a little early for this, don't you think?

Lately I've been reading a lot of new blogs and - gasp! - even commenting on some of them. I find it a little strange that the majority of them are mommy-blogs. Women who are pregnant. Women who just had a baby. Stay at home moms who write about their children. And, being the recently married person that I am, I have been fielding a lot of baby related questions. When are you going to have kids? How many do you want? Do you think you'll wait a long time? Do you and John both want kids? And on, and on, and on. This has led me to think a lot about babies and being pregnant. Pregnancy fascinates me and terrifies me at the same time. Is that normal?

I do want them. Definitely one, probably two, maybe three if we add on to the upstairs. The problem I am having is WHEN do I want them? Part of my screams "right now!" Another part of me wants to wait 2-3 years so I can establish myself more within my company, so we can save up some more for our "#$&@ happens" fund, so we can enjoy being married for a little while, enjoy the HOUSE we just bought, and so we can figure out how the heck we will pay for childcare or pay for insurance if I decide to drop down to part-time. Seriously, how the heck to people pay for kids? Childcare can be upwards of $900 a month in this area! Childcare! That doesn't include the extra cost of food, clothing, toys, medical bills, and all the other miscellaneous things you don't think about. With fuel costs as high as they are, and the price of groceries constantly rising, I get so nervous about having babies and then never again feeling comfortable financially the way we do now.

Oh, and don't let me forget about the actual childbirth part of things. I read some birth stories that hardly mention the pain, and then there are other stories that focus so much on how much contractions hurt, the 'ring of fire', and other ghastly things that I cannot even think about most of the time. Am I strong enough to go through that? I pass out all the time from pain! Can I really withstand an epidural? What about pregnancy fatigue, how will I deal with that? I am the crankiest person EVER when I am tired. Morning sickness? I have major issues with throwing up.

Is it really weird that I can't stop thinking about this?

730 Days

I cannot believe that my sweet little boy is two years old today. We took this picture the day we brought Marley home - I put my cell phone beside him to show people just how tiny he was. He was such a ball of fire when he was a baby. Always climbing up whatever he could get his claws into, especially our legs at dinnertime. He played so hard for short periods of time and then promptly passed out to regain his kitty-energy for the next go round. He adored his big brother Milo from the very start and even tried nursing on him for the first few weeks! He captured my heart and I have been head-over-heels for my little orange boy every single day since we brought him home.



Marley's 1st birthday was the day before we moved into our second apartment. He loved all the boxes we had everywhere and was always trying to break into the ones that were already packed. He loved our new apartment - it had 17 windows for him to choose from when he wanted to catch some rays or stalk some birdies. He was pretty skittish for the first few months there, but when he was with his Momma hewas the biggest love in the whole entire world. He loved snuggling on Saturday mornings even if it meant staying in bed until after noon. This was the year we learned that Marley hated having his claws trimmed - he has razor sharp claws that he never used in a mean way, but they were just so long that oftentimes he inadvertently scratched us. One trip to the vet and some scary kitty noises later, we decided Marley could keep his claws rather than going through the torture of having them trimmed every month.

Ignore my super-sized arm in this photo, thanks!

Marley has acquired several nicknames in the last two years: mar-mar, little man, mr. man, marley-mar, orange-boy, marzy, marzipan...the list goes on. He has grown into a whopping 14.2 lbs and loves getting treats from Daddy every night. He is definitely a lazy boy and sleeps almost all day, but he does love to play with his laser light and goes nuts chasing it around the house! There is just something about this boy that makes my heart melt. I love him to the moon and back.

Happy Birthday, my sweet boy!

i say we put our best foot forward

I had something a little more heavy than this that I wanted to post today, but I am in a surprisingly chipper mood for a Monday, so this is what you get instead:



1. You wake up in the morning. What time is it probably?
My alarm goes off at 6:30, but 8 times out of 10 I snooze until 7:00. This week I have to get up on time with John because Marley is on antibiotics for pink eye (yes, my cat has pink eye) and it takes both of us to get the pills down his throat.


2. You get yourself some breakfast. What do you make?
Most of the time it's cereal with fruit. If I'm bored with that I'll make a bagel. Or, if I wake up really early, I'll take the time to scramble a couple eggs with toast. Oh, and always a cup of tea (of the caffeinated variety!)


3. Someone calls you on the phone. Who do you want it to be?
Hmm, I'm going to go with no one, because no one calls me that early. Unless it's work telling me to stay home during a snowstorm!



4. You turn on the TV for a bit. What channel do you put it on?
In the morning? Probably the news. But I hardly ever have time to do anything extra in the morning.

5. You have some time to kill before you leave. What do you do?
Geez, this is making me feel like the slowest person ever in the mornings! I am lucky if I get out of the door with any makeup on my face in the morning, let alone have time to kill!

