Chaos Personified

Too Much, Not Enough

2011-03-18T14:31:00.002-04:00

Right. So...that new project I mentioned? Frankly, it's an awful lot like this was. But I needed a new place to house my story.

For those that care to follow along, here's the link to Too Much & Not Enough. Enjoy!

The Grand Vanishing Act of 2010

2011-01-01T23:40:00.006-05:00

I didn't disappear on purpose. Though I doubt anyone really missed my absence from blogging.

In all honesty, I have no excuse for what happened, but as 2010 got further and further along, I felt more and more disconnected from this blog. I'm still not sure if I've really reconnected.

Point being: I took a year off. I'll be back, I think. I think there may be new projects on the horizon though. Life has definitely changed for me. I don't know if a blog that I started in college can truly capture what my life is like anymore.

I'm planning a comeback for 2011, but it may not be at Chaos Personified. Stay tuned for anyone who follows.

In the meantime, Happy New Year to all! May 2011 bring you health, happiness, peace, joy, and a whole lot of laughs.

PUPPIES!

2009-12-23T07:26:00.000-05:00

The Quiet Storm

2009-12-21T17:47:00.003-05:00

Rain. Blitzen (lightning). Should be chaotic and loud and crazy at my house right now, wouldn't you think?

It is SILENT. One dog stares at the other. The other stares back. Neither of them make a sound. I don't know if I should be waiting for everything to go insane soon, or if they're going to spend the next decade in a staring contest.

An interesting turn of events. Rain loves us all, but she listens the Guy. He is, by far, her master. I'm just her companion. Blitzen, on the other hand, is at my heel at all times. She occasionally comes when the Guy calls, but it's rare. As I type, she's sleeping underfoot at the computer desk. I don't know what to do with all this power!

Picture(s) to follow, I promise. Once I can get her to stand more than 3 inches away from me when I try to take her picture.

If Only There Were Magical Reindeer To Pull Their Sleigh!

2009-12-19T23:48:00.003-05:00

I don't even know how to explain the craziness that the storm going across the eastern seaboard is causing.

For starters, shortly after I posted about Blitzen, I found out that they were stopped because of the storm in southern Virginia. They had to camp out at a hotel last night, and walk the dogs (100 of them on the transport!), and camp out until almost 9:30 PM tonight.

The dogs are all on their way to the Northeast now, but it's very slow-going. My heart totally goes out to the crew for P.E.T.S. LLC. What a crazy thing to have to go through with 100 dogs on your trucks!

We're still anxiously awaiting the arrival of our beautiful new dog, and trying to be as patient as possible because we know this crew is working so hard.

In the meantime, I guess we should go shovel.

The New Dog in Town

2009-12-18T19:42:00.005-05:00

Anyone who knows me or was at my bachelorette party knows that I love all the puppies in the world. It's just the truth. I'd rescue them all if I could.

Well, I'm on my way. As I type, our new dog (a German Shepherd called Ursula, then called Precious, and who we will be renaming for the 3rd time as Blitzen*) is on a transport from Tennessee, arriving tomorrow morning here in the Northeast for us to adopt. (I'd post a picture, but they already took it off of their site, which means SHE'S OURS!)

The Guy and I bought each other a video camera for Christmas, to record our family moments with Lulu and Rain. We're planning to take it with us tomorrow to pick Blitzen up, and we'll hopefully get some great footage of Rain and Blitzen playing together in the backyard.

I'm so excited!

*Blitzen isn't named after the reindeer. It means "Lightning" in German. And she's German. Our 1st dog is named Rain. Get it? It's like a freaking storm in our house.

I Wasn't Supposed to Peak until 28*

2009-12-17T17:53:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my 26th birthday. I did not have a quarter-life crisis about this. In fact, I spent the entire day cleaning my house and/or shopping for my party that was going on the next night. (I've never cleaned so much before in my life, which obviously is the first sign that I must be getting old. Either that, or more anal-retentive/OCD than normal.)

I didn't feel old until earlier to today. See, I'm a mom. (As if you didn't know.) And I breastfeed. (Get over the "gross" factor, cause I'm sorry, it's just natural, and good for you, and good for your baby, and I've accepted that, so you can deal, too.) I struck a deal with my manager at work a few months back that I can work permanently from home so that I don't have to waste three hours of my day commuting, and I can spend that time more wisely with Lulu. And about a week or two after that deal was struck, he had to retract his previous statement and ask if I could come into the office one day a week (this is only temporary until about February). I agreed, because I still felt that four days of working from home was better than no days (or even three days, which was my situation prior to giving birth). Plus, like I said, it was only temporary, so I just had to suck it up for a few months.

Right, back to my story.

So because I breastfeed, I have to go into the special Nursing Mothers' Lounge to pump on the days I'm in the office. (I'll pause for a moment while you stop cringing Ready? Good.) The lounge is really just a large closet located within the women's restroom. I did my thing, and then had to take my bottles out to the sinks to wash them out. Standing in the bathroom at the time were two girls. I call them girls, not women, cause they looked like they were 12, even though, in all likeliness, they were probably about 23. And they looked at me like I was the oldest lady on the planet. And in retrospect, I probably looked the same way when I was first hired and I saw someone walk out of the Nursing Mothers' Lounge to wash her pumps and bottles, too. How strange.

I feel so old today. And to think I thought I looked young and cute this morning.

Oh well, at least my husband will always be almost 5 years older than me.

*Irish has a friend who has this theory that the day of your birth is the age at which you will have your best year, and thus, it'll be all downhill after that**. My birthday's on the 28th of the month. Thus, I will peak at 28. It upsets her cause her birthday is on the 9th, and thus, she peaked 17 years ago.

**It's kind of sad to think that there isn't a single person who will have a life that's not "downhill" after the age of 31. I think this theory sucks. And also, it's probably inaccurate.

The Deez

2009-11-29T15:06:00.003-05:00

It's sad to have to admit this, but Diesel is dying.

There's no way to say it other than being perfectly blunt. She's been very sick lately, and after more testing, we found that she now has cancer on her spleen, and there is quite literally nothing that can be done about it. At this point, my parents are just trying to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.

I remember standing in the parking lot at Holy Cross High when we first met her. I kept turning to my parents and saying, "Her, we're getting her!" Over and over again, while my dad tried to ask the "pertinent questions." But I knew she was the coolest little puppy I had seen. By that night, they agreed, and we picked Diesel up on Wednesday evening that week. I remember driving with her on my lap all the way to my ballet class.

From that time, Diesel spent countless nights snuggling with me in bed, sleeping on top of my feet on cold winter nights, keeping me safe and warm. Not having her around was a hard adjustment in college, not one I think I've ever admitted to people. You don't go from spending night after night with someone to not seeing them for months at a time without it being a strange adjustment.

It broke my heart not to take Diesel with us when the Guy and I got married, but we knew it was the right thing to do. Every time we visit my parents (which is a lot), upon first sight of Diesel, my heart breaks a little. She's gotten old in the last 13 years. It's hard to miss the signs of that. It's even harder as I look at her Christmas ornament from her very first Christmas with us all those years ago, and I see how tiny she was (and not to mention how she had two eyes).

She's been my friend for so long, and I don't really know how to say goodbye to her. She's been a very surprising dog, and she deserves all the love we can muster for her in these few days, weeks, months we have left with her.

Marathon Man

2009-10-11T22:26:00.004-04:00

Hey, do you guys know my brother, C? You may know him from his regular old blog "Through the Circuits of Time," but lately, I've been paying closer attention to his blog, "Run, Fatboy, Run!" And let me tell you, he's pretty awesome. Yesterday, he did something pretty amazing, in my opinion.

He ran in the Hartford Marathon.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but in my family, we're not exactly tiny people. Several of us are dieting/exercising to try to become tiny people, but C took it to a whole new extreme with his training for this marathon.

I'm totally impressed.

And I think you all should be, too.

Marathon Man from ST on Vimeo.

And yes, it's totally me "Woo-ing" in the background of this video!

Here are results for the race if anyone's interested.

One Down...

2009-09-27T13:19:00.003-04:00

Today marks my first anniversary. Honestly, it's very low-key. We went to church, did work around the house, and tonight, Mom's coming over to take care of Lulu so we can go to dinner.

This last year has been absolutely nuts considering we found out I was pregnant about two days after we got home from our honeymoon.

So here's to the start of Year #2. Let's hope that it's either just as low-key as today is, or at least, if it's crazy, let the craziness be filled with happiness, too!

Experimenting on Children

2009-09-15T11:48:00.001-04:00

I will absolutely, 100%, without a doubt do the Marshmallow Test with my kids someday. No question about it. It's too freaking adorable not to do it.

Suggestions, Please!

2009-09-15T01:37:00.002-04:00

Does anyone have any suggestions for good books to read? I've noticed lately that I've been averaging at least one book every 5-7 days (depending on length, complexity, etc.). For the past 3 books I've read, I've kind of just stumbled upon them by chance, and thankfully, they were all good, or at the very least, told a ridiculous, yet pleasurable story. (I almost always need a happy ending. It's very selfish of me to want that, but I can't help it. Sorry.)

Anyway, my point is that every time I want to meander around the library, the baby cries, and I have to leave, lest I get dirty looks from every person in the place (including the mother of 3 whose youngest looks like he's about to cry too, so I don't know why she's all smug). So before I go back in that building again, I want to have a clear game plan of books I'd like to check out, but unfortunately, I have no clue where to start.

I don't care if it's a classic or something fairly recent or even if it's just some random book you came across by chance that happened to be good. I just desperately need suggestions.

Right now, I'm using the Collective's book reviews from last week, but that's only going to get me so far. Hopefully, you can help me out the rest of the way.

A Lesson on Blondie

2009-09-14T00:34:00.003-04:00

The phrase "I couldn't make this crap up!" does not even begin to describe what it's like to spend an evening with my friend, Blondie.

Case in point, Blondie, Irish, Irish's dad, and I went to a Red Sox game at Fenway tonight. And while many eventful things happened there, like Irish getting beer spilled on her by a drunk guy during Jason Bay's homerun and then the drunk guy denying it despite him being the only one around with a beer in his hand, that's not what made the night memorable.

No, by far, the memorable part of the evening was the conversation on the ride home that started with the sentence, "Sometimes I think I have Situational Tourette's."

I don't think I could recreate the next half hour of madness that ensued after Blondie said that. And honestly, I don't think I'd want to try.

But what I can say is that if I hadn't already lost all my baby weight, I surely would have after that car ride, because I burned about a million calories and got rock hard abs from laughing so incredibly hard at her.

It's the new Blondie catchphrase.

Mission Statement

2009-09-05T12:16:00.005-04:00

While I don't know this for sure at all, I have a hunch that some time soon, people that I never thought would read this blog may actually read this blog.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

But I think I need to explain the total chaotic mess of the last 667 posts (and any that will probably follow this one.)

I write for the sake of writing.

I have a pretty standard life. I started this blog as a junior in college, trying to kill time between my part-time jobs and classes. It had little function or purpose but to get all the stupid random pointless crap out of my head, and to tell a little about my life and friends way back when. And now, I have a husband, a child, and a dog, and I live in suburbia. Considering I spend almost all day everyday either at home or at my parents' home (and this is whether I'm on maternity leave or not), it's safe to say that exciting things don't usually happen to me.

But I write for the sake of writing.

There are no pearls of wisdom here. There are hardly ever any clever or witty anecdotes. And when there are, they're probably only clever and witty to me. I know this. I'm not in denial about this. And there's really no reason to lie and make this blog out to be something more than it is. I wish I could make it more interesting, but without flat out telling stories, it's not exactly possible. But this, in some way, is my own personal brand of therapy, whether it be to just tell a random tidbit, to complain, or to mention something totally stupid that's stuck in my brain but means nothing.

So I write for the sake of writing.

Lucky #667

2009-09-02T14:50:00.004-04:00

First of all, I needed to post today when I realized that my post-count was at 666. That just will not do.

But I was going to post anyway, cause I'm excited to say that as of tomorrow, I will have FINALLY sold my old car! When I bought my new car in January, they were only going to offer me $800 for it. However, when my husband and I looked at the Blue Book value of it, it was $3400. Um, yeah, so the trade-in did NOT happen. We got a "for sale" sign on it a little bit after that, and then the phone calls came flooding in. And then the following conversation kept happening between my husband and the, um, how shall I put this?...um...broke-ass folks who kept calling.

"How much do you want for it?"
"I'm looking for around $3200, but that's negotiable."
"Oh, gee, I thought it was only going to be like $1200. Nevermind." *Click*

"How much are you looking for?"
"Um, $3200."
"Whoa, seriously? I thought you were going to say $1000! That's just too much."

"I'll give you a flat $1500 for it."
"Um, it's worth at least $3200."
"Yeah, but I'll take it as is for $1500."
"Yeah, but I'm selling it as is for $3200!"
"Well, just keep my name and number if you change your mind."

We didn't change our minds.

Anyway, one of my dad's friends (who also happened to be my 6th grade science teacher) was looking for a car for his daughter because hers got totaled. We've known this for a couple of months now, but we were waiting to see how much insurance would give for her car to see if she could afford it.

Well, my dad took them both for a test drive in it yesterday, and by 9 PM-ish last night, I got the call from, first my mom, and then my dad, informing me to get the paperwork ready cause my dad was going to take it down to the bowling alley tonight and have it be a done deal. (They have bowled on the same league together for years!)

So once I get the kid all packed up in her carseat, we'll be out the door to bring the paperwork to my dad.

Damn, I got 1/2 my thank you notes for my daugther's baptism done today, AND sold my car.

Just keep checking things right off that "to do" list!

Goober

2009-09-01T17:57:00.003-04:00

Yup, that's my kid!

Pity Party, Table for 1

2009-08-03T21:48:00.004-04:00

I swear, if she didn't need me to feed her or change her diapers, my daughter would take care of herself. Seriously, I don't know how it's possible, but I think Lulu might be one of the most independent infants I've ever seen.

Needless to say, while on this wonderful maternity leave (that I never ever ever want to end...for real, no sarcasm), my days are spent staring at her while she either stares back at me or sleeps. And when I'm not staring (usually shortly after I realize she's sleeping and I can stop staring now), I let some form of entertainment totally fry my brain, namely in the form of Facebook, Google Reader, or watching Gilmore Girls on DVD (I'm already on Season 4 of 7).

While checking Facebook today, Blondie had posted hundreds of pictures. Apparently, she just figured out how to do that. And I absolutely loved checking out the pictures of all the fun things she's done (some dating back a few months, others dating back a few weeks).

But I've got to be honest. I started to get sad. This is the first time in a really really long time that I've gotten sad like this. (And seriously, this is major, cause I was horribly terrified I'd end up with Post-Partum Depression because I've come to terms with the fact that I'm overly emotional [though I don't always let people see that], and minus a few minor Baby Blues moments, when I would cry because "she's getting bigger, and we had a deal that she wouldn't get bigger!", I've been pretty well adjusted.)

Right, anyway, as I was saying, I was really sad. In these pictures, I was seeing my friends doing all these things that either I couldn't do (e.g. the trip to Chicago was during my honeymoon), or doing things that they didn't even think to invite me to cause, well, I have a husband and a kid. And what I didn't see in any pictures was me.

I love my friends. And I know we're still friends (heck, we just had dinner last week for Blondie's birthday), so it's not like I feel like I'm just floating out here alone or something. But in a weird little way, I also feel like I've been ditched.

I just worry that I'm missing out. And every time I have that thought about "missing out," I then feel guilty because I've got this amazing new experience going on (i.e. spending time with Lulu), and I might be missing that, too, if I waste too much time being sad or if God forbid I try to experience all those other things.

I love my daughter to bits.

But I'm still just 25 years old. I can have fun, too, you know!

I know that this is one of those life adjustments that many who came before me have likely had to deal with. I just wish I knew the secret for how to feel like a wife and mother, but feel like a fun-loving friend who gets to see and do things, too.

A Twister, a Twister!

2009-07-31T18:03:00.001-04:00

Never in my life did I think I'd see the day when Diesel could sit comfortably next to another dog.

Well, ok, so when we first picked her up when she was only 3 months old, she was sitting with other dogs. And I wouldn't exactly say she was sitting comfortably.

But still, she and Rain sat within 2 feet of each other.

The Guy called me around 4 PM.

"Hey, I just wanted you to know there's a tornado warning in the area."

"What?"

"Yeah, I figured you weren't really sitting in front of the TV, so I should call you."

I turned off the portable DVD player that I was watching, snuggled Lulu extra tightly to me, and called Rain to stand by my side. I knew the best bet was to go downstairs, but as we all know, we have the "Downstairs Dog" living there.

I had a couple choices. One, I could hope a tornado wouldn't come and take Rain away. Or, two, I could bite the bullet, open the basement door, and let Rain and Diesel meet face-to-face, and hope that I wasn't going to end up prying two dogs off of one another while clutching a baby and hoping to God I don't fly away.

I was going to go with option 1, keeping Rain locked in my basement bathroom.

