First Year of Monthly Photos

My baby boy turns one year old today! I can't quite put it into words all the emotions I'm feeling at the moment. I remember how he came into this world last year. It was scary and terrifying. There have been terrifying moments during his first year of life, but I think any new parent would say the same. 

All I can say is that every single one of the new child cliches are 100% true! My husband and I have never been more tired, yet happier. 

8 Months Old

Weight: 15lbs (unofficial weigh in)

Weight: 16lbs, 10oz

 

Weight: 18lbs, 2oz

 Weight: 20lbs (unofficial weigh in)

These monthly photos are getting harder and harder to take because our three stooges can't seem to hold still for that long anymore! Except for Jewels because she's able to pose like a statue if a treat is involved. 

I think our kid lost his baby status somewhere around six months old. It's hard to explain, but all of the sudden he looked less like a baby and more like a tiny adult. Maybe it's all the hair! And his bald/flat spot on the back of his head has finally started to grow hair and round out. That's one downside of a kid who sleeps through the night from an early age - they get a flat head!Although we've had some sleep regression the past few months and I think it is safe to say we were spoiled rotten by those peaceful sleep nights in the earlier months.

I've kept this private and I will continue to keep the details private, but our little guy had surgery when he was six months old to correct a birth defect. Perhaps that's when he grew up seemingly overnight. We were a bit surprised he put on any weight between months 6-7 because for two weeks after surgery he wasn't eating as much, but then he was crushing 40oz of food for three days right before his one month post-op check-in. Let's just say that was a growth spurt that had everyone in the house tired.

A Quarter Year Old

One week old and not a fan of photos! Weight: 4 lbs, 14ozs

Weight: 8 lbs, 1oz.

Weight: 11 lbs, 6oz

Weight: 13 lbs (unofficial weigh in)

Weight: 14 lbs

 

I remember when I was 10 weeks pregnant I proclaimed to my hubs, "I'm a quarter way done!" He responded that most people measure their pregnancy progress by thirds, as in the standard trimesters. But he did acknowledge my never-ending need to compartmentalize things into quarters and even numbers.

And now we've got a four-month old aka a quarter year old. :) Every month we take a few minutes and prop him up on our couch, tempt the dogs with some treats, and try to get a decent photo of our three kids. We're getting better at it! There may or may not have been close to 75 attempts the first month mainly because we had a bolster pillow on the couch and Sterling couldn't hold his own head up yet. Anytime he'd start to fall over Jax would start to lick him.  Month 2 included a pretty serious meltdown. Month 3 included a bit of clear spit up.

This past month we nailed the monthly series in less than five minutes. Baby on the couch by himself - boom!  Get Jewels on the couch - check! Make sure baby is still sitting up - double check! Get Jax on the couch - quasi check. Get Jax to focus on his treat and not lick the baby - check! Photos taken - check! Baby spit up all over himself - CHECK!  Backup white onesie for photos on his special blanket - check!

I got sad the other day flipping through Sterling's photos and realizing that we barely took any photos of him in the month of November. I blame the earlier sunsets and working full time. Our weeknights are just too hectic for a ton of photos right now, but I'm trying to get better about capturing our random moments.

Oh baby!

There are certain universal truths in life. They're consistent, even relentless sometimes. 

When you get married people will ask, "when are you going to start a family?" Maybe not right after the ceremony and maybe not even for the first year. 

"We have Jax and Jewels," is apparently not an acceptable response.  Especially to grandmothers who want more great-grandchildren. But you can't fault them for just wanting more people to love.  

When you buy a four bedroom house there are certain expectations that you're going to have enough people living in that house to warrant the extra bedrooms. 

Then when you live in that house for a few more years the questions become louder and more frequent. Family gatherings become more stressful and the ways of saying, "not today" or "in a few years" begin to become even more difficult to muster. Booze helps. That was my weapon of choice at more than one Christmas. An amazing husband who gently switched the conversation to something else was a major help. 

But the hubs and I got it. People were just curious and we've never refrained from saying we wanted kids and we loved kids. Plus, it was flattering to think that others thought we'd make good parents. The timing just wasn't right for us. 

Thankfully, the time is right. Well, as right as right will ever be. 

We're thrilled to finally have an answer to the question that has been posed to us the most over these past seven years of marriage. 

August 2015. That's when we'll have a baby. Or at least that's when my doctor thinks we're going to have a baby. The hubs and I are going to let the little one determine the schedule and we're just along for the ride. 