6. You go and have a shower. How long does it take you?
If it's a morning shower it's quick - ten minutes tops. I usually try to take them at night though.

7. You decide to get yourself ready for your day. How long does it take?
Ten minutes? I don't do a lot during the week - mascara if I am lucky. Brush my teeth, put contacts in, that's about it on most days.

8. You put on some makeup. What do you put on?
Very little for work. Mascara, sometimes powder foundation and some blush.

9. You’re ready to leave. What do you take out with you?
My purse, sometimes a drink or a snack.

10. How long does it take you to get to work?
Depends, if I leave on time I take the scenic route by the river and it takes 10 minutes. If I leave late I go straight there and it takes 5.

11. What is the first thing you do when you get to work?
Turn my computer on, check my email, and get started on my to-do list.

12. Do you take part in office gossip/water cooler talk?
There are only 3 women in the office so we gossip about people around town, not each other.

13. Anything particularly annoying about each work day?
Some of the people that I work with - no one in my office though. Sometimes I am annoyed by the fact that every week is a repeat of the week before...same tasks, same emails, etc.

14. What’s the best part of the day?
Coming home from work. Especially if I see John's car in the driveway - I love it when he gets home before me!

15. Do you usually leave on time or stay late? Take any work home with you?
I hardly ever walk out the door exactly on time. Usually I'm there 10-15 minutes late, sometimes more. I don't really take work home because I don't get paid overtime.

16. The boss calls to tell you that don’t have to work, and you’re free for a whole day. What do you do?
Well, hopefully I got all of our household chores done over the weekend! I'd read a book, play with the cats, watch a girly movie, exercise, visit my sister.

17. With whom would you want to spend the day?
Myself! I hate being apart from John on the weekends (newlywed thing maybe?) so it'd be nice to have a day to myself during the week.

18. You go to the store to get some snackage, but it turns out you can only buy one thing there. What do you buy?
A Luna bar. I love them but never buy snacky stuff to keep in the house.

19. You’re walking down the street and you find a magic lamp that grants you 3 wishes. What do you wish for?
1.) Enough money to be a stay at home mom and still pay the bills. 2.) Health for my family. 3.) A longevity pill for my cats so they live as long as I do.

20. You meet a man who says he will give you your dream job, what is it?
I'd love to open a shelter for cats. I don't know the first thing about doing it, but I've always dreamed of being able to rescue the abandoned kitties of the world.

21. You can choose any concert of any singer/band in the world; whose do you go to?
Lifehouse. Front row. Duhh!

22. You get home & there’s a check for $50,000 in the mail for you. On what would you spend it?
Pay off my student loans and put the rest in the savings for our retirement.

23. You get to bring back anyone from the dead, famous or not. Who would it be?
I honestly do not know.

24. You get to interview your favorite celebrity. Who is it, and what would you ask him/her?
Hmmm. She is not my favorite but I think I would want to interview Rachel McAdams. I just think she is incredibly beautiful and talented. I have no idea what I'd ask her though.

25. You get to see into the future but you can only find out one thing about your future life. What would you want to find out?
Am I happy? Other than that, I think if I knew anything major, I'd spend my life waiting to get to it, and it wouldn't be nearly as fun as discovering things along the way.

26. At the end of your perfect day, you go on a perfect date; describe it.

my hero

It's Father's Day, which means everyone on Facebook is posting about how great their dads are, and making photos of their dads their profile pictures.

Not going to lie, I did it too.

But the thing is -- my dad is different. He really is the best father anyone could ask for. He was a stay-at-home dad when we were little and although money was sometimes tight living on one income, I would not trade it for anything.

He is the most hardworking person I know. He's overcome adversity more times than you can imagine. Without going into a lot of detail, he had a pretty rough childhood at times, and a lot of people would use that as an excuse to live the same way as an adult. Not my dad. He has always tried to be the best father, husband, and provider he could be. And you know what? He surpassed all of that. He's more than anyone could ever ask for.


I have the best memories of my childhood thanks to my dad. When we had snow days he would build us igloos and forts in the snow - complete with snow sofas and snow chairs and tunnels that wound through the backyard. When we had a rainy summer day, he made us Native American costumes out of left over paper grocery bags. Every day after lunch we would walk up to the market to get Junior Mints and to stop at the library to return our borrowed books.

He's also know as Mr. Fix It and can repair any house problem you can think of. He built our entire family room addition himself when I was ten years old. He's already helped John and me with countless little projects in our home since we bought it three months ago.

My dad, in one word, is amazing. I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for his support, love and constant encouragement. Happy Father's day, Dad. You are the best!

