty slow runner. This way I can still keep track of my mileage and my distance all in one app. That's the plan anyway, I need to get through week 9 of c25k!

Here comes the sun

2011-05-23T20:17:00.004-04:00

ha ha ha, just kidding. At least if you live in New England, the sun isn't coming any time soon. We did have a brief period of sunshine this past Saturday. Baby Girl was at my parents' house while Andrew and I were running and when we came back we found them on the little porch. It's probably 3 feet wide and 10 feet long. My mother said my girl was running up and down the porch yelling "I outside!! I outside!!". She was giddy when I came back and saw them. The poor kid had been couped up all week, and even though she was cooped up all winter, it was more painful last week. When it's 4 degrees out you don't have a choice but to stay inside. But when it's 50 degrees and you could go outside (play bubbles outside Mama?) except it's raining cats and dogs for the 7th day in a row... well that's just about unbearable. Baby girl now just looks outside and says "no go outside, it's WAINING outside" over and over.

We only have another week of cold and rain. It's cool, I've only been counting the days to Memorial Day since February...

sad panda.

After the winter and spring that we have had, we better have 90 and sunny every day in July.

what a waste

2011-05-20T19:58:00.002-04:00

Tonight was a giant fail. Andrew wanted to get out of the house, so I agreed to go to Marshalls so he could look for new sneakers. As it turns out, "go to Marshalls" means "go to Halfway Cafe", which annoyed me to begin with since I really didn't want to go to Halfway. But I digress...

We walked in at the absolute worst time and had to wait 20 minutes. In a bar. With no waiting area. With a toddler who considers sitting still to be a sacrilege. I wanted to tear my hair out.

We were first at the top of the waiting list, but people below us kept getting seated before us since they can only put high chairs at certain tables due to fire laws. Understandable, but no less infuriating by the time the 3rd party got seated in front of us.

My salad was so overpriced at $14 for some lettuce, tomatoes, broccoli, and chicken it was almost laughable. Andrew's rice was cold. I think Baby Girl's french fries and chicken was good... but maybe it wasn't. We will never know since all she did was eat ketchup.

Baby Girl? Yeah, she threw a tantrum at the end of the meal because Andrew wouldn't let her eat the ketchup straight off the plate anymore. That tantrum lasted another 20 minutes. In the parking lot.

She's still crying in her crib.

I have no wine in the house.

2011-05-18T09:01:00.002-04:00

I don't know why the previous post has such big font. I suppose I could fix it, if I played around with it for a minute. Don't hold your breath.

Yesterday I ran in the pouring rain. That's the second time this week I ran in the pouring rain - I'm over it. There was nothing good about yesterday's run. I struggled through my intervals, I was cold and then hot and then cold again, I was wet, I dropped my iPhone in a puddle (seems to be working now though, THANK GOD - that would be $200 to replace!), in general I just felt awful. When I got home my shins started to really hurt - they feel better today, but just in case, I am taking today off completely. It was already a day off from running, but it's going to be a day off from any type of exercise at all. I can't get shin splints now. I feel a little bad about this because I just took Saturday off from exercising, but it is what it is. I cannot be injured with only 12 and a half weeks (wow, that's a maternity leave) until the race. I'm still running intervals and less than 2 miles total, I have to get to 7.2 miles.

I'm having a "OH MY GOD WHAT DID I DO" reaction to the race right now. Hopefully when the sun comes out again and I have another good run I will be in a better place.

In other, kind-of-related-but-not-really, news - I'm having hot coffee today because it is so cold and I am freezing. I will not turn on the heat on May 18th, so I have to deal with the cold.

support your library!

2011-05-17T14:51:00.001-04:00

It's been established that I have the Longest Commute In The World. Or it's an hour. However you want to think of it. Some days I'm fine with it and there days I fantasize about driving down the median backwards just to break up the monotony. It could be worse, it may be 65 miles, but I never hit traffic. It's all highway driving, and my little Corolla gets phenomenal gas mileage – the last time I filled up, I got 38 mpg. 38!

But still – it's a long drive. I currently owe about $10 in fines to my library so I can't get my books on tape. I'm morally opposed to paying library fines. I've considered using Andrew's card so I can get some more books on tape, but then I would just have 2 fines that I'm morally opposed to paying. Le sign, it's such a conundrum. I don't buy books*. I don't understand why anyone who has access to a public library buys their books. Even if I did buy books, I doubt I would buy audio books, they are crazy expensive.

So what's my point? I have a long commute, no audio books, and Josh and Chuck only post 2 SYSK podcasts a week.

I'm getting to the end of my rope with my commute again.

* okay, I do buy some books. I own all the Harry Potter series for example. But about 90% of the books I read are from the library.

news

2011-05-16T20:27:00.002-04:00

Me (singing): To the windows.... to the wall!
BG: Mama?
Me: Yes darling daughter?
BG: Stop it.

oh. okay. I guess she inherited her father's dislike for my singing.

The lottery results from the drawing for a number in the Falmouth Road Race were announced today. I saw a bunch of posts about it on facebook and I checked my email too - nothing. I called Andrew and told him I didn't think I got picked - and I was kind of okay with it, since it's a really hard race for a beginner, but I was a little afraid that I wouldn't stay motivated. He said we'll find another race, a 5K (instead of the 7.2 miles of Falmouth) and we'd stay motivated. We hung up, I went back to work and literally 5 minutes after we hung up, my phone buzzed with a new email. I picked it up and almost deleted it without reading it since 95% of my email is spam and then I saw that it was from marathon something or other. Hmmm.... I opened it and saw that someone was charging my debit card the exact amount of the entry fee to Falmouth.

Okay... so either I got into Falmouth or someone stole my credit card information and then told me about it.

I went to the official Falmouth Road Race website, search for my name and there you go.

I am running 7.2 miles UP HILL on August 14th. Okay so it's not fully uphill - but it's mostly uphill, I swear. In the 24 years that I have regularly been spending time in Falmouth I have never so much as walked up that hill. It's ginormous. I tried to google it so I can show all y'all how huge it is, but there's no good picture on google images. Probably because the hill is so big you can literally couldn't get it in one shot.

I'm never going to make it to the finish! I told Andrew that if I don't cross the finish line after a few hours to come find me - I will have stopped at the beach and will be taking a nap.