Hello!

You guys!  YOU GUYS!!

I'm back!

After 7.5 years of blogging, I was just burnt out last November and I had to shut the blog down.  I was long overdue for a break and the result was an 8 month blogging hiatus.  But I'm back!

So what has changed?

* the O'G family no longer lives in 881 SF of hell.  The stars and moon aligned,  miracles were performed, and we got out.  My kids have their own rooms,  we have TWO FLOORS,  my kitchen is gorgeous (okay, so House Beautiful, South Shore Living, or Better Homes and Gardens are not knocking down my door, but *I* love it) and I don't have to schlep up three flights of stairs carrying babies and gear anymore.   It wasn't an easy move as we had to live with my parents for 6 weeks and my parents have a two bedroom condo, but we did it.

* Baby Girl graduated preschool! It was a bittersweet graduation,  she's officially not a baby anymore and my Little Guy won't be going to that preschool.  We are done forever! 

And one month from today she will be heading off to KINDERGARTEN.  Our new town has all day Kindergarten which thrills me for Baby Girl's sake because I think she will thrive, but I'm dreading it.  I may or may not let her get on the school bus.  I'm still undecided.

* My Little Guy... well.... he's developing into quite the little boy.  He gets everyone to love him within 5 minutes of being around him, but damn is he a spirited kid!  This is his last year at home before he heads off to preschool so we'll either have a super fun year filled with adventures or I will be committed to a locked psychiatric ward by Christmas.  We'll see. 

* Also, shortly after I closed the blog down, my grandfather died.  To quote my brother's euology,  I miss you, pal! (side note, don't go to your grandfather's funeral and then immediately head to Thanksgiving festivities.  Self medicating with wine is bad, mmkay?)

I'm happy to be back,  I started to miss complaining ad nauseum about my woes!

back!

I'm bummed.

Andrew cannot get Blogger to do what I had wanted it to do.   We tried everything, included exporting the entire blog to WordPress,  but no dice.   The only way we can figure out how to get my blog to look the way I want it to look would cost me $80 a year.   $80 spread over a year isn't a huge drop in the bucket, but I'm just not willing to spend money on my free blog. 

Ah well. 

But I'm back and regular posting will commence!!

Tomorrow is my Baby Girl's last day of summer vacation.   Most people we know are back in school already so we've had a quiet week.  Tomorrow is one more playdate at our favorite park and a haircut and that will wrap it up!  We had so much fun and per usual I ugly cried when we packed up a summer's worth of clothes/gear/bags/sand/toys and headed over the canal for the last time.

Now we're ready for fall and pumpkin spice coffee!

I'm playing around with minor changes to the blog right now,  trying to figure out exactly what I'll be doing in the Great Change Up of 2013. 

I actually can't change that much, as I don't know HTML and I'm stuck with the layouts that Blogger offers.  The real changes will be in the organization of content.   I know, you can barely control your excitement. I'll play with the colors for awhile before I settle on something that I love so bear with me.

In non blog news,  Falmouth Road Race is in a week and I am not ready.   I'm more scared about the half marathon that is coming all too quickly that I really have not even begun to train for.   God help me.  Tomorrow I will be running the course one last time before the race and I will hope for the best!  I most likely will not PR but that's okay.   It's a fun race and I'm just happy to be able to run it.

Speaking of which you have a few more days to throw a couple of dollars my way!  Well, not MY way but if you wanted to give me a few dollars I'd take it.   But you can donate to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.   I've already raised $235 which I'm happy about but to get it to $300 would be awesome!  And then I'll never run for charity again, I promise.   It's stressful trying to raise money!

But since we all know cancer sucks and it should be eradicated from our lives,  this is a good charity to throw some money towards!   As a team we have raised just over $13,000 at the time of this publication.  Fabulous!

Cancer Sucks!


Thank you kindly,  and again I promise this is the last time I ask for money :) Though anytime anyone wants to just hand me a wad of cash for no reason I'll take it.   Dunkin Donuts will thank you.

changes

You may have noticed Andrew is now an official contributing author to A Day In the Life.   I'm reasonably sure he'll still be posting once in a blue moon (mmm.... Blue Moon.....) but this will make it easier for him to do so.

