When Pearl invited me to the church sewing circle, my brain scrambled quickly for ways to turn her down politely.
“I don’t really sew,” I tried. She assured me that it didn’t matter. Many of the members didn’t sew. I could help knot comforters, and they could teach me if I wanted to learn to hand-quilt.
“I don’t have anyone to watch my son.” That didn’t matter either. He could play while we worked, and I could tend to him as needed. The members all brought their kids when they were younger, too.
Out of excuses, I told her maybe, and went on my way.
I really didn’t think sewing circle was the place for me. There’s a pretty good chance that you think the same thing.
But one week, I found myself going a bit stir-crazy at home, and I looked at the calendar and saw that it was sewing circle day. Sure, why not? I thought to myself. At least it will get me out of the house.
Fast forward a few months, and I now count myself as a regular member.
It’s hard to describe sewing circle to an outsider. It’s not a club for people who like to sew, as I thought it would be. Half the ladies there don’t even sew. Sewing is a means to an end, rather than the end itself. These ladies do nothing for themselves. Everything they work on together is for someone else. Their comforters go to families in need. Their quilts go to the Mennonite Central Committee so they can be auctioned off, and the proceeds can be used to send the comforters overseas. It’s a mission and a ministry.
Sewing Circle is not just a social club for the older ladies in the church, although that element is present. While their hands are stitching and knotting, their mouths are talking, and their hearts are sharing. Once upon a time, they shared their parenting struggles, and gave loving advice to one another. As their families grew, their stories changed, but they continued to be there for one another. They held each other up as they became widows, prayed for each other as they received bad news from their doctors, comforted each other as they watched their friends go home to be with the Lord.
Our sewing circle is dying. Both literally and figuratively. Every year, there are fewer members and fewer finished projects. This is the 62nd year of the sewing circle at our church, and it may very well be the last. Our president has terminal cancer, and when the Lord takes her home, there is no one to take her place.
Maybe sewing circles are a thing of the past. Maybe their time has come and gone. Maybe today’s women just don’t have time to sit around making quilts. And if that’s all that was going on at sewing circle, maybe we should just end this chapter and close the book.
But sewing circle isn’t just a social club. It has a heart that beats with love for people in need, near and far. And if no one takes up the torch, that heart will stop beating.
I’m asking for a favor: Help me save the sewing circle. Come to a meeting. It doesn’t matter if you know how to sew. Sewing is just a means to an end, remember. And if you care about that end, we can work together on the means.
I don’t know what sewing circle will look like in 20 years. Maybe it will look exactly the same as it did 20 years ago, with ladies sitting around the quilting frames, chatting and sharing, while their children play together off in the corner. Or, maybe we won’t even be making quilts anymore. That would be okay, though. Because the quilts are nice, but the quilts aren’t the heart of the sewing circle. The people are.
The Sandy Hill Sewing Circle meets on the first Tuesday of every month in the Fellowship Hall. Come any time after 8:30, and stay as long as you can. We stop to discuss business and have brief devotional time around 11, and we break to eat lunch at some point after that. Bring a bagged lunch if you’d like to stay longer. If you need directions, they are available on the church website.
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friends. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 14, 2017
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Casserole Club
Some friends and I recently started a Casserole Club. The concept is simple: One night a week, you make two casseroles for dinner, and you take one of those casseroles to someone else. And one night a week, you don't have to make dinner, because a hot casserole will be arriving at your door, ready to eat.
This is such a great arrangement. It's not that much more work to make two identical casseroles, and one night a week, I don't have any cooking/prep dishes to wash! It's also great motivation on those days I don't feel like making dinner - I might be lazy and order pizza if I'm just cooking for my family, but when someone else is depending on me, I will roll up my sleeves and make a real meal. Casserole Club means that even when Mama is feeling lazy, the family gets two solid dinners every week (plus leftovers for lunch!)
I'm really enjoying my Casserole Club, and I thought I would share my "rules" with you, in case you wanted to start one of your own. Feel free to tweak and personalize these rules to fit your own needs. And let me know if you start one of your own, I'd love to hear your experiences!
Organization
Start with a small group of like-minded people who live fairly close together (no more than a 15-minute drive). We have three families in our Casserole Club, but I think anywhere from 2-6 would work well. Choose a coordinator.
Have everyone fill out a brief survey and send it to the coordinator. This is the survey I used: Name, number of family members, address (and any details people might need to find your house), phone number, dietary restrictions (including allergies and preferences), what time you normally eat dinner, what nights work best for you (list at least two, Monday-Thursday only).
The coordinator will then make up a weekly casserole assignment schedule. I made a little grid with the members and their availability, to visualize it, then I matched them up. It might take a while the first time, but once you've figured it out once, it's easier to make the schedules for subsequent weeks. Since we have three families, and I want everyone to get to cook for everyone else, I have two base schedules: Week One: A cooks for B on Tuesday, B cooks for C on Wednesday, and C cooks for A on Thursday; Week Two: B cooks for A on Tuesday, C cooks for B on Wednesday, and A cooks for C on Thursday.
I email out each week's assignments on Saturday for the following week. When I send out the assignments, I also include the relevant survey information (addresses, phone numbers, dietary restrictions) to the assignees. If anyone has to make any changes to their availability, they need to let me know by Friday night, so I can incorporate the changes into the assignments. Anyone can opt out of any given week (if they are going on vacation or something) as long as they email me by Friday to let me know.
Have everyone buy the same casserole dish. We chose a basic 13X9 Pyrex dish with a lid, but it doesn't really matter what it is as long as you all have the same one. That way, there is no concern over returning dishes - you just always make your Club meals in the Club dish.
