busy busy busy

Here we are again, winding down yet another crazy weekend. Andrew and I went skiing at Gunstock Mountain on Saturday, which meant packing up our skiis (and we're currently missing a key component of our ski racks, so they had to go in the car), skiing gear, 2 days worth of clothing for the three of us, food and toys for our Baby Girl, and lastly - the child herself, and cram it all into a teeny Corolla. Then we re-packed everything and went home this morning. It was a lot of work for one day of skiing. But we all got to visit with family and Baby Girl was spoiled (natch) so we all had a lot of fun.

But my god, I am tired. Baby Girl has a nasty cold and they don't make cold medicine for toddlers. Apparently they used to make it - when I discovered that baby cold medicine used to exist, I was so much less confused. I did not understand why parents of teenagers and older kids were so befuddled over the fact that I don't give BG cold medicine. Apparently it existed when their kids were younger - but alas, it does not now. It all got pulled from the shelves about a decade ago and the FDA won't allow it to be sold anymore. Something about little babies getting over medicated and then ODing on the stuff. Yuck.

Anyway, the point of that ramble is that baby girl has a cold, short of steaming her out a few times a day in a very steamy bathroom, there is nothing I can do. Which means she isn't sleeping very well and the 3 of us shared my nephew's bedroom for two nights (and he was banished to the couch. I have guilt over that). None of us really slept. She was sneezing, wheezing, and coughing all night. I was constantly sticking my head in her pack'n'play, trying to make sure she wasn't chocking on all the phlegm she was coughing up, and Andrew just couldn't sleep through the commotion. We are all tired bunnies today. Plus - Andrew and I had a full day of skiing yesterday! We are not used to so much exercise!

Recap: busy weekend. BG has a cold. No one slept.

And it's time to go back to work!

good idea? bad idea?

Andrew and I went skiing today at Wachusett (mountains of fun, minutes away!). For my one and only day of skiing this year, it went okay. The conditions and weather were good, but not great. My skiis are in terrible shape. I am in terrible shape. But I did the best I could, didn't fall, and saw a very good friend that I hardly ever get to see anymore. I was happy to ski, happy to see my friend, and it felt GOOD to be outside. When I was younger and would come in from a day of sailing my mother would always ask if I bled or if I cried. If the answer was no, then it was a good day. I guess I can officially call today a good day.

We got a lot of runs in, since the mountain wasn't too crowded and it's not that big in the first place. I can do black diamonds there, so I felt good about my skiing ability. I'm exhausted now. Skiing once a year can take a lot out of you!

My baby is sick with a nasty head cold and cough. It's breaking my heart. If only you could give a baby cold medicine! I stopped nursing her two weeks ago. And now she has a cold. WHY DID I STOP????

Wacky Wednesday

There is nothing wacky about today. But Wednesday needs a little pick me up sometimes. It's such a blah day. It's good because you're ALMOST there, the first two days are behind you, but the reality is you still have 3 to go.

This weekend is crazy for us. I am going out with my friend Courtney on Friday for some girl time. I almost never see her anymore, so I'm pretty excited. Saturday we have my niece's 2nd birthday party during the day (she's two?! the fuck?! How did that happen?), and then at night we are going out with two couples and their children. There will be 6 adults and 4 kids, 3 of whom are 7 months or younger. Should be an absolute crazy time, but I'm looking forward to it, but we're going out at 6, which is an hour before BG's bedtime. We have a ridiculously strict schedule with her when it comes to bedtime and voluntarily messing it up scares me. The child goes to bed at 7. We went through some painful weeks of crying it out with her, but now it's a breeze to put her to bed. We go into read at 6:50, read a few books, I'll let her comfort nurse, and then 7:00 she's in the crib. Wide awake. Not a sound from her as she puts herself to sleep. We worked SO hard to get to this point, and I'd like to keep it up. But the plans are to go out at 6:00, so we'll see what happens on Saturday night! I'm still hoping to go skiing on Sunday (DOES ANYONE WANT TO COME WITH ME????), so this weekend is non-stop for us.

Any bets on if I will be still standing on Sunday night?

2010

If you are a longtime reader of this blog, or know me in real life then you will know that I'm an avid skier. If you have ever skied with me, you will know that I'm not very good at the sport. However, despite the fact that I'm no Bodie Miller. I really do enjoy it. It's one of my favorite things to do that doesn't involve the summer months.