And when I realized she wasn't going to comply with that, I had to go with option 2.

It scared the crap out of me to open that door.

What happened next shocked the hell out of me. Diesel barely flinched at Rain. No hair standing on end, no horrible growling that sounds like she'd tear Rain to bits.

Of course, in retrospect, I realized that this was because Diesel is petrified of any sort of thunderstorm, and the loud horrible noise and the bright close lightning scared the crap out of her to the point where she could barely acknowledge Rain's presence.

So there I sat on the futon, Diesel on my left, Rain on my right, and Lulu sleeping soundly in her pack & play (which I put her in, in case I had to pry Diesel's jaws off of Rain's neck). I turned the TV on (as long as we still had power) so that I could keep track of just how much danger my family was in.

And even though the newscasters confirmed that the tornado warning was lifted just before 4:30, I knew the storm was weakening at the precise moment that Diesel finally glanced to my right side, saw Rain, and she started to lunge for her.

For the record, a tornado did end up touching down in our state, but it was about 35 miles away, closer to my brother E's home than my own (and still a good 5 miles from him too). And it's a good thing, too, cause in retrospect, the room I was sitting in was not a good place to be in a tornado (too many windows, and a sliding glass door, despite being partially underground). In fact, the only good "room" in my house is the crawl space under my staircase that is used as a pantry for all our non-perishable food items.

And frankly, I don't think me, a baby, an English Setter, and a Pitbull would fit there, so it's a good thing God was looking out for us!

Sleep Interrupted, Redux

2009-07-26T12:31:00.002-04:00

So the Guy isn't the only one having weird dreams, although mine are not that bad.

My biggest problem is that I'm dreaming that I've already fed this child. Which is why I get so ticked off when she wakes me up and I'm like, "Lulu, you already ate!" and the Guy has to insist, "Um, no, she hasn't eaten in over 3 hours. She's hungry."

Whoops.

Upstairs Dog, Downstairs Dog

2009-07-26T12:17:00.003-04:00

My parents decided to go on vacation. I don't blame them. But that means Diesel needs to be looked after.

This has never been a problem in the past. However, with a 1-month-old daughter who needs to be fed every 3 hours (give or take), it provides some challenges in negotiating the drive and the walks in a timely fashion. We'd bring Diesel here, but um, Diesel doesn't play well with others.

It took a few days and my father saying countless times, "We can just send her to the kennel," but we finally came up with a seemingly decent solution. Our basement door closes quite securely. And the futon that Diesel used to sleep on regularly is now down in our basement. So Diesel is our "Downstairs Dog" and Rain gets to stay as our "Upstairs Dog." For all intents and purposes, they don't even know that the other one is in the house. Rain just can't figure out why she's not allowed in the basement anymore, but seeing as how she spents 95% of her day upstairs anyway, she's not exactly put out by this. And the futon is way more comfortable for Diesel than some kennel would be.

Now the thing is, Diesel has some quirks. She cries very loudly (to the point that I asked the Guy a little while ago, "Is that the baby or the dog?" and his response was, "The dog") when she thinks she's being ignored or left out. So when we're upstairs, she's not too thrilled. Thankfully, Diesel loves watching TV. We won't keep the TV on for her 24/7, but hey, considering I've watched one show on that TV in the last two months, someone should be using it!

And I must say, listening to Diesel watch "The Wedding Singer" while the Guy and I sit upstairs singing Robbie's tribute to Linda is pretty freaking amusing.

Sleep Interrupted

2009-07-11T21:58:00.002-04:00

A bit of normal sleep deprivation is to be expected as a parent of a newborn/infant/toddler. And it's normal to worry about your child, especially at night when you might not be conscious 24/7 to watch over them and ensure their safety.

At dinner tonight, this is what I had to tell myself when the Guy confessed the awful dreams that are colliding with his reality..

"I keep having dreams where I'm holding her. And I wake up, but I'm still half-asleep, and so I still think I'm holding her. And I turn and put her down on the bed. Then I'll turn to the nightstand to look at the clock or something, and when I turn back, she's gone. So in my half-asleep state, I start pulling up the covers and moving the pillows, and last night, I even tried to wake you up. And in the middle of yelling at you to wake up cause I lost her in the sheets, I turn and she's sleeping in her cradle. And this stupid thing keeps happening, night after night! It's freaking messed up!"

The description made me feel so bad for him, especially knowing that I totally slept soundly through his freakout last night and never once heard him yell out for me.

Overcome with Illness

2009-07-07T22:19:00.004-04:00

I never once assumed becoming a parent would be easy. And 12 days later, I would never think to suggest such a thing.

But what I have found interesting is that what I thought would be difficult hasn't been so bad, but there are things I never in a million years would have anticipated that take me by surprise.

On the 4th day, for instance, I had one such surprise. The hospital I gave birth at is ridiculously awesome (in my opinion as a patient), and as part of their patient care, they allow the mother and baby to return to the hospital 48 hours post-discharge to check their vitals and allow the mother/parents to ask questions that they never would have thought to ask while in the hospital (namely because nursing staff working "behind the scenes" maybe took care of things that may have gone unnoticed until it came time to do them at home). Lulu and I went for our check-up and got a clean bill of health all around.

So imagine my surprise when, a mere 3-4 hours later, I had developed a fever, was projectile vomiting, and basically was slipping in and out of consciousness. (I wasn't really unconscious, but aside from feeling craptastic, I truly couldn't tell you much about what happened while I was sick because when I wasn't up to barf, I was passed out in my own sweat.) As I said to my mother when I was starting to feel better, I know I wanted to lose my pregnancy weight quickly, but losing 5 lbs and approximately 24 hours is just ridiculous. And not only did it totally suck physically, but my emotions were totally haywire from giving birth anyway. So basically every time I was awake, I started crying about how I'm the worst mother in the world because I couldn't take care of my daughter at all. (I could barely stay awake, so I couldn't risk holding her, lest I accidentally drop her, and I pumped as often as I could, but there definitely was one point during the middle of the night when I could not physically move, and my husband had to feed her formula.) Right, my point is, it sucked big time!

To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure what happened to me to go to that state so quickly. I have a theory, but I also have no way to prove that theory since, as far as I can tell, I've been better for days. Basically, it's this: I had flu-like symptoms, and the only thing that I can find relating to giving birth and having flu-like symptoms is mastitis (thank you, Heather Armstrong at Dooce.com, for blogging about it yourself over the last couple of days, and thank you, Mayo Clinic, for your incredibly helpful info). The thing is, though, as far as I can remember, I never developed a red mark on my breast. However, the way I "treated" my illness was basically, word for word, how they suggest it in the "Self-care remedies" section. So I never had the antibiotics at all, but it's possible that I might have gotten the infection/blocked duct to clear itself.

Blocked ducts, of sorts, are apparently the thing to have around these parts. Shortly after I started feeling better (a few days later), it was Lulu's turn to make her mom worry. Nothing remotely as severe, thank God, but I didn't know that when it first started. Her eyes were tearing up constantly on the 4th of July. I kept cleaning them out. But I was in for a bit of a shock when we all woke up for her 6 AM feeding on July 5th and her eye was practically sealed shut. It seemed like little baby pink-eye. As far as I knew, no one had any sort of eye problems at the picnic the day before. But it was just so bad that I had to have the Guy call her pediatrician's on-call doctor. The on-call doctor informed us not to worry because, from the description, it sounded like one of two things. It was either a blocked tear duct or an infection. She told us not to panic, keep cleaning it, and call the office first thing Monday morning. So that's what we did. After getting an appointment for a couple of hours later, we found out that it was actually both a blocked tear duct and an infection. Essentially, because we were unaware of her blocked tear duct (and therefore, didn't know that we had to massage it to force the tears out), her eye developed a non-contagious infection that had gunky build up similar to pink-eye without the redness. A little eye ointment for 5 days, and Lulu will be back to normal. (Heck, she's already tons better!)

I thought that the inconsolable crying and the midnight feedings were going to be the hard part. And don't get me wrong, when they happen, they're not that pleasant.

But I look forward to the day when the only pill bottles on the counter are for vitamins, not prescription medications, that's for darn sure!

Pretty in Pink

2009-06-25T14:07:00.003-04:00

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, at 2:07 PM*, I gave birth to a stunning little baby girl. For the sake of people's anonymity on this blog and also the fact that her dad will kill me if I post her name (for a guy who owns a computer company, he truly thinks that the internet is some sort of conspiracy for all sorts of shady activity), let's just call her Little Lulu.

Surprisingly, this kid has been easy from start to finish.

Pregnancy was 98% perfect. A little nausea, a bit of acid reflux, and some swelling in my feet and ankles since Memorial Day weekend, but honestly, nothing of consequence. And while I'm pretty sure all my relatives (mom, aunt, sisters-in-law) all want to kill me, labor & delivery was actually not too awful either. Of course, this probably has to do with the fact that from the time I got my first contraction at 5:15 AM to the time I delivered her, only 9 hours had elapsed. I had more than enough time to get my epidural (in fact, the worst part of labor & delivery was the 30-40 minutes prior to the epidural). And to top it off, I only had to push for 17 minutes. (This really REALLY bugged one of my sisters-in-law, who pushed for almost 3 hours before they finally told her that, for her own physical well-being, she needed to finally give up and have a C-section.) And now, Lulu sleeps about 20 hours of the day. Which means I actually get about 6-8 hours of sleep everyday. Not necessarily 6-8 consecutive hours, but hey, I'll take it!

I figured it would take weeks to find a routine with my baby girl, but this kid and I were so meant to be a part of each other's lives.

You know, aside from the obvious fact that I'm her mom, of course.

*Ok, so it's possible I may have backdated and timestamped this post to her date/time of birth. Sue me. I'm a new mom. I barely remember to eat sometimes, let alone blog!

I Wonder

2009-06-18T17:49:00.004-04:00

As I sit here and actually stop to think about the logistics of it, do women ever come to the conclusion that this whole concept of pregnancy, labor, & delivery is a REALLY STUPID IDEA?

Oh well, too late now.

A New Baby Boy!

2009-06-18T10:28:00.007-04:00

And no, it's not mine!

Here's a little shout-out to my brand spankin' (except you're not supposed to do that to kids) new nephew, born very very late Tuesday night.

For those unaware, one of the Guy's sisters was pregnant as well and her due date was quite literally 2 days before mine. She was induced on Tuesday afternoon for medical reasons (she's fine, the baby's fine, but they wanted to make sure they STAYED fine, hence the induction), and low and behold, out popped the 1st baby boy for my husband's side of the family!

I'll admit it. I semi-wanted to give birth to the first boy. You know, even though I have NO clue whether this kid inside me is a boy or a girl (and neither does the kid, cause every time I ask it what it is, it won't nudge me or anything to let me know I'm on the right track!). (And also, I'd like to note that I will be PERFECTLY happy if this is a little girl, if for no other reason [and there are plenty of other reasons] than they don't pee on you as much when you try to change their diaper, or so I've heard.) And even though I thought I'd be a little bit jealous when this happened (cause I've been convinced for her entire pregnancy that she was carrying a boy), I was actually overwhelmingly happy for her.

And it also made my life a heck of a lot easier. Cause after 5 nieces (who I love and adore), it gets a little difficult trying to figure out what to buy for these new babies when the parents already have things for them. Going to Kohl's and buying all the adorable little blue and brown puppy clothes that I have been wanting to buy for my own child definitely made my life significantly easier, and not to mention extremely happy. (Cause it's all about me, obviously.)

I could continue on with my regular rant of why I think puppies are NEUTRAL cause EVERYONE LOVES PUPPIES and they are NOT boy things and WHY CAN'T BABY ITEM COMPANIES GET THIS THROUGH THEIR THICK SKULLS AND MAKE PUPPY THINGS IN PINK AND/OR ON GREEN/YELLOW CLOTHING ARTICLES...but that pretty much sums it up, so I'll spare you the rest.

(Seriously, not being able to buy neutral puppy clothing/decorative items for my baby and his/her nursery has actually brought me to tears on numerous occasions in the stores.)

I believe the word you're looking for is "Anyway..."

So welcome to the world, Little T! It's not all bad, despite that nasty circumcision you had to go through yesterday, I promise!

Preparations

2009-06-09T17:57:00.002-04:00

So 38 weeks are over today. Only 2 more to go.

Maybe.

At last Wednesday's appointment, Dr. R. scared the crap out of me by telling me I was 2-3 cm dilated and 90% effaced. Her words, "With any luck, I'll see you this weekend." Totally instinctual gut reaction from me: "Well, holy crap!"

I had what I like to call a "nesting" instinct, but what everyone else probably called a major freakout. (Ok, I'll admit it. Even I call it a major freakout!) You see, I have this list. It's a list of things I have to purchase prior to the baby being born. I swear, it truly is things I need, not things I want. The majority of the stuff needs to be packed for the hospital, and the rest is stuff that will be necessary within hours of coming home from the hospital. There are plenty of things I want to have that are not on this list for a number of reasons, such as, 1) someone will probably buy it/them for me once I actually have the baby, or 2) it's something the child and I can both live without for a couple of days once he or she is actually born. Seriously, this is a "must have" list, for sure. (Even if it does have "lollipops" on it. Which, FYI, ARE a must-have, considering they're needed for labor, to keep my mouth moist from all the heavy breathing. No joke. The nurse who ran the birthing class told me to bring them.)

Well, when the doctor told me that, I lost my damn mind because I had checked off all of 3 items from this list out of, like, 20. Marathon shopping began immediately after leaving the doctor's office that night, and didn't really end until 10 PM on Thursday evening, when my mom and I quite literally closed down Target (they started shutting the lights off on us!). But basically, I was ready. I could relax and have the baby early if I needed to.

And then the baby didn't come.

This is probably (ok, definitely) a good thing, for numerous reasons, but especially beause while I get that things can change in a split second, I had a wedding to go to on Saturday and well, it just wasn't in the plans to give birth, too. I would've felt extremely terrible if it was the bride's day and then all of a sudden I was like, "Um, yeah, I'm in labor, sorry!" Plus, I've gotta tell you, it's wicked fun doing the Cha-Cha Slide at 37+ weeks pregnant, at the point when the guy goes, "How low can you go?" No one actually expects the pregnant woman to go all the way to floor, and yet, I totally did.

I'm kind of surprised the kid didn't just shoot out of me at that moment, actually.

What I Am Not

2009-05-30T00:45:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday, I will officially be 37 weeks pregnant.

However, I still will not be an animal at the zoo.

Please do not pet me. Please do not stare at me for uncomfortable, awkward 10-minute intervals.

I'm self-conscious enough as it is. It's worse when I feel like I'm on display with people who are supposed to be some of my closest friends.

I'd much rather shrink into the background, please.

A Lesson on Bravery

2009-05-18T17:05:00.002-04:00

First of all, this has nothing to do with the topic of bravery, but I have to say -- I can't believe I let it happen. I can't believe I went over a month without blogging. I mean, I know I don't have much to say, but I've never done that before. I don't know whether I'm proud of myself or ashamed of myself. (I think it's a little of both.)

Now to the topic at hand.

About a week ago, I met up with Irish and Blondie for dinner at Chili's and a movie. Being my 8-months-pregnant self (give or take), I really wasn't feeling like anything especially healthy for dinner. And that's strange, cause Chili's is the only restaurant where I actually will voluntarily order the salad. (However, I find it hard to believe that the Quesadilla Explosion is actually healthy, but whatever. It's delicious. It has vegetables. It has grilled chicken instead of fried. That's healthy to me.) But I didn't want the salad, so I opted for a very lame chicken fingers with fries. And on this note, I will comment that the Chili's Honey Chipotle Chicken Fingers dipped in ranch dressing are actually a delightful treat.

But here's the thing. Shortly after our food arrived, Irish reached over and grabbed a fry. I looked up, and smiled, and said, "That was incredibly brave of you to touch a pregnant woman's french fries." We all laughed. But then, later on in the meal, Blondie finished her healthy tilapia, but must've still be hungry cause her hand wandered onto my plate and snatched a fry too. I know I wasn't really angry at them, but at the same time, I was sitting there, whining in my own head, "But those are MY fries!"

So children, the lesson to be learned is...never touch a pregnant woman's food unless she appears full and thus has given you permission to touch said food.

I mean, I like my friends, so it all worked out just fine for all of us. But if they had been random people, they might have lost their hands.

(And also, why would random people be coming over, trying to snatch my dinner?)

Lights Out

2009-03-28T19:06:00.003-04:00

Ok, so I'm in the maternity ward at Griffin Hospital right now cause my brother, E's wife is in labor (hopefully, we'll have some good news about my niece/nephew very soon).

Meanwhile, don't forget that from 8:30 PM through 9:30 PM LOCAL TIME (whatever that might be for you; for me, it's Eastern Daylight Time), it's Earth Hour. So shut out the lights, get cozy in front of some candles or a warm toasty fire, and be all earth-conscious.

Me? I was planning on participating. And in a way, I still will be, considering I won't be home and turning on my lights. But I'm pretty sure they can't turn the lights off in the hospital (just a hunch).