7 Years of Wedded Bliss (well, mostly)

August 11, 2007

I don't believe in luck, but I count my blessings that I met my husband. Truth be told the idea of marriage still scares me to this very day and I have difficulty grasping the concept. But, being married to my husband - well that just makes perfect sense.

Marriage, like any other relationship, is constant work. There are easy months and then there are really hard moments that make you question everything in the world all the way to your core. The key is finding balance between the two extremes, unless of course you can find a drama-free life and if that is the case please share your secrets.

Over the past 7 years of marriage the hubs and I have come up with a few observations of our own:

Keep the fights clean. My husband doesn't swear and yet even when I've done my absolute worst he hasn't said anything to me that can't be repeated in a Disney cartoon. That level of decency provides a safety net during disagreements where we can actually discuss our differences without descending in pure madness. Oh trust me, I'm a ginger with a German temper to boot and I can fly off the handle like a psycho, but our fights are clean.

Support each other, don't suffocate each other. For the love of all things please have a few separate hobbies. Do your own thing and enjoy some time apart from each other. Take a few vacations here and there with friends and without your partner. My husband hates running, yet he will show up at a few of my races and be supportive. And I might think his video games are stupid, but I buy him Madden and MLB The Show every time a new version comes out (hey, at least I get brownie points for buying the games!).  It's really nice asking each other "how was your day?" and getting to share stories. That doesn't happen if you spend every second together.

Go to bed angry. Dumbest advice ever is to never go to bed angry. I don't know about you, but I make really bad decisions when I'm angry + tired. This goes back to tip number 1, but sometimes the very best thing is a few hours of sleep (I won't say a decent night of sleep because let's be honest that's not happening if you're ticked off).

Compromise better. We try not to compromise in the traditional sense - instead we rotate who gets to pick what. If we're splitting a dinner and a movie one of us gets to pick dinner and the other the movie. I picked the granite and stove in our kitchen and he got the backsplash, dishwasher,  and microwave. We rotate whose day or month it is based on each other priorities. That way we don't have to settle for some lukewarm, middle ground and instead each of us gets what we really wanted. Again, we struggle with time to time with finding the balance, but overall this works exceptionally well for us.

No one is perfect. I repeat that to myself every time I get angry or upset with my husband. Sometimes I remember the last thing I did that frustrated him just to remind myself that I'm no peach 100% of the time.

Don't compare your behind the scenes with anyone else's filtered life. In today's social media world it's really easy to get caught up in the hoopla of "why doesn't my life look like that?" Everyone's got problems. I repeat, everyone has problems. Think of it this way, that perfect couple you know posts one or two snippets from their life once a day. The rest of the time you have no idea what is going on behind the curtain. That gorgeous flower arrangement, "just because" might look great on Instagram, but you don't see the dirty dishes piled up, the mail collecting, the dried up tissues, and the laundry that still hasn't been put away because it's been concisely cropped out of the frame.

Challenge Each Other. The greatest moments are life are not when you settle for anything. Rather, they are when you challenge each other's every fiber and find your own way. Take advice from others and make it your own. Realize that no other couple has your unique path in life. There is no "one fits all" pill for life's happiness. You've got to fight for happiness all on your own. You might not win the battle each and every day, but think long-term.

I remember vividly when my husband and I were taking pre-marital classes. We were forming our vows and the traditional Catholic vows contain the phrase, "I will obey you." I told my soon-to-be husband I refused to say those words on our wedding day. Even after our deacon joked, "the word obey comes from Latin meaning of 'I listen.'" I told my betrothed I would listen to him, but I would not obey him. I would hear his perspective and I would respect it, but I would not follow it blindly. And that man, who knew my soul said, "we will not follow each other. we will race each other."

That is the path we take in life, never leading, but always sharing. That is why he is my mate in every sense of the word.

Any other tips out there? Please feel free to share them below.

The Big Chop

Made in the USA: Jeans: James Jean 'Neo Beau'  // Pumps: Julie Bee's 'New Yorker' // Purse: Vintage Coach  // Lips: Revlon 'Berry Allure' Lipgloss 

In my nightmares mind, if I'm ever presented with a cancer diagnosis I have my first two questions ready for my doctor:

1. How do we beat this?

2. Am I going to lose my hair?

I know that's a crazy thing to think, but I'm terrified of getting cancer. I hate to say it, but my irrational fear of getting cancer stems from the fear that I can't comprehend living without my red hair. I tend to dwell on the potential hair loss piece of a cancer diagnoses because I can't wrap my head around the potentially fatal disease aspect.  I can't explain it, but my hair is such a massive piece of my identity. When in doubt people call me "Red" or "Ginger." But those monikers dig deeper than simple terms of endearment. Being a red head is my connection to my family. We're a crazy, feisty bunch and we've each got our own shade of red. 