Much to my dismay, there will be no skiing for Meghan this year. Baby (or "Parasite" as I have started calling him) has put a very quick end to that. When I found out I was in the family way, the lack of skiing is one of the first thoughts that went running through my head. I haven't spent a winter without skiing since the last winter of college (2002/2003). I'm really upset about that. I've already told my mother that I will be dropping the baby (parasite) off next winter while I got skiing for the day. However, that's about 15 months away. It does nothing to help me get through this winter. I'm aware that when you have a baby, your life completely changes. But why does it have to change so much before he even makes his appearance?


(ps, although I am referring to the baby as "he", we in fact, have no idea what the sex is and won't for some time. But I know it's a boy.)

It's the end of the world as we know it

Okay, maybe not. But it is almost the end of summer, and to me there's not much of a difference. I have another week of work, and then next week is my annual Week Off From Work. I'm very excited. I'm more excited that as time of publication, in 9 months, 1 week, and 5 days I won't be forced to take the last week of summer as my vacation. In fact, I could take 2 weeks off from work if I want! The possibilities are endless, really.

Anywho, back to present day. I'm very excited to be on vacation, but I am NOT excited that it is the last week of summer. That just sucks. I do enjoy fall weather, but I like summer weather better, and the fall weather means winter is just around the corner. I only tolerate winter for skiing, but those endlessly long months are painful. It's just a long dark cold monotonous mess. And it's only 4 months away!

But I still have 2 weeks of summer and I need to keep reminding myself about things I like about fall/ winter

* the smell of the air in fall
* sweater season! (chubby girls love sweater season!)
* TV shows come back on
* apple scented candles
* back to school ads STOP playing
* the 1st snow of the season (as long as I don't have to drive in it)
* PATRIOTS!!!! (and my favorite facebook group - The Patriots Beat You Because You Suck, so Get Over It!)
* the first skiing run of the day when I've managed to get up early enough to ski the corduroy.

But today? Today I'm going to the beach.

Where you lead...

I have the Gilmore Girls soundtrack running through my head. Not because it's my ringtone either. I've popped the 5th season in so I can finish it already and move on to season 6. It's more or less playing in the background right now, because I've seen this particular episode recently. So now I'm just singing the theme song... damn it's catchy.

I heart nights that I don't have to go to school. In 16 months this will be my life every day. Day in... day out... no class. I'm pretty sure I'll just be a walking ball of euphoria.

We're going up to Loon this weekend for a nice old fashioned ski weekend. I'm pretty excited, Andrew's never skiied Loon, and I only have once so it should be fun. Not as expensive as Okemo and hopefully less crowded, though it is school vacation week, so we'll see. I hope people don't laugh at me when I display my mediocrity when it comes to skiing.

It took two weeks of Molly being alive before I had to change a poopy diaper. Lucky me. I hadn't changed a diaper in a good 6 or 7 years so at first I was all like "hey, this sounds like a good job for Nana!" but then Mr. Bill was holding Molly and although he does dote on her to the point where I'm all "hello!! I'm the daughter here!! Look at me!!!" changing smelly diapers wasn't something he was willing to do again. So it was either take Molly and change her or wait until Nana came to get her. So I took her and performed my First Diaper Change in a Long Time. Thankfully my mother, who has vastly more experience than I do with such matters, helped out to fill in where my memory lapsed. So yeah. Two weeks. I made two weeks before I had to change a diaper. I wonder if I can last longer with my own children...

my weekend: a review

Skiing at Okemo is hard work. Especially if you aren't used to bigger mountains. I was ready to curl up and take a nap in the middle of the day! Saturday was the first day we skied with our new helmets. They were pretty comfortable and just as warm on my ears as my hat was. All in all, a positive review for the helmets. Though mine is boring white and I am trying to put some stickers on it. I have a Gunstock one, because they are free. Okemo wanted to charge me $3.50. Um, no. Sorry. So I still only have the Gunstock sticker, but it's a work in progress.

I don't know what my problem was, but I kept forgetting to zip up my jacket. I was wearing way too many layers and I just couldn't deal with zipping up the last layer. Note to self - less layers = happy Meghan with a zipped up jacket.