Pride (Laced with Profanity)

2009-03-20T10:44:00.004-04:00

Our dog, who does not growl or bark, and is practically mute, is growling AND barking at the assholes who are taking down the tree next door.

And while, I don't care that the neighbor has that damn tree company taking down their tree (although, I question if it's really "their tree" considering it's on the property line...I personally love the tree, but whatever, the tree is going, going, gone for better or worse at this point), I'm ROYALLY pissed that the assholes taking down the tree are STANDING IN MY FUCKING RASPBERRY BUSHES AND DRAGGING THE SUPER HEAVY BRANCHES AND SHIT ALL THROUGH IT, PROBABLY DESTROYING MY GARDEN!

I'm very proud of our dog for recognizing this. And I wish I had enough balls to go out there and yell at them to get the hell out of my yard!

Procrastinator

2009-02-28T14:32:00.003-05:00

Nothing like waiting till the end of the month to update this. Frankly, there's not much to update with anyway. I'm in the midst of getting my life together for my cousin's wedding which is, oh dear, just two weeks away from today. It's nothing like getting myself ready for my own wedding, but I've been having minor freakouts cause I didn't even have my first dress fitting until, oh, Thursday. The dress was huge (thank God), so they didn't have to order any extra panels, but considering it's got 17 extra inches (exactly, how big did they think I was going to get by the middle of my 6th month?), they've basically got to reconstruct my dress.

And as for the bebe, everything is kosher, except for the fact that the little punk is giving me acid reflux. Which wouldn't be so bad, except I have to take a prescription for that now. I just hope the prescription isn't giving him/her like webbed feet or a third ear or anything. So let's pray that I don't end up with freak baby.

And I really want to go shopping, but the Guy won't let me. "Not until the nursery's cleaned out." Except, the nursery wouldn't have anything in it if he didn't start piling boxes in there instead of in our spare room. So I'm getting antsy for that, but we've still got time.

That's life in a nutshell. Continuing. Fairly boring. But happy, nonetheless.

The Christening

2009-01-30T14:45:00.003-05:00

I've spoken about it for over three and a half years, on and off.

I have been itching for a brand new car.

When the Guy and I found out we were having the baby, we started to do some serious talking about our vehicles. I drive a Chevy Prizm. It's been an incredibly good car to me, gets great mileage, has survived long trips and total open heart surgery when I busted its engine, but alas, it is small. I barely feel comfortable in it, and I really didn't feel comfortable putting a car seat in the backseat of it. The Guy? He drives a Camaro. Have you ever driven in a Camaro? Yeah, that's not really a car for a baby either (although, he repeatedly tries to convince me that a car seat would fit into his almost non-existent backseat).

We did research for, quite literally, months. We looked at safety, mileage, size, price (of course), and the Guy looked at other car-type things that I just will never understand. We went to dealerships and went on test drives. It became real. I was definitely about to get my car.

The next big decision was "What do we do with the Prizm?" Cause you never tell a guy to sell his sports car. Just something I've learned. My father informed me it was "cruel and unusual punishment," like when he had to finally give up his T-Bird. So that was out of the question . It was all down to the fate of the Prizm. We went back and forth. One week we were keeping it, cause it's fuel efficiency was great for riding around town to the grocery store. The next, we were selling, because the cost savings of the fuel efficiency (plus taxes and registration) didn't make sense anymore. There was no actual savings. Back and forth, back and forth. And the final decision was that we had no final decision. We were 95% sure that we were selling, but we weren't 100% positive yet, so until that moment, we would keep the car. At least we knew we wouldn't trade it in (they were going to offer me $800? Yeah, right; it may have a lot of miles on it, but I claim that car still has another 100K to go before it comes even close to dying).

That brought us to insurance. Essentially, we have to keep the car insured since it is still a registered vehicle, in order to avoid getting fined by the government for having an uninsured registered motor vehicle. Right. Ok, insure it. We found out we could have minimal insurance that basically kept it as active, but took away the ability to actually drive the vehicle (it has no liability or collision insurance).

So long story short, when I picked up my brand new 2009 Subaru Forester yesterday, we now have three cars in our garage, but only two are operable based on insurance coverage and laws at this time.

Awesome.

Except this morning? I had to take the dog to the vet. It was just a vaccine booster shot, and thus, no big deal. But we couldn't put the dog in the Prizm. And despite the Camaro being 10 years old, how dare I even consider putting a dog in the Camaro. And thus, I had to put her in the trunk area of the Forester.

I had the car for a little over 16 hours when the next thing happened. Ask me what happened. Seriously, I dare you. (Let's face it, I'm going to tell you anyway.)

I opened the hatch to let the dog out of the car post-vet visit, to find a lovely pile of dog vomit in the trunk of my brand new car. Thankfully, the Guy was still home and hadn't left for work yet, cause I promptly marched inside the house, and yelled, "Put on some pants, cause YOU'RE CLEANING OUT MY CAR!"

Hell, he would have made me do it had I taken the dog in the Camaro. Fair is fair.

The Great Red Sox Ticket Buy of 2009

2009-01-24T12:02:00.002-05:00

I got a phone call about 15-25 minutes ago from my brother, C. Red Sox tickets went on sale this morning and my brother is desperately trying to get some for a game around his and his wife's birthday. So he's got two computers running, trying to get out of the "Virtual Waiting Room" and get to the ticket purchasing screen. And now he's got two more, with my desktop and laptop trying to get in too.

So while I just get to sit here waiting, I figured I'd say hi. Cause really? I'm doing nothing else but sitting here in the never ending loop of the "Virtual Waiting Room," too.

Baseball fans are crazy, I think.

And hopefully, I won't be judged when I have no presents or card for my niece's birthday party tonight since I was waiting for Red Sox tickets for her daddy.

Debs Strikes Again

2009-01-19T13:34:00.004-05:00

Thanks to Jennie, I found out that today is the Most Depressing Day in All of History. Which I find really hard to believe, but hey, she didn't make it up.

But I find it disturbingly appropriate that it's my Dad's (a.k.a. "Debbie Downer's") birthday. So, you know, it kind of makes sense now. I wonder how many disaster and death stories he can manage to tell tonight at his party. Should be a good time had by all.

The Bad Kind of Dog Whisperer

2009-01-10T21:54:00.004-05:00

If I ever go up to your pet and I'm like, "Hey, what's that?!" make an appointment with your vet immediately.

So in my last post, I mentioned how I noticed the lumps under Diesel's arms that were thought to be "no big deal," and then tested positive for cancer (the doctor felt like an idiot for telling us she was 95% sure it was something benign for which I can't even remember the name now). Then I found the tumor in her eye (sort of, but frankly, someone would have noticed the incredible amount of gunk in her eye within an hour or so).

Well, on Wednesday, while working from home, I was petting Rain, and she lifted her chin for me to scratch her neck. And I look and see something that looks like scar tissue. She was a stray, plus was in the pound, plus was on a transport with other animals to get her from the pound in Kansas to her foster home in New Jersey (where we adopted her from), on which was a pitbull that apparently mauled a cat to death (8 cats made it onto the transport and only 7 made it off). Frankly, no one knew if anything had happened to her on that transport and since she seemed mostly unharmed, no one asked too many questions.

So my initial reaction was, "Hmm, probably got a little nip on her from another puppy in her litter or from that pitbull on the transport and I just never noticed." But I didn't question it too much, knowing that we had to take her to the vet today for vaccines.

So just before we left, the Guy reminds me about what I found, and I told the doctor, "Oh, yeah, while we have you here, I noticed she has this scar thing on her chin." So I lift her head and show him, and he says that it's probably nothing but it could be something for which I've already forgotten the name but has to do with mites on the skin (update: the Guy remembered it was called "Demodex"). He scraped off some cells to look at under the microscope, and sure enough, came back into the room 2-3 minutes later saying it was the mites. The good news is that whatever type of mites it is, it's not going to spread to us and her puppy immune system is going to combat it all on its own (he said only 1 in thousands of dogs actually have a problem with it that requires a medication, and the problem is due to a defunct immune system).

Anyway, so in reality, it's nothing major. Our only job is to make sure that it doesn't spread, so we've got to check her thoroughly for the next couple of weeks until her next appointment for the 2nd round of some of her vaccines.

But seriously, I seem to spot these things on dogs a mile away. And it's always the BAD thing that the doctor says is the most likely case that it won't be. So seriously, if I ever tell you your dog has something strange-looking going on, you might want to set up that appointment ASAP.

Can't Keep a Good Dog Down

2009-01-06T13:09:00.011-05:00

The following is really, mostly, addressed to my husband and anyone else in my family.

But just so you're all aware, I'm really REALLY not going to be okay when something finally brings Diesel down.

Let's recap, shall we:

In March of last year, I noticed a lump under her front leg. My parents tried to reassure me that it was just a nipple. I assured them it was not and I didn't care about the cost, I was taking her to the vet. So I did. The vet tested it, and it came back positive for cancer. She had a rather expensive surgery to have it removed, as well as one that I had found in the meantime under her other front leg.
Around late May to early June, I woke up one morning with her sleeping on my feet as she always did while I was still living with her. I didn't have my contacts in or my glasses on, but there was a weird looking glow coming from her eye. I broke into tears, and scrambled for my glasses to get a better look. Her eye was incredibly cloudy and had lots of gunk in it. After a week of eye drops to clean the infected eye, the doctors could finally see what was happening. Sort of. What they could see was that something was still obstructing the eye. It was either a detached retina or a tumor and they wouldn't be able to tell until they did surgery to remove the eye. Frankly, it didn't matter cause she needed the surgery regardless because if it was a detached retina, there could be internal bleeding and kill her, and if it was a tumor, it could get bigger and push on her brain and kill her. Shortly after my brother's wedding at the end of June, Diesel went in for another expensive surgery to have her eye removed (pirate dog), to discover she had a benign tumor (thankfully, not another round of cancer, but still not a good thing).
In light of the recent medical activity and Diesel's tendency to hate change, the decision was made that the Guy and I would not take Diesel with us when we got married, despite our original plan. We would let Diesel live out the rest of her life in peace, whatever amount of time she might have left (she's already over 12-1/2 years old). And while happy with our new dog Rain, Diesel is still my pup.

And thus, that brings us to just a few minutes ago, when I received the following e-mail from my father, with the subject line, "diesel":

hematoma in ear..yeast infection, scratched too much, blood vessels broke...lanced today, treated with antibiotic and steroids. Meds..drops twice a day 2 kinds..clean ears 3 times a week with ear wash..I think we have some, collar which she must wear total for today......[cost of procedure removed]

thursday morning she goes back...local anesthesia and operates on it like a cyst...leaves a drain in for 3 weeks. Pick her up at 4:00...she also needs a thyroid test or they wont re-issue meds... So we are probably talking about another [estimated cost of procedures removed]

but it's treatable and other than that she seems well. weight up to 42lbs.

So like I said, I really REALLY am not going to be okay when something finally brings Diesel down.

It's been a good fifteen minutes since I read that e-mail, and I can honestly say that I'm still tearing up (and I know without a doubt that hormones have nothing to do with why I'm crying). I'm upset. And I'm really pissed at myself for not even being there to know that something was wrong with her.

And So It Begins

2009-01-05T19:52:00.003-05:00

For the most part, up until this point, I haven't really felt pregnant. I mean, I know I am. And I had my couple of bouts of morning sickness. But I could clearly count those incidents on my hand, there were so few. Aside from a few doctor's visits, I have pretty much ignored that something is growing inside of me. Frankly, I don't even really notice a bump. My husband says it's there, a little bit, but my weight has fluctuated so much during my life that, to me, it looks like I am just losing the battle I started with Weight Watchers almost a year ago.

Well, last night was a little different.

You know how they say you should never go grocery shopping hungry? I say you should never go grocery shopping hungry and pregnant.

Last night, the Guy and I went to the Shop-Rite a town over to restock our refrigerator (it broke on the day after Christmas, leaving me without any delicious leftovers or really anything else except for mustard). Prior to this trip, the grand total of what I ate all day was a 1/2 bowl of Cheerios. In reality, it was probably a regular serving, but let's face facts, I fill the bowl and don't measure out a perfect cup of cereal every time. (I used to, but I say screw it now.) Needless to say, I was hungry.

As we walked through the grocery store, crowded because apparently everyone in creation stops at this particular store on Sunday evenings at 5:30-6 PM, I quickly distracted the Guy with other things and would shove random craving foods into the cart. He didn't even realize that 90% of the things made it into the cart until we got home and we were putting them away. (I heard the phrase, "Where the hell did this come from?" several times last night.) For his thriftiness' sake, this is probably the cheapest grocery store I've seen in about 2-3 years.

And thus, I give you a list of all the pregnancy cravings I indulged in purchasing last night:

Fruit Snacks (2 different kinds)
Black Beans & Rice
Carrots with Veggie Dip
Raisin Bagels with Cream Cheese
Hard Rolls and Bacon (to make Bacon & Egg sandwiches, which was our dinner last night)
Baked Doritos
Salt & Vinegar Potato Chips
Bread & Butter Pickles (cliche, I know, but I don't care, they looked delicious)
Teddy Grahams (the Honey kind)
Popsicles
Tapioca Pudding

Amazingly, I managed to talk myself out of getting ice cream sandwiches and Carvel Flying Saucers, but I told the Guy that, very soon, they will make their way into the shopping cart during a future excursion to the store.

But the Baked Doritos bag didn't even stand a chance. It was open before the car was even started, let alone out of the parking lot.

It's the End of the Year as We Know It*

2008-12-31T16:10:00.003-05:00

Um, I guess I forgot to login and say "Merry Christmas" last week. So in that case, Merry Belated Christmas, and also Happy New Year.

Have fun, but be safe tonight, folks!

*And I feel lame (for having come up with that as my title).

I May Love Rain, But...

2008-12-20T22:25:00.006-05:00

...I definitely swiped Diesel's 1st Christmas ornament from when she was a little puppy off my parents' Christmas tree this evening.

Diesel might not have come to live with me after I got married, and I may have a new dog who I love as if I've had her my whole life, but it doesn't change the fact that I still love Diesel very much and I'm sorry, Mom & Dad (who don't read this, but I'm addressing you nonetheless), but SHE'S STILL MY DOG!

Where she lives will never change that fact.

My Dog Is Weird

2008-12-19T21:13:00.005-05:00

I've been living with Rain since Sunday night. And here are a few things I've learned about this dog so far:

Rain will do anything to get on the couch. Anything. It pisses her off that we don't let her. She eyes us, hoping we'll leave the room so she can get up there.
Rain loves my mother, but hates all other visitors to the house. Not in an "I'm gonna bite your arm off" kind of way, but in an, "Oh my gosh, I hate people, and I'm going to hide in the corner until you go away" kind of way. Seriously, she cowered and backed away when my 11 month old niece crawled over to her (cause my niece LOVES pups), and my niece is like half her size!
The only thing Rain hates more than strange people is her crate. She was crate-trained. It was a no-brainer that we'd have a crate for her. And when we put her in her crate, she cried almost non-stop for eight hours (I know, because it was at night when I was trying to sleep, and needless to say, I think I heard all eight hours of it!) and promptly tore up her bedding in protest.
Rain doesn't like to eat at her bowl. Instead, she picks up five pieces of kibble in her mouth, runs out of the kitchen into my living room, where she opens up her mouth, drops the five pieces of kibble on my area rug, and then eats them one by one. Then she turns around, runs back to the kitchen, and repeats the process.
Rain doesn't like to inconvenience her people. Instead of barking or whining for us to take her out for a walk tonight, she promptly went into our basement while the Guy and I were upstairs and peed on the only part of our floor that's carpeted. I suppose it was really considerate of her, considering there's a huge freaking snowstorm going on outside.
She really hates the huge freaking snowstorm going on outside.

Rule #3, or Why Fudgicles Will Be My Downfall, Literally

2008-12-15T18:08:00.002-05:00

Why Rule #3? Well, here are rules #1 and #2.

1) No smoking while pregnant.

2) No drinking while pregnant.

So what is Rule #3, anyway?

3) Falling down requires trips to the ER now that you're pregnant, so be careful, you stupid klutz!

So last Tuesday evening, everything was fairly normal (sort of). In a pregnant, hormonal rage, I argued with my husband about who would make dinner (I think that was it), and decided I couldn't stand to be in the same room as him for the rest of the evening. (Hey, I said I was hormonal. What more would you like me to admit?) All was seemingly well, considering the fact that we argued over, well, nothing, and I was happily content sitting on the futon in the basement, catching up on my DVR so that I'll be all set for this week's "Biggest Loser" live reveal finale. (I still have one episode to go before the show airs tomorrow night.)

About 45 minutes into the episode, the super skinny makeovers that these contestants were getting inspired me to go upstairs and get a fudgicle (the lack of logic is not lost on me, trust me, but this was exactly how my train of thought went). So I went upstairs, grabbed my fudgy, and I was good to go.