That's all.  Continue surfing.

quick shot

* I'm a day and a half early with May's picture,  but better early than never... or something.

* Baby Girl developed a strange fear of slides and we don't know why.  She usually loves slides.  I think she's just tapped in the head.

* It's really time for me to get back to Storm of Swords or Clash of Kings, or whatever the hell the 3rd book in the Game of Thrones series is.  It's not a good sign that I can't even remember the name of the book that I'm reading.   I got really frustrated with the lack of progress that Ayria seems to be making and a I took a few months off.   Bad idea.

* My book club book for June is Moloka'i,  which I cannot find at Canton public library or Boston public library available in ebook format.  That is driving me crazy, I don't like to pay for books!  Meh!  (it looks really good though,  here it is)   Just the cover makes me want to go to Hawaii.

* After the June book club,  I will be able to join the rest of my friends in the required vat glass of wine everyone else enjoys while discussing the book gossiping.   I'm excited.

April Fools!

This month's picture was taken on our recent trip to Virginia.   It's not really April-ish,  but I have not been taking great pictures lately and the beach always makes me happy, so there you go. 

I need to get better about using my camera... the fancy one,  not the iPhone.  The problem is my iPhone takes really good pictures and it's so much easier to grab my phone than lug my DSLR around.   My goal is to use the camera on Easter morning - though I barely remember how to use it,  I'm going to have to rely on Andrew taking back up pictures with the iPhone.   Maybe I should flip through Canon Rebel for Dummies this week and see what I can re-learn!

I will be 26 weeks pregnant tomorrow,  meaning I have 14ish weeks to go!   I feel like it's never going to end,  and that has everything to do with work being a constant source of soul crushing stress and less to do with this pregnancy being a pain in the neck.   Though I do really miss being able to have a glass of wine every day once in awhile. 

The PW Friday night did not go well.  The Barbeque Quesadillas were fabulous,  but the rice was a dismal failure - it was all user error though,  nothing to do with the recipe.  Although I don't even know what the recipe is supposed to taste like,  we burned the rice since we don't have the right hardware.   I had no choice but to try to make it in a Wok which.....  didn't work.  We'll just leave it at that.    The cinnamon I added instead of cumin was just icing on the cake.   Hopefully this Friday will be better!

Happy April! 

Shadows

On Andrew's suggestion,  I tried Google + to edit my picture for February.   It will have to do since after April I can't use Picasa anymore,  but I'm not 100% thrilled with it. I fully admit Google runs my life (I use gmail,  Blogger even though I like Wordpress better,  Google Docs,  Picasa...)  I just don't like Google +.   I'm pretty sure Facebook is second when it comes to running my life and I'm fine with that.  I don't need Google + as well,  but now I have to use it.   And I can't put fun images on my picture,  like last month's super cool firecracker.    I really need to get Photoshop but since I have a next to useless computer that probably can't even run Photoshop,  I'm  not about to spend the money on it right now.   I have to buy it before my mother retires though, since she gets a teacher discount on it and she'll never need it for herself.

That also brings us to the actual picture.   I've already admitted I've been awful about taking non-iPhone pictures lately,  so I had nothing to use for February.  I did take my camera down the cape yesterday,  but I never got to the beach to take some winter scenes.   I went through that past year's winter photos but they were all very snowy.   Since it hasn't really snowed yet this winter and I would love to keep it that way,  I'm not about to jinx myself and end up with a blizzard. 

In the end I picked a picture from early April last year.   I like to remind myself that spring is coming!   Poor Baby Girl could not understand why we were down the cape, but NOT going to the beach to swim.   We kept driving by the beaches and at one point Baby Girl said  "is that the beach we are not going to?".    Poor kid.  I had to keep promising the next time we were down there we could play on the beach - which now means I can't go back to the cape until May-ish when it's at least warm enough to run around on the sand.    She certainly is my little beach baby!   She is so unlike me in many ways,  but we do share a love of the beach.   My perfect beach day involves margaritas and trashy novels though... I'm pretty sure hers includes me taking her swimming 8765 times and making sand castles all day. 