The Rules
On your assigned day, make and deliver a casserole to your assigned family. As a courtesy, you should contact them when you are on your way so they know you are coming.
Deliver it by 5:30, hot and ready to eat, unless other arrangements have been made (e.g. dropping off a cold casserole earlier, with baking instructions).
All casseroles should be a complete meal - with a protein, a starch, and a vegetable.
Meals don't have to actually be cooked in the casserole dish, you can prep them in the crock pot or any other way you'd like, but use the Club dish to deliver them (to keep things simple).
Each casserole should have at least six servings. For smaller families, this will mean dinner plus leftovers for lunch, for bigger
families, this will just mean dinner, but it's more fair to everyone if everyone always brings the same amount of food.
It's not required, but it's nice to let people know with a short email if you enjoyed their meal. It's good to get feedback!
Variations
If you don't have enough friends who live locally, maybe you could make more casseroles at once, then meet up at a midpoint and swap. If you had five friends do this together, you could have a week's worth of frozen meals in one go.
If you're cooking for one, maybe you could divide your casserole up into single servings, and meet up and swap with some other single friends.
If you know someone who just had a baby, (or surgery, or an injury) maybe you could make three casseroles at once - one for you, one for the Club, and one for the new mom.
This is such a great arrangement. It's not that much more work to make two identical casseroles, and one night a week, I don't have any cooking/prep dishes to wash! It's also great motivation on those days I don't feel like making dinner - I might be lazy and order pizza if I'm just cooking for my family, but when someone else is depending on me, I will roll up my sleeves and make a real meal. Casserole Club means that even when Mama is feeling lazy, the family gets two solid dinners every week (plus leftovers for lunch!)
I'm really enjoying my Casserole Club, and I thought I would share my "rules" with you, in case you wanted to start one of your own. Feel free to tweak and personalize these rules to fit your own needs. And let me know if you start one of your own, I'd love to hear your experiences!
Organization
Start with a small group of like-minded people who live fairly close together (no more than a 15-minute drive). We have three families in our Casserole Club, but I think anywhere from 2-6 would work well. Choose a coordinator.
Have everyone fill out a brief survey and send it to the coordinator. This is the survey I used: Name, number of family members, address (and any details people might need to find your house), phone number, dietary restrictions (including allergies and preferences), what time you normally eat dinner, what nights work best for you (list at least two, Monday-Thursday only).
The coordinator will then make up a weekly casserole assignment schedule. I made a little grid with the members and their availability, to visualize it, then I matched them up. It might take a while the first time, but once you've figured it out once, it's easier to make the schedules for subsequent weeks. Since we have three families, and I want everyone to get to cook for everyone else, I have two base schedules: Week One: A cooks for B on Tuesday, B cooks for C on Wednesday, and C cooks for A on Thursday; Week Two: B cooks for A on Tuesday, C cooks for B on Wednesday, and A cooks for C on Thursday.
I email out each week's assignments on Saturday for the following week. When I send out the assignments, I also include the relevant survey information (addresses, phone numbers, dietary restrictions) to the assignees. If anyone has to make any changes to their availability, they need to let me know by Friday night, so I can incorporate the changes into the assignments. Anyone can opt out of any given week (if they are going on vacation or something) as long as they email me by Friday to let me know.
Have everyone buy the same casserole dish. We chose a basic 13X9 Pyrex dish with a lid, but it doesn't really matter what it is as long as you all have the same one. That way, there is no concern over returning dishes - you just always make your Club meals in the Club dish.
The Rules
On your assigned day, make and deliver a casserole to your assigned family. As a courtesy, you should contact them when you are on your way so they know you are coming.
Deliver it by 5:30, hot and ready to eat, unless other arrangements have been made (e.g. dropping off a cold casserole earlier, with baking instructions).
All casseroles should be a complete meal - with a protein, a starch, and a vegetable.
Meals don't have to actually be cooked in the casserole dish, you can prep them in the crock pot or any other way you'd like, but use the Club dish to deliver them (to keep things simple).
Each casserole should have at least six servings. For smaller families, this will mean dinner plus leftovers for lunch, for bigger
families, this will just mean dinner, but it's more fair to everyone if everyone always brings the same amount of food.
It's not required, but it's nice to let people know with a short email if you enjoyed their meal. It's good to get feedback!
Variations
If you don't have enough friends who live locally, maybe you could make more casseroles at once, then meet up at a midpoint and swap. If you had five friends do this together, you could have a week's worth of frozen meals in one go.
If you're cooking for one, maybe you could divide your casserole up into single servings, and meet up and swap with some other single friends.
If you know someone who just had a baby, (or surgery, or an injury) maybe you could make three casseroles at once - one for you, one for the Club, and one for the new mom.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Mommy Friends
I have a confession to make. I'm having a really hard time making friends with other moms. It's not for lack of trying. I join playgroups, I join online meetup groups, I make walking dates and playdates. But here I am, over a year into motherhood, and I can count the number of other moms that I would call "friends" on one hand. With several fingers left over.
I guess I imagined that becoming a mom would fling me headfirst into the mommy world, and I would miraculously fit in. But it didn't, and I don't. I get together with other moms, and I find my normally ebullient self shutting down, and slipping into outside observer mode.
It's hard to talk to other moms. We have this one, enormous thing in common. Parenthood. And it's a rather enormous field of subjects, so we can occupy ourselves for hours simply on that one topic. But that may be the only thing we have in common. And "mommy-talk" really gets to me after a while. If we talk about the good things, it comes across as bragging. If we talk about the bad things, we open ourselves up to unsolicited advice, or, worse yet, that also comes across as bragging. Sometimes I feel like parenting becomes a competition, one way or the other. Whose child started walking the earliest? Who got the least sleep last night?