That is, until three steps from the bottom of the staircase, my slipper-socks slipped out from under me, and the next thing I knew, I was gripping the railing for dear life with my left hand and gripping the fudgicle for dear life with my right. I only fell two steps down (there were only three to fall, so it couldn't have been that bad), and I'd like to state for the record that my fudgicle was totally in tact by the time I landed on my butt. In fact, I had a death grip on the thing, and as the Guy rushed down the stairs to make sure I was ok, he realized that I wasn't going to let go of it anytime soon. (In fact, at one point I must've started eating it, cause it definitely went in my belly, but that was all kind of a blur to me.)

Between the Guy and my parents, I eventually decided to go to the ER to get checked out. I mean, I didn't feel any pain, but you never really know what's going on inside with that other person invading your personal space, right? The heartbeat was regular, and an ultrasound two days later at my doctor's office proved much of the same. In fact, the kid is so ok right now that, in a nice, snarky way (or at least, in my head, that's how I choose to believe it went down, as if a fetus understands snark), my kid WAVED at the ultrasound technician and me. Seriously. No joke. It waved. There's photographic evidence to prove this.

And to top it all off, I saw my in-laws yesterday, and the Guy told them nothing all week of what happened. I claim it's cause he doesn't tell anyone anything (even me sometimes, I think), but he claims it was to avoid what ended up happening anyway. Which is that his dad, shaking his head, and starting by saying my name as if I had just gotten a D in English class, lectured me on how careful I have to be.

To which my mental response was, "No shit, really?!" but my father-in-law scares me more than my own dad does (because anyone who's seen them both together realizes that the two men were made from the same mold; I've simply had more time to break my father into my sarcastic behavior), plus we were sort of standing church and you shouldn't really swear in church (unless you're Fr. Jim, right, C and Wetsel?), so instead I hung my head in shame, and said, "I know."

Meanwhile, how many pairs of rubber grip slippers do you think I'm going to get for Christmas? I'm going to guess four, right now, but this could increase if people go all sorts of crazy on both sides of the family. (As if four pairs of rubber grip slippers isn't crazy enough.)

Just Rip It Off Like a Bandaid

2008-12-11T17:04:00.002-05:00

I'm pregnant.

There. I said it.

Yup, I'm just shy of 12 weeks pregnant.* OK, I realize I'm announcing this a LITTLE before the first trimester's over, which is a superstitiously bad bad thing, but oh well, tough luck, I did it.

People seem to have their opinions on this, for better or worse, and frankly, I don't really care about those opinions. It happened. We weren't trying, per se, but we definitely weren't not trying. We let nature take its course and that, it did. We're happy about. End of story.

Other peoples' opinions don't really matter to me in this case (and they never seem to matter to the Guy). And yet despite this, I still feel like I'm often trying to justify it. Which is just bizarre. Cause while I may be a tad young, seriously, people, I'm not a 16-year-old who got knocked up by her boyfriend of 2 months. Sorry if it sounds like I'm passing judgment on those teenagers, cause I don't mean to be doing that either, but I'm just saying, I'm kind of in a better position for this kind of thing to be happening than said 16-year-old.

I've heard the comments and advice about "You should wait until you've been married at least a year before you even start thinking of children." And I think that's a valid piece of advice. Advice from parents/friends/other relatives was taken into consideration, and don't think for a second I wasn't a little hesitant before finally making up my mind (it is a big decision not to be taken lightly, of course). The thing is, though, that the decision to not-not try was mine and my husband's, and really no one else's.** We knew this was a likely outcome, and no one has to agree with it. And that's the last time I'm going to attempt to justify my side of it to anyone anymore (at least on this blog).

So that's that. I'm pregnant. Expect awesome updates about wanting to lose my breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and all the amazingly ridiculous things a woman learns while pregnant.***

*The following is scientifically fascinating to me, but may be minorly repulsive (due to icky words used), especially to male readers. So stop reading if you don't think you can handle it. Have you stopped? Last chance. Ok, here we go. Want to know what I learned about counting how many "weeks pregnant" you are that I didn't know before? The first two weeks (approximately) all occur PRE-conception. As in, they start counting weeks at the start of your last period. So this makes me saying I'm 12 weeks pregnant sound REALLY suspect considering I've only been married for, oh, let's see, 11 weeks. Oh well, I guess if people thought I was a dirty tramp before, me stating this interesting fact probably won't change their opinions. Whatever. I've decided I'm going to stop feeling weird about this from this point on.

**What's funny is that this is a decision we made before we were even engaged, let alone married. I know a lot of couples don't want to have that conversation too early on in a relationship. We did. (Well, not that early, but once we knew it was going somewhere, we talked.) We're both planners. It was important to both of us to find out where the other one stood on the issue. And this, frankly, is where we stood.

***Such amazing life lessons like, "Waistbands on your stomach hurt, so only wear T-shirts/nightgowns to bed." Or how about "Tripping over yourself and falling down the stairs actually requires trips to the ER now (unlike before), so, um, stop being a klutz!" (and yes, this is actually something that happened, but I'd rather have a new post for this one later cause the experience is so lovely and fresh in my head).

And Apparently, I'm Still 14 Years Old

2008-12-09T17:47:00.004-05:00

Early in the week before Thanksgiving, I got an e-mail from Irish. I figured the e-mail was going to ask if I wanted to see "Four Christmases" with her when it came out that Wednesday, which was something we had discussed probably over a month earlier.

Instead, her e-mail kind of took me by surprise (as much as an e-mail about what movie to see on Thanksgiving Eve could really take a person by surprise). Apparently, Irish caved to her "kids" (read: the college kids who come into her office on a daily basis, not actual offspring, for which I'm sure she's grateful), and bought "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer. They had been bugging her for a while to read it, and she claimed she had no interest. Well, she read the 498 pages of "Twilight" in all of about a day or two (definitely no longer than that) and was totally hooked and had to see the movie.

The movie didn't totally turn me off, despite the fact that I hadn't read the book, so I figured what the heck. And as it turns out, I really liked the story (minus a couple of really cheesy dialogue moments that I had to appreciate for what they were -- straight out of a trashy romance novel, a.k.a. "lady porn" dialogue).

So I was in Target on Sunday night with the Guy, trying to find an artificial Christmas tree under 7 feet tall (that's the tallest we could get for our house, and that's pushing it) that doesn't look like complete crap (apparently, the well-made artificial trees are all $250+, over 7-1/2 feet tall, or both). Seriously, we went to like 9 million stores this weekend looking for trees (and stuff for the new pup!) to no avail. We still have no tree or decorations up. But this is not the point of my tale.

I snuck away into the book section for a moment, and in reality, I wasn't actually looking for anything in particular. I just wanted to see if I spotted any books that might be worthwile. And I saw "Twilight" in paperpack on sale for $8 or $9, so I figured, "Hell, that's way cheaper than the crap-tastic book (that is totally right up my alley for the crappy genre of book I love) I bought at Target a few weeks back, and don't get me started on the good-but-not-worth-$20 book I bought in the airport before the honeymoon." So $8 or $9 (whatever it was) seemed like a bargain to me, so I bought it.

Um, yeah. I read it in 2 days. And I'm itching for the next book, which I clearly don't have, and am probably going to slip into the Amazon.com order I'm placing for my niece's Christmas gift. Apparently, I'm just as bad as every teenage girl out there, except for the fact that, you know, I'm not a teenager.

And let's not forget, I still have to find some time to see "Four Christmases," except, I'd almost kind of rather go see "Twilight" again to see if there was something I missed the first time around.

Pathetic.

Rain, Rain, Come and Play

2008-12-05T19:46:00.006-05:00

I don't think I got that quite right.

Except, I totally did.

Ok, so in the Dog Adoption Quest of 2008, we were originally looking at Myrtle. But while waiting for approval to even be eligible to adopt any dog (let alone Myrtle), she got all sorts of adopted.

Then we were approved for adoption. And we picked out Zoey as another possible option. But come to find out, the website wasn't updated just yet, and thus, Zoey had been adopted.

And while Winston was a contender, I asked his foster mom a couple of questions about him, and instead of answering them, she just sent me pictures of him. He's still adorable, and I still sort of want him, but I can't really make that decision without all the information at hand.

So because the website wasn't updated, I asked, "Hey, are there any other dogs that are supposed to be on here, but aren't?" And that's when they told me about her.

Rain.

I spoke to Rain's foster mama on the phone tonight for almost an hour. Between the conversation we just had and the profile, it became clear that she was "it." Her foster mom agreed. And in about a little over a week's time, the Guy and I are driving down to New Jersey to pick her up and bring her to her "fur-ever" home with us.

This was not my news that I mentioned in the last post. But it's my news now!

And in case you were wondering (which you probably weren't, but whatever), here's Rain's profile:

Rain is one of the sweetest puppies this foster home has had the pleasure of helping. Think gentle rain, sweet summer rain. Rain and her sister Sunny were plucked from the Osawatomie KS animal shelter where they were brought in as strays. Rain is between 6 and 8 months old, has been spayed, and has a clean bill of health all around. She is tri-colored girl with mostly blue ticking and some chestnut.

This foster home is amazed at how quickly this baby was able to get comfortable here after the overwhelming changes in her little life from spending time in the shelter to a temporary foster home then through a long transport where she and her sister were to go their separate ways and finally landing in the haven of her current foster home. After only a couple of weeks she has managed to become a typical English Setter puppy. She will happily play with a toy or a ball all by herself making wonderful puppies noises and barks. Although she has gone into a puppy point at a squirrel, she really isn't a very birdie Setter.

Rain is best friend material; she snuggles with the resident Setter boys, has no problem with the ruling cat, but can be found mostly hanging with her people. Rain just loves all people. She will crawl over on her belly to meet them and would do well in a house with children; energy wise her demeanor is rather low-key.

Rain is crate trained when foster mom is at work. As a puppy she is very curious about everything and still needs certain restrictions. She has had run of the house with just the resident Setter Boys home for short periods of time. She is easily redirected by a soft no or a toy, and loves balls and Kongs especially if they are stuffed with peanut butter. After all her adventures and travels lately, she doesn't much like to actually get in the car, but foster mom is working on that with good trips and treats. Being a very resilient little girl, once she is in the car, she'll perk right up and be the perfect passenger.

Rain's housebreaking has been relatively easy: either crated or kept in a safe area when no one is home, then with walks at regular intervals like after meals, naps and play time, she is fine.

Rain has the most adoring habit of taking things and hiding them in her crate, all the items have been totally intact by the way. The first time foster mom went to check the bedding in her crate, I found the paperback book I was reading buried there. Since then, missing socks have been found along with all the tennis balls in the house.

This little wiggle butt has much love to give and so much growing and learning to do. She is just waiting for her fur-ever home to recognize her, would that be you?

If you hear any shrieking and "aww-ing" next weekend, it's just me and my new awesomely awesome dog, Rain, having a blast together!

Wedding/Honeymoon Updates...

2008-12-02T12:09:00.007-05:00

...Sans pictures, cause I didn't have my digital camera with me at the wedding (thus, no pictures), and I don't have the cord to put the honeymoon pictures (all clean, I promise) online at the moment. You'll have to deal with that.

I've decided that marriage, so far, has been pretty darn good for me.

I know several people wanted wedding updates, and it's been a little over two months now, so I might be able to have enough brain function to figure this one out. So basically, um, it was a really good wedding. Aside from the fact that I totally forgot to make the programs for church until two days before (and ran into OfficeMax to print out 200 of them at, quite literally, 10 minutes until closing time, and kept them there until 10 minutes after [but that wasn't my fault; it was their stupid, slow copy machines' faults cause I was running multiple machines simultaneously in a bad attempt to make it go faster]), and literally working on those until about, oh 4 PM, when the rehearsal was at 5:30, and I still had to shower and also wrap my girls' gifts. (And, I believe I went off the deep end when, during the realization of the "program crisis," I burst into full on sobbing and blubbered, "I don't want to get married!" cause the Guy wasn't going to help me cause he was working, but that's another story altogether.)

Well, my point is, that was pretty much all the chaos that was involved with the wedding. The actual wedding itself? Beautiful. (I'm a little biased, but whatever.) The reception? Very long, but definitely enjoyable, and oh my gosh, did I mention the awesomeness of the food that just kept being brought to the tables with no end in sight? (Seriously, people were taking pies and cakes [yes, multiple cakes] home because there was so much dessert that no one could even think of eating by the time it got to the dessert time.) Oh yeah, and there was a chocolate foundation on the Venetian Table with mini-Rice Krispie Treats for dipping. Yum! Right, like I said, we were all pretty well fed, just like a good mostly-Italian wedding should do.

Honeymoon? Also awesome, and also really exhausting. Seriously, we were on tours of Italy almost daily. We technically only stayed in three cities (and trust me, it was enough to haul our luggage around on the Eurostar trains for just those three, thank you very much). However, in total, we saw the following places:

Rome
The Vatican (for those who don't consider it a part of Rome, which I don't)
Orvieto
Assisi
Sorrento
Capri
Anacapri (technically the same island, but different village, with a main road named after my maiden name, so I'm including it cause it's cool)
Pompeii
Mount Vesuvius (not technically a city, but when you climb an active volcano that once destroyed entire cities, I think you can list it as a "place you visited")
Florence
San Gimingano
Siena
Venice

And while I don't think I can go into full details on all of these things, here are some of the awesomely awesome (and one not-so-awesome) experiences we had and I'm attempting to put them, at the very least, in chronological order:

Got free tickets for the "Sposi Novelli" (Newlyweds) blessing at the Pope's Wednesday audience in St. Peter's Square, and found out when we got there that we had special tickets to sit up close and personal where the cardinals all sit. Really cool, and what was cooler was, as we were shown to our special seats, the Swiss Guards repeatedly kept saluting us. I wish I had gotten a picture, but I only have one of the Swiss Guards walking away.
Walking straight from one end of Assisi to the other (which is not really all that impressive considering the circumference of the town is only the equivalent of a 5K walk, but at the same time, it was all uphill, so I'm including it).
Going on a 2-hour night tour of Rome, getting soaking wet by the end of it, and then having the bus driver not know where the hell he was going/I think he was holding us hostage, so we ended up driving past St. Peter's Square 5 (5!) times and crossing the Tiber 3 different times to get back to our hotel. Needless to say, this is the not-so-awesome experience, and that bus driver held out his hand for a tip as the Guy and I were the bitchy Americans who walked past him rudely since we ended up getting back to our hotel after midnight (when we should've been back no later than 10) and had to get dinner from a McDonald's, and the value menu? Not such a value in Europe, since it cost us over $20 (American) to eat a Big Mac, a double cheeseburger, and medium fries. Oh, and he dropped us off several blocks away (even though it was door-to-door service that we had paid for). (I would also like to state for the record at this point that we were not the only super pissed off people on that bus, and I can almost guarantee that with 45 people on the tour, that man didn't leave with more than 10 euro in tips, and most were probably from the people who got off the damn bus first.)
The absolutely amazing view of Mount Vesuvius and the Marina Grande from our hotel room in Sorrento. We were on the top floor of the hotel, built in a cliff (they're all built in a cliff there), and were the only room with an almost floor to ceiling window. A-mazing!
Climbing Mount Vesuvius. Incredibly horrible (I thought I was going to die, and quite literally had 75-year-olds passing me out on the path, but they had walking sticks to help them and I didn't), but really cool to say I made it to the summit and got to see the steam rising.
The view of the Arno from our room in Florence. The pictures I took out of the window around 8 AM seriously looking like a painting, with the way the buildings are reflected in the water. And we were only one bridge away from the Ponte Vecchio so if we stuck our head out far enough, we could see it too!
Dueling accordion players. 'Nuff said.
Just barely making it to church on Sunday from our tours of San Gimingano and Siena (we had to take a cab from the tour drop-off point in order to make it in time), and unintentionally going to a pretty awesome cathedral (and we only went due to its proximity to our hotel). A tour group from Alabama was there, so we got the readings/gospel in English (unlike the week before when I almost passed out cause I got bored cause I didn't know what was going on during the mass), and then afterward, the really cool Franciscan priest who was saying the mass says in super broken English, "All the Americans, stay after mass. I have something to show you." At which point, we stayed with the tour group (they were very welcoming), and we got to see that, within this cathedral, were the tombs of Galileo, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo. And we got a private tour, after hours, with no one else there, and this little priest took us all along the grounds. It was surreal and totally awesome, and we were just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.
Having birds perch on my arms in St. Mark's Square in Venice. And then watching one perch on the Guy's back, even though he was incredibly opposed to trying to get the birds to perch anywhere near him. (I laughed and laughed and laughed when that happened.)
The gelati. So delicious. I could go for some right now.

Life has been exciting since then. Ok, for the most part, that's actually a lie. It's been a whole lot of work, and not a whole lot else. But we do have exciting stuff going on (aside from being approved to adopt a dog, and even though Myrtle's gone, we're still looking at the other dogs they have available at Above & Beyond rescue). But that's another post for another day very soon, cause frankly, this is getting awfully long to begin with. So you'll just have to live in suspense for now.

