Kicking off '09

Well we have survived the holidays and have started another year. Another year of changes, surprises, and who knows what else. I am in my 15th week of pregnancy and things have improved. I am still sick first thing in the morning, but that is it. I can eat normal food, I just have to eat slower and usually smaller meals. But I will take that any time over what I was dealing with for two straight months. Now that the nausea is passing, I can start to feel a bit more excited about this little stinker. I have lost 10 pounds due to the sickness, usually this is something to be happy about, but not so much when you have a little bean growing in your abdomen. I'm pretty sure that I'm doing a good job of putting the weight back on with countless meals of mac and cheese, bagels and cream cheese, and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Hey, it all has calcium, right?

This time of year starts my movie geek time of year. As I tell my friend Laura, who is the main person I share this geekdom with, this is our SuperBowl. Award season for movies is a challenging, exciting, aggravating, and everything in between. Over the past couple of years, I have tried my hardest to see all of the pictures nominated. So far I have seen Rachel Getting Married (NOT that impressed with it) and today I have seen The Reader, which was really fantastic. I am waiting for the biggies to open up over the next couple of weeks in our area: The Wrestler and Revolutionary Road. I have heard wonderful things about Slumdog Millionaire, but I am not overly attracted to it, so we'll see. Another one I struggle with is Milk. Not because of the story, which looks extremely interesting, but because of my strong dislike of Sean Penn. Hopefully I can get over that to watch the movie. There are lots of favorites in each category, so we'll see what The Globes bring us tomorrow night. That will be a good telling of what the Oscars will hold. Considering I hold The Dark Knight as my #1 movie of 2008, I'm anxious to see if a comic book movie can make the cut for Best Picture. And I believe Heath to be above and beyond deserving of Best Supporting Actor wins as he did such a phenomenal job with ingratiating himself into The Joker. But I digress, and like I said, it's my big geek time of year.

January brings really cold weather and more snow. We are getting several inches of snow as I type and it is holding in the upper teens, lower 20s. I am officially sick of winter. Would it be possible to be snow birds in our 30s? If only we weren't so attached to our home town, I'd love to relocate, because winter has worn out it's charm for us. Dominick loves to be outside in the snow, as does Logan, so we'll suffer for the next few months and think ahead to the beautiful, green, warmer days of spring.