Here are some pictures from the Summit Lodge, which oddly enough, is not at the summit. But it is pretty freaking high up the mountain.

It was a long day, but we enjoyed it. Sunday we spent a good portion of the day recovering and then, obviously, watched the pats go 18-0. Then we watched the Giants beat the Packers, which, to be honest, made me slightly nervous about the Super Bowl.

I've started week 2 of C25K. I'm still truckin' on. That's all I have to say about that.

winter wonderland

Our last storm was this past Monday. I'm pretty sure every school disctrict in the Commonwealth canceled school that day. The metro-west area got about a foot of snow! I'd say we got about 5 inches in our neck of the woods. Today is Thursday, so we are 4 days post snow. It doesn't look like it though. Here are some pictures I took today.

well I had a few more pictures to show you, but blogger doesn't seem to want to cooperate. Which is a shame, because these are not the best ones I have. I'll take more next time it snows. I'm hoping to take the camera to Okemo this weekend, maybe I'll have some super pictures from that!

I've done 2/3 of the first week of c25k. So far so good - I'm worried about next week, as the intervals move up to running for 90 seconds with a 2 minute rest. I still don't think I need a 2 minute rest for 90 seconds of running, but I have to go with the program. I don't want to do it my way and then not be able to do it. We'll see how next week goes.

do YOU recycle?

So I am a bit of a closet tree-hugger. In that I am on my own personal quest to save the earth, but as to avoid hearing people's opinion on the matter I tend to keep my quest quiet. For example, I buy my own bags at the supermarket to use less plastic bags (I highly recommend these, they fit more than plastic bags, they have bigger handle so they are easy to carry, and they are only $0.99. You can't go wrong). But I've not been doing well in the matter of recycling - sure I recycle my cans because I've already paid the deposit, I might as well get it back. But other recyclables? I've been terrible. Terrible. Yesterday, though, I made an improvement in this area. Andrew and I went up to The Container Store to buy a bin for recycling - with different containers so I can separate my recycling before bringing it down to our complex's recycing bins.
So now that bin lives outside on my porch and hopefully I can boost up my recycling efforts.

In other news, I started my Falmouth Road Race training today - it was a miserable failure. First of all, my shorts kept falling down. I actually had to run with one hand keeping them up. I need to go shopping for some new workout shorts apparently. So that didn't work well. And I got to the gym, and my c25K podcast wasn't on my iPod. God really didn't want me to start the training today, but I did anyway! Without my podcast, I had no idea what my intervals were supposed to be, so I just put the treadmill at 4.5 mph (I know, I know, I was running a 13 ish mile.... whatever, this was my first day of training) and just started jogging. I got about 1.25 miles and then I slowed down to a walk. I figure running a mile was a good thing. I really don't know, I don't know how to train without the podcast. But I've fixed my podcast issue, I'll have to fix my short issue, and tomorrow I can start my actual training. Though once I accomplish my 5K, I have no idea how to then train for a 10K, but I can't worry about that until I do the 10K. If anyone has any ideas as to how to train for a 10K, please, let me know. The clock is officially ticking on the training!

Andrew put the ski racks on my car, so we are ready for Okemo this Saturday! Who's joining us?

Warning: Variable Terrian!

ow. Every muscle in my body aches, which should not be the case afer skiing Gunstock. But as we skied down two trails marked variable terrain (one of which we had no business being on, one of which, in the words of our chairlift partner LaToya, we "completely dominated) we used muscles that I didn't even know I had. It was quite the workout, but damn, I'm in pain.



Since we were exausted and achey, we stayed in last night when we got home from skiing and alternated between the football game and the debates. I'm not a fan of political debates. I don't like how they just sit there and argue with each other. I don't mind when they go on about their platforms, but when all hell breaks loose because they are all trying talk over each other, they start to lose me. I don't care how well you can spin someone else's words. In my opinion Mitt Romney didn't do that well. He had a hard time coming up with points on the fly and he looked kind of edgy. Obama (I promise I know the difference between the Governor from MA and the Congressman from IL) didn't look that good either, he went on the defensive too may times. Honestly, I thought Ron Paul did the best job for the Republicans and Bill Richardson for the democrats. I wonder if that is because those two know they really don't have a chance of winning so instead of trying to bicker back and forth and look better than the front runners, they actually said what they thought and got their ideas out there. Bill Richardson was the only one to basically say "yeah, we need to pull out of Iraq. But I'm not going to promise it will happen in x amount of days, because it won't. If it does, it will cause more problems. I will send the troops home, but I won't put a definate timetable on it". I'm sure that's not what people want to hear, they want to hear what Clinton was sayng (she'll start withdrawal after 60 days) or John Edwards (they'll be home in a year). Bill Richardson was just like "yeah, they'll be home in the next 4 years". His plan might not get him elected, but at least he isn't making promises that he can't even keep.

