My Life as K. Radz

2012-01-03T13:50:00.000-05:00

I needed a non-crafty update :)

So Evan made his big bad stage debut on Christmas Eve at the church xmas pagent like I mentioned before. Aaaannnd I was the most amazing supportive mother ever by being the only adult on the stage with him. The picture isn't the best quality, but here is my adorable son being the cutest baby Jesus ever...and me being so super thrilled to be up there. Luckily, once the shepards and animals came up i snuck in the back and kind of hid behind the kids (thank goodness!) As you can see I decided to be a gold angel. And I was a good sport. I donned my beautiful, flowing white gown and sat in church waiting when I would have to face my public humilation. And then it got worse....the coordinator approached me to tell me that I wasn't totally dressed. My mouth dropped open as thoughts raced through my head. Apparently I had forgotten my halo (gold glittery stuff). I must have made a face because her response was that I wasn't gold and glittery enough...to which I held out my arms to show her the 4 foot hanging gold fabric that was extending from beneath each of my arms to the floor (you can kind of see them in the picture above). Wasn't that enough gold? Apparently not. I compromised by having her tie it around my waist. Joy.

A bit sidetracked...

2011-12-30T08:40:00.000-05:00

This being home on vacation thing rocks! I have tons of time to do all kinds of neat things and of course to scour Pinterest for fantastic ideas. This week I went to the store to find a frame for the wall art that I'm planning (which I found) but I got sidetracked by some super cute fabric. Let me preface this by saying that I asked for a sewing machine four years ago and got one....and it has remained in the box without even being opened since then. So I bought the fabric, broke out the sewing machine and whipped up a cute little cover for my Kindle. It definitly isn't pretty, but I wouldn't call it a total fail. I did this without a pattern and just kind of went with it...and it was a great way to get back into sewing so maybe there will be some more projects like that coming up in the near future.

In other news, we celebrated little man's first birthday yesterday. I cannot believe that it has been a year since the marathon birth occured (you can read about it here if you really want to...but I totally downplayed the awfulness of it in my post-partum, sleep neglected state). I cannot believe that he has been a part of our lives for a year. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was bringing him home and wondering how the heck I was supposed to keep him alive. Yet at the same time, I cannot remember what life was like without him. And now I am officially the mother of a toddler....god help me!

Our First Christmas....any my new project

2011-12-27T13:30:00.000-05:00

First, an update on our first christmas. Evan was a champ! He wasn't too into opening all of the gifts, but he certainly enjoyed all of the fun new toys he got. He even survived two days of little naps and late bedtimes. Wooh! Here's a few pictures for your viewing pleasure:
Xmas EXPLODED in my living room. If this kid isn't spoiled.....

He wasn't toooooo sure how to open those things....

But playing with Auntie Kiersten's puppy was pretty fun!

All in all, it was a pretty good day!

Now onto my project for the month. In all honesty, January is most likely going to have a few projects as its little man's first birthday too and I'm planning some pretty fun cupcakes. But for now....I have this spot in my hall where I hung a very nice holiday picture.....and it stayed there all year. See?

Clearly that just isn't going to work for another year! I suppose I could blame last year on the whole having a baby thing. Yeah. Maybe. Anyhoo, my plan is to revitalize this wall. I'm thinking of a combination of a few things. The first is inspired by this photo from this blog. The plan is to head to the craft store as soon as little man wakes up and see what I can find. Stay tuned for the other additions to the wall!

Reindeer Cupcakes

2011-12-23T12:40:00.000-05:00

Project #1 was a success. I made these super easy, super cute cupcakes for Evan to bring to daycare today. They took less than an hour and took very little skill. Heck, if they came out looking this decent and my uncrafty self made them, then anyone can do it!

I used simple white cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The muzzle is a vanilla wafer, pretzels for the ears, an m&m for the nose and any white candy bit with frosting for the eyes. December Pinterest Challenge = success!

Baby Jesus

2011-12-22T09:00:00.000-05:00

So I'm not proud to admit this, but for the past few months my motivation for going to church has been so that little man could be baby Jesus in the Christmas pagent this year. I mean really...he's adorable and the perfect age....it's a once in a lifetime opportunity! The first few weeks of December came and went and I assumed that they didn't want a real baby Jesus. Shucks!

Then it happened....on Sunday I was approached and asked if I would be willing to let Evan be in the pagent as the one and only baby Jesus. I of course said yes. Fast forwad to Tuesday night and a phone call from the coordinator at the church. She wanted to discuss logistics. The conversation went something like this.

Me: Should he wear something special?
Church Lady: No...just something white. And we'll put him in the manger. Mary will be right next to him the whole time.
Me: Great. Who's Mary?
Lady: She's in 5th grade.
Me: Oh. Well, I'll jsut be sure to sit right in the front row in case I need to grab him.
(Awkward Pause)
Lady: Welllllll, we were hoping that you would be an angel. You don't have to wear wings or anything....
Me: Well ,I guess I could do that.
Lady: Great! Do you want to be a silver or gold angel? Oh, and you'll be the only adult on stage just so you know.
Me: Oh, okay. I'll just hide in the corner then so I'm not too obvious.
Lady: Oh no! We'll have you right up by the manger. It'll be great!

What!!!!! I think God was laughing at that trick. So I got my wish, but with a twist. This girl is officially the only adult angel in the children's christmas pagent. But my son gets to be Jesus. Sigh. The things I do for him already. I'm sure pictures are to follow....

A new mission....

2011-12-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

So clearly I haven't been very good at this whole blogging thing lately. This OBVIOUSLY has nothing to do with the fact that once the little guy goes to sleep all I want to do is crash on the couch and has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that this website is blocked at work (the nerve!). I also think that one of my problems is motivation and direction. Is this a mommy blog? A teaching blog? A boring blog? All of the above? Sooo....I have a plan.

I'm inspired by two things: 1.)a great friend of mine who started a blog last year and wrote about monthly resolutions and 2) Pinterest. If you haven't checked out Pinterest, you have to! It's full of fabulous ideas about everything from cooking to fashion and has tons of inspiration on it. I have always attempted to be a craft/clever/creative person and often find myself falling short. Sometimes it is lack of time....othertimes its just that I kind of stink at crafts. Oh right...the plan...get back to it. The plan is that each month I will find some sort of project (even if its something as simple as a recipe) to try out and I'll blog about it. Don't worry....there will still be plenty of humor considering that most of the times that I try this my project are epic fails....and I promise to post pictures of everything. Even the fails.

So if this cute face isn't enough to keep you occupied:

Hopefully my crafty things are :) This months project is going to be a quicky considering that it's already almost over. I have to bring in cupcakes to Evan's daycare on Friday for his birthday and figured I'd give these a shot. There aren't too many kids so it shouldn't be very time consuming.

The original post is found at a super awesome blog called With Sprinkles on Top. Stay tuned for the end result :)

Small victories

2011-09-27T07:36:00.000-04:00

I have taken this long to write because I didn't want to write until I felt I could post something positive. And as I sit here in my classroom on my 7th day at the new job I'm finding that for the first time so far I'm excited for the kids to come in. Finally.

It was a rough first week. I started a job in a building where I didn't know procedure, curriculum, my students, expectations, or anyone else. Couple that with a few super challenging classes who are pushing boundaries after a month of school with substitute teachers and I found myself in tears over a glass of wine a few evenings last week.

Since then, I have had some small victories. My difficult class was quiet for a whopping 20 seconds yesterday and about 50% of them completed their assignment. Again....small victories. Considering that in that same class a random condom appeared on the floor on my second day and I'll take it. I have found some wonderful supports in my fellow teachers and am finally starting to feel a little more at home in my classroom. I am amazed at how quickly you get rusty! I've always been a natural teacher....my personality flows into my classroom, but I realized mid last week that I seemed to have forgotten how to do that. Luckily, I have since remembered and my students are noticing that.

I'm seeing glimmers of interest. We watched a news story last week about the NASA satellite that was falling back down to Earth and on Monday I had at least one student from each class ask me if it fell. Yea for engagement (even if it wasn't totally on topic)! I'm seeing a routine start to settle in. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. For those of you that teach, you know that there's a "honeymoon" period the first few weeks of school where its easier to lay the groundwork for your rules and expectations. I missed that honeymoon period and inherited classes with no rules and expectations in place. I have to keep reminding myself that today is only day 7....and that's a small amount of time to already be seeing improvements. Small victories....here we come....

A fresh start

2011-09-14T10:58:00.001-04:00

A quick update….

In just a few short days I will be leaving behind my well worn desk chair, my keyboard tray that seems to accumulate crumbs faster than Alaska accumulates snow, and my dull grey-ish cube for the world of colorful whiteboard markers, office supplies galore, and of course kids. Yep, that’s right….I am officially a teacher once again.

To maintain anonymity (somewhat) and so I can continue this blog I won’t tell you where I got a job, but I will be teaching middle school general science. While I’m no stranger to teaching, I am new to the world of middle school. I’ll be trading my zitty kids for smelly ones and my horny ones for well….those hormones will still be flying  I am so super excited to start, although I will be jumping into a classroom after the year has already started so I’m sure there will be a bit of an adjustment period for me and the kids.

Either way….the prospect of summers off, and vacations, and three day weekends, and snow days….well you get the picture. It will mean more time with my little man though which makes me oh so happy. I’m already looking forward to trips to the beach and museums and other fun things for next summer.

So here goes nothing…..now I just have to hope that I can control the trucker mouth that I have developed over the past few years :)

I have an interview !!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-08-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

And just like that summer is gone. Work has been CRAZY busy and I’m just now settling back into somewhat of a routine. Hence the update. Not much has changed in the Radz household…work is work….Evan is growing (and pulling up on things…yikes)…the house is still falling apart. Same old, same old. What is new is my job situation. Mainly that tomorrow at 12 noon, I have an interview to get back in the classroom! I have been wanting to get back in the classroom for some time now and finally have a few promising leads. Those who know me, know that I was meant to be a teacher. For those of you who don’t know me, here are a few of the reasons that I MUST get back in front of the kiddos.

I like hearing myself talk which means that I’ve started talking to myself….not good.
I looooooove the kids. There is nothing like the relationships that you build when you see the same kids every day for a whole school year. It’s amazing to watch their successes and their failures and every once in a while you get that kid that comes along that makes you say, “Now THAT is why I’m a teacher.”
I love buying school supplies….and without being a teacher I really have no reason to buy them and instead I look like the sad old lady at the office supply store buying colored pencils and fun paper clips.
I am just not meant to sit at a desk. Sitting in front of a computer leads me to do troubling things like…well….talking to myself, giggling at absolutely nothing, yelling out random obscenities, stealing things from other’s desks for ransom, and other equally psychotic things.
I want my summers back…and vacations….and 3 day weekends….and snow days  I realize that sounds selfish, but really it’s all about more time with my little man.
I need to have my own classroom that I can just close the door to from time to time. I realize that I will still be accountable for my work, but there’s nothing like being able to just do your own thing and run with it.
I’m hilarious. No really….I am. Okay, so maybe day to day I’m not too funny, but something about being in front of 30 teenagers brings out the inner comedian in me. They even laugh with me sometimes! (Alright, maybe it’s at me….but it’s still laughing.)
Where the heck else am I going to my funny stories from? Like the time the kid saw me at the movies and asked why I wasn’t at school….on a Friday night. Or the brilliant student who asked me if she dyed her hair if her unborn baby’s hair color would change. Or the ….well, you get the idea.

And most importantly….

Teaching is truly my passion. I find nothing more rewarding than getting kids to realize that they are amazing individuals and that even if (gasp) science is not their thing, they all have strengths. I love watching the “trouble” kids come alive with a little bit of support. I love the kids that come back after they’ve graduated to share their success stories. I love knowing that maybe, just maybe, I am the topic of conversation around the dinner table because a child learned something so fun that they just had to share it with their parents.

Anyways, fingers crossed that this interview goes well. Ah hell….cross your toes, arms, legs….whatever you can manage for me 

My amazing burglary skills...

2011-07-15T07:58:00.001-04:00

I figured it was Friday and a good day to post and even though I missed the MamaKat posting day I went to her for a prompt and came across this gem. Couldn't have been more perfect. Enjoy.

1.) Write about a time you had to crawl through a window.

It was a beautiful summer day...a bit on the hot side, but bright and sunny....perfect for getting a little tan on my glowing white skin. At the time, I lived in the third floor apartment and we had the cutest little deck off the back of the house that rested right on the peek of the roof from the floor below (picture this...its important later). I don my tiniest of bathing suits to avoid tan lines knowing that no one can see me on the back deck and grab my iPod, a towel, and a bottle of water and walk out, closing the one door back into the house behind me.

Fast forward about an hour later....I am sufficiently fried, my water is gone, and I'm starting to get a little woozy so I figure its time to head out of the sun and cool off. I gather everything up and go to open the door....and the knob doesn't turn. I try it again, thinking maybe the sun has gotten to me. Nope. Nothing. I have locked myself onto my little 6'x6' deck 3 stories up in 90+degree heat. Lovely. Panic sets in when I realize that I will be home alone for at least the next 5 hours! I could be dead by that point! So I take action.

If you read this normally, you know that I'm a fairly athletic person (klutzy yes, but somewhat coordinated when I need to be), so I haul bikini-clad self over the railing of the deck and lower myself onto the STEEP pitch of the roof below...and realize the black roof is burning hot! I try desperatly to scramble back up onto the deck, but can't quite get the leverage I need while alternating which foot I'm standing on. Realizing this will never work, I turn around and crab walk (not sure why that seemed intelligent) down the roof to the much flatter roof of the second story. Once there I find a little bit of shade and sit down to contemplate my next move. I look around to see if there's anyone I can call to....there isn't. Which is good because that also means that no one has seem the woman in the bikini just scale her roof, but bad because I'm still stuck two stories up. I look over the edge of the roof and try to calculate how far the drop would be if i hung all 5'3" of me from the gutter and figure that its prob still a good 20 feet....not doing that. Soooo I lay on my back on the roof of the second story and figure I'll wait for my lovely husband to come home and rescue me....and then I notice that I'm staring at the window of the 2nd floor apt. Wooh! I knock on the two windows that I can see and call to whoever may be inside...and no one answers. At this point, I'm desperate....hot, sweaty, practically naked, and a bit light headed....so I try to open the window...locked. To this day I'm still not sure how I actually got the window open, but I think I had one of those superhuman strength moments...and before I knew it I was in the apartment. I quietly closed the window and tiptoed through their apartment (not sure why I tiptoed...no one was home), out their front door, and back up the stairs to my apartment where I put some aloe on my burned to shit feet and took a well deserved nap.

How about you? Ever broken into anywhere?

Another day....another pound?!?

2011-07-11T07:17:00.000-04:00

At the beginning of last week I started a diet. This would be unremarkable for most people, except that I typically don't believe in dieting. I'm known to tell anyone who says they are on a diet to "just eat in moderation...you'll be fine!". That was before....when I was already skinny. Easy to say then. Fast forward to today....and my post baby body is still not quite back to normal...and I have a stubborn ten pounds that just don't want to budge (really, I could probably stand to lose 20 lbs, but I'll settle for the 10).

The diet that I started is called the slow carb diet and basically involved me eating lots of protein and veggies and very little carbs. I should really only eat carbs when I'm working out, which I'm not doing, so I really eat practically nothing. The cool thing is that I'm allowed a cheat day once a week where I can eat ANYTHING that I want to (yummo!). So I started this last week and I've already managed to lose 5 lbs! I'm sure that that'll come back a bit, but I also know that for me once I lose weight I'm pretty good at keeping it off....so bring on the crazy diet! Wooh! Wish me luck :)

Inherited Traits...kinda...

2011-06-22T07:34:00.000-04:00

I was feeding Evan last night and noticing that he had quite the stubborn streak already and I got to wondering….exactly how much of our personality traits are inherited and how many are just because we are raised by our parents and end up taking on traits they have. I kind of thing that a lot of it is genetic predispositions to certain personality traits, but I won’t bore you with that. Instead, I got to thinking about what I may have “inherited” from my parents. Look wise, we know that I look NOTHING like most of family. The running joke is that I was switched at birth. Despite that I have inherited some pretty strong personality traits from my folks…for better or worse.

Like Evan, my stubborn side. When I dig my heels in, look out. And I didn’t stand a chance because I get this from both of my parents.
My ability to guilt trip. This totally comes from my mother. The woman had the ability to make you feel absolutely horrid about the most trivial of things. I can’t count the number of times where she didn’t even have to raise her voice (though she usually did) to have me in tears and wrought with guilt. I have used this trait to my advantage in my teaching career and I must say I’m pretty darn good at it (and clearly super modest too). If you’ve ever been on the other end of one of my guilt trips, I’m sorry. If you haven’t considering yourself lucky.
•My work ethic. My dad is not college educated and yet has managed to work himself up from an entry level position in a local manufacturing facility to a small business owner. And all because he works his butt off. I know that I can certainly be lazy from time to time, but when push comes to shove I’m a pretty darn hard worker too.
My singing voice….totally from my mom…it sucks. My sister got the good voice from my dad (who has the uncanny ability to sing any pop song and make it sound Frank Sinatra-esque).

What “traits” have you gotten from your parents?

He hates me....

2011-06-17T15:10:00.001-04:00

I figure I’ll make it a two post day considering that its Friday and I’m done with work in 30 minutes and because I need to vent.