And it's almost impossible to talk about parenting choices with other moms. I've made a fair number of "alternative" parenting choices so far, and I'm sure there will be more to come. Babywearing, cosleeping, gentle discipline, cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, extended breastfeeding, selective vaccinations. And I honestly enjoy discussing these types of issues, and the thought processes that go into making these types of decisions. But it's almost impossible to have those kinds of discussions with moms who have stuck to the more "mainstream" choices. I actually talk about breastfeeding more with my single, male friends than I do with other moms. I suppose because other moms are too close to the issue. It's hard to have a stimulating intellectual discussion about something that you are in the middle of living. When you're too close to something, "I chose not to do X because..." sounds an awful lot like "You are a bad person because you do X." It's a bit easier if you manage to find a mom who agrees with you on something. You state your view, with enormous relief, because you can't say it to anyone else, and she responds, with equal relief, because she's been dying to say the same thing. But it's not a conversation that goes anywhere. You vent, you agree, the end.
I go through phases where I just want to give up entirely on making mom friends. I usually enjoy myself more with my pre-mom friends. Talking about the rest of the broad spectrum of non-parenting-related subject matter. Playing games. Hanging out. But as much as I enjoy myself with my non-mom friends, there is this enormous part of my experience that they don't understand first-hand. Becoming a parent redefined me, redefined my world-view, redefined my priorities. Other moms can understand that, and that's an immensely valuable connection to make. Being friends with other moms is important for precisely the same reason that it's hard: motherhood is so close to our hearts.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I know how mommy relationships should be, and all those other mommies out there are doing it wrong. It's more the opposite, actually. From my "outside observer" stance, it seems like mommy friendships are genuinely working for other people. I feel like a kindergartner who got bumped up to high school math because she knew how to do polynomial equations. I feel like I don't belong here. I just want to go back to my play-dough.
On the bright side, there are one or two other kindergartners that have been bumped up as well, and we can build play-dough pizzas together while solving those polynomials. And it seems like there are a few high school students who, against all odds, like play-dough too. And even though I know I'm taking the analogy too far, it's not all bad. Confusing as all get out, but not all bad.
I guess I imagined that becoming a mom would fling me headfirst into the mommy world, and I would miraculously fit in. But it didn't, and I don't. I get together with other moms, and I find my normally ebullient self shutting down, and slipping into outside observer mode.
It's hard to talk to other moms. We have this one, enormous thing in common. Parenthood. And it's a rather enormous field of subjects, so we can occupy ourselves for hours simply on that one topic. But that may be the only thing we have in common. And "mommy-talk" really gets to me after a while. If we talk about the good things, it comes across as bragging. If we talk about the bad things, we open ourselves up to unsolicited advice, or, worse yet, that also comes across as bragging. Sometimes I feel like parenting becomes a competition, one way or the other. Whose child started walking the earliest? Who got the least sleep last night?
And it's almost impossible to talk about parenting choices with other moms. I've made a fair number of "alternative" parenting choices so far, and I'm sure there will be more to come. Babywearing, cosleeping, gentle discipline, cloth diapering, baby-led weaning, extended breastfeeding, selective vaccinations. And I honestly enjoy discussing these types of issues, and the thought processes that go into making these types of decisions. But it's almost impossible to have those kinds of discussions with moms who have stuck to the more "mainstream" choices. I actually talk about breastfeeding more with my single, male friends than I do with other moms. I suppose because other moms are too close to the issue. It's hard to have a stimulating intellectual discussion about something that you are in the middle of living. When you're too close to something, "I chose not to do X because..." sounds an awful lot like "You are a bad person because you do X." It's a bit easier if you manage to find a mom who agrees with you on something. You state your view, with enormous relief, because you can't say it to anyone else, and she responds, with equal relief, because she's been dying to say the same thing. But it's not a conversation that goes anywhere. You vent, you agree, the end.
I go through phases where I just want to give up entirely on making mom friends. I usually enjoy myself more with my pre-mom friends. Talking about the rest of the broad spectrum of non-parenting-related subject matter. Playing games. Hanging out. But as much as I enjoy myself with my non-mom friends, there is this enormous part of my experience that they don't understand first-hand. Becoming a parent redefined me, redefined my world-view, redefined my priorities. Other moms can understand that, and that's an immensely valuable connection to make. Being friends with other moms is important for precisely the same reason that it's hard: motherhood is so close to our hearts.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I know how mommy relationships should be, and all those other mommies out there are doing it wrong. It's more the opposite, actually. From my "outside observer" stance, it seems like mommy friendships are genuinely working for other people. I feel like a kindergartner who got bumped up to high school math because she knew how to do polynomial equations. I feel like I don't belong here. I just want to go back to my play-dough.
On the bright side, there are one or two other kindergartners that have been bumped up as well, and we can build play-dough pizzas together while solving those polynomials. And it seems like there are a few high school students who, against all odds, like play-dough too. And even though I know I'm taking the analogy too far, it's not all bad. Confusing as all get out, but not all bad.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Holidays and Whatnots
Well, I disappeared from the internet for a week or so, but I'm sure you didn't notice, because I update this blog so infrequently as it is. It was nice to have a respite from my technological ball-and-chain, even if it does mean that I missed at least one Facebook birth announcement while I was gone. (Congratulations Maryalice!)