My fear of losing my hair began in my teenage years and started with me begging my parents to buy me a more expensive shampoo. The fear now includes an even more expensive shampoo, prenatal vitamins, lots of water, wearing a hat when running (slightly less worry about sun damage), using heat products sparingly, eating lots of fatty fish and high protein foods, and other odds and ends. 

A week after graduating from high school I chopped off 12 inches from my hair.  Then, 14 inches came off after I graduated from grad school. I had a long pixie cut for a few months. A measly 8 inches came off three years ago and it was barely noticeable. I still feel bad about that one. In February of this year I got my first hair cut since I was 20 years old where I took off more than a few inches, but not enough to donate. And I felt guilty about it. Really, ridiculously, guilty. 

Last Monday night I sat down in a salon chair and said, "chop it off." I cringed when that first cut was made. It took 4 hacks to make it through all my hair (it's a lot thicker than it looks!). I had wanted to give 12 inches, but one thing led to another and I was left holding 15 inches of a red hair in my lap. 

Gulp. There it was staring at me. But you know what - red heads get cancer too. It takes at least 4-10 donations to collect enough hair to make a wig for one person. That's a lot of hair!

So the reason I don't style my hair every day, blow dry my hair often, or color my hair in any way is because I'm paying it forward with my hair. Somewhere there's a red head rocking an amazing wig that contains a few of my strands. I hope that she's able to feel just a bit confident with her wig.

Rational thought would have dictated that I would have waited until after my next marathon to chop off my hair (my pre-race routine is a well oiled machine at this point). However, October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and it only made sense to chop off my hair now and donate it to a woman who is facing something far more difficult than how to wear her hair on race day. 

For additional information on how you can donate your hair I recommend both Locks of Love and Pantene Beautiful Lengths. I've used both organizations twice now. For additional information on how you can get involved and make a donation, in any way shape or form, please visit the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month website. 

If you're thinking about donating your hair I highly recommend making the cut. Go short. I'm not a fan of my own hair when it's short, but anytime I get frustrated by my limited hair style selections I remember how much I love playing with my hair and if I can do anything to give someone else that happy feeling then I'm doing it. Gotta grow it out so I can donate again in another 3 years. 

Cancer is an absolute b*tch and anything that can be done to help out a family battling that monster is a good thing in my book. 

30 Is the New Awesome

Necessary ingredients for an amazing birthday weekend: 

Bubbly and other tasty beverages.  

Shoes that make you feel like you can tackle the world. Yes, if I'm dumped on an island and can only take three possessions, I'm taking these heels with me. 

Best friends.

(Picture above stolen from DistrictSparkle's Instagram) 

Family.  

Funky decor and amazing food. 

And most importantly of all, love. There was a lot of love being thrown around the table Saturday night.  

I had such a great long weekend for my birthday.  My loving hubs organized a little dinner soiree for my birthday that included  family and friends. My aunt and sister came in for a few days and I've never laughed so hard in a vintage store or in Trader Joe's.  

Anyone have a recommendation for a good wrinkle-correction cream? I've laughed a lot in the last 30 years and I intend on laughing even more in the coming 70 years or so. I should probably invest in a good wrinkle cream, but at the same time I'm okay with having a few reminders of how much laughter I've enjoyed in my life. 

Birthday Treat

I turned 30 today.  There, I said it.

Actually, I've had a countdown calendar in the works ever since I turned 29.  See you later 20s. Goodbye hipsters. Thank goodness I never have to be tied down to the same age-group as you people.  Yes, I said you people.

I'm 30. Rather than treating it as death or an early mid-life crisis, I merely see it as a Wednesday.

A damn, good Wednesday.

Instead of getting all sad and sappy about turning 30 I'm ready to party. I'm truly happy that I'm 30. People have looked at me and said, "bullshit, you're sad about turning 30."

I don't understand what in the world they are talking about. I know who am I, I know what makes me tick, and most importantly I know who I want in my life for the good times and the bad.  I've got the big pieces of the puzzle figured out and I plan on spending the next 70 years or so re-arranging the details.

So with that being said, here's my gift to you:

The treats: a little capsule collection of things I got in NY at IFB Con.