I have neglected posting about work on here….not because it hasn’t been active, but because I’ve been venting through email with my co-workers instead (and the thought occurred to me that those could be hilarious to read also…too bad I delete them all…). I have come to the conclusion that my boss hates me. And its not just me. Ask anyone I work with and they’ll tell you the same thing….I get treated much more harshly than anyone else. Case in point…

He has made comment to other co-workers that I would like to be an intern. Mostly this is because I like things neat and organized…both things which he is not. So if things get messy I clean up after him….so I want to be an intern.
I am his personal secretary and he enjoys that way too much. Because my master’s degree in curriculum development means that I should mail out your letters and order food for your workshops. Thanks.
He will make comment to everyone else about how my work sucks….even after I’ve done exactly what he’s asking and have the emails to prove it.
The other day I approached to ask a very simple yes or no question….I very politely and somewhat quietly said, “Hey, N***?....” to which he responded all flustered and snippy…”wait, your third on my list”….There was only one other person anywhere near him. Jerk. You could have just said one minute.
He constantly tries to catch me doing things I’m not supposed to be doing. He is known to burst into a room where I have gone to work and then act disappointed when he finds that I am, in fact, engaged in productive activities. He has even taken to showing up to the office on his days off….I swear with the purpose of catching me doing something I’m not supposed to. This has led me to set my desktop image as a screenshot of my desktop when I was being productive….just in case

Luckily, his general snippiness is lessened by the fact that he is the most anal retentive person I have ever met and I find this hilarious. He makes sure that….

He doesn’t come into contact with anything BPA related….including receipt paper (really?!?)
He thinks that everything causes cancer.
He bakes things with all kinds of low fat substitutes….just wrong.
He thinks caffeine is the devil and will get all red in the face when discussing how we will not give it to children.

I know there’s more, but its Friday and I’m stuck for idea. That and I’m sure there are only two people reading this right now that find this even remotely entertaining. If you made it this far….congratulations….now go have a drink.

Rules Schmools.....

2011-06-17T10:56:00.002-04:00

Rules are made to be broken right? Especially fashion rules…

I have never claimed to be fashion forward…or even very fashion conscious. As long as my clothes cover up my bits and don’t make me look like hippo I don’t worry about too much else, much to my mother’s dismay.

My mom is very fashion forward. She is 50 and her wardrobe makes mine look like the old lady’s. We’ve gotten to a point now where we laugh at my numerous fashion faux pas, but it was a pretty big source of strife growing up. At least now we can laugh about it. Case in point…

I showed up to her house a few weeks back with Evan in tow. She scooped him up and once she had smothered him with kisses began to examine his outfit…which is when she noticed the socks. I couldn’t find two matching socks so he had on one white dress sock and one white baby tube sock. At which she busted out laughing and proceeded to tell me that as a child I used to think it was acceptable to wear two different socks as long as they were the same color….and apparently I’m passing that along to Evan.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I still wear different socks on a regular basis. In all honesty, no one notices if I have on two black dress socks but one of them has an every so subtle pinstripe to it and the other doesn’t. Or maybe they do and they don’t tell me. And who cares what kind of socks I have on if no one can see them? If I’m wearing long pants and boots…I may even wear two colored socks completely! And I’ll sit at my desk smugly all day knowing that I am totally being a rule breaker 

Barefoot and hormonal....

2011-06-16T06:50:00.000-04:00

Ah pregnancy. Let me preface this by saying that if you take away my irrational penchant for pancakes and bacon (both food that I despise normally) and my insistance on doing handstands through my pregnancy so I could see my center of balance changing (as a side note...nine month pregnant handstands just don't work no matter what you try)...I was a very sane pregnant lady. I def didn't glow and all that jazz, but I wasn't that crazy prego lady. And I can say that because my husband doesn't read this and he's possibly the only person who would disagree with that statement. I did, however, have a few irrational pregnancy stories that looking back on make me giggle.

For starters, I was a MASSIVE pregnant lady. My 5'2" short torso-ed frame had nowhere for poor little man to go but out. As evidence, here's my halloween pictures...keep in mind that this is me at the seven month mark....I still had two months to go and already that's some belly.

That's a freaking belly. Moral of the story....I was clearly pregnant. I was in my last few weeks and hubby and I decided to go out to dinner. By this point I was used to people asking about the baby and how I was feeling, etc. For some reason, that night we made it through the entire outing without one person commenting. We settled into the car to head home when a shocking thought hit my mind and the tears started to flow. Poor hubby, having no idea what the problem was, attempted to weed it out of me in between sobs. I choked out, "No one said anything about the baby....they must all think I'm just fat!" He sat back in his seat, gave me the side eye, put the car in gear and just drove off. Hmm....

The only other crazy prego thing I did was fight to stay in work (really!). The docs had wanted me out about a month before little man was born because of my blood pressure and for some odd reason I insisted that I HAD to work. Hell...if you told me today that I could stay home on my fat butt, watch re-runs of Teen Mom, and have an excuse to do nothing and still get paid I would be running out the door...

What about you? Any good prego stories?

Unknown

2011-06-15T07:39:00.000-04:00

Today's 60 second blog post is about things people don't know about me...hmm....considering I'm kind of an open book this could be tough, but here goes.

1. I have HORRIBLE road rage. Though I'm normally a very calm, level-headed person...get on my bumper and you will get brake checked...cut me off and you will get tailgated, cursed out, and probably flipped the bird. It's bad.
2. I'm acutally quite shy. Despite the job I have and how I come across I get very nervous in new social situations. I can hold it together really well, but inside I'm probably dying.
3. I fight a battle with laziness daily. I wasn't always this way, but I chalk it up to never having any real downtime....
4. I'm a huge nerd...actually if you know me you know this...never mind....

Okay, time's up. That wasn't too good. Tomorrow isn't a timed post and is sure to be better...

Believe

2011-06-14T08:09:00.000-04:00

My 60 second post of today is around the word believe...as in "I can't believe I just did that!" I have two...one serious...one not so much so i'll write for 120 second today.

Here's the first....
As they placed the very pink, very squinty, very warm little bundle of skin into my arms I thought to myself I can't believe I just did that. I can't believe that I just brought the most perfect little man into the world...can't believe that I am a mom....can't believe that this little guy means more to me than anything else in the world ever has.

And the second.....
As a biology teacher I am sometimes faced with hilarious situations, but being the mature teacher I am I have to deal with them in an adult like manner. I'll never forget the first time a student, my most goody goody student mind you, replaced the word organism with the word orgasm while answering a question. I turned to the board with tears in my eyes and shoulders shaking from silent, held back laughter....I couldn't believe that I was laughing at this poor students mishap. I hope she isn't permenantly scarred.

Love

2011-06-13T14:41:00.002-04:00

I figure its time for an update….and a peek at my goal for this week. I stumbled across a blog called One Minute Writer that posts a prompt each day and asks that you write about it for one minute. Since I usually don’t blog because of the time constraints I thought this might be a good way to get some things onto paper. I’ve decided to aim for it each day this week (with the exception of today because I’ll do my update for the day today). I’m not promising things will be deep or insightful and they will totally be stream of consciousness writing, but maybe it’ll lead to something.

Evan is going to be 6 months old at the end of the month. I have no idea where the time has gone! He is sitting up, rolling over both ways, and is possibly the smiliest baby I’ve ever seen….and that smile can melt hearts…and it does on a regular basis. My Mr. Charmer is also figuring out already that he has mommy wrapped around his little finger…uh oh.

This whole mommyhood adventure has lead me to reflect lately about the human capacity to love. Over the past months the amount of love that I’ve been doling out has dramatically increase. What amazes me is that it doesn’t get spread any thinner. How is it that we find room in our hearts to give more and more and not short change anyone along the way? I don’t know the answer to that…doubtful anyone does…but it really is amazing how big one’s heart can get.

Oh Old Blue

2011-05-12T14:22:00.000-04:00

I am being super creative today and two…yes TWO….of the writing prompts from MamaKat’s workshop. Here’s the prompts…

3. Your first car.

5. Write a love letter to someone (some thing) you love.

Yep…I loved my first car…so here goes.

Dearest Old Blue (yep, my car was named old blue),

I know that you weren’t much to look at. But in all your sky blue, old lady car, early 90s grandness you gave me freedom. You gave me my first taste of being able to feel the wind in my hair when I rolled down your windows…and you were kind enough to give me a workout in doing so through your nearly-impossible-to-turn crank down windows.

I have such fond memories or cruising through town with you, girlfriends in the backseat and maybe some in the front seat because your bench seat allowed us to squeeze in as many people as possible. Not to mention the memories that I harbor of my passengers deciding it’d be funny to reach their foot over and press my foot against the gas pedal…because of course your bench seat front was totally open.

I would also like to thank you for keeping my butt safe through my teen years of driving because we both know that I wasn’t the best at it. And I didn’t get much help from my friends. Your huge ass end make parallel parking a b**ch and while I still have mental blocks against it (yep….I REFUSE to parallel park or back into a spot…I’ll park miles away rather than do those things), it saved me from injury in many an accident. I’m sorry for backing you into a pole that time I “forgot” I had a rear-view mirror and for staring open mouthed as that big truck backed right into the side of you. I forgot you had a horn. I’m also sorry for turning you into a neighboring lane of traffic and right into a van. I blame your blind spot. You got me back for that one by causing the AC to malfunction.

Despite these setbacks, you faithfully stayed by me through my high school and college careers. I miss you terribly still and I was very sad that day I gave you up. And by the way…nice trick you pulled not starting for the car dealer as soon as I was in my new car. That one was classic.

Love always,

Keagan

My Mommy :)

2011-05-05T07:13:00.001-04:00

I'm not sure that I have a single memory of my mother that stands out above the rest from my early childhood. She was always there...a constant in my life...my cheerleader. She trudged me from softball practice to gymanstics practice to school and back. She sat at meets for entire Saturdays watching the same routines out of every little gymnast all day. She hounded me to do what I was supposed to be doing.

I think the best memory I have of my mother happened my freshman year in college. I am the oldest child of three and am very much a homebody. I enjoyed nothing more than game nights with my siblings and family dinners spent chatting about nothing in particular. The year that I moved away to college was very bittersweet for me. Granted I was only about an hour from home, but becasue I didn't have a car on campus I knew there wouldn't be frequent trips home. I was excited to be on my own...excited to finally be moving onward and upward....but it was also my little sister's freshman year of high school and I was going to miss being there for that. I was going to miss the soccer games of my brother and hearing about his middle school adventures. So, yeah, I was a bit homesick.

Add to that that my birthday was on a weekday in the beginning of September. I had been at school for about two weeks and I had to celebrate my 18th birthday in a dorm room with a roommate I barely knew and friends who I had met just a few days prior. I remember trudging back to my dorm for lunch after chemistry (ugh...awful class too) and deciding that I wasn't feeling like eating at the dining hall. Instead I cracked open a can of spaghetti-os, dumped them into my yellow bowl with a straw (no idea why I remember this), and walked to the microwave in the common room. I sat watching the bowl twirl around and couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for my birthday girl self. Then, as I was walking back to my room with my steaming bowl of processed goodness, I glance down the hall to see my ENTIRE FAMILY walking down the hall. My mother hadn't wanted me to celebrate my birthday by myself and due to a fortuitous early dismissal had hauled not only my brother and sister, but my aunt (who is my mom's identical twin and like a second mother to me) and her kids up as well. I have never been so happy to see their faces....and I think she knew just how much I needed that.

Funny Sleepers....

2011-05-03T09:27:00.001-04:00

This was a prompt that I came across a while ago and am just getting around to writing about. I have come across my fair share of funny sleepers in the years of college roommates and sharing my bedroom and camps, etc. but none beat my brother-in-law. Let’s go backwards about 10 years….

I’ve mentioned before that hubby grew up camping at a campground all summer. When I first met him, he shared a tent with his brother…which meant that when I stayed with him, I slept in the tent with him and his brother (it was a big tent….I swear). Anyways, one night I was woken out of a dead sleep to the most amazing string of potty-mouth words I have ever heard. I sat bolt upright thinking that something awful was going on and shook hubby to wake him. He mumbled something about how I needed to go back to sleep….it was just Kevin sleep talking. What???

Apparently, Kevin has the habit of fighting people in his sleep. And he does this out loud. Often. This really wouldn’t be very funny except that after a few different times of being awoken by Kevin’s strings of swears I realized that I could egg him on. Yes….I could talk to him and he would respond. So I amused myself for quite a long time encouraging Kevin to “get em”. I even managed to get him to sit up and throw a few sleep punches. Hilarious! I have never known anyone who can carry on conversations…coherent conversations….in their sleep, but he can. The best part is he NEVER woke up and NEVER remembered anything, which made it equally as entertaining to tell him about his fights in the morning.

Any funny sleepers in your life?

Traditions

2011-04-27T14:29:00.000-04:00

Having gone through the first major holiday with my new little family I got to thinking about traditions. Many of the little things that we have always done in my family seemed to sneak up on me this Easter…even ones that I didn’t really realize were traditions. Evan is still too young to remember any of this, but I still felt compelled to dye eggs with the same good ‘ol Paas kit that I used growing up. I still made the traditional “Mommy” “Daddy” and “Evan” eggs like we always did growing up. I put the same types of candies in his easter basket (chocolate bunny, Cadbury cream egg, a few peeps. The Easter Bunny was always sure to leave our baskets by the wood stove in the house….I don’t have a woodstove, but I did put Evan’s basket in front of the fireplace. I did all of these things without even really thinking about the fact that it’s the same things I have been doing for as long as I can remember….which I find kind of neat. My traditions are so a part of me that I didn’t even have to think about doing them. Here’s a few other neat traditions that my family has.

Xmas Eve at my mom’s house. It changes slightly from year to year, but it always includes dressy clothes, shrimp cocktail (gag), lots of delicious picky foods, Norad’s Santa Tracker, and the dads sneaking away to do shots of Sambuca or Hot Damn when they think we aren’t looking. Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without this one.
Christmas Day….Keith’s family does this really odd Polish tradition that I have come to really enjoy. I got kind of ambushed by it the first year though. Picture this….I have been dating Keith for about 6 months and, while I know his immediate family, I don’t know his extended family too well. Before dinner, each person gets a host. I am not Catholic so don’t take communion at catholic churches and eating host was a new thing for me. Once everyone has a host, you walk around and break off a piece from each person’s host thingy and give em a smooch. I decided to play nice and go along with this…not realizing that it’s really easy for that stuff to stick to the roof of your mouth….so I wandered around kissing total strangers with an enourmous pile of sticky host in the roof of my mouth. I don’t eat the host anymore (I give it to a younger cousin) but I still enjoy this one.
Thanksgiving….this is a personal favorite of mine. We all get together at my aunt’s house and chow down. All 16 or something of my cousins still sit at the “kid’s table” and are generally loud and obnoxious. It always seems that despite where life takes us we all end up back around that table on Thanksgiving. I hope that never changes. The day concludes with all of us going on a hike with the dads/uncles. This started as a way to get all of us out the mom’s hair for a bit when we were rowdy youngsters and has continued to include beer and a way to get out of kitchen duties
Sunday dinners. Once Evan came along these became much more frequent, but it’s a way for me to get out of cooking to keep in touch with my siblings and my parents and relax before the start of a busy week.

I’m sure there’s more, but this has turned into an post of epic lengths already. Any neat traditions on your end? And a pic of Evan for your viewing pleasure :)

Ten Things My Mother Taught Me....

2011-03-17T14:48:00.000-04:00

This may be a difficult post to get through without getting all teary, but here goes...

1. How to make "hospital corners" with the bedsheets when making the bed. It's still the only way I can sleep.

2. Never quit in the middle....even if you hate what you're doing. If you made a commitment finish it. Once its finished you can always stop.

3. It's okay if my house isn't spotless as long as my family is happy and healthy (she taught me this one a bit later in life).

4. That Whopper Juniors from Burger King are the perfect way to beat a little bit of stress.

5. To suck in my gut and squeeze my bum when I walk...along with holding your shoulders back.

6. Table manners. We went to a fancy New Year's Eve dinner as a family each year just so that we knew how to eat properly. Sadly, I forget a lot of this :)

7. How to get all dolled up for a boy....but that that isn't what it's all about.

8. It's okay to be a strong woman...and we are strong women.

9. But it's also okay to know when you need someone to lean on.

10. And most importantly, she taught me what love is. How to love and how to be loved. That one right there is the greatest gift I could ask for.

And there's the tears....

And this way yet again, another response to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop.

WTF Tuesday...

2011-03-15T15:02:00.000-04:00

A mommy board that I post on does a WTF Friday each week. I decided that it needed to be done today instead for me. I am in a spicy mood and figure this blog is a good outlet. Here goes....

WTF weather....I thought you were going to toss a few nice springlike days my way on my last week home with Evan to enjoy.

WTF America...Why can't you give women year long maternity leave like Canada.

WTF Work...I've been asking you for work for three weeks and you haven't given me any. Now you dump these hopeless projects on me that need to be done ASAP because you dilly-dallied. The worst part is that I know you only handed them off because you hit a roadblock and didn't want to deal with it.

WTF Fever....Again, it's my last week home with little man and you creep up on me. And if you even think of sneaking up on Evan I may just have to kick your temperature-increasing, chill and painful skin-inducing, headache creating, bowel wrenching fever ass. No one messes with my little man.

WTF Squirrel....Why did you have to run in front of my car? I tried to stop but out of fear of throwing poor Evan through the windshield I couldn't in time and now I feel really bad. I know you got away, but I def hit you.

WTF guy at the gas station....I told you his name was Evan and refered to him as "he" several times....and he's wearing a very boyish outfit yet you still insist on telling me what a "beautiful little girl I have." Really? Maybe that's why you work at a gas station? (ouch....that was harsh)

WTF guy with the obnoxious lisence plate. It said "DRS+ESQ" then they had a sticker with an equal sign next to it followed by the logo for their SAAB. Does this really mean what I think it means? Are you really that much of a tool?