But for right now it's February and cold.   But the Patriots play in the Superbowl today!!! 

Let's go Patriots!!  Add another one! 

Go me

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!

Testing...

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.

WOOOO

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...

ugh

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

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 :)

new picture

Those Shamrocks are part of the $1.00 package of window clings I bought for my daughter. She loves to put them all on her mirror and then take them all off and then put them all up again and then take them all off again... repeat, repeat, repeat. You can seen why I took some away for my own purposes. I know I'm a day early, but I CAN'T WAIT FOR MARCH!!!!

update

to anyone who's noticed that my blog has looked a little bit funny lately, I think I've fixed the problem. I had to change the background (again) to a much simpler one, but I think it should be easier to read.

cheers!

Yay!!

Mad props to AJG. The virus is GONE and we didn't have to take the computer to the Geek Squad!! WOOOO!!!!! FYI, if you ever get the Anti-Virus Action virus, the free trial of Malwarebytes can get it off!

All this meansI'm back to my regular blogging schedule!!!

Alrighty, enough blogging excitement.

Christmas is in 10 days, Are you ready? I am certainly not. I got a huge jump start on everything in November and I really thought that I'd be done by now. But all of the sudden my weekends started to fill up and I'm on slightly further along than I was on Thanksgiving. Some day I will finish before Christmas Eve.... some day. Though I'm not sure what I would do with all that kind of free time. Maybe I'd watch Rudolph that's been on my DVR since December 3rd and I STILL have yet to watch!

I had parent teacher conferences last night. Baby Girl is doing fabulously at school - she's starting on regular cups at school. I think her teachers are crazy because SIPPIES ARE AWESOME, but if they want to do it, more power to them. It means I only have to send in one sippy per day, which means much less dish cleaning at night. So rock on daycare teachers, rock on. Also, my angelic child apparently sits at her little table in her little seat and feeds herself her yogurt and stares at all the kids who aren't feeding themselves yet. She loves to lord over lowlier beings. Usually that only includes her Bert, Ernie, Elmo, Snuffy, and Cookie, but apparently she's moved on to her little friends at school. Mama's so proud.


Or something.

limbo

We are still under attack from this lovely virus - I'm using safe mode now just to be able to browse the interwebs. I think we will admit defeat some night this week and see if our friends on the Geek Squad can help.

I hate viruses. They suck. I want a Mac.

No, really. I desperately want a Mac. But Macbooks are $1,000. My cousin told me he bought a refurbished one for 20% off through the apple website, but I can't find any. Just as well, I don't have $800 lying around any more than I have $1,000!

Last night we went to the Boston Pops with my parents and grandmother. It was really nice - I hadn't been to the Pops since I was a kid. I think I may have enjoyed the sing-along more now than I did then! Symphony Hall is amazing... if you ever get a chance to go, jump on it.

Baby Girl has started asking "what's that?" constantly. I have been dreading this phase pretty much since she was born. When she says it, it sounds more like "Wa-da?". This is the transcript from the conversation we had in the checkout line at the grocery store today:

BG: wa-da?
Me: It's a light
BG: no
Me: okay.

BG: wa-da? wa-da? wa-da?
Me: Those are all lights
BG: no
Me: I can't help you anymore.

BG: wa-da?
Me: It's a balloon
BG: Ball!
Me: close enough, it's a ball!
BG: wa-da?
Me: um... a ball
BG: no.

Good thing she's cute...

Happy October!

Joy of joys. We are inching closer to winter. But with any luck, we have put the 90 degree days behind us and can have a nice fall.

A minor change to the blog - I've allowed any and all comments. When I say "allow" I mean you no longer have to register to leave a comment. Anyone can leave one. However, they are still moderated and I will pick and choose what to post if I start getting creepy stalker comments again. If they start up again, I'm closing them to anonymous commenters. That doesn't mean I won't post your comment if you disagree with me on something; on the contrary, I will. And then I will tell you how wrong you are. But I know there are a lot more readers out there than just Bree, Matt, and Andrew. Because if that's the only people who read this, my posts would be more along the lines of "duuuuuude, remember when Matt wouldn't swear and said "dang it" all the time and it was hysterically funny for some unknown reason? (except Bree won't remember because she was in high school)" and "FRIES AND RANCH 4EVA".