We drove to Ottawa for Christmas this year, and I can now say that driving 900 miles round trip with a four-month-old is much, much better than driving the same trip with a two-month-old. In fact, she slept a good portion of the trip, and she seems to be overcoming her fear of the dark, so we might break out the old parental "drive through the night" trick next time around and see how that goes. It was still a long trip (about 9 1/2 hours each way), but it went so much more smoothly than last time, since we are starting to figure out what works for us and what doesn't.
Every time I go to Ottawa, it feels a little less like home, and a little more like Home. It's no longer the place that I live, or the place that I recently lived. It has become The Place I Grew Up. Which is special in its own way, and I'm only a little bit sad to embrace this change. It has that aura of memories now, that aura that used to only belong to the town where my grandparents lived. The scent of occasional familiarity. I've gradually grown away from my Ottawa friends, and although it is nice to catch up when we see each other, I'm beginning to realize that the distance between us will only grow, and I should be grateful for the part they played in my life when we lived nearby, and not try to force that level of intimacy to continue. Somewhere along the line, those friendships will get redefined, and they will become that family that my parents would drop in on every other year or so when we were driving through Pennsylvania. Close, special, but not daily, friends.
It's weird to uproot yourself and plant yourself somewhere else. I had done the uprooting thing before - I've moved all over since I first left Ottawa for college in 1997. But with all of my traveling around, Ottawa was always where my roots were. Then we settled into the Philly suburbs. I joined my local church, and canceled my membership at my Ottawa church. We had a baby. And when Jeremy lost his job, there was a fleeting moment of, "Hey, we aren't tied down, we can move anywhere, we can go back to Ottawa or off to France!" But that moment passed quickly. Because we weren't here for the job. We never were. We're here because we chose to make this place our home.
So, while we were in Ottawa, I made the decision not to try to get together with friends. I didn't want to come home from my trip more tired than I had been when I left. And there are definitely some people that I am very sad that I didn't get to see, but I had a wonderful and surprisingly restful time with my family. And all the grandkids. It was lovely.
While we were in Ottawa, Valerie had her first dose of weather so cold that her nose turned red and I had to bury her deep in my coat to stay warm. She went swimming for the first time, at a salt pool, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She sortof opened presents, and she chewed on a lot of tissue paper. She posed for a lot of pictures. It was a great trip.
Our New Year's Eve was low-key and restful, too. We had a few friends over, played some games, talked a lot, and Valerie decided to surprise us all by sleeping through the entire party, on her own, in her crib, so that we could be adults for an evening. It was a nice treat. When she woke up, I turned to Jeremy and said, "I can't believe she's been asleep SINCE LAST YEAR!" It's my little New Year's tradition. Other people make resolutions, I allow myself the luxury of making that one, dumb joke five times. Tradition is fun.
My family has a tradition of posing the kids, wearing their Santa hats, in a little row, in order of age. Each year, we could look at last year's picture, and see how much we'd grown. When we got older, my mom kept this up, even though we stopped growing and our hats stopped fitting. Then we started getting married, and I made everyone and their spouses new hats, and the line got a lot longer. Then we started making babies. And this year's line got too long for the living room, and we moved it to the stairs.
Wow, I have a lot more to say than I thought I did when I sat down to write this. I was going to say something short and sweet like, "We're back from Canada, go see our pictures on Flickr." But, then again, I haven't posted SINCE LAST YEAR, so maybe I'm just making up for lost time. (That was number four - I'm saving number five for work tomorrow.)
We drove to Ottawa for Christmas this year, and I can now say that driving 900 miles round trip with a four-month-old is much, much better than driving the same trip with a two-month-old. In fact, she slept a good portion of the trip, and she seems to be overcoming her fear of the dark, so we might break out the old parental "drive through the night" trick next time around and see how that goes. It was still a long trip (about 9 1/2 hours each way), but it went so much more smoothly than last time, since we are starting to figure out what works for us and what doesn't.
Every time I go to Ottawa, it feels a little less like home, and a little more like Home. It's no longer the place that I live, or the place that I recently lived. It has become The Place I Grew Up. Which is special in its own way, and I'm only a little bit sad to embrace this change. It has that aura of memories now, that aura that used to only belong to the town where my grandparents lived. The scent of occasional familiarity. I've gradually grown away from my Ottawa friends, and although it is nice to catch up when we see each other, I'm beginning to realize that the distance between us will only grow, and I should be grateful for the part they played in my life when we lived nearby, and not try to force that level of intimacy to continue. Somewhere along the line, those friendships will get redefined, and they will become that family that my parents would drop in on every other year or so when we were driving through Pennsylvania. Close, special, but not daily, friends.
It's weird to uproot yourself and plant yourself somewhere else. I had done the uprooting thing before - I've moved all over since I first left Ottawa for college in 1997. But with all of my traveling around, Ottawa was always where my roots were. Then we settled into the Philly suburbs. I joined my local church, and canceled my membership at my Ottawa church. We had a baby. And when Jeremy lost his job, there was a fleeting moment of, "Hey, we aren't tied down, we can move anywhere, we can go back to Ottawa or off to France!" But that moment passed quickly. Because we weren't here for the job. We never were. We're here because we chose to make this place our home.
So, while we were in Ottawa, I made the decision not to try to get together with friends. I didn't want to come home from my trip more tired than I had been when I left. And there are definitely some people that I am very sad that I didn't get to see, but I had a wonderful and surprisingly restful time with my family. And all the grandkids. It was lovely.
While we were in Ottawa, Valerie had her first dose of weather so cold that her nose turned red and I had to bury her deep in my coat to stay warm. She went swimming for the first time, at a salt pool, and she thoroughly enjoyed it. She sortof opened presents, and she chewed on a lot of tissue paper. She posed for a lot of pictures. It was a great trip.