Balance

I am still anxiously waiting for the photographer to send us the photos from the wedding - I am sure it will be at least another four weeks until we get them. Despite my desire to post about nothing other than our wedding day and how insanely happy I am to be married to my best friend, I am trying to keep this blog active, which means I have to post about something OTHER than our wedding day and how insanely happy I am to be married to my best friend until our photos are in. So. Here's another guest photo to hold you (mostly me) over until the wait is over:



Since we have returned from our wedding/honeymoon, I have felt like such a slug. We ate so much food in Disney which is fine - it was vacation, and Disney food is SO yummy. But, the week we got back was also the start of my monthly hormonal food-fest and I nearly ate my body weight in food for a week straight. Last week I tried to watch what I ate and I did cut back. I ate salad every day for lunch and did not snack as much after dinner. But, one of my co-workers brought in a huge bag of mini Hershey bars (dark chocolate, to be specific) and I had epic fails every afternoon. There was one afternoon where I think I ate 8 or 9 of them! So, while my meals were better, my mid-afternoon chocolate binges did not help my cause.

I weighed myself last Monday and despite my scale suddenly reading my weight in kilograms rather than pounds, I saw the highest weight I've ever seen. To be fair, there was a good stretch of time where I did not weigh myself due to my eating disorder, and it's very possible that I've weighed as much as 10 lbs more than I do now, but it is very eye-opening to see a number you've never seen on the scale before. People tell me all the time that I look great. I don't believe it. I think people say that to me a lot because of my history with eating disorders, as if telling me I look thin will keep those behaviors and tendencies at bay. Wrong.

Yes, I look thinner than I did when I was purging all the time because purging made my face very swollen and puffy. As soon as I went a month without purging, my face totally thinned out. I think the way I dress now really hides a lot of my imperfections compared to the way I dressed a few years ago. I know which styles flatter my body shape and wear those more than other styles. I loved my wedding dress for the fact that it laced up and helped "control" my biggest problem area. But, I am so self-conscious of nearly every part of my body.

I hate my arms. I hate how they look so floppy in a lot of our guest's wedding photos. I hate my scar. This was actually a big question for me on the wedding day - to cover it up or to leave it alone. I chose to leave it alone because it kind of brought John & me together. But, I am still embarrassed to have the Rocky Mountains engraved on my left arm. I hate my thighs. I hate how large they are and the fact that I have cellulite on them. I hate my belly. Sometimes I feel like I look like a pregnant person at the end of the day.

So, I need to do something about these insecurities. Only, it is hard for me to do that without reverting to my old ED habits. It's hard for me to count calories because I tend to get very obsessive about them and over time I cut back more, more, more and even more. It's hard for me to NOT count calories because I lost track of how much I've eaten. I forget that every little bite here and there adds up. I forget that liquids have calories. It's a hard balance to maintain - keeping track but not over-doing it. I love to exercise but I hate actually doing it. I procrastinate like there's no tomorrow. I find every reason to not start. Once I do, I love it. It's getting to that point that is hard for me. I need to just treat it like brushing my teeth or taking a shower - something that just gets done everyday without thinking.

So, here I go. Tomorrow is my first day of calorie-cutting and exercise (on our brand new and very expensive elliptical). If nothing else, I have to use it or else John will be really mad at me for spending so much money on it!

end of the world

The weather this year has been pretty scary.

We got so much snow in January and February. More snow than I've ever seen in my 23 years living in CT. I'm talking foot after foot after foot piled up, some ice mixed in - snow banks so high that you had to literally creep into intersections because it was impossible to see what was coming. Roads were one lane wide in some places because there was simply no place to put the snow. Dump trucks were brought in to haul snow out of the intersections. I remember standing in front of my car ready to burst into tears because it was literally buried in a pile of snow. I wish I had thought to take pictures. We really felt like it would never melt.

Now, we are experiencing some really scary thunderstorms. Between the tornadoes that touched down in Springfield, MA last week (about 45 minutes away from us) and the horrific band of thunderstorms that ripped through yesterday, I've had my fair share of bad weather to last me for the rest of the year. We got sent home from work early when the sky started to turn black. Yes, black. I got home and the phone rang - it was John making sure I was home. He was driving through the storm and said it was intense. Later, he told me he could see the clouds swirling, which would have completely freaked me out. I had every light in the house on to make the lightning outside less visible. I had the cats in their carriers in case we had to go into the basement. I had every candle out on the kitchen counter ready to go.

We ended up being fine. Luckily, John beat the storm to our house so I wasn't alone when it was really bad here. We had the news on, which probably scared me even more, but I wanted to keep watching the doppler to see when the storm would be out of here. It last about an hour, but for those of us who are terrified of bad weather, it felt a lot longer. Thankfully no one was hurt (as far as I know), but over 120,000 people were without power. Ours flickered, but never went out. Thank goodness. I'm such a wimp when it comes to weather - I hate things that I can't control. I know a ton of people who love storms...not me!