NYX Illuminator // Desktop-mega-phone from Poppin // personal pocket datebook from POST // 2013 notebook from POST // Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel DVD // ghd oval dressing brush // Model Co "Berry Pink" lip gloss // assorted hair ties from Twistband, Inc (MADE IN THE USA BABY!!!!) // pink iphone 4/4s case by Boostcase Hybrid // fuzzy hat from MailChimp

To Enter: (All entries must be submitted by 11:59pm ET 2/27)

Follow me on Twitter.

Follow me on Instagram.

Then just leave me a comment with your Twitter and Instagram usernames.  If you're feeling wordy, let me know if you are/were excited/scared to turn 30.

For additional entries:

Tweet about the giveaway! Just leave an additional comment with your tweet. 

Good Luck! 

Hearts and chess

Do you ever have those moments in life where everywhere you look you see the same thing over and over again?  It's like that time my brother bought an Oldsmobile Alero. I swear to goodness I had never seen one of those cars in my life, but once he bought his I saw those cars everywhere.  

It's once something across your consciousness you can't get it out of your head and you see that shape, pattern, color, object, etc. everywhere you look.  

I'm having that moment right now.  Everywhere I look I see heart patterns and chess pieces.  

I think I need to break out my chess board and challenge the hubs a few times this weekend! 

Have a great weekend everyone.  

If you're looking for something cute to check out, then head on over to District Sparkle.  Meaghan and I did a quick photoshoot with her adorable pup, Wendell, and the results were pretty adorable. 

2013: Let's do this thing!

I went through my typical New Year's cynicism earlier this week and thought to myself, "what's the big deal? It's just a Tuesday."  Thankfully the negativity was due to sleep deprivation and after a strong cup of coffee I was void of negative thoughts. Well, mostly :)

Here it is, my to-do list for 2013.  Remember, I hate calling them resolutions.

Blog: 

• Post quality content 2-3 times a week.  Look, I'm never going to be able to post 4-5 times a week on any type of routine basis.  It's just not going to happen.  I have a few reoccurring post ideas up my sleeve and I hope they go over well.  
• Engage more with other bloggers.  I haven't really pursued connecting with the larger Baltimore and DC blogging community more than the occasional comment on someone's blog.  I'm hoping to switch that up this year. 

House:

• More decorating projects! I bought the hubs two pieces of artwork for Christmas and our very bare walls need quite a bit of assistance.  I'm making a list of all the smaller home projects I can tackle on my own since my hubs won't be able to lift his arm above his head for the next 5-6 months :( 
• Kitchen renovation.  This is happening in the fall. Period. End of story. I'm not talking about a little kitchen updating with refreshing some cabinets and adding a backsplash.  I mean taking the sucker down to the studs, demolishing a wall (non-load bearing!), moving plumbing, and starting from square one. Our house is going to feel like an almost brand new house once the kitchen is done because included in the kitchen renovation budget is putting in hardwood floors for not only the kitchen, but the dining room and living room. It's going to make a massive impact on our house and I can't wait.

Life:

• Fashion. Buy American made pieces.  I'm going to hate myself for saying this, but I have enough clothes.  Instead of buying a bunch of trendy pieces that will only last a season or two, I'm going to focus the limited resources I have this year on buying quality pieces made right here in the USA.  
• Run less, work out more.  Running is taking a back seat in my life.  I've only run a handful of times since my last marathon and I've realized that by training for longer races all the time I'm tired all the time and actually work out less.  I don't even remember the last time I did a serious set of sit ups or any type of weight training.  I don't have a single marathon planned for this year and for once I'm okay with that decision.  I know I can't run a marathon this fall because of the kitchen renovation.  I imagine my weekends in the summer and fall are going to be filled with kitchen related items and being tired all the time isn't going to work well with that process. Plus, I turn 30 this year and this is going to sound crazy, but I need to work out more and get in shape.  Running isn't cutting it anymore and I need to get myself back in shape.
• Start a family. BAM! Putting that one out there.  The reason I need to get in shape this year is because after the kitchen is done the hubs and I hope to try to start a family.  We've put this off more than once and the time has come to stop putting it off anymore. I'll be on the wrong side of 30 come next month, so getting in shape is key if the hubs and I decide to try to have a baby the old fashioned way.  Now, I don't know what starting a family means just yet because we still haven't fully decided if we want to adopt first or try to have a biological child first. We're a split household on that decision, so only time will tell. 

That's a pretty tall list if you ask me!  Here is goes 2013. Let's do this thing! 

Happy Anniversary!