Our New Year's Eve was low-key and restful, too. We had a few friends over, played some games, talked a lot, and Valerie decided to surprise us all by sleeping through the entire party, on her own, in her crib, so that we could be adults for an evening. It was a nice treat. When she woke up, I turned to Jeremy and said, "I can't believe she's been asleep SINCE LAST YEAR!" It's my little New Year's tradition. Other people make resolutions, I allow myself the luxury of making that one, dumb joke five times. Tradition is fun.
My family has a tradition of posing the kids, wearing their Santa hats, in a little row, in order of age. Each year, we could look at last year's picture, and see how much we'd grown. When we got older, my mom kept this up, even though we stopped growing and our hats stopped fitting. Then we started getting married, and I made everyone and their spouses new hats, and the line got a lot longer. Then we started making babies. And this year's line got too long for the living room, and we moved it to the stairs.
Wow, I have a lot more to say than I thought I did when I sat down to write this. I was going to say something short and sweet like, "We're back from Canada, go see our pictures on Flickr." But, then again, I haven't posted SINCE LAST YEAR, so maybe I'm just making up for lost time. (That was number four - I'm saving number five for work tomorrow.)
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Road Trip: the Miniseries (5,6,7)
The network has unceremoniously dropped the miniseries currently in progress, and will be playing all of the remaining episodes back-to-back during the night of the basketball finals. They figure no one was watching anyhow, so no one will miss it.
Episode Five:
Sunday night, we had our big, family Thanksgiving dinner. I can't remember exactly how we managed it, but we somehow actually played the game of Settlers we had set up the night before, and finished it in time to set the table for dinner. Unfortunately, we did not finish in time for me to make my salt-free white sauce for the green bean casserole, so we ended up just having plain green beans with dinner. Which was just as well, because we had picked up fresh green beans the day before at the farmer's market, and they were delicious without being smothered in sauce. Dinner was incredible, although my mother dubbed it "simple" because of the lack of green bean casserole, even though it had all of the other beloved Thanksgiving fixings. (And yes, for all my American friends, we eat pretty much all of the same things you do at a Canadian Thanksgiving, we just do it six weeks sooner without any pilgrims.) I have a photograph of the set table after Benjie opened the can of cranberry sauce and left it in the can-shape on the serving dish, but before Alana was a party-pooper and sliced it up. Unfortunately, that photo is still on my laptop, which theoretically still works, but has no screen to confirm that fact to me.
So, we woke up on Monday morning, and decided not to go home just yet. I wanted to go shopping at Bulk Barn, my favorite store in the world, of which there is no equal where I live in the United States. And I had a gift card to Value Village, but neither store was open on Monday, because it was a holiday. So we decided that we would leave on Tuesday after I made those two, quick, shopping trips. I was glad we ended up staying, though, because it gave Valerie some quality one-on-one Grandma time.
We said goodbye to Alana and Eric and Nick on Monday, then spent the rest of the day recovering a bit. It was nice.
Episode Six:
Tuesday morning, I went shopping. I have been a thrift store shopper for most of my life, and I have mastered the art of finding things on a rack that will fit my size and style. Then I got pregnant, and I grew a belly, but I still did pretty well at finding things that I liked, and fit, at thrift stores. Then I had a baby, and my weight returned mostly to normal, and my belly returned mostly to normal, but other, um, bits of me did not return to normal. And I can't seem to find things that fit me at thrift stores anymore. I tried on 30 or 40 shirts that morning, and anything that looked like it might fit me was either too tight in the chest, too short to cover my belly, or baggy and hideous all over. I had been hoping to find five t-shirts, but I only managed to find one. I finally gave up and headed over to the long-sleeved shirts, where I had a little more luck, but I really prefer short-sleeved shirts, and left more than a little disappointed. I have a large collection of clothing, an eclectic mish-mash obtained over the years through a shopping theory that basically consists of, "Hey, this fits me and is unique/fun/silly/nice, I should get it," and then never getting rid of anything. And now, I am slowly realizing that 90% of that stuff will probably never fit me again. But I'm not quite ready to purge my wardrobe just yet. I'm in clothing limbo.
I had better luck at Bulk Barn, because other than still not liking coffee, my tastes in munchies have not changed. I bought all of my favorite snacks, and a whole bunch of spices that I was running low on. (Seriously, if you can ever find a bulk store to buy spices, it's the best. I can refill my jar of bay leaves about 5 times over for 19 cents.) But my lengthy shopping trip, and our continued putting off of packing, and one last stop to say goodbye to Benjie and Trish and April, and we weren't on the road until dinnertime. Which, for those of you keeping score, is awfully late to start an eight hour trip.
We stopped for dinner just over the border, at a diner chosen in part because I have stopped there in the past and know it's good, and in part because of its proximity to the town where two of our college friends, Ben and Michelle, had recently moved. After ordering, I called 411 and managed to get a phone number for them. Michelle was ecstatic to hear from us. She said that she'd be right over and would let Ben know to meet us there when he was done work. We had a really nice visit over dinner, and sat talking afterward for far longer than we should have. Ben mentioned that their guest room was still full of boxes from moving, but that we were more than welcome to stay with them if we wanted to. We were relieved to not have to finish the trip at that late hour, and happy to be able to spend some more time visiting with friends that we had not seen in far too long.
Episode Seven:
After a leisurely morning, we hit the road again, and the trip home went significantly better than the trip up. I stopped trying to use bottles while we were on the road, and stopping to nurse her when she needed it made for a much less stressful trip home. Lesson learned. (Although we have since switched bottles to Dr. Brown's, which she seems to take a whole lot better than the Medela ones we had been using, so I might try again on another trip in the future.)