Nice to Meet You!

2008-11-10T23:23:00.007-05:00

Ok, so this wasn't such a sucktastic day after all!

I'm probably getting wicked ahead of myself here, but it looks like the Guy and I are in the works of adopting a 10-month old pup named Myrtle from Alabama. (Yes, I know Alabama's kind of far, but the place that rescued her do these pup transports, where essentially, different people drive approximately 100 miles each to get the dog from point A to point Z, and frankly, it's awesome and I totally want to be a pup transporter volunteer!) Also, if they'll let us, we'll also be trying to adopt another pup named Winston, who is really sweet and a bit funny-looking (he's a mix of English Setter with Bassett Hound, which means long body, stumpy legs), and hello, if you've ever seen a picture of my dear, sweet, wonderful Diesel, you'd know that I like funny-looking mutts!

My mom was right -- I've never met a dog I didn't like. This is bad news. I'm going to adopt so many dogs that I'm going to have to buy a second home! (If they find me a worthy puppy mom.)

R was also right when she said, "People like dogs, but S LOVES dogs!" What can I say? I'm happy to meet any dog that crosses my path!

Wow, I'm Sucktastic

2008-11-10T18:35:00.002-05:00

I have only gotten out of my bed today to get food. I haven't gotten showered or dressed yet. And I have to be at a meeting located approximately 15 minutes away in about, oh, 23 minutes. That means I won't get showered (though, I will probably get dressed cause, hey, that's important). Don't tell.

Strangely though, I did all this, and still worked over a full 8 hours of work today. And that is the suckiest thing of all!

Congratulations, President Obama!

2008-11-04T23:46:00.004-05:00

And not to take the spotlight away from our new President-elect, but I thought John McCain was pretty classy in his concession speech.

And now, can we all just be Americans and support the man? He's got a really rough four years ahead of him.

Let's hope he does the right thing for this country!

(I'm going to watch Barack Obama's speech, and then try to shower and get ready for bed so fast, so that I don't die tomorrow at work. Why don't we vote on Saturdays again?)

I've Officially Become an Election Night Junkie.

2008-11-04T21:19:00.003-05:00

I really like what Rudy Guiliani just had to say to Brian Williams on NBC News.

"You know what happens tomorrow morning when this is all over, or tomorrow afternoon, whatever, or tonight? We all become Americans. We all support Barack Obama or John McCain 100-percent, cause if they fail, we fail."

Let's keep this in mind.

Thoughts of Party Lines

2008-11-04T17:26:00.003-05:00

It's Election Day. I think we all knew that by now. You could live under a rock, and someone would knock on the top of your rock, and be like, "Hey, it's Election Day," so it's pretty hard to avoid.

Anyway, it's all over the news, plus I'm catching up on last week's episodes of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, so yeah, I'm in political overload right now. And for some reason, all of this got me thinking about party lines.

I have these older family members who have never in their entire lives voted outside of their party. Seriously, they'll admit this. They can't even fathom voting outside of the party. It doesn't matter who the person is, doesn't matter if they're scummier than the other candidate(s), they will only vote Republican.

Meanwhile, I have an aunt who has had an Obama button on her purse since practically the day the man decided to run for President of the United States of America. (I'm also 99% sure she's a Democrat anyway, but at the same time, she knew she was voting for him even when he wasn't the definite candidate because she believed in what he had to say.)

Almost two weeks ago was my grandmother's birthday, and we celebrated on the Friday night of that week. The Guy informed me that while I was munching on hors d'oeurves in the living room, my "party line Republican" family members (which included a great aunt, a great uncle, possibly the great uncle's wife, my father, and God only knows who else) essentially ganged up on my Obama-loving aunt, and harassed her about "How could you vote for him?" My aunt being the smart woman she is knew this was a losing battle (at least in that house), and supposedly considered them ignorant and walked away, a very smart move indeed.

But it drives me crazy how they can't respect that she has a vote, too. If they want to vote for McCain, so be it. That's their choice. But her choice has been and will be until this election is over Barack Obama. She has that right. And in fact, I respect her decision more so than theirs because they're simply voting for the party, not paying attention to ANYTHING about the candidates and not making an educated decision. She knew her options, has known them all along, and said, "This is the best candidate for me."

I'm the worst political advocate in the world, cause I will admit that I don't know that much about what's going on. In fact, I try to stay informed, but I think sometimes it confuses me more than helps. But I try. And I'm happy to say that when I voted today, I had Republicans, Democrats, and I think at one point, I even voted for an Independent (I can't quite remember for sure, though). I voted for who I thought would do the best job. I didn't vote party lines!

I hope people (namely, my family, but anyone else who falls into the category) would try to keep an open mind and if it's the right choice for them, cross the line.

Frankly, I'd respect a decision made from facts and information more than just cause your party told you to.

There's still 2+ hours to go at the polls here on the east coast. Get out and vote. And frankly, if you are voting party lines, go vote anyway. There's always next year or the year after that, or the next presidential election in 4 years to try to make your own decision instead of what others tell you to do.

Everyone's Saying It...

2008-11-04T08:18:00.004-05:00

...But I have to ask -- did you vote today?

I hope if you are of age, you registered to vote by the appropriate date, and now you're going out there and voting TODAY! This is it. This is what we've been bombarded with for the last 2 years (and hoping for for the last 4 years).

I don't care who you vote for. I don't care if you're Republican, Democrat, or Independent. It's the beauty of this country -- everyone gets their voice, their opinion heard!

So get out today, and VOTE!

I did. And for the first time, it was before they ran out of the "I Voted Today!" stickers, so I got my first sticker today! :)

(And I even got some exercise in, too, cause the Guy and I walked to the polling place since it's only about a block away from our house. Gosh, I feel so healthy right now! HA! I'll go eat my brownie that was sold at the PTA bake sale that was outside the polls, and that will all change.)

Sickly

2008-10-28T13:08:00.002-04:00

Shortly after getting back from Italy, I started to get a sore throat. I kind of fought it for about a week, and then Sunday night, it started to kick my butt cause on top of the sore throat, I was now stuffed up and getting dizzy.

By Monday morning, it came on full force, and I couldn't even get out of bed at first. The Guy actually had to bring my work laptop to me in bed, so that I didn't have to leave the bedroom all day. That kind of sucked, cause, hello, I love having the DVR catch me up on everything I haven't been watching when I work from home.

Today was pretty much the same. Laptop in bed, attempt to work (although, I'd like to state for the record that today's attempt to work seemed much more fruitful than yesterday's), try not to die of the soreness and coughing.

I think my point is that I'm pretty much ready for this to be done. This stupid cold better go away soon.

This is really awesome...

2008-10-23T09:47:00.001-04:00

...And potentially amazing! Let's hope the further tests prove that the treatment works and this drug can be licensed.

I'm Married...

2008-09-28T14:04:00.002-04:00

...And I'm too damn exhausted to go into anymore details than that!

Whoooooooooooooooooo!!!

"Your Bachelorette Party is just you and a plate of cheese."

2008-09-22T00:21:00.003-04:00

Saturday was my awesomely legen-wait for it-dary bachelorette party. My girls all took me out for a "Spa Party" where I was stuffed in the "Tranquility Room" for over 30 minutes while my bridesmaids were off getting their treatments. That's right -- just me, Irish, and plates of cheese and liquored-up melons while we waited to get massages from Doug. And of course, the highlight of that trip was not my 30-minute massage, but the 5 minutes afterward when I realized that my engagement ring was missing and I tore the massage room apart searching for it.

Afterward we had a pretty mellow dinner at Maggie's, but enjoyed ourselve's thoroughly despite the fact that the most hardcore drink anyone ordered was a Caffe Mocha.

Ah, but it was later at Keys to the City that the PG-13 bachelorette party fun began. Mixed drinks were of the 16 oz. variety instead of your typically 6-8 oz., so drunkenness could be achieved faster. This resulted in yelling so much that I was hoarse this morning, getting really pissed about "Booby McGee" sitting at the piano with the fro-head piano player, and late night drive-thru runs for double cheeseburgers and ice cream. It's a shame I don't have Irish's camera, cause her photos looked like a flip book of the progressive drunkenness.

And there's a mini-flip book within the larger one, in which Blondie can't hold it anymore and uses the men's restroom. This resulted in a man named Walter beating down the door yelling, "Open up! It's the penis police! I need to inspect your underwear!"

Lots of booze, happy times, and no puking. All in all, the best outcome possible!

Fringe

2008-09-12T14:31:00.003-04:00

Just caught up on my DVR. Um, yeah. J.J. is such a mindfreak!

The Few, The Brave

2008-08-27T23:52:00.003-04:00

Only I would be stupid enough to eat two scoops of Breyer's Fat Free Double Churn Cappaccino Chocolate Chunk ice cream less than 24 hours before my first official dress fitting. (Yes, my dress FINALLY came in mid-last week.)

Delicious, though.

Although, not as good as the Grande Java Chip Frappaccino I had for lunch (yes, that was sadly my actual lunch).

No, No, No, Make It, Take It.

2008-08-11T11:47:00.002-04:00

On the Wedding Front

2008-07-31T13:04:00.004-04:00

We're under the 2 month mark. I think it's 57 days, if I remember what my little countdown clock said this morning.

Invitations went out Monday, and responses could start arriving at any time. (Well, specifically, at the time the mailman delivers them, but you know what I mean.)

But I am starting to panic cause my dress is still not in (even though it was supposed to be delivered before July 4th).

I know that the dress is not the important part. The marriage itself is. But it's not like I'm a size 2-4 and can buy any sample dress off the rack as a replacement, either. It's this dress or I have no dress at all.

Besides, I love my dress.

Argh!

2008-07-20T22:06:00.004-04:00

While taking Diesel on her nightly walk, two young boys from the neighborhood were riding their bikes. They proceeded to stop and stare at Diesel and me.

Boy #1: Is she, like, missing her eye or something?
Me: Yup.
Boy #1: Awesome!
Boy #2: (in a whisper) It's like a pirate dog!

FINALLY!

2008-07-19T22:02:00.003-04:00

It only took me three years, but I finally just finished the final episode of Alias.

And it was all awesome! Totally worth it from first episode to the last.

Who Doesn't Love "Monsters Walkin' Cross the Floor"?

2008-07-17T00:23:00.004-04:00

I love the actual version of this song (sorry, embedding is disabled), but seriously, Feist is extra awesome (did I just turn into a surfer dude?) for collaborating with Sesame Street and coming out with this. I would so let my child watch this over and over again (if I had one):

The Unassuming Ghost of a Girl

2008-07-15T23:24:00.000-04:00

I don't know how it happened. I don't remember making a conscious choice for it to happen. But I seem to have gradually faded into the unassuming ghost of myself.

When I get in contact with friends, I often hear phrases like, "I was wondering if you were still alive."

When I see a coworker in the hallway, I regularly get, "I didn't know you still worked here."

I am still alive, and yes, I still work "here." (Seriously, this one's actually starting to get annoying. Just cause I work from home 2 days/week so that I don't have to commute 400+ miles/week and pay the exorbitant gas bills I would inevitably have if I got to idle in traffic for 5 full rush-hour filled day doesn't mean I don't work here. I'm in the office 3 days of the week, and I work a full 5 days a week! Pay attention!)

I've managed to make myself invisible without even trying. On one hand it's nice, cause no one bothers me with any stupid crap, and only make an effort to reach out to me when things are actually important. On the other hand, it explains why the only e-mails I get everyday are from Priceline, Orbitz, Self.com, Old Navy, and Gap, and the only one who calls me is my father or fiance.

I don't mean to be MIA. Honestly, I don't. I think, more than anything, I let time get away from me somehow, and by the time I have that lovely thought of, "I should really call So-and-so," it's late at night, or if I think, "I should pop over to What's-her-face's desk to see how she's doing," it's 5 PM and everyone's headed home. (Seriously, that "late night phone call" thing happened TWICE last week, when neglecting to call two people on their birthdays.) I mean, hell, throughout the last couple of years, I haven't even found time to blog (and clearly, that's more for me than you, and also, that also probably has something to do with the fact that I never have anything interesting to share -- so much for "chaos").

I'll try to be better, but I think this might be one of those chronic flaws. Some people suffer addictions. I apparently suffer from some sort of compulsive solitude. It's something I suffer from, but can ultimately work on throughout the rest of my life.

Don't count me out. But please, bear with me.

How Exactly Does One Respond?

2008-07-07T22:08:00.002-04:00

"Dah-ling, I make enough money to eat out every night. I make $60,000!"

...Our Lord, Who Lives and Reigns with You and the Holy Goat, uh, um, Ghost

2008-07-03T16:17:00.002-04:00

I just watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the first time in like a bunch of years, and just totally lost it when I saw this scene again.

Had to share.

Kindred Readings

2008-07-02T17:02:00.003-04:00

Anyone who knows me really well probably knows that I am such a penny pincher. While tons of my coworkers and friends blow their money on God knows what (e.g. a new car because "I didn't like my old one", and I so WISH that was a joke I made up and not a real example), I save. I automatically put close to 50% of my paycheck into savings accounts, and with the additional 50%, I try to save that as much as possible so that, shock, I can throw the excess into an interest-bearing account. I keep ledgers of every single account, with estimates of my annual intake and output for the entire year (and around September, I usually start projecting for the next year, too).

I am a money dork.

To be perfectly honest, the obsession has nothing to do with wanting to become rich. The obsession has everything to do with making ends meet. Here's a little background (that I've probably blogged about before, but who really knows). My father had a really well-paying job when I was young. While we weren't upper class or anything, we were definitely well off. As children, we got things when we were asked, and we didn't really worry too much about money. But some time around middle school, things changed. My father lost his job (we won't go into my opinion of why right now, especially since my father is now employed by the same employer once again). He got a new job, but the industry he was in just wasn't thriving. So he bounced from job to job every couple of year or so throughout middle school and high school, each time taking a pay cut. By the middle of my freshman year of college, my father was out of work. But this time it was different. It lasted for over 18 months, and we had to move out of our home (that we had for over 18 years) because of it. I watched my parents worry not only about their finances, but also about how we would react to it, and I saw my father in a very depressed state. It was heartbreaking. And I never wanted it to happen to me. Hence, the obsession.

I've become addicted to Google Reader, thanks to the Collective. And through clicking on links, and through those links, more links, I found a blog that I'm thinking is a very akin to my need to save save save.

So I present to Fivecentnickel.com, in all its glory, for anyone trying to pinch a penny.

The Guy will be so glad I found this. Cause I'm a careless spender compared to His Tight-Waddiness.

Things that Really Helped Wyatt Regain a Sense of Where the Blind Side of His Head/Body Was

2008-07-01T16:28:00.008-04:00

I don't know who Wyatt is (I presume a pet of someone, though certainly not of my brother), but this was some good advice I got in an e-mail from my brother C today.

Touch the blind side of the face.
Come up on the blind side (while talking first, then phase that out) and periodically touch parts of the blind side of the body.
Roll a ball or treat along the blind side and say the direction the dog turns (e.g. Wyatt lost his left eye, so when he turned his head to HIS left to follow the object, I said "Left")*.
Do the same holding an object in your hand and moving it out of the field of vision on the blind side.
Show a soft ball/fave toy. Toss it gently to the dog, slightly on the blind side and say "Catch it!" Praise all attempts and really celebrate successes (there won't be many at first, cause a one-eyed animal has no depth perception).
Work on jumping UP onto things and OVER things to help adjust to the depth perception deficit. Also putting front paws UP onto something helps.
After several weeks of rehab, try tossing a fave toy or treat into a narrow space.

Just in case any of you ever have a beloved pet going through the same type of thing, I figured this would be worth posting.

*I can barely keep right and left straight for myself. This should be interesting. I'll probably screw the dog up even more.

What I Learned at the DMV

2008-07-01T16:20:00.003-04:00

So there are over 4,000 species of frogs. The largest frog in the world comes from Africa and it's called the Goliath frog, named after the Bible story. It is approximately the same size as a baby deer.

Oh yeah, and I also learned that the DMV employees do not care if you have to get back to work. You have to wait for three hours to transfer the registration on your car along with everyone else.

And while I love Jane Austen to death, I can't really read her novels for too long without a break, so Persuasion was kind of the wrong book to bring with me today.

One-Eyed Jack...

2008-06-30T22:44:00.008-04:00

...Russell-slash-Pitbull.

As if planning a wedding, and buying (and fixing up) a house weren't enough drama, my darling pup has been quietly suffering for a while now. A few months ago, we found out she had cancer, and we promptly made an appointment for her surgery to have the malignant tumors removed.

That surgery was more than successful, and we assumed the drama was over.

That lasted all of about a month.

I did the obsessive-compulsive thing that I tend to do when things go wrong. I panic and become overly cautious. I became obsessed with checking out Diesel to make sure she was all right. In the last week or so of April, I noticed that, if the light hit her eyes the right way, her right eye kind of glimmered blue. It looked weird. Dogs' eyes always look weird. But this looked weirder than normal weird. I brought this to my parents' attention, but they kind of brushed it off. "She's almost 12 years old. It's probably just glaucoma. We'll discuss it at her annual checkup in a few of weeks."