Phew....I feel lots better now. And a big thank you to Handy Manny who has kept Evan occupied while I got out this rant. Off to be a better mother now...

Back to work, Back to work, to prove to dad I'm not a jerk....

2011-03-12T16:05:00.001-05:00

Hehe....get what I did there. Adam Sandler anyone? Ah well, silly humor.

So the realization set in the other day that I have to go back to work one week from tomorrow. WTF?!? Where did my three months go? I am sooooo not looking forward to going back to work. As some of you may recall I posted previously about four of my co-workers here and here. The loud talker and the Annoyance are no longer there, but the Gopher and my boss still are. And we have a few new people around the office that I'm sure will be interesting conversation starters. I know we have loud sneezers and talkers and other interesting folks to talk about.
I called in during their weekly meeting this past week and wanted to cry sitting here on my couch. Partly because I have to leave my sweet little man in the hands of someone else....someone else will get to share his smiles through the day and see him reach his milestones. Partly because I have to go back to that nuthouse. Ah well....at least I'll have some writing fodder as this blog has been getting fairly mundane as of late.

Keep your fingers crossed that I manage to get myself back in the classroom next fall or I may have to check myself into a mental institution...

A Memorable Neighbor....

2011-03-10T12:02:00.000-05:00

Yet another response to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. Today's prompt was to write about a memorable neighbor. I had trouble chosing just one, but decided to talk about Peter (and I feel comfy using his name because I am positive that he will never ever read this blog). Peter was the single man in his 40s that lived next door to my family growing up. He was meticulous about his yard, disliked children, had a cat that was his world....yep....one of those. Now despite the fact that he lived in a neighborhood FULL of kids he really didn't like us...except for some reason me. Peter actually liked me.

Now I was an inquisitive little bugger (still am) and I attribute the fact that I went into science to this personality trait. I was that kid that would ask a million questions and expected answers to all of them. I loved to talk to "grown ups" and have "grown up" talks. I vividly remeber that whenever Peter was in his yard or his driveway I would run over and we would have hour long talks about dinosaurs and the stars and other strange things.

Things started to go south with Peter and I when I began to lose my childlike charm (ha!). I always fed Peter's beloved cat, Jasper, when he was out of town and I took great pride in that job (especially because Peter loved Jasper so much....Jasper even got a tombstone in the backyard when he passed away...yep). Anyhoo, one time Peter returned home and instantly came over to talk to my mother. I sat in my room shaking in my boots over what I could have possibly done wrong. When Peter left my mother called me into the room and asked me if I had been snooping around Peter's house. I wracked my little kid brain and told he that the only thing I had done was looked under the bed in Peter's room for Jasper because I couldn't find him. Apparently Peter knew that because I had left footprints in the rug. What?!? Then my sister and I got in trouble a few years later because we ate two Hershey Kisses out of the candybowl on his counter. Again, WTF?!? Did he count them????

I heard that Peter got married a few years ago....I would love to meet that lady..... :)

You Know You're a Mom When

2011-03-01T15:05:00.000-05:00

I'm finally starting to feel like I've had some good mom experiences so I thought I'd toss this out there.
You know you're a mom when,

You can carry a purse, diaper bag, travel seat, bag of library books, and an umbrella into a building in the pouring rain and do so without dropping anything and while remaining completely dry.
You forget what its like to do something with two hands.
And along that same line, one arm muscle is much more developed than the other.
Poop is a normal conversation topic.
You have to remind yourself not to answer the phone in baby talk.
You know the theme songs to Little Einsteins, the Wiggles, and Handy Manny.
You suddenly remeber the lyrics to all the nursery rhymes you used to know.
9pm is late.
You have pacifiers strategically tucked into most every room of the house and have a few in the car, just in case.
You can't seem to remember what life was like before kids....and you don't really want to either.

What's yours?

I got lucky....

2011-02-27T07:32:00.000-05:00

Not that kind of lucky...sheesh....

I mean that I closed my eyes and my life miraculously seems to have fallen into place. I'm married to a great guy, own my own home, and now have a wondeful little family started. I have a tendency to stress about things in hopes that they turn our right and it seems that when I relax and just let them happen, they work out alright.

This brings me to my newest dilemma. You might know that I am a teacher. When I was laid off from my last job, I took a job as an education specialist. This took me out of the classroom and into designing curriculum more. I thought I would LOVE it, but I miss the kids something awful. Not to mention teacher hours are super perfect for a mom. Luck would have it, a long term sub position opened up in the town that I live in. There's a chance (but no guarantee) that the teacher won't come back next year and in that case the job would most likely be mine long term. The problem is, is that if I take the job and she DOES come back then I will have given up my full time job and be unemployed....but not even able to collect unemployment. The job is a dream job, but I don't know if I can sit back on my luck yet again and hope this all works out for the best. I'd be putting my family in a tough situation.

That said, I do believe that everything happens for a reason. There's a reason this position conveniently opened when I was home on maternity leave and could easily take the job. There's a reason it opened up just when I needed it most. And there's a reason they offered me the job....

I just wish that someone would tell me what to do, but I know the decision is allllll mine.

And here's some smiley Evan pictures for reading this far.

Holy emotions, batman!

2011-01-15T08:44:00.000-05:00

So the emotions that go along with this being a mom thing are CRAZY. And I'm not just talking the whole postpartum hormonal ish....here's the story. On Monday we got a call from Evan's pediatrician saying that he needed to have his newborn screen redone because he had an abnormal result for a genetic disorder. She was fairly positive that it was a false positive, but when something like that happens it hangs over your head. We re-did the screen and in the meantime I researched like a crazy lady about LCHAD, the metabolic disorder that Evan could possibly have....and scared the living daylights out of myself. Basically, he could lead a fairly normal life, but would have to have a special diet and may not be able to participate in sports or things that required large amounts of energy. Needless to say, I had a knot in my stomach all week and realized yesterday that I haven't really been eating (not smart as I'm nursing...bad mom). Anyways, the lab called yesterday ( after I had called them twice in the past two days) to say that everything came back completely normal! I didn't realize how tightly would I was until I was able to relax. It was def a more intense emotion than I've felt in a while...even stronger than the whole Down's Syndrome debaucle we went through with him when I was 17 wks pregnant (yes, this is the second genetic test he's "failed"). Anyways, here's some picutres for your viewing pleasure.

Evan and Dad sleeping on the couch...well Evan was at least

He gets a 'fro when he gets out of the bath...love it!

He wasn't too sure what to make of that giraffe

A hospital picture...I cannot believe how much he has changed already!

Channeling his inner Zoolander...can anyone say Blue Steel?

Evan meeting his first new friend, Sophia. She just wanted to eat him.

And a sneak peek of his first professional photo shoot. I'm sure there will be many more of these when we get them!

I'm a Mom...

2011-01-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

I've clearly neglected this blog, so this post will probably be epic in length. Sorry in advance, but I have a lot to catch you up on. As you can probably tell from the post, Evan Keith arrived on Dec. 29th at 1:09am (ironically, on his due date despite the fact that we tried to evict him two days before) weighing in at 6lbs. 3 oz. and 19.5 inches. Here's the story...

We went into the hospital Sunday at 4 to start an induction process because my blood pressure had gotten a bit high. We settled in and started Cervidil (a cervical ripining thingy) at 6pm. That lasted overnight and was possibly the worst part of the whole induction. I had basically one big cramp all night long and didn't sleep a wink. We started pitocin at 6am on Monday morning and waited for things to kick in. I had contractions all day, but nothing terribly painful and nothing at all productive. By 6pm on Monday, I had only progressed to 2 cm so we stopped the pitocin and let me rest a bit. We did Cervidil again overnight, but this time I took an Ambien so I slept through the night. It was the first sleep that I had had since Saturday night so this was lovely. The next morning (Tuesday) I still hadn't done much so we tried another treatment (Miso) and when that was over broke my water. That happened at about 12 and by 1 I was having very strong, very regular contractions. I had an epidural (heavenly) at about 4pm and found out that I had progressed to 7cm! Awesome! Things were looking great. I was checked again a few hours later and was at 8...and then I stopped. I stayed at 8 until about midnight when we decided to go ahead with a C-section. At that point, I had been in labor since basically Sunday night and I was ready to have this kid out of me. Keith was great throughout the C-section and everything went great! Here's a pic of my new family right after....and I realize I look like shit but I just had surgery after a 2 day labor...deal.

Evan is doing fantastic. He's a great baby, a good sleeper, a good eater, and super content to just hang out in his swing. I'll be sure to post some more pictures up here as soon as I get them onto a computer.

Bad blogger....

2010-10-19T15:38:00.002-04:00

Yeah, it’s been a while…again…

But I’ve been busy…kind of. Busy stalking my baby registry. Busy reading baby name books. Busy laying on the couch watching my belly jump around. That kind of busy…

In all honesty, I think about posting quite a bit but then think I should probably post with a picture since it’s been about 10 weeks since I’ve done that. Then I think that the effort it would take to get my camera, make myself look presentable, take picture, download picture, post picture, write, etc. is just too much. So I don’t. And instead I read my baby bible (What to Expect When You’re Expecting) and peruse my birth month board on my new favorite website.

Yes, I have baby on the brain. How could I not? I can’t even see my toes anymore and don’t go more than 10 minutes without a jab in the ribs/pubic bone. So how about an update on that and what I think is fun/crazy about this whole experience thus far. No? Oh well…deal…maybe I’ll snap out of this being a mommy blog sometime in the near future (though that’s doubtful, so if you’re bored and you don’t want to read anymore I understand).

I have officially entered the third trimester! What a crazy thought that I’m 66.6666667% done with my pregnancy and that much closer to meeting my little man. I can pass hours daydreaming about what he’ll look like and what songs I could sing to him and what his little personality will be like. I’m not sure that the reality that in about 10 weeks (hopefully) I’ll have a newborn baby in the house that will be in said house with hubby and I for many many years to come has totally set in, but I am more than ready to start that journey
I never thought it was possible for a fetus to have a personality, but I swear he does!! He gets all kicky when I sing you are my sunshine to him and will kick up a storm when I dance around the kitchen to country music, but goes absolutely still if I’m boggy-ing to pop music.
I love having a belly. First, I don’t have to hold my stomach in ever…which is lovely. Plus, its just so touchable…and I don’t mind who touches it. Normally I am a pretty closed person when it comes to physical contact. I don’t mind it, but I’m not the type of person who touches other people routinely. Know what I mean? I really thought that when I was pregnant I’d HATE people touching my belly. But I don’t. At all. Actually, I kind of like it.
I am becoming increasingly less graceful and nimble. The other day I went to jump up on the counter and couldn’t bend my body enough to get my butt up there. Weird! But I can still do handstands. And yes I do try fairly regularly….
probably only have about 9 weeks of working before I’ll have 12 weeks of leave! Which is good because work is crazy and stressful lately.
I went to a pet psychic….which is a story for another day…but was a totally cool experience.
Hubby got a new job recently and LOVES it. He was miserable at his other job and now that he has a new job I feel like I’ve gotten my husband back. Love it!

I think that’s it for now. That post on the pet psychic will be along soon (maybe along with a pic of me…but no promises on that one).

A day late....

2010-09-14T13:17:00.000-04:00

So the people over at SITS are having a Back2Blogging event. I had every intention of posting this yesterday, but I missed the boat on that one. I figure better late than never...

The prompt was to revisit the first post that you ever wrote in an attempt to get back into the swing of blogging and to remind yourself why you started blogging in the first place. The link to my first post can be found here.

I was struck by a few things as I read this. First, how much I love my husband. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the day to day monotony of life and re-reading my proposal story gave me goosebumps all over again. Second, holy crap has my life changed. Since I started this blog I have been in 2 different homes, 2 different jobs, had 2 different pets, got married, bought a house, and am having a baby. Phew! There are so many little moments that I have blogged about over the course of this blog that I would have probably forgotten about. It's fun to take a trip down memory lane from time to time and see where life has taken you. I guess that's why I blog....

I Was Mortified

2010-09-02T12:56:00.000-04:00

In response to Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop

3.) Why were you mortified? Write about a true embarrassing moment as though it was happening in slow motion.

It all started on a beautiful early August morning. It was the August before my freshman year of high school and I had decided to join the swim team. As anyone who has participated in high school athletics knows, this involved a lovely little something called “captain’s practice”. No biggie really…just a chance for your captains to get you up early before school actually started and torture you get you into shape. Like I said, no biggie. What a great chance for an incoming freshman to get to meet some people at her new school.

It was about the second week of captain’s practices and I was feeling good. I was in shape and holding my own with some of the older girls. This one particular morning we had ventured out to the track to do an ab workout on these old wooden bleachers (nothing like the sleek new metal ones…these ones even came complete with rusty bolts). The exercise involved laying on your stomach with your hip bones at the edge of a bleacher so that you could hang your upper body over the edge and get an ab workout by lifting it up (hopefully that made sense). Clearly, this requires a partner to sit on your legs so that you don’t go toppling over the edge of the bleachers (see where this is going).

Fast forward to the final rep of the exercise. The sun is beating down on my back and I’ve worked up a good sweat…not enough to look yucky, just enough to look like a toughie. I’m grimacing my way up and glance out of the corner of my eye to see one of our male sports teams practicing near by. I think “hmm….boys….must…look….cool”. Just as this though crosses my mind I feel my partner’s weight lift from my legs as my upper body starts to lower. Unprepared for this sudden loss of weight on my lower body and unable to correct myself, I feel myself begin to fall off of the bleachers (a good 6 ft drop at least) and the only thing I can think is…don’t look now boys PLEASE don’t look now. As this thought is running through my head I hear a horrific noise.

RRRIIIPPPPPP

I land in a heap on the ground and look down to realize that my shorts had caught on a nail on the way down and ripped cleanly in two. As I sat on the ground, practically in my underwear, with dirt sticking to my sweaty body I could only think….what a way to start high school….

Side note: I was completely unharmed (physically at least) by this incident and as it turns out my high school social life didn’t really suffer so no harm no foul.

Dear Mom

2010-08-19T08:54:00.000-04:00

Once again, it's Thursday which means that it's time for MamaKat's Writer's Workshop (which is about the only day of the week lately that I can put together something that is slightly creative...I blame the baby). The prompt is...
1.) Dear Mommy and/or Daddy…(write a letter to yourself from one of your children)

Oh Mother Dearest~

Just a few thoughts that I had in utero that I think you could do to help make me a more relaxed child. Because quite frankly a few things that you do stress me out...a lot. Please refer to the list below and refrain from these actions. Thanks in advance.

1. Your singing is really really bad. Please refrain from belting out songs in the car as loud as you can. You're not alone anymore and my hearing is being permenantly damaged. If this is too difficult, at least refrain from singing "I want to be a millionaire". That song is just bad and I already don't like Oprah.

2. I don't like caffeine so please stop drinking it. I realize that it's fun to feel me move around a lot after you have a soda, but it makes me feel like a nutso. Time to start putting me first.

3. I realize that you were a gymnast not too long ago, but doing handstands against the couch just so you can see if your center of balance really is changing is making me nauseous.

4. Please stop poking me. Everytime I'm near the front of your belly you begin poking me either in the butt or in my head. This must be enjoyable to you, but really, it's just annoying to me.

5. Chose my name already and get over it! Or at the very least, if you have a name in mind don't "try it out" by yelling the first and middle name as if I was in trouble. You're setting me up for failure.

Again, please refrain from the above actions or you just may end up with a neurotic first born. Thanks Mom!

Love,
Baby Radz

Boring Friday

2010-08-13T16:01:00.000-04:00

It's Friday at 4:00 and I have officially hit the wall here at work. To the point that I'm going to blog about something just so I'm not staring at this screen anymore. Things have been just trucking along in the Radz household lately...bit ho hum. We got work, we eat dinner, we squeeze whatever projects need to be squeezed into the remaining time and then we crash into bed. How we're going to find time for all of this plus a baby I haven't quite figured out yet....but I'm sure we will.

We have a full weekend coming up too. I scheduled a pregnancy massage for myself tomorrow morning and can't wait! I'm not too sure how it works, but I'm sure it'll be heavenly. I'm following that up with a trip to Babies R Us to start my registry and then headed down to the campground for Trivia night. I'm kind of a trivia junkie. I love it! And (if I do say so myself) hubby and I are pretty good at it. His bank of useless knowledge covers just about everything that mine doesn't so we make a good team. After that busy Saturday, I'm headed up to Mass to spend time with some old co-workers who I haven't seen in entirely too long.

I realize that I'm kind of going off on a tangent here, but that's what boring blog posts are for, right? I was just thinking that trivia is a guilty pleasure of mine. Among many others. Here's a few I can think of off the top of my head.
1. Pringles....I love them and they're horrible for you. I know this, but oh well.
2. Cheesy teenager TV shows (like MTV's Teen Mom). I could watch them for hours.
3. Standing in the shower under the scalding water for 5 extra minutes even though I know this is not environmentally sound.
4. Eating breakfast for dinner.
5. Being home alone with nothing to do but curl up with a good book (that's not really a guilty one except that I often prefer that to spending time with people....hello introvert?)
6. Cutting coupons...that I'll never use. Must be something about the cutting that is therapeutic.
7. Lately, allowing people to pick things up for me just because I have a big belly :)

What about you? Any good guilty pleasures....