So, we were home again on Wednesday evening, just in time for our Wednesday night game night. We had a nice relaxing evening with friends, although we found that we were a little too tired to actually play in the end. It was a nice way to round out a nice almost-week-long trip, and it was really nice to come home to a mostly clean house. (I love when I clean up before leaving, it's such a nice treat when I get home, and I've forgotten by then how frazzled and stressed I was trying to get it all done.)
The end.
Episode Five:
Sunday night, we had our big, family Thanksgiving dinner. I can't remember exactly how we managed it, but we somehow actually played the game of Settlers we had set up the night before, and finished it in time to set the table for dinner. Unfortunately, we did not finish in time for me to make my salt-free white sauce for the green bean casserole, so we ended up just having plain green beans with dinner. Which was just as well, because we had picked up fresh green beans the day before at the farmer's market, and they were delicious without being smothered in sauce. Dinner was incredible, although my mother dubbed it "simple" because of the lack of green bean casserole, even though it had all of the other beloved Thanksgiving fixings. (And yes, for all my American friends, we eat pretty much all of the same things you do at a Canadian Thanksgiving, we just do it six weeks sooner without any pilgrims.) I have a photograph of the set table after Benjie opened the can of cranberry sauce and left it in the can-shape on the serving dish, but before Alana was a party-pooper and sliced it up. Unfortunately, that photo is still on my laptop, which theoretically still works, but has no screen to confirm that fact to me.
So, we woke up on Monday morning, and decided not to go home just yet. I wanted to go shopping at Bulk Barn, my favorite store in the world, of which there is no equal where I live in the United States. And I had a gift card to Value Village, but neither store was open on Monday, because it was a holiday. So we decided that we would leave on Tuesday after I made those two, quick, shopping trips. I was glad we ended up staying, though, because it gave Valerie some quality one-on-one Grandma time.
We said goodbye to Alana and Eric and Nick on Monday, then spent the rest of the day recovering a bit. It was nice.
Episode Six:
Tuesday morning, I went shopping. I have been a thrift store shopper for most of my life, and I have mastered the art of finding things on a rack that will fit my size and style. Then I got pregnant, and I grew a belly, but I still did pretty well at finding things that I liked, and fit, at thrift stores. Then I had a baby, and my weight returned mostly to normal, and my belly returned mostly to normal, but other, um, bits of me did not return to normal. And I can't seem to find things that fit me at thrift stores anymore. I tried on 30 or 40 shirts that morning, and anything that looked like it might fit me was either too tight in the chest, too short to cover my belly, or baggy and hideous all over. I had been hoping to find five t-shirts, but I only managed to find one. I finally gave up and headed over to the long-sleeved shirts, where I had a little more luck, but I really prefer short-sleeved shirts, and left more than a little disappointed. I have a large collection of clothing, an eclectic mish-mash obtained over the years through a shopping theory that basically consists of, "Hey, this fits me and is unique/fun/silly/nice, I should get it," and then never getting rid of anything. And now, I am slowly realizing that 90% of that stuff will probably never fit me again. But I'm not quite ready to purge my wardrobe just yet. I'm in clothing limbo.
I had better luck at Bulk Barn, because other than still not liking coffee, my tastes in munchies have not changed. I bought all of my favorite snacks, and a whole bunch of spices that I was running low on. (Seriously, if you can ever find a bulk store to buy spices, it's the best. I can refill my jar of bay leaves about 5 times over for 19 cents.) But my lengthy shopping trip, and our continued putting off of packing, and one last stop to say goodbye to Benjie and Trish and April, and we weren't on the road until dinnertime. Which, for those of you keeping score, is awfully late to start an eight hour trip.
We stopped for dinner just over the border, at a diner chosen in part because I have stopped there in the past and know it's good, and in part because of its proximity to the town where two of our college friends, Ben and Michelle, had recently moved. After ordering, I called 411 and managed to get a phone number for them. Michelle was ecstatic to hear from us. She said that she'd be right over and would let Ben know to meet us there when he was done work. We had a really nice visit over dinner, and sat talking afterward for far longer than we should have. Ben mentioned that their guest room was still full of boxes from moving, but that we were more than welcome to stay with them if we wanted to. We were relieved to not have to finish the trip at that late hour, and happy to be able to spend some more time visiting with friends that we had not seen in far too long.
Episode Seven:
After a leisurely morning, we hit the road again, and the trip home went significantly better than the trip up. I stopped trying to use bottles while we were on the road, and stopping to nurse her when she needed it made for a much less stressful trip home. Lesson learned. (Although we have since switched bottles to Dr. Brown's, which she seems to take a whole lot better than the Medela ones we had been using, so I might try again on another trip in the future.)
So, we were home again on Wednesday evening, just in time for our Wednesday night game night. We had a nice relaxing evening with friends, although we found that we were a little too tired to actually play in the end. It was a nice way to round out a nice almost-week-long trip, and it was really nice to come home to a mostly clean house. (I love when I clean up before leaving, it's such a nice treat when I get home, and I've forgotten by then how frazzled and stressed I was trying to get it all done.)
The end.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Road Trip: the Miniseries (4)
Episode Four:
At the rate I'm going, it will be American Thanksgiving before I manage to finish posting about Canadian Thanksgiving. And in the meantime, we've done other stuff, too, so Thursday night through Sunday will be presented as a montage. Imagine appropriate music.
Thursday night, surreal. Very odd being a mommy in a house where I was a baby. Didn't sleep much.
Friday morning, family love.
Walk to the park wearing the baby. Alana climbed on the kiddie climbing wall. Someone else took pictures.