So, Mother Nature, if you're reading this, can you please be nice to us for the rest of the year? We thought we had enough bad weather this winter to deserve being spared for the rest of the year.

the story of right now

- I have never in my life enjoyed looking at photos of myself as much as I enjoy looking at our wedding photos. The cosmetology team I hired was worth every single penny. I truly felt pretty on our wedding day.

- John let me buy an elliptical! It's being delivered on Saturday. I can't wait, especially after getting on the scale this morning and seeing a number I've never seen. (PS - my scale all of a sudden changed to metric. Way to confuse me at 7:00 in the morning!)

- We also bought a patio set. We spent too much money this weekend. I love how our yard is coming together, though.

- Is it normal to want to snuggle my cats instead of go to work? It's a dilemma I face every day.

- Sometimes I still wake up in the morning and think, 'how many days until the wedding?' Then I realize it happened TWO WEEKS AGO and nearly faint. How did that happen?!

- Summer is already going by too quickly. I blame it on working 40 hours a week. Seriously, it is not cool being stuck in an office during prime beach hours.

June: Goals

I can't believe it is June already. It really feels like 2011 just got here and now it's halfway over.

I want to try to slow my life down a little. I know that in 3, 4 or 5 years life could be totally hectic if we start for a family soon. We figure we've got about two years of just the two of us before we start trying, so in a way, I feel like I need to really appreciate that time together. As I get older, time seems to go by faster and faster, and before I know it a year has gone by and I can't even remember what I did with my time. Of course, if I sit down and really think, I can remember what happened. January - we were hermits due to the never-ending snow. February - same as January. March - we bought a house and were crazy moving in. April - wedding, wedding, wedding. May - even more wedding, wedding, wedding (as evidenced by my lack of posting!). June - clean slate?

I want to start and end each month with 1.) my goals for the month and b.) reflection on how the month went. Maybe that will help me to really think about how I choose to spend my time and hopefully, I will feel better when I look back each month.

So, without further adieu, my goals for June:

1.) Finish unpacking. Yes, we are still not completely unpacked from our move in MARCH. I want to tackle the two spare bedrooms. This includes putting all of our winter clothes into plastic bins and moving them into the attic for the summer, setting up my scrapbooking/photo area in the smaller bedroom, and putting up shelving so I can unpack all the boxes with my Disney snowglobes.

2.) Put up a clothesline. I have the clothespins, I just need to get the actual line. I know our electric bill is going to skyrocket with the air conditioners if it gets really hot again, so this will be a way to save a little money.

3.) Quit spending so much time on Facebook. Dedicate only one night to spend more than a half hour on there. If I'm going to be online, it needs to be for something more productive that creeping on people that I haven't seen in years.

4.) Be healthier. This month I want to focus on making better choices. 75% of the time I will choose something healthy on my own. When we go out, I tend to WAY overeat. When I snack, I tend to WAY overeat. When it's that time of the month, I just eat all the time, healthy stuff and bad stuff.

Also, I am in the process of talking John into buying a treadmill or elliptical. We have a sun porch in our house and all it does is collect junk, but it would be perfect for a piece of exercise equipment. I would put the machine upstairs, but then that means moving it downstairs when we have kids and the idea of moving big pieces of equipment like that scares me, so I want to put it somewhere where it can stay. Forever. Anyway, we just paid off our Sears card after buying a washer/dryer/oven. There are really good sales right now (as in $1000 off in some cases!). Also, I have to go over a really old bridge to get to the gym. Next week, they are starting construction on the bridge which is going to be a major pain in the butt. There are two lanes in each direction, and they are closing down one lane in each direction for A YEAR AND A HALF. I am used to the bridge because I've lived in this town my whole life and I have to go over it to get to civilization, but people on the other side of the river are afraid of it. It's going to suck. But back to my point: I won't be going to the gym once construction starts. So, I need something here. In my house. So I can't make excuses. But I won't make it a goal since it's a hefty purchase and those kinds of things need John's approval. I'd like it to happen this month, though!

Mr. & Mrs.

I am still sorting through guest photos, waiting for professional photos, and organizing what I want to say about our wedding weekend (there will most likely be several posts), but here is a little sneak peek to hold you over:



It was an incredible ten days, and the wedding itself was just wonderful. It was the very best day of my life and I would not change a thing about it. We are pretty busy getting back into our little routines and cleaning up the house (hot weather + hardwood floors + four shedding kitties = tumbleweed-esque clumps of fur blowing through the entire first level of the house) and unpacking but I hope to set aside some time soon to start writing about our trip and our wedding.

You can watch the "sneak peek" from our videographer if you want a glimpse at our ceremony (it's really just our vows):
www.stvsweddings.com - click Sneak Peeks, then click our names.
username: blu-ray
password: magic

Enjoy!