Electric Lint Removers

2010-08-12T08:34:00.000-04:00

I'm actually on time this week and figured I'd post a response to MamaKat's Writer's Workshop. If you have some time, check it out. It's fun. Anyways, here's the prompt....

4.) The craziest reason I ever got in trouble as a child.

Now I don't know that I ever actually got into trouble for this, or that my little sister even remembers this happening, but it's worth sharing. I am the oldest of three children. My sister is 4 years younger than me and my brother is a year younger than her. Growing up, that usually meant I always had someone who went along with whatever I did thinking it was cool. Now, I wasn't a mean child by any means but I was a curious little kid. I asked a lot of questions and tried out a lot of things (maybe why I went into science). Anyways...

It was just after dinner one night and mom was cleaning up the kitchen and dad was helping out and me and the sibs were just lounging around. I happened to pick up one of those electric lint removers. You know, they look something like this...

I was curious if it would take off your tastebuds if you held it against your tongue. It took lint off of clothes after all, and lint looks kind of like tastebuds, right? I figured that might be a bit painful so I convinced my little sister (who was probably about 3) that she should try it out. And she did. And it worked. Well.

Sorry Kierst.....

Anniversary, pool, and baby's gender!

2010-08-09T18:39:00.000-04:00

I've had quite an eventful few weeks and since I haven't posted in a while this might be a bit long. Have no fear...I'll toss in some photos to make it more amusing.

First, hubby and I celebrated our 1st anniversary on July 11th. We didn't do anything super crazy, just a nice quiet dinner out just the two of us at a new restaurant. We went to a place called The Russell in Hartford that is a caribbean-ish themed place. The food was delicious and they even had fried yucca...possibly my favorite thing in the world. Plus, hubby got me a video camera :) so that means there will prob be some video posts in the near future. Here's our anniversary in one photo...including the cake (which by the way...TERRIBLE idea to eat it a year later.)

We also finally got our pool up and running. It needed a new liner and since we're cheap we didn't want to pay to have someone do it. We got my family and some family friends together to lend a hand and we now have a lovely pool to enjoy. Better late than never. Here's the boys hard at work....(I was supervising, I swear).

And last (but certainly not least) we have officially found out what whether we're having a boy or a girl this December. We had a bit of a rough go of things the past few weeks (I'll post about it one of these days), but thankfully everything is going well and the baby's doing great. Here's a picture of me at 19 weeks pregnant and I'm finally starting to really look pregnant.

Annnndd......we're having a little.......

BOY! So excited. And I'm sure he loves that I just posted his boy parts for all of you to see. Here's a face shot just for good measure. Isn't he cute?

Think that's it. Look forward to another interesting blog entry later this week as a late response to MamaKat's Writers Workshop.

My first date....in a car....

2010-08-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

So I'm a day late one this one, but Mama Kat had a prompt that was just too good to pass up. Despite the fact it was supposed to be posted YESTERDAY, I figured better later than never. Plus, this is a pretty good story. Just try to picture it was you read....guaranteed you'll at least giggle.

The prompt was to write about your first date with a boy in a car. I figured this meant that first date where our parents didn't have to drive us around and though I'm not sure this was really my first it was my most memorable. Plus it was my first real date...every other time had been with a "boyfriend" not with a guy that was just interested in becoming that...oh high school.

So it was a Thursday after 6th period English and John (name changed to protect the innocent) chose to walk me to my next class, Spanish. Along the way he asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with him the next night, Friday. I'm sure I awkwardly accepted as I certainly wasn't as smooth as I am today and went home to share the happy news with my mom. The next day at school was spent thinking about outfits and what I would talk about and all that other fun pre-date jittery stuff. My mother and I spent hours after school finding the perfect outfit to highlight the washboard abs I had then (again...oh high school). And then he pulled in the driveway and even came to get me at the door. He walked me to the car, opened my door for me, and walked around to his. I was in heaven!

Now I've left out one detail to this point because it really wasn't important at the time, but John was deaf. He had cochlear implants that helped him to hear, but if there was background noise he had difficulty hearing and would read lips instead. Well....cars are apparently lots of background noise. We started driving to the movies and the conversation started to flow. Until he asked me a questions. And I answered. And instead of watching the road, he was watching my lips. Yikes! I saw my life flash before my eyes and it was everything I could do not to grab the steering wheel. So I did what any sensible person would do and stopped talking so he'd watch the road. But apparently on a date, not talking is not good. Needless to say, the date went downhill from there and that was it for me and John...too bad...he was cute...

Pictures...as Promised

2010-07-12T18:12:00.001-04:00

I promised some pictures last time around so here goes nothing. This is the first ultrasound picture we got when I was about 7 weeks along...Looks like a little worm to me.

Now normally I would never show you a bare picture of my stomach (which has ALWAYS been my problem area when it comes to wait) but considering that its like a million times smaller than its is now, here's me at 11 weeks pregnant with no real bump...though if you ask me there's one there :)

Here's another ultrasound...this one was from 12 weeks along. They couldn't find a hearbeat (everything was fine) so I got to get an extra peek at my little one. I'll take it....

Looks a little more like a baby here :) And finally....the most recent picture I took of myself at 15 weeks. Finally starting to show a little bit and loving every minute of it. What a relief it is to not have to hold in my stomach anymore! Not that I could if I wanted to....

Looking at that less than a week later Im' thinking I should take another one....I've grown again....

My hiatus....

2010-07-06T13:39:00.000-04:00

Soooo.....

To my 8 followers who are still hanging around (or who were just too lazy to delete me) thanks...and sorry for the hiatus. I tend to slack off from the bloggy world when my life gets ho-hum. Which it has been. Since February when I last posted I've done...not much. I did take a wonderful second honeymoon to Cancun with the hubby. The weather was gorgeous and we got in some fantastic snorkeling and some relaxing beach days. Otherwise, I've been trudging along with work much like the rest of us and trying to keep up with my social life (fairly successful at that).

As my usual blogging history shows, I can only be blogging again for one reason. Something exciting is happening in my life. Yeah! So what could it be? I already did the marriage thing. Buying a house? Been there done that (but do you see the progression). So the next exciting venture in my life would be....a baby. Yep, hubby and I found out a few months ago that we're expecting! I have been waiting to post on here just in case important people hadn't heard yet, but I think most have.

We found out a few weeks before mother's day. I'm still not sure what made me take the test. We weren't really actively trying (long story...for another day maybe) and I wasn't more than a few days late, but I just had a feeling. When I saw that second little pink line my first reaction was complete excitement. Tears sprung to my eyes and my hands just started to shake as I started down at that stick. I briefly thought about how I could surprise hubby, but I can't hold that kind of info in so there's no exciting story there. Over the next few weeks I went from "holy shit...can I do this" scared to "can i meet this little bugger today" excitement. Needless to say, as we're getting used to the idea of being parents and we just seem to get more and more excited.

We're due on Dec. 29 which could make things interesting. Can't wait to see if I end up with a Xmas or a New Years baby! I'm currently 15 weeks (well 14 weeks and 6 days, but who's counting?) which puts me through the scary first trimester and into a much more exciting trimester. I've started to pop out a bit (I'll put some pictures up here soon, promise), enough that people are starting to notice. And Im' fairly positive that I felt the baby move for the first time today! It's a bit early for that according to the books, but I can't figure out what that sensation was if it wasn't my little guy moving.

Can't wait to keep updating this as we find out more info! Wooh!

My first crush

2010-02-22T16:21:00.003-05:00

Part of the reason that I have been so slow to blog lately is that I am severely lacking in the creativity department. This is normal for me. I go through spurts where I put Martha Stewart to shame (alright, so that may be a liiiitle exaggerated) and then I hit spots when I couldn’t think a creative thought to save my life. This is one of those times…..

So what to do when I lack motivation, but have promised to blog more? Ah, google. I googled blog prompts and stumbled across this super cool site that gives you blog topics. The first question asked if I was depress….and I’m not….so that’s a boring post. Here was the second prompt:

Describe your first 'crush'. What was the person like?

Much better.

My first crush was really in elementary school. I was in 6th grade and ruled the school (this was before 6th grade was in middle school). I had a crush on this boy in my class who shall be called John. He had this beautiful olive skin, huge brown eyes, and he was the best kickball player in class. I had it bad.
Being the cool kid that I was I played it cool. No chasing him around the recess yard for this girl. Instead I captivated him with my ability to beat him at basketball. Nice.

I first realized that he had a crush on me to (yeah!) around Christmas that year. It was just after dinner (I remember this vividly) and I was sitting at the kitchen table working on homework when the doorbell rang. I opened the door and no one was there, but on the doormat was a box with a card. All the card said was Merry Christmas and in the box was a gold pin that said “Sweetheart” with some “emeralds” in it. No name, no nothing. My mother was convinced it was for her (Hmmmm). I don’t remember how I figured out it was from “John” but I kept that pin for a good long time. In fact, I think I may still have it saved in some memory box. We became boyfriend and girlfriend, which basically meant that he only cheered for me while the girls ran the mile run…which I won. Oh young love….

A catch-up

2010-02-21T08:36:00.000-05:00

I have once again completely fallen off the blogging wagon, so I'll attempt to jump back on again. Here's a few things that you missed while I was gone.

Work
The Annoyance has announced that she has taken another job. Wooh! Her last day is due to be this Friday, but last week she decided to completely flip out (kind of on me) after a workshop we had done. First, let me paint the picture....There were 20 inner city high school students in an after-school program with us. They've sat through 6 hours of school already and are looking to us to be doing something mildly entertaining. We were attempting to teach them to use CAD/CAM type drafting software (anyone else just yawn?). Right. Anyhoo, she decided that it was my fault that they didn't like her and ripped into me about how I was bad teacher. Thanks. For the record, I'm not. Regardless, I basically had her taken off of the project she was working on with me this week and now she has no hours for this week, so I guess she's done. Moral: Don't piss people off....

Social
Hubby and I just got back from a quick ski trip up North. We drove up after work on Friday and skiied from 10pm-3am. Let's just say I'm beat! But I am proud of myself. This is usually the type of thing that I'd pass on. I'd decide that I was just too tired, let hubby go, plunk my butt on the couch, and laze the weekend away. I miss out on a lot because of that. So as much as I really wanted to say "You go ahead without me!" I didn't and I went and I had a blast....and got a good workout to boot. In other news, we officially booked a trip back to Cancun in April! More on that later.

Gym
Uh....can we just say....non-existent? I was doing so well! I had myself consistently running 4 miles (fairly easily, too) and then I just stopped going. I have a friend's wedding to go to in 2 weeks and I don't even know if I can still squeeze myself into the dress. Guess I need to get back on that....

Think that's it....did you follow all that?

Complete and Utter Nonsense

2010-02-03T14:23:00.000-05:00

You know how every once in a while you get a case of the sillies at work? I think that’s happening around here. We started off the morning in one of the most mind-numbing 90+ minute meeting that I’ve ever had to sit through. Couple that with the fact that I’ve actually been busy this week (although busy doing research….not so much fun) and I think I have a case of the giggles. Luckily I’m not alone. Within minutes of being back from the meeting I got this im from KP (one of the few sane people that also work in my office).

KP: I went to the vending machine to get a Dr. Pepper – I’ve got a craving. Now I just wanted a sip, but they were sold out (frowny face). So I got my dollar back in quarters. Now I want a chocolate milk, but instead I bought twizzlerand I used one as a straw to drink my water. Today is going to be a long day (another frowny face)

The rest of the conversation was the most random series of oddball messages ever that contained a discussion of whether of not busy-ness and business are similar words for a reason. And I just got an email from her while the gopher was talking that said this…
KP: You ever play those games where the little animal keeps popping its head up, and you have to slam it with the thing to get a point?

That’s what I want to do to you know who. :P

Welcome to my world…..

In other news I read a quote today in one of my e-mails that said “Don’t be yourself – be someone a little nicer.” –Mignon McLaughlin
Ponder that until next time when I promise I will attempt to post something a bit more rational, deep, and well thought out.

Pet Names

2010-01-29T10:08:00.000-05:00

I was sitting in my cubicle minding my own business yesterday and I overheard a co-worker on the phone with his sweetie and heard him call her babe...just kind of slipped it in there all non-chalant-like...and it was so cute! I love pet names unfortunately I can't pull them off. I have never been able to successfully call anyone in my life a pet name and feel normal about it. On occasion, I'll call hubby "honey" but then I always feel like my mother and (as much as I love her) I don't like that. Sweetie is just too sugary sweet for my taste, and babe is too hip. I'm not sugary sweet, hip, or my mother...so I'm stuck. On the rare occasions that I have tried saying them I usually end up laughing at myself and that just wrecks the mood completely. Actually, I usually do the same when people say them to me. I had someone call me "love" once (totally in a grandfather kind of way) and I began blushing furiously and giggling like a 2 year old. Just doesn't work...

The things is I wish I could use pet names. I envy those bubbly people who can call people sweetie and hun with a little arm touch and make everyone feel so happy and welcome. And I wish people would use them on me without me turning into a hot mess. But it just doesn't happen. Or maybe I haven't found my pet name yet.....

Do you have any pet names that you use or are called? Or are you like me and can't seem to get the hang of them?

Haiti

2010-01-28T11:43:00.000-05:00

I just read a very interesting post on a blog I frequent (go check it out...its fun....Scientific Housewife). The post was about the debate about helping Haiti vs. helping ourselves. Seems as though there's a lot of people that feel as though we shouldn't be sending the massive amounts of money that we have been sending to Haiti when we have people here in our own country who desperatly need our help. I'm quite conflicted on this. The humanitarian in me has my heart ripped from my chest everytime I see footage of those poor people in Haiti being pulled from rubble and struggling to find food and water for their families. That same heart also bleeds whenever I hear stories about the families that have lost their home and have to live on the streets...or the child who has every card stacked against them but manages to make something of themselves. The realist in me listens to our State of the Union address and the countless stories of unemployment, foreclosures, etc. and thinks, heck...why are we helping them out. We're in need too! I know that I personally donate time and money to both domestic charities and international ones, so I think I cover my bases. And I know that I usually just go with my gut about donations....usually whoever appeals to me at the time. What do you think about Haiti? Did you donate? Do you donate to domestic charities?

My hair is posessed.

2010-01-26T16:22:00.000-05:00

The dullness of the day has been voided out by the fact that my hair is amusing me. Story.

I didn't shower this morning. No, I'm not dirty, I showever yesterday evening and ~~was entirely too lazy to shower this morning~~ decided to be kind to the enviroinment so skipped my shower this morning. Usually on these mornings, I use a 2" curling iron to straighten my hair, but let it keep a little bit of poof. This helps me to overcome the oily flatness that my head could be and have a cute hairdo....normally it does not curl my hair.

This morning when I left my house my hair was straight. At lunch time I noticed that the very tips were starting to curl in a bit. By 2 entire chunks of the bottom of my hair were starting to spiral curl. It hasn't ventured past that, but I am left with these mini curls at the bottom of my head. Not bad, just strange. Is it possible for a curling iron to delay your hair's curliness....or is my hair posessed?

P.S. - I believe there may be a slightly amusing co-worker post tomorrow (about a new person...not one of the previously discussed)...we'll see.

The dullness...

2010-01-26T08:47:00.001-05:00

I apologize for the lack of posting, but life has been a bit dull. The most exciting thing to happen lately is that I dragged a safety cone under my car the whole way home last night and part of the way into work this morning....wondering the whole time what that awful noise was and debating how I was going to break the news to hubby that my car was broken, again. And contrary to what you may be thinking after reading that, I'm a good driver (usually).
I think I'm somewhat relieved that my life is dull. We've been on super speed since I got laid off last year and I think we're just starting to slow down. I've actually made dinner every night so far this week (ok....its only been two nights....but tonight's dinner is cooking so that makes 3, which is pretty good by my standards). Unfortunately, my dullness has led to a serious blogging drought. So I went seeking inspiration via google and found a photo a day to spark a prompt. Here was today's...

Besides being absolutely precious, it made me think about those unlikely people who give you a boost when you need a hand. They may not even be friends, but they're willing to step forward and lend a hand. Just look to Haiti as an example....a bunch of people just helping....out of the goodness of their hearts. In my own personal little world, I've had this experience a few times, but one sticks out in my head. I tore my ACL my senior year in hs and needed surgery. We wanted to find a good doctor because I planned on continuing with my athletics and I wanted a new knee that was going to stand the test of time. Unfortunately all of the good knee docs had waiting lists that were like 6 months long....and I didn't have that kind of time. The photographer for our school paper happened to be at the meet where I hurt myself and apparently had a few connections with THE best knee doc in CT. And he got me in. I was so touched! I mean, I wasn't even nice to this boy. He was in a totally different social circle, kind of awkward, not very good looking, and seriously annoying. But he took the time to help me....for no other reason than to be nice. And I remember it clear as day almost 10 years later. Who have you helped out?

My homes....

2010-01-21T10:55:00.001-05:00

Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop today asked you to describe everywhere you have called “home”. I’m actually a bit excited to write this as I have had several homes through the years, some good, some bad, and some just plain old ugly. Enjoy.
1. The family homestead. I grew up in the same house for all 18 years of my life before college came around. Actually, I may have lived somewhere before that, but I don’t remember it, so for all intents and purposes this is it. It was an adorable little split level on a nice half acre complete with pool and giant backyard in a neighborhood that was teeming with kids in a nice, quiet residential town. It was the perfect place to grow up and neighborhood games of Capture the flag and movie watching/fort building were frequent. Loved this place…couldn’t have asked for a better place to grow up.