Way back on August 11, 2007 aka just over four years ago I said, "I do!" to a pretty sweet guy. Unfortunately, on August 8 - 12, 2011 I was scheduled to be down in Puerto Rico, again, for work. Well that just wasn't going to do!

So the hubs tagged along for a few days. We had a very frank conversation in which I outlined that he couldn't get mad at me for working 8+ hour days because that's what I was there to do and the reason he could stay in my hotel room for free.

In the hubster's own words he had a great vacation acting as a "trophy wife." Venturing around shops, hanging out in the pool, laying out, walks along the beach, etc. Although, in typical man fashion he would go gambling in the morning and then that would be his "drinking money" for the day.

Thankfully the guy was sober enough for breakfast on our actual anniversary! I kid, I kid! He had to hop a flight home later that day, but it was sweet to go out for breakfast overlooking the ocean. Not too shabby.

Our first apartment

In February the hubs and I took a quick weekend trip up to Atlantic City, NJ to cheer on one of our friends who is an aspiring UFC fighter. On the way up the shore we met with our real estate agent for our first big meeting and then decided to stop for lunch in Newark, DE. Being that I went to grad school at the University of Delaware, I wanted to poke around Main Street and see if anything had changed in the past few years (it had!).

On our trip, we drove by our old apartment complex, the site of our first step into cohabitation. Also the site where the hubs firmly entrenched himself in the, "I'll spend the rest of my life with you and share everything, except for the hamper" weird stance that he has going on. More importantly, our old apartment complex is completely different. When we lived there it was a sketchy place of regular ol' folks and poor college students, complete with a murderous backstory. Seriously, a female student was murdered there the year before we moved in (hence why we got two dogs ASAP, jk) and we found out later watching Animal Planet that years ago another resident was eaten by his illegal giant lizards. SWEET!!!

Now the complex is "Green" and is solely off-campus housing for students. It also has this massive community center with a full-length basketball course, 3-D private screening room, bar, and tanning beds. Clearly the Jersey Shore influence has migrated south into Newark!

It was kind of a throwback for the hubs and I to think of that first apartment and how the only new pieces of furniture we bought when we moved in were a tv stand, coffee table, kitchen table & chairs, and a breakfast table. They all came from Ikea and the breakfast table doubled as a great beer pong table. Yeah, that's how grad school rolls. The rest of our furniture was all hand-me-downs or leftovers from college.

Here's the floor plan for that old 855 square foot apartment.

Don't let the floor plan fool you. There was no way in heck a dining table fit in the "dining area." We kept the table over in the "study." However, the kitchen was just as tiny as it looked. We couldn't have our microwave, toaster, and coffee pot all plugged in at the same time.

It wasn't a total waste. Jax actually ate a 6 x 6 inch hole right dab in the middle of the living room carpet. I patched the spot, extremely poorly, with carpet from the closet and then replaced the carpet in the closet with the closest Berber carpet I could find at Home Depot. Then, the apartment complex still gave us the pet deposit back after we moved out! After all of the disgusting things we saw while we lived there, I'm not surprised if we weren't "tenants of the year."

It kind of sucks to look back at it because everything in the apartment itself was new, so it could have been a really nice place. However, the sketchy people living next door, their annoying 50lb mutt who attacked Jewels, and most people's total disregard for common decency made the place into a dump. It's funny to see it now.

I tell you what, the pool certainly did NOT look like that when we were there!

Up and Down

Life has been more than a proverbial roller coaster in our happy little rental household the past month.

We met with a realtor to discuss our house buying plans and charged up that monstrous first hill.

Then Nana, the hubs's grandmother, passed away which brought us tumbling down low.

We're both hoping things look brighter, but in the meantime we're laying low and staying in.

And during our downtime we're trying to figure out a way to run back to Ohio and dognap this guy:


I almost left the hubs out there just so he could roll around with that pup and smile a bit more.

Alright, pink elephant in the room

It's 2011 and everyone and their mother is making resolutions. Here's a few things I want to add to the pile:

1. Track my running mileage. My Garmin 405 should make this much easier, as I've sporadic with Strands.Com or any other type of journal log. I can't even estimate how much I've run in the past few years because I've been so up and down with my mileage and frequency. Plenty of other runners are proudly proclaiming, "I'm going to run XXXX number of miles this year" and I'd love to say something similar, but I'm afraid I'm going to over or under shoot what I'm capable of doing. Baby steps people, baby steps.

2. Get over my fear of open water. Okay, pools too. I know if I was on a boat and had to swim for my life, I'd be able to do it. Other than that, I'm insanely uncomfortable in the water. But, I did go water skiing for the first time ever last summer and I didn't die, which is clearly a step forward in the right direction. Ideally, I'd love to do a triathelon at some point, but the whole swimming thing makes me want to hurl.