But before her annual appointment, only a week or two before, I woke up one Friday morning, and Diesel, who was sleeping on my bed, was startled awake by me. She shook her head and opened her eye. The right eye remained closed. It was like what happens when you get conjunctivitis, but worse.

I could bore you with details, but well, I've been tooling around on the internet while writing this and it's now tomorrow. Anyway, my point is she went to the vet twice, plus a specialist, and then the vet one more time. And the verdict was the same -- she is* blind in the right eye, and there's something (not sure what**) in there that the doctor can't tell just by looking, and her eye needs to be removed.

Can I just stop right here and say "Ew."?

But she's my dog, and we love her very much, and otherwise, she's quite healthy. You can't just put a dog down cause she's blind. So her eyeball was removed and her lids sewn shut today***, and she's hopefully safe and sound on lots and lots of pain killers right now.****

She's doing well. Thank God. Let's hope she lives another jabzillion years and nothing else goes wrong! And I'll try to get over the fact that she now has two distinct eyes.*****

*Was.

**A melanoma.

***Again, Ew!

****I know I would want them if I were her.

*****Her now-good eye has a naturally spotted patch over it, in case you couldn't tell by the pictures.

What I Liked

2008-06-17T13:57:00.007-04:00

After a bit of begging and plenty of whining, I coaxed the Guy to buy me tickets to last Friday's one-night-only appearance by Jon Stewart. I probably burned a billion calories during those 2 hours from obnoxious laughter, but here were just a few of his comments (all paraphrased, cause recording devices weren't allowed in, and also, I didn't attempt to sneak any in since I wasn't expecting to blog about this) that I thoroughly enjoyed [Note: This is mostly just so wrong in such a right way, but then, that's also pretty much what Jon Stewart's about, I think]:

Is Joe Lieberman still a senator here? What is he now? An independent? A democrat?
[Then, yelled out by a random lady in the audience] AN ASSHOLE!

Is it chilly in here?
[Audience] No.
[JS] Could I have said that anymore Jewishy?

If black people knew how much white people were afraid of them, they would have done the Million Man March with just one thing different. They wouldn't have told anyone about it. I mean, picture it. It's a nice day. You're sitting in an outdoor cafe eating lunch and then all of a sudden...
[JS points, as if the "March" starts walking by.]

Uh-oh, is this like when Michael Scott did the Chris Rock sketch? Since I repeated it, does that make me insensitive? Do I have to become a HERO with Diversity Day training?

Little Green House

2008-05-30T17:58:00.002-04:00

One step closer into adulthood...

Last Friday, the Guy and I became homeowners. We didn't even really get to go to our new home to check out the new digs because the previous owners are now our tenants (only, not really, cause they legally can't be called that, but whatever, I don't really get that kind of legal speak). Right, anyway, I really want to go to Home Depot and pick out paint colors. I like painting rooms. The Guy is in for a shock when there aren't any white walls.

Reason Why I Should Telecommute 100% of the Time #942

2008-05-06T12:14:00.003-04:00

With the rise in gas prices, plus all that global warming dangling over my head, I've changed some previous bad habits.

I've always been a speed racer. Now, granted, I have coworkers who are speedier racers than I am, but I feel most comfortable driving around 70 MPH. Not safe. Not good for my wallet. And not good for the environment.

Over the last 3-4 weeks, I developed a new habit. Get this -- while on the highway, I drive the speed limit. I know, I can't believe it myself. I really have that brilliant technological device "Cruise Control" to thank for that, because I would keep at steady 65-70 MPH instead of 53-55 MPH without it. But it paid off cause about a week and a half ago, my car got 35+ MPG, which has NEVER happened before (the best I ever did previously was 32.5 MPG).

Continuing with my (hopefully) good efforts, I set my cruise control once I was comfortably on the highway this morning. And about 3-4 miles down the road, some terrible, awful driver got on behind me. To be honest, everything happened so fast that I'm not entirely sure what happened exactly. All I know is that I was cruising down the road at a steady 55 MPH, minding my own business, staying in the right lane so that traffic could pass on my left, and I had NO ONE in front of me for miles. I glance up at my rear view mirror because I can tell that something interesting's happening, but not sure what. That's when I see a silvery-colored pickup truck swerving back and forth directly behind me, crossing over into the other lane, and practically sitting on my back bumper. His tires were squealing and he was still right on top of me.

I didn't get hit. Thank God. Cause seriously, he was going so fast that I would've been toast (and it didn't help that I was driving next to the river, cause not only would I have been toast, but I would have been toast that fell down the embankment). I'm not entirely positive, but I think he did hit someone when he swerved into the other lane. All I know is that a few short seconds after I started witnessing all of this going on behind me, I saw a car pull over to the left, and then the truck swerved all the way through the left lane, and into the left shoulder as well.

So yeah, this scary, horrible, fast, swervy driver being on the road is a HUGE reason why I don't want to be commuting 80 miles a day (110 miles, once I move in September).

Only one more month till I petition my boss to work from home permanently (or more permanently than I do right now).

Here's hoping.

I Think I Might Read on a 5th Grade Level...

2008-04-25T11:54:00.006-04:00

I don't know why I like doing memes so much, but I have to say, I've been looking forward to Friday all week, so I could do the Collective's Book Meme.

Let's go:

1) What book are you reading right now?
I don't know if I'm embarrassed to admit this or not (part of me is strangely proud), but I'm reading The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian by C.S Lewis right now, in preparation for the movie coming out next month.

2) What is the fourth sentence on page 133 of that book?
"You can't help feeling stronger when you look at a place where you won a glorious victory not to mention a kingdom, hundreds of years ago."

3) What is one book that changed your life?
They pretty much all do. I mean, I seriously have such an attachment to my books (good and bad ones -- just cause I like trash doesn't mean I like ALL trash), and I feel differently after reading every single one. Also, this was a cop out (but still true) answer.

4) What is one book that you read again and again?
This is incredibly, INCREDIBLY awful and embarrassing to admit, but I have this (not so) secret love for trashy romance novels, specifically of the Harlequin Presents variety. Anyway, because it's so trashy, and because I also am too embarrassed to purchase any of these books in store (and banned myself from shopping online from them), I tend to read a lot of them over and over. I have NO clue what the title is, but there is one book that I have read a couple times, about of a girl mechanic who's very rough around the edges and her brother's distinguished friend who has been in love with her for her whole life (but she thinks he hates her), and tries to go all "My Fair Lady" on her by making her walk and talk like a lady. There's this other one about a rich guy who was originally from the streets and worked his way to the top, but the girl in it thinks he's a pretentious ass cause he's so rich, not knowing of his humble beginnings. I know, I'm hanging my head in shame as I type.

5) What three books would you want on a desert island?
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro, Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen, something else that I haven't picked yet -- if I'm stuck on that island tomorrow, I'm screwed, but at least I have two good choices to get me through without the third.

6) What is the funniest book you've ever read?
I tend to read either ridiculous or funny books -- they're rarely thought-provoking. So while I'm not definitely, 100% sure it's the funniest I've read, I know it's in the top 5. The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro -- my mom read parts of this book aloud while I drove the 8 hours from Ohio to Connecticut. There was one point in Scranton where we had to stop for gas, and we were both crying from laughing so hard as we got out of the car, and everyone thought we were nuts.

7) What book made you cry the most?
Read above. Also, like, almost every book, cause I'm a big wuss who cries at everything.

8) What book do you wish had been written?
My 2007 NaNoWriMo book (Untitled). It was crappy, but I don't think I got past 2000 words. That's the worst effort I've made so far.

9) What would be the title of your autobiography?
God Gave Me This Sarcastic Wit (so He Must Like It) (a phrase that I often tell my mother when she tells me "you're so bad!" and that the things I say are "not right!")

10) What book do you keep meaning to read?
Um, the fully stocked library in my bedroom that I've only read approximately 1/16th of. Seriously, that room is just books and clothes. I wonder sometimes if there's furniture other than my bed (there is, but it's all hidden).

11) What five books should everyone be required to read?
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, Something (if not Everything) by Jane Austen, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, and one more than I haven't picked yet, cause seriously, I cannot read that many intense books without something funny and wonderfully stupid shoved heavily into the mix. So probably my next intense book.

12) What book was the biggest waste of your time?
Did you NOT read that I like trashy romance novels? While I like them, they're still HUGE wastes of my time. Especially my sleeping time, cause I tend to start reading them at midnight, and don't put them down till I finish them at 3-4 AM.

13) What was your favorite book as a child?
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein (I really, totally heart Shel), and also possibly The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. I actually recently bought The Sneetches for my niece, and ended up keeping it for myself and reading it aloud to the Guy. He did NOT seem to appreciate it.

14) What book have you read the most?
Sadly, those stupid trashy romances ones I mentioned. They only take a couple hours to read, so they're probably some of the only books I've ever read more than once, other than children's books. Otherwise, I tend to read and move on to the next one.

15) Is there any book's ending that you would like to rewrite? What would you change about the original ending?
I don't even think I can answer this, cause for probably one in every five books I read, I want to change the ending. I'm a hopeless romantic (hello, trashy romance novels, ANYONE?), and I really can't stand when true love doesn't conquer all in the end. But it happens often. Those books, yeah, I would rewrite those endings.

Pretention

2008-04-22T10:45:00.003-04:00

So a site was passed from someone named Anna to Abigail at the Collective, and well, I stole it from over there.

What is Stephen Harper reading?

Part of me thinks that Yann Martel is a pretentious ass, possibly cause he has written at least one best-selling novel.* But the concept of someone wishing to "educate" the Prime Minister of Canada on the arts, well, that just takes moxie, my friends, and I have to respect that. It seems like a pretty cool website, so check it out when you get bored at work. And needless to say, I think I might find my way over to the local library so I can start reading along too.

*I have not read Yann Martel's novel(s), so he could have more best-sellers. Also, for all I know, he could have been a pretentious ass prior to ever writing anything. There's a very strong possibility of that.

The Day of the Car

2008-04-16T09:24:00.006-04:00

Yesterday morning started like any other weekday. I got up, got ready, and headed off to work. But before 8 AM, things were a little different. At the stop sign right before my highway entrance, I got bumped. Some girl bumped my bumper. Thankfully, I was stopped and she was just rolling up to the stop sign, so needless to say, there's just a little ding in my car -- not even a dent. It's all cosmetic damage. Highly uneventful for a car accident really -- hardly worth mentioning. Except for it being the Day of the Car, and all.

See, cause not only was it my accident day, but it was also the day my mom went to go pick up her brand new Subaru Impreza. Recent car troubles with the Phantom made the new car kind of necessary, so she ended up getting the Impreza for it's all-wheel drive capability.

It was fun driving her car around last night (for the whole 5 miles I drove it). It handled nicely, it really zooms with just the lightest touch, and oh my gosh, there's no blind spots like the Phantom! But that's not my favorite part about the car.

You see, cause up until yesterday, I had the funniest license plate in the family*.

###-KRP

And then my mom came home with her new license plate.

###-WTF

I just laughed and laughed and laughed...

*I was going to take pictures, but life got away from me. So yeah, you'll have to just take my word for it without the photo evidence.

Frankenpuppy!

2008-03-24T15:55:00.006-04:00

Diesel just got her stitches out. I had to grab a couple of shots before she was a Frankenpuppy no more.

A House with a Nice Backyard, Just For You

2008-03-14T11:26:00.007-04:00

It's been a very exciting, stressful, anxiety-filled week, and I'm kind of surprised my heart hasn't exploded yet.

Starting back on last Saturday (yeah, I know that was technically part of last week), the Guy and I did our regular house hunting. We've gone at least one weekend day for the last several weeks, not to mention a few weeknights after work, too. I honestly wasn't expecting much, because the second house (of all the houses ever) we looked at was the house right next door to the house we looked at Saturday morning. And the first house was totally trapped in the 70s. I actually refer to it as the "Super 70s House" (very clever name, this I know), while the Guy refers to it as "Quagmire's House" because of the totally ridiculous-looking bar in the basement.

But we've learned that we must look at any "bargain" (at least it's a bargain in our housing market), but we've always walked away disappointed. So like I said, we weren't expecting anything. Yet, the most common phrase uttered while walking around the house was "Oh my God, this is so pleasantly surprising!" Ok, so that was uttered mostly by me. But it was true. The Guy and I ended up meeting our agent back at her office two hours later to fill out the ridiculous amount of paperwork that comes with putting in an offer on a house.

And we got REJECTED!

It wasn't complete rejection, I guess, but it was a counteroffer that we just couldn't afford. So stressful! Seriously, it led to a several-hour breakdown (mostly my own) when the Guy and I fought about what a reasonable counter-counteroffer would be and at what point we would need to walk away. (The breakdown happened cause I didn't want to walk away and I believed the Guy and I could afford up to $10K more than our original offer, and he believed we could afford up to $1K more than our original offer because he is [and I say this totally lovingly] the stingiest man in the history of men.)

So we made plans to drive to the realtor's office on Wednesday night to fill out a couple more pieces of papers with our new counter-counteroffer (a compromise of what the Guy and I believed we could afford). I was very pessimistic going into it, afraid we were going to end up wasting people's time. All week long I talked myself out of it, convinced myself we would be rejected again, and we just weren't meant to own this home. Sadly, the bitterness kept me sane.

And sadly, I got bad news toward the end of the day Wednesday that just made my pessimism in all things overflow. See, on Monday, we took Diesel (my adorably weird little dog for the last 12 years) to the vet to have some lumps looked at. Several months ago, the doctor had said they were nipples. But I was never convinced (seriously...this isn't a hindsight kind of thing) and I got really concerned when a couple of weeks ago, one of them started getting very hard. The doctor said, "Hey, no worries, I'm pretty sure it's just a normal-benign-tumor-thing. But we'll take a cell sample and send it to the lab just to be sure."

My father called me around 3:30 PM on Wednesday and told me I needed to call the vet. "Why, Dad?" "Cause the doctor left a message saying it wasn't the normal-benign-tumor-thing, but a totally-serious-cancer-thing. You need to schedule Diesel's surgery to have them removed immediately before they spread." Ok, I think I put up a pretty decent front when it comes to being an adult. I'm getting married, I'm looking at buying houses. But my dog? MY dog? With cancer? The ugliest, dirtiest C-word of them all? This I could not handle.

I called the vet immediately to schedule an appointment. After a ridiculous run-around (though not by the vet, but by her staff...a story for a different post when I feel like venting), I was finally able to make an appointment so that Diesel could have her surgery immediately the following day.

So here I am, already stressed about putting in an offer on a house that I want but am afraid I won't get, but now over the top stressed cause the dog I've had for half my life has the potential to not make for much longer.* I was devastated. Thank God this happened at the end of the work day, cause I'm pretty sure I would've been fired if anyone saw what I did...or more specifically, what I didn't do...during my last couple of hours of the workday.

My pessimistic output on all things soared as I drove the 50+ miles north to the realtor's office. I just couldn't believe that anything good would happen. I had been crying on and off for the last three hours, and I was almost inconsolable. But we still did what needed to be done for the day. We still put in the offer on our house.

And just shy of 10:00 PM, the Guy got a phone call. We were actually getting into our cars, leaving C & R's house, so I just figured I'd give him his privacy and start driving home. About 5 minutes down the road, my phone rang. I couldn't figure out what the Guy would need to talk to me about since he JUST saw me. "Guess who that was?" he asked. I said, "I don't know, [Your Business Partner]?" "No," he said, "It was [Realtor]. We got it!"

I seriously couldn't believe it. For the first time all day, I had the biggest moment of excitement! I was just so excited that we got the house that I've wanted!

When I got home, we played with my dog, my poor beautiful dog who acted like she was 3, not 12, and who very clearly had no idea she was sick. That's what broke my heart the most. She didn't feel bad. She didn't feel sick. And yet, I had to bring her to her operation in under 12 hours, and she would be scared and not know why I was leaving her there.

Diesel and I spooned all night. Yes, I spoon with my dog. Quite regularly, actually.** And before we fell asleep, I pet her gently and told her, "Now you have to get better. Cause we just got a house with a nice backyard, just for you!"

And for those who might be wondering, Diesel made it through her surgery and according to the vet's staffer who called me yesterday, she's doing "very well." She had to stay overnight for observation, and after I babysit my cute little niece, KE, for a couple of hours this afternoon, I'm immediately getting in my car (work, be damned!), and bringing my pup home!

*A little sidenote for all of you who think I might have overreacted to the knowledge of my dog having low-grade cancer that can totally be surgically removed from her body: I still don't believe that I was being totally irrational. The dog we owned before Diesel had cancer. And we didn't know. Within two days of finding out she had cancer, she died. In retrospect, we were able to catch it a LOT sooner with Diesel than with Freckles. But I still worried, because what if it wasn't as soon as we all thought? To be honest, I still worry about that right now.