2. Springfield College. I consider this place a home, despite the fact that it was a school. I met some fantastic, lifelong friends at SC and learned a lot about who I was as a person. Plus, college was a lot of fun…

3. The little white Cape. I lived here for the summer after college. My family was in the process of building a new house and had already sold the old homestead so this was an interim rental. It was very tiny and having to house a grownup family of 5 was challenge. I went back to sharing a room with my sister and sharing one bathroom with my whole family (yikes!). As trying as this was sometimes, it made me realize that it doesn’t really matter what your living situation is, all that matters is that your family is there…home is where the heart is.

4. Our first apartment. After the little white cape, I picked up all my belonging and moved to another state…followed a boy. It’s okay though because the boy became hubby. Our first apartment was just under 800 sq.ft. in an apartment complex with no private outdoor area. Let me tell you…if you want to know if you can live with someone and apartment that size will tell you! We learned a lot about each other that year, including the fact that we have very different taste in TV shows. After a lovely little debacle there with the complex staff accusing us of littering their parking lot with cigarette butts (we don’t smoke) and then starting to clean out our apartment before we had moved out we went to the winner of all of our homes….

5. Granite St. ugh. This was an old multifamily home with tons of character. Decorative wood trim, SUPER high ceilings and 3 bedrooms. It was about twice the size of our old apartment and we were in heaven. Or so we thought. It was in the ghetto and we didn’t really realize it. We had a housemate who didn’t work and I think sold drugs and/or her body (which is a disturbing though), frequent fights in the street, lots of police activity, etc. We lasted about a year and fled….we learned that a cool apartment wasn’t worth our sanity.

6. Apartment #3….nice two family home with our landlords, a young couple about our age, living upstairs. We loved this place! We actually still talk to our landlords to this day. This place made us realize that the people make all the difference in the world about your residence choices.

7. Apartment #4….the big move back to CT. I’m getting tired of describing our apartments.

8. Finally….the house! We bought our first house back in October and things have really come full circle. We’re back in the town that we both grew up in, in a cute little neighborhood with some friendly people. It is so nice to finally have a place to call our own and we have spent lots of time getting it setup to our liking. I can’t wait until spring rolls around and we can spruce up the exterior.

I realize that that’s a laundry list of homes and the majority of them took place over a span of 5 years. We moved a lot. The important part was that hubby was with me and made each place really feel like home. In addition, we met so many wonderful people along the way that all of those places still feel like home. Guess home really is where the heart is….and sometimes that is more than one place.

What's in a name?

2010-01-14T09:38:00.000-05:00

Here’s my response to MamaKat’s Writer’s Workshop. This week didn’t require too much creative though so I figured I’d participated. The prompt was to explain the meaning behind your name. I get asked this a TON (the curse of having a unique name) so this is a piece of cake….

My name is Keagan….not Kegan or Keegan or any other derivative, but Keagan with an A. I can honestly say I’ve never met another me with and a, and usually the Keagan’s that I meet are boys. So I’m unique.
Depending on where you look my name means different things, but the most common meaning I can find is that it’s a Gaelic name meaning “little, fiery one”. I guess this kind of suits me. I don’t have a fiery temper or anything, but I like to think that I can be a bit fiery. I have a passionate streak that comes out from time to time and can be pretty intense. Not to mention, that I must not be too mild if I can command the attention of 25 high school students 2 minutes before the bell rings  As for little, welll….I used to be

As for how I got my name, that’s a less exciting story. Apparently I was almost a Stephanie, but my mom saw Keagan as a last name and thought it would make a cute girl’s name and changed her mind after I was already born. And thank goodness she did! I LOVE having a unique name. People remember it. I’m convinced that it has helped me get jobs or awards simply because it jumps out at you.
On a cute sidenote, I am one of 3 siblings and we all have K names (Keagan, Kiersten, and Kyle) and my husband is Keith and his brothers are Kevin and Kenny. I also have a cousin Kim whose kids are Kallie and Kaeden…hmmm….

How about you? Any interesting name stories?

Creating my bubble...

2010-01-13T08:57:00.000-05:00

So I walked into work today and was instantly bombarded by negativity. I really, REALLY hate that. No good morning, no how are you doing….just blah. So considering that I have to be here until 9pm (super yucky) I figured that I mind as well make an attempt to create my own little bubble of positivity. I have my earbuds in with some kick-butt, feel good music going on and have buckled down to work, but I’m still feeling a bit negative. I figured maybe if I make a list of things that are making me happy on my blog I can refer to it throughout the day….so here goes.

My new bracelet is really fun and I keep catching glances of it as I type…fun!
I have an amazing cup of French roast coffee thanks to the office Keurig that I didn’t pay for (oops…)
My dad just finished the new Agassi book the other day and passed it along to me so I have that to read when I get home this evening.
We just got a wedding invitation in the mail yesterday for a few good friends. Can’t wait for that! Plus, going to weddings after you’re already married is phenomenal because I don’t keep looking at everything and making mental notes )
My kitties are perfect. I fell asleep last night with one purring away on my chest and the other snuggled up between my feet. Why do I keep the hubby around??
Oh right, because he’s great, too! He not only finished all of our trim work in the house, but also hung the blinds and went grocery shopping with me last weekend (to 2 places none the less….good boy)
I’m a homeowner. This really just hit me as I was walking in the other day that I own all of the wood, and nails, and appliances, and land that I was around. Pretty cool feeling!
The Olympics are almost here! I absolutely love the whole Olympic spirit (most likely because when I was younger I was convinced that I would be in them….not so much). I love watching the faces of all the athletes at the Opening Ceremony, especially the ones from little countries that no one’s really ever heard of. They always look so happy and proud.

Alright, I’m sure there’s more….but I feel fairly positive now, so I’m going to ride this little wave of positivity for as long as I can. Happy Hump Day Everyone

The other two co-workers...

2010-01-11T16:51:00.000-05:00

Alright….this post has been a while coming and I’m not feeling super creative, but I owe you all this post. A forewarning that it may be a bit lengthy.

A few posts ago I began to introduce you to a few of my co-workers, in particular The Boss and The Gopher. As strange as these two are, my other two co-workers are just as bad. Let me preface this by saying that I realize that I am not the only person who works with some odd ducks, nor am I whining. I tell you this for the simple purpose of humoring you…and for the potential stories that are to come from these four intriguing persons. So here goes nothing…

We’ll start with the Loud Talker. He is the middle aged man who works in the cube that is attached to the other side of me (so I’m sandwiched between him and the Gopher…oh yeah). Anyhoo, he is ex-military, though I’m not really sure what kind of function he served there. After the military, he began teaching….and that’s where the loud talking comes in (I think anyways). Normally he’s relatively soft spoken, but if you get him talking about something related to his fields of expertise he begins talking louder, and louder and LOUDER until you feel like every other person in the office is cursing you under their breath for making him talk! He talks so loud that I find myself responding to him in increasingly quieter volumes until I’m practically whispering…not that it helps. In addition, he’s a bit smug (a classic, “Oh, you didn’t know that? Well…” kind of guy) and he drives a sky blue Volkswagen Bug Convertible. ‘Nuff said.

And last, but of course not least, is the Annoyance. That’s really the best way to describe her. She is fresh out of college and if you ask her about it she’s sure to stress that it was Ivy League (well, lah-dee-dah). She’s a mechanical engineering major with no education experience who is attempting to teach things to students….and she thinks they all should be as smart as she is and as motivated as she is, and as perfect as she is….whoops, got a bit carried away there. If that weren’t enough she is possibly the most socially awkward person I know. Remember those girls in high school that told all the boys about how they liked to kiss people? Yeah, that’s her..at 23 years old. And those awful forced laughs….again, that’s her…I’ll stop there.

To cap off this lovely posting, I’ll share with you their two stories from today.

First Loud Talker came in to work today hacking up a lung..ew. He finally went home, but only after he informed that he coughed up something green so he figured he probably should not be in the office. Really?!? Why do I want to know this.

Then the Annoyance decided to argue that the only way she would go to a very expensive dinner next week (that we were all asked to volunteer our time for) was if she was paid. Right. Because your ivy league education miraculously made your time more valuable than mine…..nice….

A Holiday Recap

2010-01-04T13:44:00.002-05:00

Goodness gracious…I disappeared for a little bit there. Sorry bout that.
The holidays have a way of getting the best of me and I simply found myself too busy to keep up with my blog. So here’s a catch up…
I know that I still need to update you on my other two co-workers, but that’s for another day as I am not feeling very creative today.
Hubby and I had a fantastic New Years and hosted our first actual party at the new house. No, this wasn’t the elegant dinner party with a few close friends…this was the “I’m almost 30, but I can still drink like I’m in college” kind of a party…and it was fabulous. The hubby grew up at a campground during the summer and ended up with a fantastic group of guy friends that are more or less like brothers to him. They have all found equally fantastic women to shack up with and we have formed quite the close group over the years. New Years is traditionally a campground event, but as we have all settled into actual houses the idea of heat, kitchens, and working bathrooms has taken over the rustic campground charm. The campground traditions have still followed, however, which mainly consist of beer die, a drinking game brought to our little corner of CT from Maine, perfected, and distributed around the country  Needless to say our New Year’s consisted of massive amounts of drinking games and food, followed by 13 people passing out in my house, and then followed by me cooking 13 people breakfast. It was fun.
The next night turned into another night of playing hostess and the following day turned into a day of cleaning and lounging on the couch. Sunday I was mentally prepping for coming back to work…and now here I am.
Other than that, not too much exciting happened. Hopefully you all had a restful holiday season…

A Repost...go ahead and do it to....

2009-12-29T13:36:00.002-05:00

Just saw this on Gidget's blog and needed to repost this. I agree with the power of positive thinking so maybe we can all help out here...
I saw this on someone else's blog this morning. It warmed my heart, even though it's sad. It's the holiday season, y'all. Help a bleep in need.

______________________________________

My name is brandy. And I have a blog.

And a plea.

I use my blog to showcase the crazy I meet everyday, share the stories of the kids I teach and document my love for tequila, dairy products and the abdominal muscles of Ryan Reynolds. Rarely do I talk about personal issues on my blog- as personal as the dude that I adore (who I actually met through my blog- single ladies, let that be a very good reason to blog, the possibility of meeting someone as wonderful as my man), but I need your help. And it involves my dude.

He’s a guy who made math comics for my class, so they would love learning about addition. He’s the kinda guy who sends my friends gift cards when they are having hard times, who remembers every story I ever told him, who was the first person I celebrated with when I got a teaching job. He’s the guy who sent flowers to me at school- dozens of my favourite pink roses just because he loves me. He’s a guy who has spent a year patiently explaining (and re-explaining) everything there is to know about football during the important games when silence is preferred. He’s made me word puzzles and comics and stayed up late playing Scrabble with me (even though I beat him almost every time). He’s listened to me cry about school and family and jobs. He is everything I never knew I needed and everything I always knew I wanted.

The holidays have hit us hard. He’s recently been told he may have something called multiple myeloma- an incurable cancer, that gives a person an average of five years of continued life. Though this news has came as a shock, he continues to be exactly who has always been- spending his time worrying about me, rather than worrying about himself. He’s the most selfless individual I know- (he stayed late on Christmas Eve to work, so his co-workers could leave early) and a post like this would never be something that he would promote or encourage but when I’m overwhelmed and feeling helpless, the blogging community has always given me tremendous support and comfort, two things I desperately need at this time.

As I write this, the future is uncertain and we aren’t sure what’s happening. He’ll need to see an oncologist soon, to verify what’s going on in his body. My hope is that everyone who reads this think positive thoughts and if you are a person who prays, could you add him to your list? (You can refer to him as ‘brandy’s hot awesome dude’). If you don’t pray, please keep him in your heart.This cancer is only a possibility and I believe that the prayers and positive thoughts of people can make sure it never becomes a reality.

I want to give a big thank you to the blog owner who scraped their original blog plans and graciously put this up. My goal is to get as many people as possible to see and read this post. If you are reading this and want to help, copy and paste my plea into your blog or send a link through twitter, so more people can keep him in their thoughts. I would be so very grateful (even more grateful than I am to my friend who first showed me the picture of Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. If you haven’t seen it, google it. You. Are. Welcome).

I realize this all sounds dramatic, a Lifetime movie in the making- but this is life. Right now. And I’m throwing away any hint of ego and am humbly asking for you to pray or think kind thoughts. If you are able to pass this on, thank you and if you know anything regarding MM- please email me (my email is on my blog). This isn’t a call for sympathy or a plea for pity. It’s just one girl hoping you can think positive thoughts for the person she adores. If my current heartache provides you with anything, let it be with the reminder that life is short, love is unbending and no one knows what could happen next. Maybe it is silly, but I really do believe that positive thoughts can make a huge difference. Thank you for reading this and if you haven’t already? Please tell someone you love them today.

I did.

A boss, a gopher, and all around craziness...

2009-12-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

I owe you, my dear bleeps (all 7 of you), an apology. I have been holding things back from you. In my defense I’ve been holding back this information because I didn’t want to whine and complain to all of you. I now realize, however, that by depriving you of my whining I am also depriving you of some pretty hilarious stories. So here goes nothing…

I work in a loony bin.

First, a bit of background. I have always worked in loony bins. I taught high school science for gosh sakes! Last June, to my dismay, I was laid off from my job and was left unemployed about two weeks away from my wedding. Sweet. Now, my master’s degree is in curriculum design and I was a bit jaded about the whole laid off thing, so I decided to take a job that involved me being out of the classroom designing curriculum and programming for teachers. I thought it sounded amazing. I pictured myself brainstorming with equally excited teachers to develop kick ass programs. I saw myself kindly guiding teachers through these programs and helping them to become better teachers. I saw lots of excited students involved in these programs. It was heavenly.

Fast forward to today….I work in a cubicle (I should take a picture) in a small department of 5 people (including myself) who are possibly all certifiably crazy….with the exception of myself, of course . I figured today I would just give you a brief introduction to two of the cast so that as stories come about I can tell them to you quickly and hilariously (because if I laugh at them it seems so much happier around here). I’ll introduce you to the other two cast members tomorrow so that this doesn’t turn into a super long post.

First there’s The Boss. The boss is a bitter woman who is approximately my mother’s age. She has kind of been in education most of her lift, although she has never taught. She mostly dealt with their technology setup….and now she’s giving the green light (or more often the red light) to our programs. She is most famous for bellowing from her office when she needs one of us. If you don’t answer right away, she doesn’t get up, she just bellows louder…in her deep, somewhat manly, voice. She is also notorious for her high standards…that change on a daily basis. Put together a fantastic summary of a program for her that she throws praise at on Monday and on Tuesday it’s a virtual piece of poop. Never can tell what you’re going to get with the boss…

Then there’s The Gopher. The gopher has been with the company for longer than any of us with the exception of the boss and is kind of my superior (though that’s never been totally spelled out…just a notion that I get). The gophers cube is directly behind mine and no matter how I angle my computer he can see what I’m doing…if he pops his head up…which is all the time (hence the name). In his defense, I think he’s just lonely. He’s in his late 20s, lives by himself, and spends every weekend at his mother’s house. And judging by the amount of time he talks, he must not have anyone to talk to at home. Kinda sad. What’s even sadder (more sad, whatever) is that normally I love to talk. But with the gopher you can’t get a word in edgewise. If you could manage to get a thought out in the middle of a conversation with him, I’d pay you lots of money…because it just doesn’t happen. So you just kind of sit there, smile, nod, and think about what you’re going to be doing after work that day.

Stay tuned tomorrow…for the second two cast member who are equally (if not more) bizarre.

I Heart My Hubby

2009-12-20T10:13:00.000-05:00

For lots of reasons, but this weekend has been one for the books. Hubby and I tend to take on a bit more traditional gender roles...not that I mind. So this weekend has been filled with gift wrapping, cookie baking, cleaning, and cuddling with the kitties in my nice, warm, cozy house. For hubby this has meant braving the outdoors. We got some snow last night and as we speak this is him...

I on the other hand am plunked in front of my computer, coffee in hand, pjs on...hmmmm. And yesterday my dad and hubby installed new garage doors for us. Here's the before. They were original to the house (so 1965....or 56...my dyslexic tendencies are kicking in) and were in pretty rough shape.

This is dad and hubby working on the new doors in the frigid cold. Really. The temps were in the teens and they were handeling metal...with their bare hands. What men!

And thanks to their hard work...we have beautiful new doors....

I just re-read this post and realized that I sound like a complete lazy a#@. So in my defense I did do quite a bit of work inside and cheered on my tough guys with soup and hot chocolate along the way. And as a side note, if you're in the CT area and are looking for a good garage door guy, I could easily recommend one to you...he does good work!

Science Friday: It's Back!

2009-12-18T12:58:00.000-05:00

I figured that I'd bring back this little tidbit of knowledge on Fridays because I (maybe) have some sciency people that are reading this that may be interested. So, without further ado....

Hunger-Stopping Smells

If you don't feel like reading the whole thing, the jist is that scientists are looking at how smells influence how full we feel. The idea is that if certain aromas trigger us to feel full then by making foods have more of these aromas we will eat less. Ah, the power of chemistry. A few things about this concern me though. What about those people who eat normally and don't have issues with stopping their food intake (certainly not me!)? Will this cause them to eat less than they should? The other thing is that the human body ceases to amaze me...it's super adaptable. Would this have any effect on how we eat food or want food? And last but not least...my biggest concern...

If we make foods smellier...will we all have awful breath all the time? Ugh....