3. Take more risks with my personal style. I wear a ton of black. I wear a ton of grey. I don't have "going out" clothes anymore because my closet is one giant Banana Republic/J. Crew/Ann Taylor/Gap/Nordstrom Career section department store. My idea of a shoe splurge is Cole Haan Nike Air pumps for work. I also tend to wear the same hair style year in and year out. I started things off right and had my hair chopped on January 2nd. I'm not saying I'm going to wear pink any time soon, but I really miss my crazy polka dot days.


4. Get back in touch with my creative side. I've been a serious lull lately. I haven't even used my sewing machine since before I moved. My health nut craze has significantly decreased my creative baking routine. I feel like I'm not even doing my camera justice anymore. I'm in a funk and I need to SNAP OUT OF IT!!! I want to highlight at least one creative a project a month. I hope that will be a good starting point.

5. Buy a house. The hubs and I are so ready. The game plan is to really take a look and hopefully find our dream home this year.



So that's it 2011. Balls in your court.

We moved!

(that would be a past out hubs tired from moving all of our furniture in 90-plus degree heat)

That's really the reason I haven't posted practically all summer. The hubs and I moved over the summer and it's been quite a long process between finding a new place, packing, moving, and unpacking.

Moving away from Towson was bittersweet. We both loved the area, but my commute was just too miserable and I was an uber bitch most nights. Not exactly good for the home life. Leaving for work at 6:30am and not getting home until 12 to 13 hours later wasn't making me all giddy and sunshiny happy. Certainly, carpooling with the hubs 90% of the time was nice (he did most of the driving!), but I can't say that sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic could be construed as "quality time."

So, we left Towson. It's really sad because I really liked living within 3 miles of everything. Seriously, Trader Joe's, Safeway, Michael's, Pottery Barn, Crate & Barrel, Louis Vuitton (like I shopped there!), PetSmart, Target, Joann's Fabric, Sports Authority, Chipotle, Green Turtle, and possibly every other store you could think of was right around the corner! I'm going to miss Trader Joe's, Chipotle and Sushi Hanna the most. Every Friday the hubs and I either stopped off at Sushi Hanna or Belvedere Square for dinner.

But, that killer commute was figuratively driving me crazy.

With that being said we had to find a place that was within our budget, close to a train station, had a fenced in yard, central air, and would take two Boston Terriers. Oh yeah, we're renters... so much fun! The most annoying thing about renting is that you're almost forced to wait until the very last minute to find a place. Nothing showing is available in two to three months. Everything is available NOW or in two weeks.

I'm actually proud that I was able to convince the hubs to take a serious look at living in Baltimore. We went to quite a few places in Federal Hill, but in the end the lure of a larger yard pulled us to a townhouse development just south of Baltimore. That and I'm now a whopping .8 miles from the train station! It's absolutely magical leaving the house 9 minutes before the train arrives and having plenty of time to park and make the walk down the train station parking lot. It's even better to not have to listen for the traffic report in the morning because my "commute" doesn't involve a single highway.

So, we're slowly starting to decorate. Okay, that's a bold faced lie. I'm slowly starting to decorate. The hubs could live in a card board box and be happy as long as it had a big screen tv and a PS3 hooked up!

Hopefully, in the coming weeks I'll be able to pull my head out of a closet and start posting more often.

Because really, moving absolutely sucks!!!

Babies, babies, babies (Part 1)

Babies, babies, babies... the little poop machines are everywhere!

Yes, pick your jaw up off the floor because I just called babies little poop machines. Honestly, it’s true and you know it, but you just don’t normally say it aloud.

I am so sick and tired of babies, which is absolutely terrible because I love babies and would like to have one or two later in life. “Later in life,” that’s my current predicament it seems. I would like to have babies, L-A-T-E-R!!!!

As in, not right now. Not in the next two years. Oh for Pete’s sake, I’ll be older than 30 when I have one.

Of course, in some crowds if you make it known (which I don’t normally advertise) that you don’t plan on having children until after 30, then that acts as an open invitation for people start to criticize you. It’s almost as if I said I wanted to pick up a drug habit, eat fish everyday, down a few bottles of wine, get knocked up and then give birth on the moon. Or maybe Mars because I think that’s probably a more hostile environment than the moon (anyone?????). Honestly, there could be more destructive things to do while pregnant, but I’m slightly out of the loop on those topics. It’s a perk of being not pregnant.