Visit with Jenn and Rob and Dom, who was still in the womb when I last saw him, and Andrew, who was born a week before Valerie but is gestationally a month older and it shows.
Awesome time catching up with old friends. Yummy homemade macaroni and cheese.
I think we did something Friday night. Lack of sleep catching up, so it's a blur.
Saturday, more fun with family and friends. Katie, Mike and Isla came over. Katie should be having her baby any day now.
We watched UHF. We set up Settlers, but didn't play. Alana and I made pies.
Sunday morning, church. April was dedicated.
We took a billion family pictures.
To be continued...
At the rate I'm going, it will be American Thanksgiving before I manage to finish posting about Canadian Thanksgiving. And in the meantime, we've done other stuff, too, so Thursday night through Sunday will be presented as a montage. Imagine appropriate music.
Thursday night, surreal. Very odd being a mommy in a house where I was a baby. Didn't sleep much.
Friday morning, family love.
Walk to the park wearing the baby. Alana climbed on the kiddie climbing wall. Someone else took pictures.
Visit with Jenn and Rob and Dom, who was still in the womb when I last saw him, and Andrew, who was born a week before Valerie but is gestationally a month older and it shows.
Awesome time catching up with old friends. Yummy homemade macaroni and cheese.
I think we did something Friday night. Lack of sleep catching up, so it's a blur.
Saturday, more fun with family and friends. Katie, Mike and Isla came over. Katie should be having her baby any day now.
We watched UHF. We set up Settlers, but didn't play. Alana and I made pies.
Sunday morning, church. April was dedicated.
We took a billion family pictures.
To be continued...
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Catching Up
So, I've been trying and trying to properly update this blog, but it seems like all of the times I am not extremely busy, I am extremely busy sleeping to catch up. I tried to blog about my vacation, wrote about 10 pages, and then realized that I was still only on day two. At that rate, I will be blogging about Auggie's birth sometime in 2014. So, here is the whirlwind tour of all the things I've been wanting to blog about in the past month, interspersed with some photos.
Rachel and I drove to Western Massachusetts for Jiffy Con. We played games.
We met awesome people, some of whom were awesome enough to pose all on one side of a table when I complained about the difficulties of photographing groups at round tables.
We did not play nutball. I did not take photos of nutball.
I finally managed to take some good pictures of Rachel.
We stayed at Joshua's house.
Then we drove to Vermont to visit my sister for a couple of days. We relaxed and played with my nephew and marinated meat for the camping trip. I didn't take very many pictures in Vermont, but I did get a few of Nick in the tub.
Then we drove to Crawford Notch, NH, for the annual YARR camping trip. There were about 15 of us this year, including one child and two pregnant ladies. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes in future years as our families blossom. Jeremy joined us at the campsite, which was nice, because I hadn't seen him in almost a week.
We camped. We hiked. (Hiking photo taken by Allison.)
We swam in the river.
We sat on logs and exposed our pasty-white June flesh to the sun.
It rained a lot. I didn't take any pictures of the rain. But our massive tarp set up helped keep the cooking area dry.
We spent a lot of our time just sitting around the fire pit - talking, eating, destroying confidential documents, and waiting for the dishwater to boil.
We played a lot of games. We took some touristy pictures of "the Notch".
We climbed on a slippery waterfall. Dan fell and got a concussion. Phil ripped his leg open on a guard rail running to the rescue and had to get ten stitches. (Everyone is okay, now.)
Sara found some luna moths while taking down the screen tent.
When I got home, everything I had brought with me was wet and dirty from all the rain. I did a lot of laundry, took a lot of naps, and went back to work. I didn't take any pictures of these things. Fast forward through about two weeks of post-vacation recovery, including my car having to go to the shop twice. (Poor Bitsy now has no AC, just in time for the hottest part of the summer.) Then my sister came to visit, and fun things started happening again. Like a trip to the Aquarium.
My church and my mother-in-law threw an amazing baby shower for me. My nephew took his very first steps in my living room, and rode on his very first carousel (not in my living room). We celebrated Nick's first birthday with yummy Korean food and gelato for dessert. And I have no pictures of any of these things for some sad reason, but they were memorable nonetheless. And that brings us to today, which is finally routine enough for me to spend it cropping pictures and uploading them to my blog. Hopefully, it won't be another whole month before I post again!
Rachel and I drove to Western Massachusetts for Jiffy Con. We played games.
We met awesome people, some of whom were awesome enough to pose all on one side of a table when I complained about the difficulties of photographing groups at round tables.
We did not play nutball. I did not take photos of nutball.
I finally managed to take some good pictures of Rachel.
We stayed at Joshua's house.
Then we drove to Vermont to visit my sister for a couple of days. We relaxed and played with my nephew and marinated meat for the camping trip. I didn't take very many pictures in Vermont, but I did get a few of Nick in the tub.
Then we drove to Crawford Notch, NH, for the annual YARR camping trip. There were about 15 of us this year, including one child and two pregnant ladies. It will be interesting to see how the dynamic changes in future years as our families blossom. Jeremy joined us at the campsite, which was nice, because I hadn't seen him in almost a week.
We camped. We hiked. (Hiking photo taken by Allison.)
We swam in the river.
We sat on logs and exposed our pasty-white June flesh to the sun.
It rained a lot. I didn't take any pictures of the rain. But our massive tarp set up helped keep the cooking area dry.
We spent a lot of our time just sitting around the fire pit - talking, eating, destroying confidential documents, and waiting for the dishwater to boil.
We played a lot of games. We took some touristy pictures of "the Notch".