My motto

2009-12-17T09:06:00.000-05:00

MamaKat's Writer's workshop this week was to describe your personal motto. For anyone who knew me back in high school you would know that I had my "philosophies". I would scour quote books and the internet and write down any inspirational quotes that I came across on little pieces of paper in colorful markers and tape them to my bedroom walls. I wish I could find a picture because (looking back) it was pretty funny. The moral of that is that I LOVE quotes. So I sat down to think about what my mottos was....and then I looked at my blog title. Duh! Guess that kind of speaks for itself.

Dream Big became my motto a few years back when it became my liscense plate. I was fresh out of college, had just moved in with then-boyfriend/now-hubby, and was living away from mommy and daddy for the first time. Life was a big, new, exciting world. So Dream Big it was....and dream big I did....

I find it a little harder to dream big sometimes these days. Don't get me wrong, life is good. I am a happily married, new homeowner with a great job. Nothing to sneeze at. But with all of the real life hassles (bills, work, big girl problems, did I mention bills?) I sometimes lose site of dreaming big. Sometimes reality can get in the way of all of those dreams. But, despite that, I think it's important to always dream and think big...after all...."Reach for the moon....even if you miss you'll still be among the stars!" (Yeah for old high school quotes there!)

Any of you have any mottos???

I have a dream...

2009-12-14T15:47:00.000-05:00

…to be a runner. Dream big, right?

I was always an athlete growing up. I was a gymnast and a springboard diver and I enjoyed a lot of other sports recreationally. I’m the kind of person that isn’t the most amazing athlete, but can hold her own in most athletic endeavors. Except for running….
I have always envied the lithe people that jogged along the road and looked all light and springy on their feet. I envy the people who love to run so much that they drag themselves out of their toasty warm beds at ungodly hours of the morning and run in the rain/snow/sleet. I envy the cute little running outfits that they wear and the fact that when they wear their cute little running spandex you can’t see their entire leg jiggle and quiver. I want to be them…
….and I’ve never been one to back down from a challenge. Those who know me know that when I get my mind wrapped around something I will plan for it excessively and will more than likely see it through to completion (barring any unforeseen circumstances). I’m the girl that had her entire college course schedule planned out her first week of freshman year. So here we go.

I’ve decided that I want to run a half marathon. I’m not quite crazy enough to try a full marathon (yet) but figure a half will be a good thing. And the more people I tell them more likely I am to actually do it. So I, KRadz, will be completing the Iron Horse Half Marathon on June 6, 2010. There. I said it. I’ve even signed up to run my first 5K race already!

I told hubby that I was going to be doing this and I think he was actually a bit proud. He even brought it up in conversation with some friends randomly. I have also wanted a cute, kicky, short hairstyle but have never been able to do so because I carry around a bit too much extra weight in my already-very-round face. So….I have decided that when I finish my half marathon I will be getting that cute, kicky hairdo that I have always wanted.

I’ll try to keep this blog from turning into an all out running diary, but I can’t promise anything. I’m sure there will be plenty of hysterically funny stories that I can’t help but share with you all….and I'll probably need some encouragement from time to time, too. Wish me luck…

Holy Crap I Won Something....

2009-12-11T21:41:00.001-05:00

So for starters I am a completely unlucky person. Sure, I snagged one of the best guys in the world for my husband, but that's about the only think I have ever won (and I've entered many a contest). So I recently ~~took a bribe~~ entered a contest on Jill's blog and won! If you haven't checked out her blog you really need to head there. She's good for a smile pretty much any day. So to my whopping 5 followers....go read her stuff....funny. And thanks Jill...wooh!

(Maybe I need to do one of these follower bribe things....would anyone let their buddies know?)

Irrational Woman...

2009-12-09T18:10:00.000-05:00

I realize that I just posted about two minutes ago, but I needed to share this story with someone (preferably with people I don't see on a daily basis). Let me preface this by saying that normally I am a very sane, intelligent, reasonable, independent person. I can change my own tire, mow the lawn, teach a classroom full of high school students...you name it...i can handle it. But sometimes when I am home alone....I lose it! Fast forward to about 20 minutes ago...

I'm perusing people's blogs, reading about other people's lives and I hear this awful booming noise....sounded like a plow going by. I look out the window...nothing. Now remember, I'm home alone and also a new homeowner. I immediatly think that maybe my pool collapsed (I know...no idea where that came from). Check in the backyard....still standing. Maybe something happened with the heat and there's now smoke or water or some other bad substance filling my house. Check the whole upstairs....nothing. Well if it isn't up here then it has to be downstairs. Oh god! My furnace must have exploded! I tiptoe downstairs, dreading the ghastly scene that surely awaits me. Of course, nothing there. At this point I figure that I just need to get my heartrate back down so that I can think rationally, so I come upstairs and put on the news....just in time to hear the local weather man talking about thunder storms in the area....oh jeez.

I think this is in my future tonight...

Catch-up

2009-12-09T16:22:00.001-05:00

First let me apologize for my lapse in blogging. The holidays always seem to make me a bit frazzled. Here's a quick catch-up of what's been going on around the Radz household. We have our tree up....

We went to get out tree with my brother in law and his girlfriend at this massive tree farm in Northern CT. It was more acres than I could accurately estimate and had so many trees. As I stood and looked out over the rolling hills full of Xmas trees and watched all of the little rosy cheeked kiddos happily tree hunting I couldn't help but be in the xmas spirit. About an hour later and probably 50,000 trees later I just wanted to have my tree. The others had already found theres and I was tired of wandering aimlessly through acres of lovely smelling evergreens. I had Keith hack down the nearest tree and I think it turned out quite nicely (maybe a little small, but it works). The cats also seem to love the tree and have taken to watching tv from the tree skirt. Either that or playing with the tree skirt to the point where I wake up in the morning and the tree skirt is in the kitchen and my living room is covered in little needles. But they are just so darn cute!

We also had our first significant snowfall today! Its so pretty out. This is the first winter, however, that I don't have snowdays....and boy, oh boy, do I miss them. I was looking at all of my teacher friends facebook statuses today and cursing the fact that they were in their cozy houses, making cookies, reading by the fire, or just plain old sleeping....grrr....

The bright side is that thanks to my lovely hubby I didn't have to shovel our driveway! Being a homeowner isn't too bad (although he may think differently). As for tonight, hubby is in NYC to watch the UCONN game and I plan on plunking on my couch to watch so you think you can dance and glee and finishing up all my xmas cards. And with grilled cheese and soup for dinner, snowy New England days don't get much better than this :)

Just re-read this post...holy randomness....sorry!

Christmas Spirit

2009-12-03T15:52:00.000-05:00

I feel like a lot of people are having trouble finding their christmas spirit this year. I feel like everywhere I turn people are saying that this xmas is tough to get into. I personally am having a ltitle bit of trouble, too. Normally at this time of year my shopping is done, my house is decorated, and my xmas cards are all filled out and waiting to be mailed. I have put my tree up (which we actually cut down from a tree farm), but that's all that I have done in terms of decorating. I have purchased exactly ONE xmas gift so far. Horrible! And I just started my xmas cards last night. I'm not sure if its just been a hard year for everyone or if the weather is making it tough, but I thinik we all need to scrounge up some xmas spirit. Now how to go about getting that done....

Any suggestions?

Writer's Workshop

2009-11-25T11:48:00.002-05:00

Once again I’m going to attempt to respond to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop…The prompt was to describe an ER moment so I figure that I’ll give you a few…

I am kind of a klutz (alright, that may be the understatement of the year!) and while I don’t have any funny stories while at the ER I have a few funny stories that have taken me to the ER. I figure I’ll share a few fun stories with you all. One involves me and the ER, the other involved a friend and the ER (the story is just too good to pass up.)

Remember that I am a klutz. I was also a gymnast growing up and would frequently practice things around the house. I turned the railing on my deck into a balance beam, the arm of the couch into a vault, my swing set into uneven bars (you get the idea). I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to also turn our kitchen counter into a balance beam and to practice my new mount….while home alone….babysitting. Sadly enough, I was old enough to baby-sit when I did this…. In my infinite wisdom and grace I somehow managed to fall off the countertop backwards with my ass hitting the ground first. That hurt so badly that it was pretty much my focus. It wasn’t until my cousin looked and my sock and noticed the rapidly expanding red splotch (uh-oh). Turns out that I caught my heel on the (blunt) corner of our dishwasher. Emergency room here I come. The ER docs were impressed when I got there because I had actually hollowed out a huge chunk of my heel which is apparently quite the feat. Although it was pretty embarrassing to explain that yes, my 17 year old self had fallen off a counter while doing gymnastics….
And apparently we don’t get smarter as we get older. Last year (so yes we are in our mid to late 20s here) hubby and I went up north with another couple friend to go skiing. We drove about 3.5 hours and got to the mountain to find the WORST conditions ever. People were trying to sell their lift tickets to us it was so bas so we decided to try something else. Girl Buddy knew someone in the area who had a cabin so we went to visit and ended up having a few beers. After a few beers it becomes a good idea to strap skis to your feet, build a massive jump, and attach a tow rope to a snowmobile (do you see where this is going?). One broken leg later we decided that it wasn’t such a good idea.

Hope you enjoyed a good laugh at my expense….any other good stories out there???

Busy busy

2009-11-24T19:59:00.000-05:00

Sorry for not posting in a while...I've been keeping myself busy with the new house! I had a crazy busy weekend and for your viewing pleasure here are some before and after pictures. Keep in mind that my house is currently a disaster area and that I don't have trim or curtains up in most rooms....

Here's a quick slideshow to show you some of our handiwork...

Notice that all of the walls/trim/ceilings were ALL the same color....at least that's improved.

Our dumb world...

2009-11-17T09:13:00.000-05:00

I was looking through the bargain books at Barnes & Noble the other day and came across this beauty for only $5.

Apparently I am a bit more cynical than I thought I was (either that or my dry sense of humor is just kicking in) but this book is hysterical! It's done by the Onion which is one of my favorite websites because it never fails to make me laugh and basically runs though all of the countries in the world and makes fun of them. I'm not sure if I can post any excerpts for copyright reasons, but suffice it to say that if you are sarcastic you will LOVE this book. And how can you beat $5!

In other news....I can't make my computer stop centering this type. Hmmm....

In other other news....It's Trivia Tuesday so here's your super fun fact of the day.

The uncut stone that later became the Hope Diamond was smuggled from India to France in a horse's rectum.

I don't think I care....I'd still own it....and wear it (if that were possible).

And one more just because I think it's cool...

Fleas mate for life.

Help! I need ideas!

2009-11-13T14:18:00.002-05:00

Alright bloggy folks…I have a challenge for you.

My cubicle at work needs help…desperately. I’ve never worked in an office environment before and now I have this sterile, gray cubicle that I’m finding depressing. I have minimal crafty vision and I know that some of you guys have some fantastic ideas/vision. Help!!! How can I make my cube more homey?

Epic fail...

2009-11-10T13:25:00.000-05:00

NaBloPoMo has turned into an epic fail. I haven’t posted in over a week (I think)! This got me thinking about other epic fails that have happened. Now, in my mind an epic fail isn’t this catastrophic, life changing event. Rather is it something goofy that you do over the course of an average day that’s pretty darn funny to look back on, but kind of sucks at the moment. Luckily for you all I have TONS of those (like last week when I managed to spill my entire glass of red wine into my soup bowl. Positive: no red wine stains….Negative: no red wine). Here’s a few that epic fails that I can think of off the top of my head.

1. Drunken Dancing - There isn’t a particular story behind this one, but instead encompasses pretty much every time I drink and decide that I can dance as well as beyonce. I can think of one time in particular at the campground that I was feeling pretty wonderful and decided to cut a rug at a campground dance (hmmmm). I thought I kicked ass and that this cute little girl was staring because I was sooooooo good. Right. In reality I think I probably looked a bit like Elaine from Seinfeld.

2. Falling in a Sink - I am a high school teacher. For those of you who have never had the privilege of stepping foot in front of a classroom, sometimes it takes a little looniness to gain their attention. In a past life I was a gymnast and I like to think that I still have some of that coordination. I am also horribly short and sometimes like making myself a little taller. My old classroom had lab benches that went all around the classroom and made for a perfect little elevated walkway. Until I stepped into a sink….and feel off said lab bench. I don’t think my kids remembered what I was teaching about at that moment.

3. Security Breach at Los Pantalones - Sometimes when teaching students will giggle at you when you get in front of the class. Usually this means that my pant leg is tucked into my sock or I spilled something on myself so I usually respond with a standard, “What…is my fly down?” Makes for a pretty funny moment when it actually is.

4. Locking myself on a 3rd floor deck…On a 90 degree day…in full sun…in my bathing suit….with no one home. I ended up having to break into my neighbors apt. by shimmying down the roof (in a two piece….cute) and breaking in to their window. Nice. Luckily they weren’t home and I walked away with burned feet, minor dehydration, and a great story!

How bout you guys? Any epic fails?

Trivia Tuesday #2

2009-11-03T08:38:00.000-05:00

Today's trivia fact will probably gross some of you out. If you are squeamish at all about your food, you may not want to read on. You've been warned....

The FDA allows an average of 30 or more insect fragments and one or more rodent hairs per 100 grams of peanut butter.

Hehe...I told ya. I personally don't really care though. I've eaten a lot of peanut butter in my lifetime and I'm still alive. I know that there's also a lot of other allowances that the FDA makes on food products (like various grade meats having certain fillers, etc.). Again, I don't care. I love myself a good old fashioned hot dog or a McDonald's hamburger (insect parts and all!).

I actually wonder sometimes if we are too clean for our own good. We use so many antibacterial products and overuse antibiotics to a point where not only are bacteria becoming resistant to these things, but we aren't helping out our immune systems. In fact, allergy rates in "wealthy" nations are considerably higher than in poorer nations. The thought is that we are so clean that our immune systems are attacking things like dust and pet dander rather than the bad bugs they should be attacking. Hmmm....

Now that I'm off my soapbox...that really is just my excuse for why my house is a mess :)

Inspired...

2009-11-02T18:15:00.000-05:00

I was inspired by this blog of a friend of mind to join in on NaBloMoPo (?...at least I think that's what its called). All it means is that for the month of November you post every day. I'm not sure that I have the ability to make that type of commitment (in addition to the fact that my life just isn't that interesting) but I'll give it a try.

Soooo...

What to say...

I had my cousin and my sister over last night for dinner. It was fun and made me realize how much I missed being away. There's nothing better than yummy beef stew that I didn't cook shared over some wine/beer with a side of good conversation. I don't know if you really appreciate your family until you get older. I have a very close family. My mom is one of four girls all who had at least three children and who got the troops together for practially every holiday growing up. Because of that I still have fantastic relationships with the majority of my cousins. Growing up it was kind of a given that they'd always be around, but as we started to get older and move away that wasn't always the case. I miss the big noisy holidays that seem to be happening with less frequency. We always seem to end up at my aunt's for Thanksgiving though....wooh!

But where was I going with this? Oh, right...I was making the point that its great to chat with people who have known you literally since you were born and who know all of your dirty laundry and still love you unconditionally.

In other news....I have officially been exposed to the swine....keep your fingers crossed that my teacher immune system is still in tact.

Kitties!

2009-11-01T11:06:00.003-05:00

I got two new kitties yesterday. They are 9 weeks old and absolutly adorable. They're brother and sister and they get along great! They've been inseperable since we got them in the house and are finally starting to get a bit comfy. This is Jinx... (he's a boy)

And this is Gemma... (she's a girl)

Think they like each other?

And they cuddle...so freakin cute!

Our weekend in NH...kinda

2009-10-26T15:42:00.000-04:00

So I guess it wasn't really a weekend, it was just an overnight. Consequently we didn't get to see everyone on our NH list, but it was alumni weekend for the soccer folks at SNHU so of course hubby and I went up. Basically, any soccer alums are invited back to campus for a game with all the old alumni, followed by a little dinner, and then they watch the real soccer team play. Since it was raining, not too many of the boys played in the rain but they all showed up for the real game and the mayhem to ensue. It's funny how when the old teammates get together they resort to being the boys (not men) that they were in college. It was silly. There was lots of reminiscing, lots of drinking, some spilled booze, and good times. Yeah!

I also learned first hand that our knives are very sharp last night. I'm ok, no stitches or anything. Sooo I'm a bit clutzy (that's the understatement of the year). I trip over my feet several times a day, spill food on me practically ever time I eat, and somehow manage to walk into every pointy object within a 10 foot radius of my body (but I can still do a back flip...go figure). Last night I was cutting some ciabatta bread (yum) with my brand new bread knife. I did good...no catastrophies there. I put the bread on the table, holding the VERY sharp knife the whole time....still good. I put the knife down on the counter and proceeded to sweep all the little crumbs off of the counter and literally tapped my finger on one of the knife points. Instant blood geiser! I barely even touched the bugger and it sliced the tip of my ring finger pretty good (luckily the one redeeming quality about my red countertops is that they hide blood...hmmm). Now everytime I type the letters "o" "l" or "." my finger hurts (that for example wasn't fun). On that note, I'm out....my finger hurts :)

Writer's Workshop

2009-10-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

One of the fabulous blogs that I read regularly called Mama Kat’s Losin It posts writers workshops. They’re prompts that give you something to think/write about. Usually they related to mommyhood/mommies and I’m never too sure what I would write about. However, I think I might give this a shot this week (and it even related to mommyhood…though not my own).

The prompt: Describe what makes you want to live a life with passion.

