Updates, things, blah

Yes, it's beeen yet another hiatus, but I am vowing to be a much more diligent blogger. Er, something. Mary is in Costa Rica for the second time and I eagerly await her fun tales and amazing pictures. Some day, I will be able to go with her.

It is still miserable, grey, cold winter in Rochester. This week I have determined that I am finished with winter. I'm tired of bundling up, lacing up my boots, and shivering whenever I step out of my house. I want to see the sun again, maybe some green on the ground, and maybe wear a lighter jacket. When in reality, we have a couple more months of this.

The biggest thing on my end is that we are selling our house. The shit economy has officially hit our family in that Brad is still struggling to find a full time job and we have determined we just can't do it anymore. So we here we are, 2 1/2 years later, going on the real estate roller coaster again. It took us six months to sell our last house and with the economy being even worse than it was then, I am fearful of what that will mean for this time around. But, one day at a time and all that crap.

My birthday is approaching, which I somehow keep forgetting. I will be 33. Hmmm, ok. I'm thinking I won't really care about that number until it's one or two shy of 40. Since I've had Dominick, I tend to forget about my birthday because his birthday is at the end of March and I am always thinking about his party and what to do for him.

I am also gearing up for the Oscars. My friend Laura and I are finally watching the show together this year. Much food and wine will be consumed. The Oscars are like our SuperBowl. We know we are dorks, we fully embrace our dorkdom and flip off anyone who rolls their eyes at it. We all have our "things", this is ours. We are both pulling for The Hurt Locker for Best Picture and Kathrun Bigelow for Best Director. It would be quite an achievement since she would be the first female director to win in the history of the Oscars. So woo hoo, go girl power, or something.

More updates to come...

Less than a month and counting

I am in the last month of my pregnancy and let me just say, it has felt like a very, very long haul. Starting out with the extreme sickness, the scares here and there, and now the discomfort, it feels like it's been about five years. BUT, here we are in the home stretch and we are ready for this little girl to make her arrival. Here I am at about 36 1/2 weeks:



I have put on more weight this time than I did with Dominick, but I already have my plan set on how to drop it (hopefully). This weekend we also put the finishing touches on the nursery. I am really excited with how it turned out.

From the hallway:





The "main" shot. I haven't set up the bedding yet as the two cats would get in the crib and sleep all over it and I don't want to wash everything for a second time. So I just hung it to give an idea of where the colors came from. The blanket on the left was the first thing we saw that we loved and the quilt is from the set we got. Yay Target!





And apparently I can't hold a camera straight to save my life, but here is the last shot:



We are really happy with how it all turned out. I bought almost all of the pictures on the walls through Etsy. A fantastic site with lots of great art. We bought these, this, this, and two other ones. It's a great site, I highly recommend it.

It is definitely spring time up here in NY and we've been lucky to not have too many heat waves. I say lucky just because I haven't had to deal with the ridiculous amount of swelling and sweating that I would have to endure come such heat wave. But it has been nice to just wear capris and flip flops, considering no other shoes fit. I have deemed my legs as either elephant legs, or overstuffed sausages and my toes as lil' smokies. Sitting all day at work does a number on my legs. It is all in the name of something great, and hopefully she will be here soon!

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.

What a week

It has been one hell of a week for me. I'll start with the more happy news. Most everyone in my life knows this by now, but I am pregnant with our second. I am in my 12th week and what a long, horrible, and sick road it has been. I have never been so sick in my life. It was never this bad with Dominick, where I was at least able to function on a daily basis. This time, not so much. I took more time off work then I did all year for myself due to not being able to get out of bed, or hold water down. Everyone says, "Oh, it's all worth it, don't worry, it will go by quickly." Mmhmm. These are the people who a) have never had sickness to this extreme or b) just don't want to hear you complain anymore. But, alas, come Thanksgiving Day, I was able to eat something besides crackers and water, and it has been a very slow, gradual slope from there. Although I still get sick in the morning, I am still able to eat normal foods, just nothing with grease yet. I seem to be back to craving cheese: mac and cheese, cream cheese, whatever. I have a nice list of places I have to eat when I feel back to my normal self again, if that ever happens. Which I'm starting to think, never will. I will always be falling asleep at 7:30 every night and I will never be able to eat from a restaurant again. So, that has been my life for the past couple of months. So far the #1 highlight happened a couple of weeks ago when I threw up in my car after dropping Dominick off at my mom's. Luckily I learned with Dominick to keep a plastic bag in the car, so it didn't go all over. But, still just as bad as you would imagine it to be. That story is definitely going in the baby book! Yay motherhood!

This week has been a sad one for my family as one of my parents' beloved dogs, Orion, passed away on Tuesday. We have had Big O since he was 8 weeks old and died at the age of 15 (almost 16). He has had problems with his hips and would lose control of his bowels, so we knew he wouldn't be around too much longer. My father came home from work on Tuesday and found him in the living room, so my mom came home and they called the vet. My brother, who had a special bond with O, wanted to have him cremated so he could have his ashes, so that is what they did. Their other dog, Sekkara, has been doing fine. She was a bit lost on Tuesday night, but my mom says that she seems to be doing just fine. We got Sekkara when she was 2 and we realized when we adopted her, that from her birth date and markings, that she was Orion's litter mate! Talk about coincidence. So brother and sister were united again. It was hard to explain to Dominick why Orion wouldn't be at Boppy and Grandma's house anymore, but I think his little brain processed about as much as it could, and he has been fine with it since. It will take some getting used to of being at their house and having only one dog there instead of two, but, such is the circle of life. We miss you, big guy.

Today is my last day of work until the 29th and I am so excited. I haven't taken the week of Christmas off pretty much since I started working out of college. Today we are getting hit with our first huge storm of the season: 8 to 12 inches by late tonight. It should start pretty much any time now and just keep going all day. We are pretty much guaranteed a white Christmas this year as this is the first of a couple of fronts that will plow through our area. I will definitely get some pictures of all of the snow as I'm sure we'll all be out shoveling and playing.

So, that is about all of the news that's fit to print on this Friday morning. Stay warm!

Fall is here

Fall has officially arrived in upstate NY. It is my favorite time of year: the air turns crisp, the leaves change colors, pumpkins, apples, apple cider, donuts, Halloween, it's just a fun time of year. Of course, it ushers in the long haul of winter, but I enjoy fall while I can. It has been raining a lot, so I don't have many pictures to post, but it is supposed to be a perfect fall weekend this weekend, so I plan on getting out and taking lots of pictures to share. My five year anniversary is coming up and we managed to luck out and get married on the one good Saturday in October that year. Sunshine, leaves peeking, perfect temperatures, it was great.



I did go to see Choke this past weekend and it was awesome. I have been slacking on writing reviews for BoO, so I will be doing that very soon. It was a great adaptation of the book and managed to get every plotline from the book into the movie without overdoing any of it. The performances were great as well.

Had my second round of acupuncture and it was just as good as the first. I have had one or two headaches since then, but I am thinking that it's just going to take a good amount of visits to get the pain under control. Until that point, I am going to buy a big tube of the Traumeel she gave me (as she calls it, "the elixir of life") and carry it with me all the time. I can't believe how well it works. Screw IcyHot or anything like that, this stuff relieves the pain within minutes, it's insane. So I have another appointment this Saturday as well.