I’m tired of babies and I fear I might be alone. Well, not completely alone because the hubs is tired of them too. Woohoo, solidarity!

The hubs and I have entered our late-twenties. If you judged our internal time clocks by the cover of our refrigerator, then you’d probably think we were getting ready to have a baby. Not quite, just the vast majority of our friends and family members are having babies. Right now we’re outnumbered in the baby announcement/baby shower/little child photos to wedding invitations/bridal shower invites 4:1. Those are either amazing odds or terrible odds depending on your point of view.

Around us everyone is hopping on the baby train. I’m sure it’s a fun ride, but I want to stick with the adult roller coasters for a few more years before I settle in for hours and hours of going around on Dumbo the ride. Dumbo’s fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but I’m still in the mood for rides that have minimum height requirements.

Babies make me tired because it seems every time a little poop machine makes his or her presence I have to start playing defense. I have to defend myself against the world who seems to think that I’m a freak of nature for not wanting to have a baby ASAP. Look, I played defense on my soccer teams for years. I can play defense and I can play defense well. It’s just a bit draining sometimes, which so are babies for that matter. Or, so I hear.

The hubs and I were married young, well, I consider 24 years old to be EXTREMELY YOUNG, but the guy really wanted to get hitched. I, personally, would have preferred to stay engaged for a couple more years, but I think I pushed the hubs nearly to his breaking point when I went with a two-and-a-half years engagement.

Being 25 was nice and fun. I could play the, “oh, we’re newlyweds” card. That thing worked like gold because everyone would just smile and nod along in pure agreement. “Sure, there’s no reason to settle down with a bunch of kids right now. You’re young, you’ve got plenty of time.”

Then, I turned 26 and the hubs and I crossed over the newlywed threshold. Thankfully, people mainly kept their distance about the kiddo topic. I think there was a moment of weakness on my part when I was cornered and I may have said, “oh, we’ll probably have a kid right before I turn 30.”

Yes, “I turn 30.” Not, when “we turn 30.” Because I’m just over four months older than the hubs and goodness gracious he likes to rub that sucker in sometimes. But, he’s on my team, so it’s cool.

February came and past and low and behold I was now 27. I don’t feel any different than being 26, but apparently I missed some massive memo of epic importantness.

The baby gates were thrust open and I was the person trying to duck out of the party. I’ve had to retract my previously coerced statement and backed as far away as possible from saying anything about kids and being under the age of 30. I tried to soften the blow and say, “kids are probably somewhere in our five year plan.” That sounds reasonable enough, right? It’s a nice noncommittal way of saying, “sure, but let’s really not get nailed down to any specific timetables.”

So for now, I’m tired of babies. The little poop machines are stressing me out and I don’t even have one or want to have one in the next few years (is that too vague?).


Oh, and for future reference. To all my friends who either have babies, are currently pregnant and/or are trying desperately to have a child please keep this in mind: this post isn’t about you. Really, you guys aren’t part of my current issue. Your kids are are adorable. I’m so happy for you it isn’t even funny. I'll even volunteer to babysit your little ones. Of course, poop freaks me out so if you could wait until your little bundle of joy is potty trained, well then I'll cut you an awesome rate on a night of babysitting.

(Part 1)

Craziness (Part Deux!)

I swear to goodness I haven't been hit by a bus.

Or, a train (which is more likely given my daily commute).

I've just been living my life. The somewhat carefree life of a 27 year old. Oh who am I kidding, I'm stressed out like crazy, but haven't fun while doing it.

In a nutshell my daily routine goes something like this:

5:40am wake up, shower, eat breakfast, get ready for work

6:30am leave for work

7:13am smooch hubs goodbye when he drops me off at the train station

7:48am get off train and walk to work

8:00am to 4:40pm the daily gig at work. The thing I love and happens to pay me so I can buy shiny stuff*

4:58pm catch the train home

5:31pm smooch the hubs and frantically listen to the traffic report

6:05-6:45pm get home sometime in this time frame. I'll stay it again, "I HATE rush hour traffic!!!"

So from 6:45pm to 10:30pm I get to cook dinner, walk a pooch, possibly go for a run, sit down and watch some tv, call friends, and try to do as many errands as possible because the last thing I want to do on a Saturday afternoon is clean the bathroom!!!

Oh wait, Monday nights I play in a softball league, so those nights are different. Crap, Thursdays I play in a kickball league, which means I'm anti-routine on Thursdays as well.