The response:

I’m not really sure if this will answer the question, but it got me thinking about my passions. One of them is teaching (I’m not currently in the classroom, but hopefully I’ll be back there sometime soon). Prior to my current job in education, I was a high school science teacher. Unlike most, I can’t pinpoint the exact moment that I knew I wanted to teach. It just kind of happened. I had been teaching for a few years and felt like I was doing a good job at educating my students, but wasn’t sure if I was really “reaching” them (like all teachers hope they are). I related to them, we had fun, they learned…but would they remembering something that they had learned from me sometime down the road. One day at the end of the day, a secretary poked her head into my room about 5 minutes before the end of the school day. She said there was a young mom downstairs who wanted to talk to me and had been waiting downstairs for over a half hour for my class to be over. Could she come up? Of course!( I said).

At this point, I had already had several young moms come through my classroom and had seen many leave and not come back. I was trying to figure out who this could be, when she walked into my room with the most adorable little boy I had ever seen….and I couldn’t remember her name. Wow. Bad teacher. I did, however, remember the girl just nothing too specific. We visited and chatted about how life was, etc. and then she got to the point. She wanted to tell me personally that she had earned her GED and was starting nursing classes at a local college…all as a single mom. I was impressed, but had to ask her why she wanted to tell me…after all I hadn’t seen her in a few years. She said, “Don’t you remember Miss B.? You told me that I had a good head on my shoulders and that I couldn’t let it go to waste.” In retrospect, that is verbatim what I probably said to her one day when she hadn’t done her homework. Not in relation to her current situation.

It was at that point that I realized that my work really does have an impact on other people. I realized that the little encouragements and praise that people give to each other really stick with someone. I also realized that you never know what people need to hear. Now, I’m not perfect, but after that I tried really hard to take time for each of my students personally. Sure, there are times where I wanted to whack them upside the head (but I would have gotten fired for that) and there were times when I had to say things that the kids didn’t want to hear, but I’d like to think that I helped out at least one other person along the way.

My passion is people, not just teaching. Don’t forget that what you say really can make a difference.

Whew….long winded and deep….I’ll try to find something funny to post tomorrow.

Some thoughts on my (our) first house

2009-10-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

I realize that I have been neglecting the blog world over the past week or so, but in my defense we have been moving. We have officially slept in our new house for a few nights so considering that I have a few thoughts to share...

Our house is DARK! There are no streetlights on the road so when we go to bed and there are no lights in it is dark to the point where you can't see your hand. I've stubbed my toe twice already and woke up in a state of panic because I had no idea where I was. At the age of 27 I may have to invest in my first nightlight.
Waking up on Sunday morning to MY sunday paper in MY mailbox and drinking coffee from MY new dishes in MY new living room was really cool (notice a theme there?). I was happy...

I LOVE the color in my kitchen. I am very proud of myself. Check it out...

I am mostly proud of myself because I am horribly indecisive when it comes to these things. I don't really have a style (I don't think) so I'm usually not really sure where the end result is headed. To illustrate this point this is our entryway. Each of those white spots was a test sample that I tried, then primered over. I tried a few more before I finally picked a color for out there.

Again, going with the not sure of my style....I bought some curtains for the living room, though I don't think they go with the kind of traditional theme I was going with. But they're young and fun and I think I like them.

And finally...my husband is amazing (I already kind of knew that, but this just proves it). We were getting a weak, unsecured internet signal from a neighbor's house but it wasn't strong enough to stay on. Hubby rigged up this satellite dish out of tin foil and set our reciever in the middle. It worked!

The first ever Trivia Tuesday

2009-09-29T09:49:00.002-04:00

I have recently been inspired by other blogs and by my love for useless knowledge to start a Trivia Tuesday. Yeah! Each Tuesday I’ll post a random factoid that will amuse you and will hopefully help me get better at that Trivia game they have at Slider’s and Black Bear Saloon…here goes…

Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning

Not sure about you, but that makes me a little bit depressed. I looooove my coffee/tea in the morning and I think it’s way more soothing than eating an apple. On the other hand, an apple in the morning would probably be much healthier. I think that I’m going to try an experiment over the next week (I’ll report back to you on Tuesday next week). I’m going to try to go a whole week without a morning cup of coffee and I’ll eat an apple instead. This could be interesting….

In other news, we close on our first house tomorrow! I’m super excited (though a little bit nervous too…guess I won’t be totally comfortable until I have that key in my hand). I’ll be posting the before pictures up here tomorrow night or Thursday morning. Stay tuned!

The wedding

2009-09-27T15:24:00.000-04:00

Here's the slideshow from the wedding (it's pretty long). If you'd like to see the slideshow that our photographer did just click on the link below!

http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow.html?fl=3118794&alb=130083

The Pre-Wedding Events

2009-09-26T09:48:00.002-04:00

I'm going to do these wedding posts in three seperate sections (so I don't overwhelm anyone). We have literally over 1,000 pictures of the whole wedding process so its taking me a while to sift through them. This slide show is the lead-up stuff. It starts with my shower which I've already posted about (scroll down!). That was such a blast! Then you have a few from our pre-wedding party. Keith and I wanted to just have a little barbecue cookout for our wedding party to thank them for all the time they put into planning our special day. Last is the rehersal and our nail appt. No one thought to take pics at the rehearsal dinner so I don't have any of those, but that was at Smokin' with Chris' in Southington. It's a great barbecue joint that smokes all their food (delicious!) Totally recommend it if you're in the area. Anyways, here's the slideshow.

Science Friday #1!!!

2009-09-25T13:53:00.000-04:00

I do plan on doing an update on this blog (about the wedding and the honeymoon) at some point this weekend when I can go through my pictures and pick out some of my favorites to show you have everything went. In the meantime, in my effort to become better at regularly posting things I have decided to have a few theme days! Playing off of NPR’s Science Fridays, I’ll be posting my own Science Fridays.

Those of you who know me know that I am a complete science nerd. I love all kinds of science (particularly life sciences) and try to get everybody around me to like science, too. I’m also missing being a teacher and sharing all of my neat current events with my students, sooo…you guys get to be my students (you lucky ducks!) Here’s the first article…

Brain Scans Reveal What You've Seen
I saw this on CNN and on ScienceDaily so it must be good. Basically (if you don’t feel like reading) scientists are able to use a technology called fMRIs which measure the blood flow through different parts of your brain and can use that data to determine what types of pictures you were looking at. Obviously they can’t get too detailed and it’s still in its multiple choice phase, but I find this kind of creepy. Fascinating, but creepy. Given that science knowledge increases on an exponential scale (meaning that the more we know the faster we learn more) I wonder what this technology would be able to do in 5, 10, or 20 years? Is this the kind of thing that one day would make our lie detector tests obsolete because we could just plug someone in to an fMRI machine and know their thoughts? What would happen to our privacy? Our copyright laws? Creative licensure? What do you think?

A big 'ol sigh of relief...

2009-06-16T19:08:00.000-04:00

I was laid off from work about 3 weeks ago. It sucked. Royally. I have tried to keep this fact quiet because I was petrified that I'd be out of work for a while and the last thing that I wanted was everyone talking about how I was unemployed at the wedding and hearing how sorry people are over and over again. No offense or anything, but sorry's aren't going to get me a job or earn me money.
The reason that I can finally say that I got laid off is because i got a new job! I'm super excited about it too. First, in case you don't know, I was a teacher and I have been saying that I wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. Sure, I went through various dream careers including archeology, pharmacology (those were my dream jobs anwyays...what...they weren't yours too?), but for a large chunk of that time I have wanted to be a teacher. And for the past 5 years I have loved being a teacher. My career aspirations, though, have always been to be a "teacher's teacher". In fact, according to my mom, I decided at the age of 6 that "someone had to teach teachers so that's what I wanted to do). Up until a few weeks ago I figured that someday I'd end up teaching at a college in the education department.
When I started looking for jobs I decided to peek on monster. com just to see what was out there and ran across an "education specialist" position at the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technologies. I applied on a whim....come to discover it's a pretty cool job. I went on 3 interviews an (wooh) got a job! I'll basically be designing teacher workshops/student programs that encourage students to enter into science/engineering/technology jobs. I get to get kids excited about science! How cool! So I'm jumping right into this...I start next Thursday. Can't wait!

Amazing blog!

2009-06-01T19:17:00.000-04:00

So 2 posts in one day...clearly I am procrastinating on writing all those thank you notes from the shower. I just came across the most amazing blog ever if you grew up the 90s. http://childrenofthenineties.blogspot.com/ enjoy a good laugh!

I was showered!

2009-06-01T15:25:00.000-04:00

My shower was this past Sunday. How amazing! I have to admit, I was completely nervous and a bit guilty about the fact that people had bought me so many gifts (the table was covered...and so was the floor beneath it!). Luckily, once I got over that initial nervousness it was wonderful. Good job mom and Mrs. R.! It was help at a golf course in town and we had a lunch-time banquet complete with salads, finger sandwiches, sweet tea, and spiked punch. With the sweet tea I felt like we were down south. After that we did gifts and I was completely blown away with how generous everyone is. I got everything that I could have asked for and more and some people were so clever. Keith's aunt and I are both avid readers and talk books a lot. She found this website www.booksbyyou.com where you choose a book, enter in information about people and then you get back a book that is personalized. She got Keith and I a book about race car owner (me) and her new driver (Keith) and their romance....ooooh! I doubt Keith will ever read it but it's so cute. I am also completely stocked to have the biggest party ever....so details on that will be forthcoming I guess. :) The shower was also good practice for the wedding day. I got kind of used to being the center of attention and learned that I need to not make so many faces. My poor cousin was trying to take pictures and managed to get a stupid picture of me practically every time! Might be tough to get good wedding pictures if I keep that up. Next wedding related thing is my final dress fitting next weekend. I can't wait!

The troops are getting restless

2009-04-29T19:31:00.000-04:00

May is on the horizon. That combined with the warm weather mean that my students are going nuts! The end of the year is always rough. I usually am ready for summer as much as my students are, but I have to somehow make them think that I want to be in school doing school work and that what we are doing is vitally important (when I know in my mind that whether they remember the name of Darwin's ship is not going to make or break their future). Always fun...

Now sometimes the kiddos are clever. Yesterday one of the kids left school during 8th period (which is wrong, but he did have a study so at least he didn't skip class) and put a tarp in the back of his pickup truck, filled it with water, and drove back to school. This must have been planned in advance because half of the senior class had on their bathing suits and they had a "redneck hot tub party" after school. Innocent fun. It got me thinking about the silly things that we used to do back in high school that adults probably shook their heads at, but that made us laugh. Like the time in Chem class (not sure if you've heard this story Allison) where we were tye-dying clothes and our teacher told us we could tye-dye anything we wanted. Me and a buddy bought in underwear and sports bras. Or the times we used to go sneak into the local YMCA camp after dark to slide down the super long slide (in defense of my coolness it was a long slide that went down the side of a huge hill....and we had Wendy's trays).

Those innocent fun things are the reason that I love teaching high school kids. So much better than the doofus that thinks its fun to come to school drunk or high. Kiddos like that really grind my gears (family guy anyone?) In other news....actually can't think of any other news. So until I can think of something witty....bye

Starting to Feel It

2009-04-20T20:07:00.000-04:00

Welp, we're 3 months it and the stress is finally kicking in. I'm doing a pretty good job keeping a cool exterior, but really I'm becoming a bit undone. That doesn't mean that I'm having second thoughts or cold feet or anything. I'm very sure of my decision to marry Keith. It's all the other stuff. Financially I'm not really sure how this is going to fall into place (I'm sure it will and I'm trying not to drive myself crazy, but it's a bit scary). And all those little details that I keep saying I can't do until later are finally here. Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy the process and all the highs and lows that go with it and i'm really trying to keep that in mind.
I'm having fun with some parts of it...I have my final fitting next month and these little meeting with our minister are actually pretty enjoyable. The parts that are getting to me are who to invite, who to have bring guests, and where to seat everyone. I'm also getting VERY anxious about my shower. I hate being the center of attention (I know, I teach...should be used to it, but this is different). My mother wanted to keep the date a surprise, but she ended up telling me which is for the better as now I don't have to worry about that. Now that I know when it is I just have to gear myself up for it. I know that it'll be fun, but I have a tendency to act strange when I know people are watching and to get a bit short tempered. I'm realizing that that sounds kind of selfish. After all, all those people are coming out for me and Keith and that's special....and I am appreciative...just a bit anxious. Bottom line is that I understand when people say that they just can't wait for it to get here. I'm tired of thinking about it already....

Ho hum...

2009-04-07T22:03:00.000-04:00

Not sure what to post about as I've been feeling a bit ho hum lately. This time of year always seems to drage for. March always seems interminable and then the weeks in April before break seem like they'll never end! Luckily for me, March is over and vaca starts Friday...wooh. Keith actually has Friday off too, which is practically the first day that he's had off (with the exception of Xmas and New Years) since he started. That's a looooong time to work without even a day off and I know he's not entirely happy where he is. He's such a trooper though....keeps his complaining to a minimum. Otherwise, school has been going well with the exception of a few things. One of them is this incredibly unruly class that I have. It's really only a few kids, but they can get everyone off task so quickly. I'm not really a yeller and have used every trick in my arsenal and I still can't get to them. To make it worse, they're 4th quarter seniors...impossible to make them care. If any of you teacher folks out there have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them! Help!

Our marathon weekend...

2009-03-22T18:39:00.000-04:00

So it's Sunday night and I think that I feel more tired than I did on Friday (not good). But we did have a fantastic weekend so I can't complain too much. Keith and I got back up to NH for practically the first time since we moved away this past summer. Friday we got to spend the night with the Krones family and catch up. It has been entirely too long! From there we headed up to Manch-vegas and visted with another old friend and then headed up to Conway for a night with some more friends. I had forgotten how beautiful northern NH is. We drove up 93 to 302 on the way up. If you're unfamiliar with the roads, the ride takes you through both notches, through the national forest, and right past Mt. Washington. It was a crystal clear day so you could see all the way up to the observatory on the top. Absolutly breathtaking! On the way home we too the Kancamagus Hwy, which also takes you through the national forest, but a different way. It's a scenic little road that follows the Saco River and takes you past all sorts of HUGE mountains and sheer cliffs. Add to it that it snowed a bit and it was picturesque. If you ever have a day where you're not sure what to do I totally recommend just taking a ride! And pack a picnic lunch if its nice out because there are lots of little scenic picnic spots along the way. Totally worth the gas money...

A New Addition...

2009-03-11T19:57:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I last posted so I figured it was time for a catchup. Truthfully, up until a few days ago, not much has been going on. I've been going to work, coming home, and not much else so there hasn't been too much to say. I did get Wii Fit the other day. Awesome little contraption. I've been using it pretty frequently and I don't know if it's doing me any good, but it's a lot of fun. It's a snippy little thing though! I missed a few days of weighing in and it got a bit pissy to me when I finally did go back. The jerk!

The new addition part of this is my new cousin (well second cousin I guess). My cousin Kim welcomed her son into the world last week. His name is Kaeden Cashman and he is absolutly precious. Mom and baby are both doing well. I'll get some pictures up here soon, but I figured I'd give them a little while before I attack them with a camera.

We have another new addition, too, to my family....my mother decided to get a dog. She picked up her little Yorkshire Terrier today and though I think that she's a bit crazy to get a dog, I'm sure he's precious. Again, pics will be coming soon as I'm going to see him on Friday! Yeah for new babies (human and animal)!

5 months to go...

2009-02-12T16:50:00.000-05:00

Since I started this out to be a wedding blog so I'll give the wedding update. I opened my email this morning to an email reminding me that we are officially 5 months away...and I think we're doing pretty good. We have decided to print our own invitations and started printing those out the other night. Keith is pretty graphically inclined, so he even offered his opinion. The invites also involve thredding these shiny broach like things through some ribbon. Keith offered to help and it was probably the most priceless moment to see my future husband hunched over some silver ribbon with a shiny rhinestone thing in complete concentration mode. I complain sometimes that I feel like he hasn't really been involved in this whole wedding planning thing, but lately (as we've gotten down to the important details) he has kicked in big time. We registered at Bed Bath and Beyond the other day. Keith came and once again was completely into it. He's even going to the florist with me in a few weekends. I love it! It's so nice to know that he's here to help and that he's excited for the wedding too. I've read so many blogs and talked to so many people who had fiances that were totally hands off...and I think that if he did that I'd question whether he really wanted to be getting married. I have the most amazing man ever...

Oh...and Happy 200th B'day to Darwin!

And here we are again...

2009-02-03T19:04:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am again anyways. So for those of you who don't know, when I was teaching in New Hampshire we went through a very messy contract dispute. In fact, we came about 7 hours away from going on strike. Scary. Throughout that entire time, threat of pink slips and job loss was tossed around like crazy (especially for those of us who weren't tenured. if you're not in the teaching world that pretty much means that your sh** doesn't stink anymore and you have to do something horrendous to lose your job). Anyways, that went on for about two of my four years in Nashua and was finally settled mid last year. It wasn't fun, but I survived.

Fast forward to today and once again I am faced with being pink slipped and/or losing my job. It's a pretty scary thing and one that I am taking pretty seriously, but at the same time am trying not to lose sleep over it. Branford is a pretty well off district usually, but the economy's touch, so we're feeling it now. Because of the relative comfort that most Branford teachers are used to, this is causing a good chunk of them to seriously lose it! There are people freaking out everywhere! I'm not...

I think I've gotten to a point with this whole debaucle that I realize that there is nothing that I can do about it. I can only go into work each day, do the best job that I can do, and go home. The decisions that are being made are above my head and at this point I'm just along for the ride. I could freak out...realistically, I probably should be freaking out...but that's only going to hurt my students and drive poor Keith crazy. So I'm along for the ride again...hope everything works out. I really like Branford.