I have to admit, I was more excited to see the random shots of Saint A's. I love when my school is on national television! Seeing as we don't have a nationally recognized football program, that doesn't happen to often. At one point they showed Professor Kuehne (is he even a professor anymore?) and I was all "OMG I KNOW HIM!!!" Despite the fact I think he taught for 1 of the 4 years I was there because of sabbaticals and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics being built. There were various monks in the audience, but I don't know any of them (despite people being like 'of course you know father xxxx' and staring at me like I have two heads, I don't know who any of those monks are. I wouldn't know who Father Mathias was if he walked up to me and had a sign that said "Hi, My Name is Father Mathias". I would recognize Father Jonathon and Brother Andrew, because Brother Andrew gave the best Humanities lectures, but now I completely digress). And when ABC shows the outside of Alumni, I was all "HEY IT'S ALUMNI!!!!" like it was some strange turn of events that a debate being shown at the Dana Center would pan to Alumni. So yay for Saint A's!

chilly

My god, that was a cold adventure. The part when we were skiing wasn't too bad because we were so bundled up. It was the walk to the car and to the lodge and back to the car and back to my house. I really thought I was going to cry when I finally got back into my car when we were leaving! It was 3 degrees when we got there and about 9 when we left. That's bone chilling.

It was a fun time out on the slopes though, and both Michelle and I had some really good runs.

You can see it's not a huge mountain, it's actually pretty small, but it's big enough. Andrew and I are planning to hit up Gunstock on Saturday when it's supposed to be about 40 degrees warmer than today!

Mountains of fun, minutes away!

I'm skiing tomorrow! Michelle and I are going to try to brave the bitter cold and head over to Wachusett. It does seem kind of silly to skip NH since all the mountains there just keep getting pounded by snow, but it's just too cold to drive 2 hours north. The windchill up there is supposed to be negative 15. I love to ski, but I can't handle that kind of cold. So over to Princeton, MA we go. I'm ridiculously excited. As Andrew says, I start thinking about skiing in August and I mourn the ending from April to July. I can't wait to get back on the slopes! (ha, please don't make the mistake of thinking that my love for the mountain and skiing means I'm a good skiier. Oh no. I'm mediocre at best)

Did you know that Wachusett Mountain is a monadnock mountain? Did you know that monadnock is an "Indian" name for 'mountain that stands alone"? Would I make that up? I like how they say it's an "Indian" name. First of all, who says "Indian" anymore? Well, I do, but who says it that needs to be wary of offending all the PC people in the world? And could "Indian" be more vague? There are over 554 American Indian tribes recognized by the government. Most of them had their own language or dialect. So, pray tell, which tribe called mountains that stand alone "monadnocks?" Hmmm??

That's all folks!

Hopefully everyone had a Merry Christmas! Andrew and I did, we got some nice things but our actual Christmas Day was kind of rushed. Andrew bought me ski racks for my car (though he can use them too... this is more of a "we need this so merry Christmas" kind of present) so we should be all set to hit the slopes in a few week! We got gift certificates to Gunstock, so we'll be heading up there the 1st weekend of January if things work out.

We went to my parents for dinner and then we headed up to Keene (where we got more presents including guitar hero III!) and spend the 26th up in NH. Today we were both back to work. I wish we could get more time off around Christmas, but what are you going to do.

My parents bought us a new camera, so I can finally post pictures again. I didn't take very good pictures, we were more messing around with the camera, but here you go!

I call this one "Michael handing out Christmas presents and being grumpy about it"

Kevin being extremely fond of his Bud Light...

I'm trying to read a book up in Keene and Andrew wants to play with the new camera --> hence this picture. Those are pajamas, by the way. I don't dress like that during daylight hours. Most of the time.