**The Guy doesn't want the dog in the bed when we're married. I'm not entirely sure he even wants her in our bedroom. I understand his concern with this, really, I do. But no matter how gently I try to break it to him, I don't think he gets that my dog has a mind of her own and will find her way into our bed with or without his permission. It's going to be a very rude awakening the first day she does it, indeed!

Joel the Douche

2008-03-06T14:28:00.005-05:00

I was unaware until recently that my wedding (and really, the planning that goes along with this lovely occasion) seems to be turning into an epic tale. Only instead of being a cool epic tale (What? Do those even exist?), mine is more of the stupidest story on earth, all because there are morons running the reception hall.

I've told this story twice, in two separate e-mails to two different people, and so I think to save us all some time, I will combine these e-mails into one wondrous tale. This is such a long and stupid story (bear with me...I'm not kidding when I say it's long), and strangely, it starts all the way back in January.

Actually, if you want to get technical, it starts back in August. When we found the reception site for our wedding, they informed us that they do tasting on the first Monday of every month (and the only month they don't do tastings is in September, since the first Monday is Labor Day). They also suggested we schedule the tasting approximately 6 months pre-wedding so that we have the most "accurate" decisions for food choices when we go to do our invitations.

So mid-January, my mother calls and schedules our food tasting to Monday, February 4th. Sounds great, right? Except my father tells us two days later that he has to be in NYC on business until 6 PM that day (and the food tasting starts at 6:30). So I called a day or two later to cancel, and reschedule for the March 3rd tasting.

In mid-February, my mother goes to pay the second part of the deposit for our reception (apparently, wedding receptions cost so damn much that you don't pay one deposit...you pay like three or four before the final amount is due). This was approximately Valentine's Day (and I only know this cause the deposit was due on the Guy's birthday, which is three days after V-day, and I know she paid it a couple days before it was due). Well, while my mom is forking over the cost of a bedroom furniture set, she says to them, "I would just like to confirm that we're down for six people to be at the tasting on Monday, March 3rd." "Yes, Mrs. P-------, everything's all set."

So Monday rolls around. We frantically clean because the Guy's parents are coming over to our house (for the first time ever, mind you) prior to the six of us going to the tasting. (Sidenote: My favorite part of this is the fact that we don't have an actual garbage can in our kitchen cause there's no room for one. We just use a giant trash bag, and when it gets full, we bring it to the dumpster in our complex. Apparently, when I told my parents that the Guy called and they were on their way, so they'd be here in 15 minutes, my father panicked. And he threw the trash bag in the trunk of my mother's car, cause the bag wasn't full yet and he didn't want to bring it to the dumpster. But he knew he had to get it out of the way. This was true P-family cleaning at its finest.) The Ts arrive, and we pile into two cars (parents in one, the Guy and I in the other) and drive the 30 minutes to the reception site. The Guy and I get there first cause I took a shortcut (the reception is in the town that I grew up in at a place that's only 1-2 miles down the road from where I took my dance classes, so I know the back roads well since I used to drive them 4-5 days a week). The Guy's father drove the other car and only knew of one very long way to go).

Upon arrival, we realize it's basically pitch black. So I'm thinking "Odd," but then I think, "Well, maybe we just have to go around back to where the office is and then they will escort us to the dining room." In back, there's only about 5 cars in the parking lot. So the Guy and I had been planning to wait for our parents in the car, but I'm feeling very nervous at this point, and I said, "I'm going to go inside and confirm this before our parents get here." I walk in the door, and the Guy follows behind. There's an employee in a suit, sitting with a couple who is clearly planning their wedding. I wait in the lobby, but he sees us, so he says, "Excuse me, can I help you?" I said, "Yes, we're here for the food tasting." And the look he gave me while he said, "Would you mind waiting there for a minute?" completely made me panic. So I told the Guy to go outside and wait for our parents to get out of the car (at this point, I saw their car pull into the lot), because I wanted him to warn them that I didn't think there would be any tasting this evening.

Sure enough, we wait about 5-10 minutes for him to finish up with this couple. As soon as the couple walks out the door, Joel the Douche (this is the official title I've given him, as he has now become my parents' and in-laws' biggest enemy) informs us that the tasting was canceled over the weekend due to an emergency, and every couple received a call. "Well, Joel, we've been home all weekend and we have an answering machine AND voicemail, and we did NOT receive any calls." Sure enough, Joel checks the banquet calendar, and we are not on the list. Why we are not on the list is beyond all of us. But we are not on the list. Anyway, the tasting is rescheduled for the following Monday. There's more BS that came out of Joel the Douche's mouth as I watched my father-in-law's face fill up with annoyance, and as I'm filling up with rage from inside out since I am the one who freaking scheduled it and I knew EXACTLY who I scheduled it with (who, by the way, was the OWNER, and I knew it was him due to his thick Italian accent). Anyway, long story short (for this part of the story, anyway), we had to find our own accommodations for dinner. Although, Joel the Douche was going to comp us dinner at the owner's other non-banquet hall restaurant, but that restaurant was over an hour away and it's already almost 7 PM and we're like "Um, NO! We're hungry now, nor are we going to drive ridiculously far out of our way."

Fine, whatever, it's settled. Or is it? While I was at Starbucks on Wednesday, my father called my work number and left me a voicemail. Apparently, Joel the Douche called my father and left him a voicemail saying that it was being rescheduled AGAIN, only it was being pushed up to this coming Saturday. That's right, the very Saturday I was supposed to be in Albany! So like 10 phone calls later (to determine everyone's schedule and confirm everything), we're settled to go to the reception hall on Saturday night now. And are they even going to comp us anything for all this ridiculousness we're going through? Who the hell knows. When I spoke with Joel the Douche about it, he was like "Well, I can't make any decisions. Tony [the owner] would have to determine that. But I know that Tony has a message to call your father, and I'm sure they'll work that out." I find it interesting that Joel the Douche doesn't have that authority, seeing as how Joel the Douche was going to comp us free meals at Tony's OTHER restaurant on Monday night. Yeah. Totally completely RIDICULOUS. Sidenote: Apparently, in one of the phone calls, my father told Megan, the wedding coordinator at the reception hall, that he was so annoyed and disturbed by this whole thing that if we could find a place, he'd just suck up the money he's already paid and walk away and go to the other place. While I am pissed and also very concerned that they don't have my wedding penciled in for September 27th (do you think they'll call us on September 24th and see if they can reschedule us due to emergency?), I don't think I'm ready to forgo a couple grand.

And this is the epic tale of how Joel the Douche has tried to take down my wedding, one food tasting at a time.

In the Open

2008-03-06T14:25:00.001-05:00

S: ...Oh, did you two start going back to Weight Watchers?
AL: Well, I did...
SL: ...And I started to, but I had to stop.
S: Oh, why?
SL: Well, cause I'm pregnant.
S: WHAT?! Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!
SL: Hang on, cause there's more.
S: Ok...
SL: My due date is the day after your wedding. I won't be able to be in the wedding anymore. I'm so sorry!
S; Oh my God, don't even worry about that! You have to do what's right for you and the baby! I just can't wait to meet him or her! Seriously, I'm so excited for you! Don't worry at all!

And that, my friends, is the secret that I've been dying to share!

Better Lock It In Your Pocket

2008-02-27T11:22:00.004-05:00

Got a secret, and I totally can't keep it!

Ok, you see, here's the deal. I think my life's a fairly open book. One or two pages might have gotten stuck together, so you may not know something on that missing page, but for the most part, I've got nothing to hide. Hell, I write about it here for anyone to read. (And as you can tell, life is a little dull.)

And a few weeks ago, I went out. I won't say when and I won't say with whom, but I just went out. And by the time I came back home, I was entrusted with a secret. BIG MISTAKE. Cause I should never be given so much responsibility. I mean, for starters, I don't like secrets (as mentioned before). And then there's the fact that my face gives EVERYTHING away. I have no poker face. In fact, when I play poker, I just smile like a jerk the whole time cause seriously, everyone would know everything if I didn't. That night, when I came home, I almost gave away the secret with just my face. But I didn't, thank God.

And after several days, it became common knowledge in my head. The secret I knew was just a fact. And it's almost like I forgot it was a secret at all. A few close calls occurred, but still, the secret remains in tact. The reality is that I haven't shared the secret with anyone (though one person did make some guesses at what the secret could be). But I'm about to burst cause I know everything will be revealed soon. (I HOPE!)

I'm sticking to the fact that I was entrusted with a secret and thus, I will keep it. For now. Until it's out in the open. But I was never told that I couldn't say I had a secret, right?

(And P.S., I'm keeping this secret for the person. And it just occurs to me that this is a horribly kept secret, cause the Originator of the Secret [I feel like this deserves to be a title] has told at least six people not directly involved that I know of already!)

Jesus Loves You Now*

2008-02-24T23:05:00.004-05:00

KE's christening was today. Seriously, the more time I spend with this kid, the more attached I get. Mom (mine, not hers) and I have probably been going over there at least once a week since she was born (or close to it, anyway), and I'm so happy that I get that time to snuggle with her. I feel like the estrogen's on high when I'm there cause I just want a baby so badly after I leave her. In fact, I get that way everytime I'm in the presence of any of my nieces (the official one and the not-quite-so-official-yet ones). Today was no different. Being the auntie will have to do for now though.

Anyway, here's a fairly decent picture of the ceremony, although the sun kind of took out C's face a little.

*By the way, I'm a firm believer that Jesus always loved her. However, one of her other aunts (R's sister) was joking around how, "Great, Jesus loves you now. He didn't know about you before." Or something like that. I thought it was funny. And thus, an appropriate blog title.

Two Girls

2008-01-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

In November 2005, C & R brought home this little girl:

And while I still love her like she was my own, I never thought I'd be as psyched. But I am cause today they brought this little girl home:

And the World Just Got a Little Cuter!!!

2008-01-27T00:53:00.000-05:00

At 12:30 PM (ish), we got a call from C that he was taking R to the hospital. My dad thought I was nuts to drive my mom to the hospital. However, knowing that R's mom never had a labor that lasted longer than 4 hours (and also knowing that this is seriously the MOST cooperative baby EVER, seeing as how yesterday was R's last day of work), we went anyway.

After getting a bunch of stuff in order, we finally left and got to the hospital around 3 PM. And some time between 3:00 PM and 3:30 PM (not quite sure on details just yet), R had the baby.

Unfortunately, I have yet to see either of them (had to leave the hospital at 4:15 for work, about 2 minutes before C came out to tell the grandparents the good news), but rumor has it mom and KE (the baby girl) are doing very well.

So go visit C at his blog and wish the proud new daddy some well-deserved congratulations!

Pictures will come soon, I'm sure!

UPDATE: KE was born at 3:07 PM. She is 7lbs, 4 oz, and 20 inches long. She's got a full head of dark brown hair (just like I dreamed she would!), and such beautiful eyes. And still, pictures will follow (just have to get on the right computer to upload them).

Travel Agent from Hell!

2008-01-25T21:10:00.000-05:00

Prior to actually getting engaged, the Guy and I had talked about it for some time. And oddly enough, the day before we got engaged, we were talking about where we would want to go on our honeymoon, whenever the big day came. (I initiated the conversation, not him. I don't know how he managed to play along!)

So we've known all along that we were planning an Italian getaway. And we decided early on that, although there are plenty of good travel sites out there, it might be safer to go through a travel agent, just this once, because it's the first time either of us is going on an excursion for a very long period of time in a country where English isn't really a first language.

The Guy knew of a travel agent. It's his brother-in-law's cousin. It's practically family. And so to keep it all in the family, we met with her a little under two months ago.

The appointment was scheduled so she could guide us. She was supposed to tell us where first-time Italian tourists should definitely go (considering we have NO idea when the hell we'll ever get back there, since our entire savings is going to go into a house and a honeymoon this year). After over two hours in her office, do you know what we determined? Don't go to Milan unless you just want to be depressed by all the skinny bitches in designer clothes. ONE CITY. In two hours, she narrowed down ONE FREAKING CITY out of the mix! So due to her lack of help, the Guy and I have been narrowing down our suggested itinerary for a while now, on and off.

Last week, we finalized something for her. We broke it down, day by day, exactly where we wanted to go. He sent it off to her, and her reply was a little shocking. She informed us that it was "not a good schedule." It was disheartening after the work that was put into it. So I read further through her e-mail. Why wasn't it a good schedule?! Because we were only staying one night in Venice. If we were only planning one night in Venice, then she suggested not even bothering to stay there cause it wasn't worth dragging around the luggage. She told us to just take the train back to Florence (where we're staying the two nights prior) and stay an additional evening. And while I found this to be a very valid and smart suggestion, why the hell did she basically have to tear down the ENTIRE itinerary for ONE NIGHT?!

Over the past week, the e-mails have been going back and forth between her and the Guy (another thing that pisses me off -- she NEVER CCs me on anything, despite the fact that all the things the Guy e-mails to her are sent to me as well!...hasn't she ever heard of "Reply All"?), with sample itineraries, hotel stays, transportation, and prices. We received the brunt of this stuff yesterday. And while the vast majority of the formal itinerary was good, there were about four days that just were not going to work for us (e.g. it had us staying overnight in Florence, but never actually having any time to SEE Florence). Plus, there was a hotel stay in Sorrento that was well out of our price range (though it was a lovely hotel and a gorgeous room with a view!).

Today, the Guy was busy at a client from the late morning into the afternoon, so I took the liberty of drafting what I thought was, at the very least, a cordial e-mail to this woman, explaining our problems with what she had suggested.

Let me repeat: I e-mailed her. Not the Guy. Me!

Periodically throughout the day, I checked my e-mail. Nothing. Not a single word. And while she doesn't seem to get back to us in a minute, she has been getting back to us within two hours or so. So it just seemed really odd.

Turns out she sent not one, but THREE replies to the Guy (and as always, did not CC me on them). The Guy wasn't able to send these to me until this evening when he got back to his office. And what did she inform us in these e-mails? Essentially, she told us that, we're wrong, the price for the hotel in Sorrento is NOT unreasonable (um, I'm going to say that $300+/night is unreasonable...I could go on a freaking 4-night cruise for one night of that!!!), and in not so many words said that we should suck it up. And although she fixed the whole "don't stay overnight in Venice" thing, she now doesn't have us going to Venice AT ALL!!!

Seriously, I canNOT handle this woman anymore. I'm torn between tears and wanting to drive to her office and rip her effing head off for being such a royal bitch (cause oh my lord, does she have the WORST people skills!).

But how would I explain that to my soon-to-be brother-in-law?

What My Commute Is Like In My Head

2008-01-15T20:29:00.001-05:00

For months, I've been debating if I like the new show "Carpoolers." It's a little weird. And yet, I think I've grown quite fond of it.

I think it might have something do with this, though:

Oh, and this:

Phone Calls

2008-01-14T23:36:00.000-05:00

So you notice that countdown on the side? The one for C&R's baby? Yeah, we're now under the two week mark. It could seriously happen any day now. And I'm just waiting for a phone call.

C called tonight and totally freaked out my parents. They were convinced that R was going into labor, but in reality, Sydney, the Super Spy Wonder Dog, ate a bunch of boxes of raisins (C realized this when he found a bunch of the heads of the Sunmaid Raisin Girl sitting on the floor -- she ate the BOXES) and was being rushed to the animal hospital to avoid her going into kidney failure. Awesome.

But seriously, I think I'm as anxious as anyone, which just slightly concerns me, cause hello, this will probably be me someday. If I can barely wait for R to have the baby, imagine what a wreck I'll be with my own?!

Anyway, I'll update if I hear anything. It's so exciting! I'm going to officially be an Auntie (even though I already have two nieces -- I just haven't officially married the Guy yet)!

Sparing You

2008-01-14T01:33:00.000-05:00

To spare you all from excessive OLMA posting, my brother C suggested that we start an OLMA blog.

So if you want to be a part of the OLMA plan (whether you do it with us or on your own), you can visit the new Operation: Lose My Ass blog. I'll still try to keep my sidebar updated though.

Hard Work Will Come Back to Bite You

2008-01-09T17:11:00.001-05:00

Several months ago, I made a detrimental mistake at work.

And I'm guessing that it's not what you're thinking.

See, there are two types of "sub-"departments within my department. There's the one that makes the software for our clients. And there's the one that maintains it. I'm not one for maintenance, so I'm a maker. And every 10-12 months, I get a new client and get to make similar stuff all over again from scratch. I find it fun.

Well, in the process of making it, we have to test it. It's a smart thing to do. So we test regularly by ourselves, but every 1-2 months or so, there is a big test, where the clients come in and try to break our software. These are fun days, cause we usually spend the week or two leading up to them stressing out that everything's not done, and then the day of, freaking out the client will find something wrong. (Seriously, why haven't I checked with my doctor to see if I have an ulcer yet?)

There are only 3-4 "big" tests with any given client before we hand the software over to the maintenance group. And for my current client, our first big test was in late September.