In other news SparkPeople is working! I have been to the gym consistenly for two weeks! Not a big deal for most, but huge for me. And when I say "been to the gym" I mean that I've had a good workout. I am a master of going to the gym, farting around on the treadmill for a bit, doing a few crunches and saying that I worked out. Not anymore! I haven't lost any real poundage yet, but I feel great. And because I'm not really overweight I don't expect to see the pounds go flying away. I'll be content if my arms and back look hot in my wedding dress :) Which should be in within the next few weeks! can't wait!

Changes...

2009-01-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

I got to thinking today about change (I have no idea why). I was realizing that 2009 is a big change year for me. To start with, in the past 5 months I have changed states, changed jobs, changed apartments (more than once!), made new friends, etc. In 2009 I will be changing my tax return status and my name as well as many other changes that go along with marriage. Now for me, all of these are planned changes. They are things that I knew were coming up in my life and have prepared for, even been excited for. Not all changes, however, are planned for. I think it's those changes that are trickier. This is all inspired by a friend/family member of mine who has become pregnant (who might be reading this...hi!). Obviously a major life change, maybe not so planned for, but change none the less. I think that how a person deals with unexpected change says a lot about their character. Some people pretend like it isn't happening, some get all sad and mopey and "woe is me", some pretend like its no big deal and inside are crumbling...and then there's those that embrace any changes that come at them and make the best out of that situation. I'd like to lump myself into that last category, but I think that I tend to fall into the 3rd category (the act like it's no biggie, but freak out on the inside). Totally unhealthy, I know. Actually, in writing this I'm thinking that I may be in for some unexpected changes throughout my 2009 as well and I'm going to make an honest effort to shift myself over to the 4th category. Because as much as change can be unwanted, unexpected, sometimes even needed or hoped for...it is inevitable. Guess we should all make sure that we handle change in a positive and healthy way. Wow...enough deep-ness.
Speaking of healthy, I was reading Carrie's blog about how she joined SparkPeople, so considering that I usually lack serious motivation I would join the website. It is a website that is kind of like WeightWatchers, but online and totally free. It has lots of great recipes and little groups to join and nutrition/exercise trackers. More importantly, it keeps that kind of thing on my mind. When I got engaged (over a year ago) I said that I was going to get back into shape. Plenty of time to get a wedding body that I want. Now that I'm less than 6 months out and have yet to loose a pound, I think it's time to get serious. So far so good. Now maybe i can get motivated to keep up with this blog thingy more often :)

Struck by Reality

2009-01-06T18:38:00.000-05:00

This will be a short post because I have a million and a half things to do, but I just needed to post this. I have been planning this wedding for the past year. I have been checking things dutifully off of my list of things to do and booking places and paying deposits and all of that fun stuff for over 365 days. Then, all of a sudden, I realized today that I'm getting married. I know that that sounds kind of strange, but I've been planning things from a distance and not really thinking about details, but now that this is officially about 6 months away details are big on my mind. Not to mention that all of my girls have ordered their dresses and one of them came in already! My dress is due next month...can't wait! Reality has officially hit! Anyways, just thought it strange that it just hit me now that I'm really getting married and thought I'd share. Am I the only one who's done this???

I LOVE Christmas Time!

2008-12-21T15:58:00.000-05:00

The past few days have been amazing! We've had snow the past 2 out of 3 days and there's nothing like snow to put me in the Christmas mood. I've been baking up a storm and rocking out to christmas music. Poor Keith even got stuck listening to me singing at the top of my lungs in the show...and if you know how terribly I sing then you'll realize how bad that is! I was singing "holly jolly christmas" if anyone cares. Not to mention that Christmas Eve keeps creeping closer and closer. Xmas Eve is possibly my favorite holiday moment ever. My whole family gets together at my mom's house and I know this sounds cheesy, but it's magical. I always feel so full...of food yeah, but of love too. And we've always seemed to have youngsters around to help us feel that xmas eve excitement. Can't wait! This year will be a special christmas for Keith and I, too, as it is kind of our first christmas together. We've never lived close enough to sleep in our own bed on xmas, but we do this year. In the past I've slept at my parents house and he's slept at his parent's house and we've done xmas morning with our own families. This year will be our first xmas morning together. My mom's a bit sad about that, but we plan to head out of here pretty early to open presents with them anyways. But my cookies are beeping that they're done....Merry Christmas everyone!

silly gym observations

2008-12-17T21:03:00.000-05:00

Gym people always make me laugh. I was in the locker room after my workout and there was a younger-ish girl (probably college age) getting ready to work out. Everything that she did she had to look in the mirror...and that includes putting on deodorant. I dont' know about you, but I can find my armpits without looking at myself. And then before she leaves, she douses herself in perfum (like legit perfume, not like body splash). Strange. It seems to me that if you're just going to get all sweaty and gross its not worth making yourself smell good. Kind of a waste of money.
In other news, all of my NH friends are in my thoughts as they're working through this latest ice storm. I was feeling kind of sad that CT winters are kind of uneventful on the shore, but I don't feel so bad after this. some of them have been without power since Thursday! At least everyone is safe, but if there's anything that I can do for any of you, please let me know. We have plenty of warm beds and we love visitors!
In wedding news, we officially have a church! The Congregational Church in North Haven! The minister is this sweet, goofy kind of guy and the church is a quintessential New England protestant church. It's kind of small, but it'll be so nice to see it full of familiar faces! Can't wait. And...I'm becoming an eBay bride. I ordered some jewelry off of ebay the other day for very cheap. They should come in this week and if they look nice I may have to go crazy with other stuff! And it cost me about a fraction of the price it would have cost me to get them at a store. Can't wait to see them...

Fate is Funny...

2008-12-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

So I haven't written in a while because this time of year tends to be crazy and with wedding crap on top of everything I've barely had time to make dinner most nights. Since I made this blog to talk about wedding stuff I'll do that first. I feel like this is the twentieth time I've said this, but....I think we finally have a church. The date is open, but because we're not members we have to be approved by the deacons...shouldn't be a problem though.
Now for the whole fate is funny thing. For those of you who don't know, my sister Kiersten is my maid of honor. Another FYI...we've had to change the date of the wedding from June to July. Kiersten is in the process of wrapping up her master's program in OT, a pretty awesome accomplishment. Because this is such an intensive program, leading up to their graduation they have a ton of fun events that they do to relax. She found out the other day that her graduation is on the Sat. that the wedding was supposed to be on! If that isn't someone up there watching out for us then I don't know what is. I've always been a firm believer that everything works out for a reason. When I blew my knee out in high school and had to back off of my gymnastics season, I started to coach a bit...sucked then, but what do I do now?? I teach and coach. Fate? Now there's this. As an older sister I've always felt a bit guilty that I overshadowed Kiersten's accomplishments....not on purpose of course, but when you do them first it always seems like a bigger deal. I would have felt awful if my wedding had conflicted with Kiersten's big day. Now we can celebrate all of her wonderfulness and then look forward to a celebration next weekend, too. Wooh!
In other news, school is pretty awesome. I feel so at home in this place already it's crazy! And we just found out that one of my co-workers is pregnant! This makes me happy because it means I'll have a little one to play with, but when he/she is screaming or smelly I can simply hand them back to mom or dad :) Also, we just put up our tree at home! I love Xmas and part of the reason is for all of the decorating and music that go along with it (yeah, the family thing is fun too). I have also recently discovered that TransSiberian Orchestra turns me into a grading machine! I sat down with a stack of papers that was practically to the moon, turned on my Xmas tree lights, put on TSO....and transformed! I got through my correcting faster than I ever have before. It was great. I recommend trying it if you're stuck for motivation. Alright, I've killed enough time here. Hope that everyone has a merry xmas!

1.89 ?!?

2008-11-26T19:30:00.000-05:00

So let me start out by saying that I am loving gas prices. I don't remember them being this low since college! I filled my tank today from "Holy s@$t I'm not going to make it to the gas station" low to fuller than full and it cost me under $25! With gas a 1.89/gallon I can't go wrong. Not to mention that a tank of gas can last me for about ten years now because I have about a 2 mile commute to work, I'm golden...

And in other (less exaggerated) news, I am currently defrosting after a pretty intense faculty football game. At our high school today we had a bunch of homecoming activities. The kiddos sold some food in the commons as a fundraiser for various clubs and sports and then that's followed by the faculty football game and the powder puff game. The faculty game is against our neighbor town rival, East Haven. When I agreed to play I knew that it could get rough, but I'm a toughie. I had so much fun! I got hit a few times and got in some cheap hits on the other team too! What I wasn't expected was the amount of kids that stayed to watch their teachers attempt to be athletic! The bleachers were about half full, but when I say half full I mean very half full. The kids were all close together and sardined in there. So cool! It was a lot of fun and a great way for the newbie teacher to get to know some people and to have some fun. Now I'm just eagerly awaiting turkey day and getting to see the whole family. Wooh!

Phew

2008-11-14T20:21:00.000-05:00

Finally a bright spot in this whole wedding planning debacle! I booked my photographer the other day. She's this crazy lady that I absolutely love. Turns out that she changed her packages too (but don't worry, they'll still honor the old packages unlike some other stupid place..::cough::hawthorne::cough). They are now offering an unlimited package where they'd be with us alllll day for only $200 more. That package originally eliminated the photo album, but when I sent an email to ask about it they agreed to toss it in free of charge if I upgraded to the unlimited package. Kind of cool! LaViera Photography has saved me from going crazy. We also booked the florist...awesome little place called the garden path in southington. The lady was so sweet and good at what she does, so that's officially all squared away. Now the only thing I'm lacking is someone to marry me. I emailed another minister to see if she was available and she wasn't but in her email she said, "don't worry, god will provide." So simple, yet such a profound thought. I always struggle for control. I like to know what's going to happen and to plan for anything in the future. If there's anything that I'm learning from this its that you can't plan for everything and that sometimes you need to just have faith that things will work out and go from there. That's not to say that I'm going to sit back and hope something falls in my lap, but it's at least comforting to know that what's meant to be will be. And if we made it through 8 (almost 9) years of dating, four of which were long distance, I'd say this is meant to be...

Ever feel like screaming?

2008-11-04T16:01:00.000-05:00

I do! I jumped onto my email today after work to check some emails and lo and behold there's an email from the church in which I am supposed to be getting married saying that they can't marry me anymore. What the hell (or heaven)! If I wasn't so sure of the fact that I'm supposed to be marrying Keith I would think that someone up there was conspiring against us. I'm not sure where to turn from now. There's a possibility that an outside minister could possibly marry us at the church, but that will cost a lot of money...more money than I'd like to spend. Our other option is to get married outside by a JP at La Mirage. According to Farmer's Almanac the weather looks good (I know, superstitious, silly). Here's my thoughts...getting married in the church started out being very important to me. At this point, its looking less and less important. I've always been a firm believer that you can communicate with God anywhere and that you can be spiritual without being in church. If I were to get married outside of the church it isn't like I wouldn't be making a commitment in front of my family, friends, and God. He's gotta be able to see me no matter where I am, right? We'll see where this path takes us and hopefully I can get this squared away soon considering that I need to order invitations soon!

A quick observation

2008-10-22T22:27:00.000-04:00

So I went to the gym today and it was very crowded. There were virtually no parking spaces left in the parking lot except ones that were far away. Not a big deal for me...after all I am going to the gym to get some exercise...walking a bit can't hurt, right? I'm walking in and I notice that there were at least 5 cars that were illegally parked either on the grass near the door or had made their own parking spaces to be closer to the door. Now, I know it was a bit chilly today, but really? Is it that necessary to save yourself a few steps when you're going to go plunk yourself on the treadmill anyways? Silly people.

On the wedding front I have officially picked out bridesmaids dresses....and changed my colors (again!). We're now going with a deep purple color....and the dresses are stunning. We all went to Davids Bridal the other day (minus A because she's in NH and I didn't want to inconvenience her too much) and picked out the dresses and everyone like the same one. So things are turning out a bit different than I imagined, but still working out awesome. An I'm officially the queen of indecision...no doubt about that.

And a catch-up on the housing situation. It's the end of October and I'm STILL AT THE CAMPGROUND!!! We had found that place in Cheshire only to move in and find it to be incredibly loud. I could hear the guy next door go to the bathroom! Gross! Needless to say, we moved out (and sacrificed our security deposit...crapola!) and found a new place in North Branford. We move in there at the end of the month and whether that's good or bad, we'll be there...because we have no where else to be :) No really, it'll be awesome and I know that Keith's happy because there's a man room downstairs that's already wired for surround sound. Anyhoo, I'll post some pics next time when I finally have a real roof that is non-mobile over my head...bye!

Home is Where the Heart Is....

2008-09-23T15:58:00.000-04:00

...or at least I sure hope so! Considering that my physical home will be changing yet again this coming weekend, I'm realizing that home really is wherever Keith and I are. We made a wondeful home for ourselves in NH, and although our family wasn't there we have a wonderful "family" of friends that made NH feel like home. This summer, the campground has been home. The people here have been wonderful and it has been one of the best summers that I can remember having. This weekend Keith and I will move to Cheshire into a little townhouse (which is really cute) and that's more convenient to work for both Keith and I. Not to mention, it isn't a camper and has more than one floor...wooh! As soon as we're all set up I'll post some pictures here and of course visitors are always welcome!!!! We'll have plenty of floor space in which to throw some air mattresses and a spare bedroom, too! (Do you get the hint?). In other news, we officially sent out our save the dates to most of our guests for the wedding. Pretty exciting...hopefully people will find this blog through those (Hi!) and I'm sure I'll have more interesting things to post about soon...promise.

A quick catch up

2008-09-15T20:05:00.000-04:00

So last time I spoke with you all I was just starting at Branford. Things have gotten into full swing and there definately have been some adjustments, but it's going well. A few thoughts:

8 period days are strange! I have been used to block scheduling (3 90-min. classes that meet for half a year). Now I teach 5 50-min classes a day plus have a duty. I have been exhausted! But I'm getting used to it and am starting to feel like I can actually teach something in 50 minutes.
CT pays their teachers really well...enough said!
The kids do really well with free time. When they have open periods they can pretty much go where they'd like. You would think this would lead to chaos, but no one really misbehaves terribly.
I work with some really amazing, younger-ish teachers. Not that I haven't before, but Branford is strange. I think that 75% of the staff is under the age of 35. Seriously. And we are all in one staff room and they all actually collaborate and work together. Really neat atmosphere.
These same colleagues LOVE HAPPY HOUR! I think someone goes every day of the week and if you don't go on Fridays then you're a loser.
But despite all of this, I miss Nashua! I miss having people know who I am and having kids come by and poke their heads in. I miss my friends from Nashua and hearing their stories and having them know things about me and having adjacent classroom buddies (my rooms don't connect to anyone).

In other news, Keith officially started his new job today. He's working at a company in Chesire as a software support technician. We'll see how he likes it, but for now I think he's just depressed that he's back at work. I plan to make him a yummy dinner to celebrate/cheer him up. Speaking of which...gotta get to that....

Coming together

2008-08-13T09:30:00.000-04:00

I feel like things with the wedding are finally starting to come together. After a lovely little church debacle (which I won't even start to get into because its long and boring) it looks like we'll be able to be married in the other congregational church in town. It isn't the church that I was confirmed at, but it is a church that I have been to considerably (my brother was confirmed there). And to be honest, I've always liked their services a wee bit better (that may be sacrilegious or something but oh well). We got our save the dates in the mail yesterday! So exciting.....no going back now. We also found a friend's dad from NH to be our DJ. He's a great guy and acquainted with both Keith and I. In fact, we've watched quite a few soccer games together as his son and keith have played together all the way through college. So that'll be nice. We found a photographer we like...now the only major things that are left are bridesmaids dresses and a florist. Nice!

In other news, I officially have to start school next week! I have orientation and then the week after next I'll be really really starting. Kind of overwhelmed about that, but I'll post more when I have more to talk about. About the only new development on that front is that I met the new chemistry teacher. She's nice, but she's no Allison....

Campground living is still going wonderfully. We had a nice weekend here this weekend with all of the old campground folks around. We did some campfire drinking, played some cards, and just relaxed. We floated in the river for a good chunk of time on Sunday which is the ultimate lazy sunday activity. It pretty much involves tossing a tube in the river, tying yourself to an anchor so you don't get swept away, and closing your eyes. Heavenly! We're looking forward to a trip to NH this weekend for a wedding and possibly a brief trip to winnipesauke...more later.

Almost over...

2008-08-06T14:39:00.000-04:00

Just a quick post because I'm realizing that summer is coming to a close and by the end of the month I will be starting a job in a completely new place with new people and I'm slightly overwhelmed. I'm sure that I'll be fine, but I had gotten to be so comfortable at Nashua...I know that how I taught fit in well there and that the people I worked with were awesome. I just don't know what to expect this year except that the butterflies in my stomach before day 1 are sure to be bigger this year. I have orientations with central office tomorrow morning and then building orientation at the end of the month. So I guess here goes nothing...

On the wedding front things are going well. I still don't have a church to get married in yet (the church I had been at fell through....my fault), but we met with a photographer yesterday who was awesome! She just seemed like tons of fun and would put everyone there at ease. Plus she was reasonable priced. Good deal! Other than that, nothing much new. We went to our friends Adam and Courtney's wedding this past weekend. It was really nice and of course I was sure to take notes the entire time. I also got a chance to catch up with some old high school friends. I didn't realize how much I missed the company of some of those folks and it was great to catch up. We had a nice fire, some good drinks, and a nice late night visit to Denny's (yeah, kinda high school, but it was worth it). Welp, I have a Wii date that I should be getting to....bye!