Don't think I don't know who reads this blog people, I see the IP addresses. So since I already know that you are reading, feel free to leave comments! They aren't blocked anymore! Freedom of speech as long as it isn't creepy and stalkerish!!!

4 years

I started this blog shortly after I got married, which makes it a little over 4 years old. I've actually been blogging regularly for 5 years, but my first blog was on Friendster and has since been deleted. Lesson learned: keep your blog and social networking site du jour separate.

The fact that I have had this blog for so long is part of what keeps me going. I have a history of my past 4 years. A partial history, at least. I do actually keep some parts of my life off the interwebz. A small part, anyway.

October 2006 is my worst blogging month ever. 3 posts. Really? 3 posts? That's all I could manage? lame. I want to go back and kick my October 2006's ass. No excuse.

My most active month was December 2009. Apparently having a 6 month old did not stop me from being a blogging fiend!

4 years on Blogger. Yuck. I don't actually like Blogger, but finding a new platform and then archiving all my old posts is much too daunting a task. Maybe I'll stay on Blogger another 4 years and see if it gets any better!

When this song makes me rich, Ima move to Rye

I would love it if my blog paid me enough money to make a living. My blog currently brings in $0.00 a year. So you can see I have awhile to go on that one.

Also, I don't think the General Reading Public would read a blog in which there are so many typos. I actually do possess the ability to both spell and type. My problem (and it's not so much a problem for me as it may be for the GRP) is that I never go back and proofread or edit what I wrote. Never. I will fix something if Firefox happens to catch a misspelling, but that's it. Hence I am left with a blog full of typos, misspellings, grammatical errors, and occasionally I'm missing whole phrases.

I guess Verizon isn't knocking down my door, like they did to Dooce.

But people at Verizon - I will promise you that if you pay me, I will spellcheck and edit every post I put up. Except maybe when I'm rushed. Or tired. Or have had one too many glasses of wine before I sit down to post.

But I'll try! really hard!

Okay, I guess I shouldn't quit my day job just yet.

Beat LA!

Sorry about the complete lack of posting. We had a minor computer problem here at the Casa de O'G. The laptop burned through yet another power cord and our desktop isn't set up. Because the desktop shares a room with my daughter, there's never a good time to set it up. By the time we have a few minutes to think about setting it up, she's in bed and there's no way I'm going to go into her room and fiddle with the computer.

But we have a temporary solution, and I'm back!

In the Dark Time of No Blog Updates, we had Baby Girl's first birthday party - I cannot fathom the fact that she's 1. I can't deal with the fact that she's a little person. I also cannot deal with the billion plastic toys in our living room, but I'm very thankful that she is so loved! Except by her Godfather... he could have skipped buying the Elmo Live.... but she loves it, so maybe he did know what he was doing! Now I'll just have "la la la la.... la la la la..... Elmo's World!" stuck in my head for the next 2 years. I have hope that one day she will get beyond Elmo. I hear my niece has moved on to Dora now. I'm honestly not sure which one is better, but at this point I'm betting on Dora.

Baby Girl's actual birthday is next week. I'm not sure how I will deal that day. I'll be mourning the loss of my little baby instead of celebrating. (but I'm still not, nor will I ever, be sad she isn't a newborn anymore. Those were DARK DAYS and I'm dreading the next time I will have to go through that. Though that probably won't be for a few years unless there is some very old, very rich relative out there that I don't know about).

So getting to the title of the blog post. The C's could win it all tonight, but it doesn't look good right now. Did you know the "Beat LA" chant doesn't originate in a Celtics vs. LA game? You did? Oh, right. The whole world knew that. I just found out the other day.

That's all for now folks. I have to keep an eye on the basketball game (can we agree that LA has ugly uniforms?) and finish my book.