I love my job, but it does irk me that the mere thought of hitting the snooze button in the morning paralyzes me with such a fear that I'm worried the entire axis of my day would be so far shifted I wouldn't be able to function anywhere near normal. Craziness indeed!

Add into all this the fun times that I'm running again and the hubs and I are seriously starting to look at homes because our lease is up in a few months and that doesn't leave much time for free time.

Honestly, what I'm saying is that when I come home from work the last thing I want to do is plop down in front of my computer. Thus, my blogging lifestyle has taken quite the hit. It sucks because I've been doing fun stuff: baking new recipes, sewing new things, visiting interesting places, and drinking quite a bit of wine :)

But, here is my pledge to start blogging at LEAST twice a week. Although, I'm out of town for work for two of the next three weeks, but whatever. I can do it!

Don't abandon me, I promise I'll get back on track. I've got some cool things to share in the next few weeks, so keep checking back for updates.



*Shiny things is what my boss calls fun, but not always tiny, indulges. It's funny because every Monday she'll go, "get anything shiny this weekend?" Sometimes it's a cool electronic (hello iMac!) and sometimes it's new clothes (guilty as charged).

Goodbye February!!!!

February 2010 will go down as one of the craziest months of my life (thus far!).



In a nutshell, I went to Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Newark (NJ), and Phoenix for work. Then, I had a birthday mixed in-between. The hubs was gone for two weeks on various trips. The Olympics consumed any free time I might have had. And, Baltimore received 2 record breaking snowfalls in the span of 10 days.

Craziness.

Making Adjustments

I started a new job this past week and the adjustments to my daily schedule aren't as easy I hoped they would be. Basically, I now have a two-plus hour commute each and every day. That part isn't fun. Couple my new extended commute with the ever shortening days and I hardly get to see sunlight anymore. Well, that's not true, I do get to see the sunlight dancing by as I'm in that awkward phase of, "if I fall asleep now I may miss my stop on the train and that would be really bad, so I must stay awake."

It's really not that bad. I was just being overly dramatic. Actually, I love, love, love my new job. The only negative thing I can say about the job is the commute and even that is a short-term issue. The hubs and I are planning to move this winter and that will make things much easier.

In the meantime my blogging habits have taken a big hit. I barely have time to make it through my Google Reader once a day. Don't worry, I'm not just neglecting Blogger as I'm almost completely off of Facebook as well. It's terrible!

Hopefully, I'll adjust to my new schedule and I can learn to make more time for blogging. Having a super cool hubs who cooks and vacuums is definitely an asset. I'm also going to upgrade to a more advanced phone so I can be more productive on the train. Any suggestions?

Cooking for one isn't fun

The hubs is out of town for this entire week and I'm left home alone to fend for myself. Okay, no, not really, it's not that drastic.

This week I get to do all those crazy little things that the hubs can't stand. For one, I get to wear my tie-dyed t-shirts while jamming to Dave Matthews. I'm also going to avoid watching any O's games! Ha!!!! I've already painted my nails a super dark purple color, which the hubs can't stand (but, that one I do all the time). I think I'm going to head over the library and check out a few classic movies to watch. I think curling up on the couch, with a bottle of wine, and enjoying a classic like "Gone with the Wind" sounds like a perfect evening.

I've got a girl's night planned for one night later this week with my best friend. I'm picking up her up from the airport and then she's going to gloat all about her ten day Italian vacation.

I'm going to get in some quality time in with my brother's girlfriend. We're going to head out to either a musuem, art gallery, or end up walking around a botanical garden.

Of course, there is one tiny aspect of all this single-girl lifestyle that makes me cringe- cooking for one. My grocery cart looked pathetic as I made my way down the store aisles yesterday. The hubs usually sustains himself on a diet of takeout, Mac & Cheese, ham, and chicken Alfredo when I'm away from home. Basically, he eats all the things I can't stand. He's not a picky eater, so he eats whatever I want to eat so I don't have quite the same lust for certain foods when I'm by myself. Plus, arugula is the one thing he can't stand that I love and the arugula selection didn't look so great at the grocery store.

It's going to be a challenge to not give in and survive on a Ramen and tv dinner diet this week. I'm going to attempt to cook a small meal each night and hopefully I stick to my plan. I did get myself a small treat at the grocery store and I'm banking on that to get me through the week. Yes, I'm 26 years old and I love Reese's Puffs, go ahead and judge me. Now, I just have to finish these before the hubs gets home or find a place to hide the evidence of my childlike snack habits.



What do you do when you're significant other is out-of-town for a few days?