Now, in all technicality, I'm a minion here. I mean, I provide a valid function (without me, we would have nothing to test), but for my particular department, I'm in the lowest ranking job position. However, I work with all brand new hires where this is their first client. I am NOT a brand new hire, and not to toot my own horn, but I know my shit in most cases. And thus, on some occasions, I'm treated like I'm one ranking position higher than I really am. Still not an important person, but sometimes important enough to be acknowledged.

Well, back to this first big test in September. Some other members of our client team didn't get their act together (or if they did, they didn't inform anyone, which in turn, was not getting their act together, so I stand by my first statement). The preparation for the big test is supposed to start approximately two weeks before the date, minimum. Sometimes, it starts even earlier than that. The people responsible for the prep work didn't start until less than one week before the test. By now, I bet you can sense the problem. Even though certain individuals are solely responsible for this prep work, a lot of people were called to do the work for an "all hands on deck" situation. This is all well and good, but for this particular big test, it just so happened that my manager had a couple of days vacation scheduled (certainly overdue because my manager actually works very hard). So because I have a little more knowledge than all the new hires, I was called to help along with the person ranking above me (not my manager in particular, just a higher ranking worker, just under my manager).

This was my detrimental mistake.

I could've gone home. I could've said I had a prior engagement. But I didn't. I stayed. The person ranking above me (the PRAM) and I stayed in the office until after 11 PM trying to clean up a huge mess the night before the client was supposed to come in, all by ourselves. Meanwhile, the people who should have actually been working on it some two weeks prior were out schmoozing with the client at a fancy dinner (while we ate pizza, although, thankfully, paid for by the company). Due to some misconstrued dedication, suddenly my name (as well as the PRAM's name) became associated with "person to call on in times of trouble, don't worry, they don't mind working till all hours of the night."

Over the past several months since then, I've tried to shake this. And for the most part, I've been able to lie low.

But I love how my work day is supposed to end at 5 (and I legitimately have an appointment at 5:30 tonight), and at 4:30, I get a message saying there is a serious problem, the same person who screwed up last time is getting "hit from all sides," and I have to stay. I quickly informed him that, unfortunately, I actually do have a prior engagement tonight (I couldn't have planned it better if I tried!). The guy flipped out on me! He started asking where my manager was ("Manager works till 4, not 5 -- he's on a different schedule than normal employees -- he's probably home with his kid"), if I had the manager's cell phone number, and if I had any suggestions for what he should do. Seriously?

I feel bad. Most of me wants to help. But part is me is like "Why didn't this come up earlier? And why can't it wait until tomorrow, cause we're not handing this off to the maintenance side for 2+ more weeks! I'm just a minion!!!"

Oh well, all I know is it's 5:10, and I have to go to my appointment now.

Full Swing

2008-01-09T10:14:00.000-05:00

OLMA the Beast is taking over my life. Come home from work, eat, go to gym, feel like dying, but manage to shower, and go to bed. It's becoming routine.

Irish and I e-mailed about it last Wednesday (when she gave it the name), and suddenly, we're all going to the gym like it's no big deal and we do this all the time. By "we," I mean Irish, the Guy, and me. Blondie claims she has been several times, but we've only seen her once. Plus, she blatantly ignored Irish's phone calls and text messages the first 3 days of OLMA. Oh well -- we'll get her there (especially if we start losing and she doesn't, cause she'll be angry), but we won't pressure her until her BEST is over.

And by the way, if ever there was anyone to go to the gym with, it's Irish (no offense to the Guy). With her motivation and stamina, it's kind of addictive. She just keeps going and going. Plus, she hits what I call "milestones" when she uses machines (e.g. get to 5 miles, get to 500 calories burned, etc.), which kind of guides me to meet milestones too (mine are usually fewer miles and calories than hers, but milestones nonetheless). Next thing I know, I've been on the elliptical/stairmaster thingy for 45 minutes without even thinking about it cause I meet a milestone, then make a new one. Plus, she's offered to run in front of me while wearing a T-shirt with my dress on the back of it (if I make it for her), just to keep me motivated. The front will say "Breathe!" because I apparently don't breathe when I do crunches. Seriously, she and the Guy stand in front of me, and they look like they're teaching me Lamaze.

I added the "OLMA" section on my sidebar to keep me accountable. I figure if the whole world can read this blog (even though maybe 2-3 people actually do), I don't really want them to see me fail. It might be added motivation, provided I update it. (I added the part about "Salads Eaten" because I despise salad even though I know it's good for me. Hence, I've only eaten 1 so far.)

My other goal I want to reach by the time this is all over (preferably in time for my bachelorette party) -- Get back into my short denim skirt. See, if you count college years and beyond, I was at my skinniest the summer before my senior year, for C&R's wedding. It wasn't shockingly skinny, but compared to right now, I'm surprised people didn't think I was anorexic (like my 11th grade English teacher apparently did). My denim skirt is 3 sizes smaller than what I am wearing now. It's the only "tiny" piece of clothing that I just can't seem to part with because I am convinced I will get back into it before this is all over. So yeah, it would kind of rock if I could wear that to my bachelorette party (provided it's appropriate for wherever Irish, Blondie, R (though, maybe not, since she'll be a new Mommy), and whoever else comes).

I promise I won't constantly blog about OLMA. Just update the sidebar to keep me accountable, and only share when there's a funny anecdote (like "tight buns" running guy from the first night). But this is my new project and it means a lot to me.

I want to see this through.

New Year, New Me*

2008-01-03T10:03:00.000-05:00

I never make New Year's Resolutions. I typically think they're lame. But I had some sort of nervous breakdown between Christmas and New Year's over weight (seriously, what else?).

On Christmas Day at my grandmother's house, my cousin, who got engaged within the last month, received a workout video -- "Buff Brides" -- from our Godmother. Though the Guy and I received an extremely (EXTREMELY) generous gift from my aunt, a little tiny part of me was also thinking, "Why don't I get 'Buff Brides'? Is it cause you don't think I can stick with it?"

Now, if you knew my Godmother/aunt, you'd know that she would never EVER in a million years be implying anything about a person's weight or fitness level. But you see, I'm paranoid plus overly self-conscious, and thus, I thought that's what she was implying for a split second.

I realized that the real person judging me and my big butt was, in fact, Me. Not her. And I've been doing it for quite some time now because I think I've been driving the Guy nuts with my random breakdowns about my "fat ass."

See, last year when I started dancing, I lost almost 20 lbs. While it's far from what I need to lose, it was definitely a start in the right direction. But then my foot/toe swelled up in mid-to-late December 2006, and since then, no more dance. And for quite some time, I was mildly depressed, and so there was no other exercise either. So not only did I put the 20 lbs, back on, but I also gained almost 20 more on top of that. It's kind of horrifying to admit that and have to put it into writing.

The girls and I went to see "P.S. I Love You" on December 21st (the day it opened). (And right now you're probably wondering what the hell that has to do with anything.) We went shopping before for last minute Christmas presents, and ended up in the food court before the movie started to grab dinner. We got to talking about this topic because of a turkey wrap. The details aren't important. But Blondie made a really good observation by asking a simple question -- "What are we actually going to do about it?" We realized that for, months, years, whatever now, we've been talking about this. Getting into shape. Losing weight. Looking good. Feeling good. And we made some half-assed efforts in the past, but what would we seriously do about it?

So the plan is out there. It's all set. To use the gym memberships that we pay so damn much money for every month and actually DO SOMETHING. To make a strong, whole-hearted effort at this. We even figured out (kind of) our plan for the gym too, so we know what machines to use and when. Irish decided it needed a name -- Operation: Lose My Ass (OLMA). And so far, so good -- we even stayed at the gym for almost 2 hours last night.**

Because, well, I look good in my wedding dress. But I want to look GOOOOOD in my wedding dress.

*I feel like I totally wrote this post last year, minus the wedding dress references. Oh well.

**Which was good, except for when I was around 2.5 miles on the elliptical stairmaster thingy, dying of intense sweating, and Irish decided to bust out with "His butt must hurt." And when I looked in the direction that she was staring, there was a guy who looked like he was power-running (it was too fast to be power-walking) on the elliptical, with his legs flying faster than any legs have ever gone before, and his butt was all clenched. I started laughing so hard, I thought I was going to barf.

The Month That Got Away

2007-12-31T12:32:00.001-05:00

It just occurred to me that the month is almost over, and yet, I haven't posted anything. Granted, there's not exactly a whole lot to tell. This was the month when I decided to freak out about the fact that there are only 9 months to go before the wedding. We met with our realtor, saw a couple of DJs (and settled on one -- just have to mail in the deposit), booked appointments with florists, and I personally probably had about 5 minor breakdowns, the most recent happening last night when I thought the Save the Dates were lost and gone forever. Anyone else going through something fun like this right now?

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas (for those who celebrate). Enjoy the last remaining hours of 2007. And watch out for 2008 -- it's going to be a blast!

P.S. I Love Ebates

2007-11-28T10:44:00.001-05:00

So remember that post I wrote a couple days ago? You know, this post.

Yeah, well, seriously, I love this friggin' site for online shopping. I've been a registered member for about 8 days, and I've managed to earn about $10 back on my holiday shopping (and I'm nowhere near done yet, which means by the end of Christmas, I could easily be pulling in a $30+ check), plus a registration bonus equal to a $10 gift card to Target!

Slackers Don't Set Off Sensors

2007-11-21T12:44:00.000-05:00

I'm working, but I had to share.

All of the lights in our office are on motion-sensing timers. Basically, there's a sensor over every set of cubicles. If there's motion, they stay on. No motion, and they go off after 15-30 minutes (I'm not quite sure cause I've never timed it, but I know it's no more than that).

There's a huge section of cubicles to the, well, kind of front, kind of side of me, but for the sake of this argument and the location of my computer at my desk, we'll say front. And their sensor shut the lights off about 5 minutes ago. And I KNOW there are people working who sit in that section.

Either people are taking an extended lunch today, or they've started early on their shopping.

Bargain Basement

2007-11-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

Let the gluttonous holiday shopping begin!

If you're like me and my family, you go overboard on your holiday shopping. However, if I'm not mistaken, we're also the Royal Family of Bargain Shopping. We look for discounts wherever possible. And we'll take any break we can get.

I was reading a consumer report on holiday shopping yesterday. It featured five ways to save big this holiday season. Some of them seemed stupid, so I won't bother mentioning. However, one way seemed to stick out to me.

They featured a website called Ebates. By signing up (and it doesn't cost anything to sign up -- you never enter your credit card number, so no worries there), you have the potential to earn a percentage of your online shopping expenses back. Essentially, here's how it works. 1) You login to Ebates. 2) Find the store you're looking to shop for (I found all the essentials -- Target, Gap, Old Navy, Macy's), and click on the link. 3) Shop online. When you make a purchase, the store must send a referral fee to Ebates, and in turn, Ebates shares part of that referral fee with you. The percentage varies from store to store. For instance, Gap is 3% back. But 1-800-PET-MEDS (my dog is 11-1/2; she needs her drugs!) is 10% back.

Additionally, by clicking on the link I've provided and entering in my referral e-mail address (sarapags@gmail.com), apparently not only can I earn $5 for the referral, but supposedly you will too! (Honestly, I'd feel weird about referring the whole internet, if it weren't for the fact that we both get dollars!)

Here's my thought -- the worst thing that can happen is you get loaded with SPAM e-mails. So if you're really worried about this, either set up a new dummy e-mail account with Yahoo! or Gmail (I firmly believe everyone should have one anyway because of SPAM mail), or use your e-mail account that doesn't get used as often (come on, I can't be the only person with 7 e-mail addresses, can I? Gosh, I'm a freak!). But the best thing that can happen is that, every three months, you receive a rebate check for all of your online purchases!

Had to share! Hope it works out for all of you online shoppers! I just used it for the first time today at Gap, so I'll update and let you know how it seems to work!

Thank You, BoSox

2007-10-30T15:52:00.000-04:00

I have to thank the Boston Red Sox for winning the World Series for a number of reasons:

It put to rest any lingering "We might still be cursed and 2004 was just a dream -- I slept straight through from 2003 to 2005" feelings. Of course, maybe we just win 5 World Series in 15 years, and then have an 80 year break. It's possible that THIS is our curse.
It saved me from having a minor heart attack, waiting to see if they'd win within 7 games. They didn't make us wait until Game 7, just like the 2004 team didn't. That was nice of them.
NaNoWriMo is literally a day and change around the corner. If they were still in the series, I would truly pass out.
This didn't really have to do with winning, but today, from 2 PM to 5 PM, it's Free Taco Day at Taco Bell. Thank you, Jacoby.
Oh yeah, and cause of this dude!

Shoe Bargain

2007-10-11T11:21:00.000-04:00

So I'm really super busy at work and vowed to only check my e-mail once in the morning and once around noon. And I'm really happy I did.

I had an e-mail from Amazon, featuring Endless.com and the fact that for the next 8-1/2 hours or so, they're not only offering free overnight shipping, but also $5 back. I LOVE free shipping when you online shop. And their shoes are really well-priced for what you're getting. I'm actually picking up my shoes for my wedding, figuring even if I magically lose 60 pounds before the big day, my feet are still going to be a size 10.

And even though I've never been to this website before, I absolutely LOVE that they have a 365-day return policy. So I'm actually picking up 2 pairs of shoes, figuring out which one I like better, and returning the other! (With my poor feet, I need options.)

Anyway, for any girls who love shoe-shopping, get going! You only have until about 7 or 8 PM EST tonight to purchase!

Some Hyperventilation, or Why My Father Is The Coolest For Once In His Life!

2007-10-10T11:44:00.001-04:00

My father is an alum of the University of Scranton. Yes, that Scranton. The Dunder-Mifflin Scranton. And he just send this awesomeness to my work e-mail:

Can you read that? I hope you can read it. If you can't, get a magnifying glass. Actually, just click on the image and it opens up to its full and glorious size! But read it. It's important. And for more info, here's the link to the site (but seriously, go and read that e-mail!) Now, if only I can scrounge up $50 for the Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs as well as getting the Guy to agree to drive with me the 3-hour trek into PA so I can fawn over cast members instead of him (disturbingly, I don't think this would be too difficult).

Oh, and also, please don't tell my Daddy that I said he was cool.

Fafa

2007-09-29T00:42:00.000-04:00

My love for all things trashy and the ridiculousness of celebrity gossip, along with my brother's love for starting fantasy "sport" leagues have led to the start of Fafarazzi!

And that's my lovely team. I'm hoping Kathy Griffin makes fun of herself for being on the D-list again so that I can earn some points. And I also hope people once again keep speculating about Christina's pregnancy. Otherwise, I feel like I have a pretty decent team. I hope. I am in 2nd place right now. But that can all change in the blink of a DUI.

Feel free to start your own teams and play along!

Charity Case

2007-09-13T18:36:00.000-04:00

With weddings come the constant search for the "perfect" whatever. The perfect dress, the perfect cake, the perfect flowers, the perfect reception site. The list goes on and on.

Immediately post-engagement day, I wanted to start looking for sites. I wanted the date sealed and permanently etched in the backs of our minds so that it was one less thing to worry about. So I called the church to check on dates that were available in the month of September 2008 (all dates I wanted were available), and started scoping out the reception halls.

My mom did the brunt of the work. She made countless phone calls while I was stressing over work on top of trying to set a date. (Thanks, Mom, even though you don't read this cause I won't give you the URL.) Anyway, I happened to be available one day (no work, was still on vacation, still in engagement bliss), and I told her to try and get any hall that could see us that afternoon. And only one was immediately available.

It was the first hall we looked at. It was nothing noteworthy (needless to say, we didn't go with it). That's not why I'm writing. What was interesting was walking into the ballroom, and seeing the perfect wedding favors sitting right there, set up for the wedding that was to be coming in that evening. Now, I don't know if my guests would agree, but I loved it so much (as did Mom) that we absolutely 100% decided that we had to convince the Guy and his family that it was perfect. And THEY agreed, too.

So this is probably a spoiler for the 5-8 people who read this blog who will also be (hopefully) attending my wedding, but for the other 200 people invited and not reading, it'll be a surprise. So don't spill the beans.

See, cause I need help. The favors were the following: In lieu of favors, donations were made to [Insert Charity Here]. Now, this particular couple who got married that day only picked one charity. I've decided I want to pick 5 charities and tell each table which charity their money went to. (I figure there will be about 20+ tables, so that means 4 tables worth of donations per charity.) Now, without a doubt, the Greater CT Chapter of the National MS Society will be one recipient. The cause is near and dear to all of our hearts. I have a few ideas in mind for some of the other charities, though nothing is set in stone yet. Additionally, I recently came up with the brilliant idea that, since we're both baseball fans, we should find some charity that Major League Baseball supports and make that one of our charities as well. (After all, September is the month when miracles happen and dreams come true for baseball fans!)

So I want to know -- what are some deserving charities near and dear to your hearts and why?

Everyone Have a Nice Summer?

2007-09-10T19:58:00.001-04:00

Yeah? Have fun? Go to swim camp? Eat snow cones? Pony rides? Yeah? Well...summer's over! Time to get back to work!