We climbed on a slippery waterfall. Dan fell and got a concussion. Phil ripped his leg open on a guard rail running to the rescue and had to get ten stitches. (Everyone is okay, now.)
Sara found some luna moths while taking down the screen tent.
When I got home, everything I had brought with me was wet and dirty from all the rain. I did a lot of laundry, took a lot of naps, and went back to work. I didn't take any pictures of these things. Fast forward through about two weeks of post-vacation recovery, including my car having to go to the shop twice. (Poor Bitsy now has no AC, just in time for the hottest part of the summer.) Then my sister came to visit, and fun things started happening again. Like a trip to the Aquarium.
My church and my mother-in-law threw an amazing baby shower for me. My nephew took his very first steps in my living room, and rode on his very first carousel (not in my living room). We celebrated Nick's first birthday with yummy Korean food and gelato for dessert. And I have no pictures of any of these things for some sad reason, but they were memorable nonetheless. And that brings us to today, which is finally routine enough for me to spend it cropping pictures and uploading them to my blog. Hopefully, it won't be another whole month before I post again!
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Canada!
So, I've had photos sitting in my hard drive, and a blog post sitting in my head for over a week now, and it's high time I updated before something else happens in my life and pushes last weekend out of blogging range. In my defense, I have been sick for a little over a week now, a phenomenon I am choosing to blame on whatever pollens were blooming about three weeks ago in Philly that made me sick then, and apparently chose the very weekend I was visiting Canada to bloom there so that I could enjoy that particular bout of allergies twice.
Right, so about that trip to Canada.
I had booked a four-day weekend off of work. I am part-time now, which makes booking time off that much easier (and also me much happier and less exhausted). Jeremy chose not to come with me, because he wants to save his time off for when there is a baby to spend it with. I spent Friday driving, and even with my frequent, pregnant-lady pee and food stops, I still made it to my mom's house at exactly the time I had estimated. That was very un-Davis of me.
Benjie and Trish were there when I arrived, and I got to meet my niece, April, for the first time. Such a sweet baby. Auggie is going to love her cousins.
After dinner, I got together with my friend-since-we-were-eight-years-old, Sarah, and we bought slurpees, put candy in them, and sat in the park talking on the swings for a long time, just like we used to do in high school. I have many fond memories of hanging out in that park with slurpees and good friends. It almost makes me miss being a teenager. Almost.
Saturday morning was my baby shower, which was the original purpose of my trip to Canada. My mom still attends the church that I grew up going to, and, to this day, I have a hard time calling any place but Sunnyside my "home church". But I've moved around so much since graduating high school (11 years ago now - man, that makes me feel old), so I haven't been a regular attender there for more than a summer here and there, and that one year when I was articling in Ottawa. I was really touched that anyone other than my mom even wanted to attend a shower for me, and when I saw how many people came out, from every era of my life, to show their support for me on my journey into motherhood, I was really blown away. I'm pretty sure I cried once or twice, but I'm gonna blame the hormones for that. Yeah, hormones.
I also acquired a lot of stuff for the baby, and I'm finally starting to feel like it might just be possible that I won't have to wrap Auggie in one of her dad's old shirts and have her sleep in a cardboard box. Although I do have some very nice cardboard boxes, I think, in the end, I might find the highchairs and whatnot that came inside them much more useful.
In fact, I acquired so much stuff that those who were helping me carry it all to my little Mazda 626 seriously doubted that it would fit in my trunk. But all those years of watching my packing-guru father load the family car up for trips to grandma's or to the lake or to Algonquin park seem to have paid off. Also all of those hours of Tetris he and I used to play. See? Who says video games rot your brain!
The big surprise of the shower was that my aunt and cousin had made the trip up from Rochester to join in the festivities. It was really nice to see them, and we spent a really nice afternoon on Saturday sitting and talking and visiting. Then it got late, and I went to bed.
Sunday morning, I was able to attend church at Sunnyside, which is always one of the highlights of my trips to Ottawa. I still feel so much like a part of that church, and I received many warm hugs and congratulations from old friends and practically-families. It also boggled my mind, as it always does, to see the growth of the church since I was a kid there. I had one Sunday school teacher for most of my childhood, and I was almost always the only one in my class. Then, when I finished a grade, she would move up and teach me in the next class, because there were no more than a handful of other kids in the church, and there was no one waiting in the class below me, and no one graduating from the class above me. Now, there is such a crowd of kids (over 50, I'm guessing), that you wouldn't know that it was the same church, except that it is filled with the same loving spirit under which I remember growing up.
Sunday was hot. You'd think it would be less hot in Canada, but Ottawa gets its fair share of heat and humidity, and when it does, it's extra miserable because many people (my mom and brother included) don't have air conditioning. And I'm usually okay with that, because I believe that it's healthier to turn on some fans and keep cool naturally, but pregnant, I find it unbearable. AC has become a necessity for me.
So, after Benjie and Trish and I had a quick lunch, we took April to an indoor pool for her Very First Swim Outside the Womb. It was a lot of fun, although April didn't seem entirely sure what to make of the gigantic bathtub. She seemed to have a good time, though. After swimming, I was craving shawarma, so we stopped at a little place I used to go to all the time with Sarah, and I indulged my craving with shaved beef and heartburn on a pita. I've pretty much resigned myself, at this stage of my pregnancy, that anything I eat is going to give me heartburn, so why not eat what I want? It was delicious. I really need to find a shawarma shop in Philly.
After shawarma, the four of us laid claim to one of the air conditioned lounges in the church that was not currently being used (my brother lives above the church offices), and spent the rest of the afternoon not being miserably overheated. I broke out my water-based face paints, and Benjie and Trish created the first two entries in my belly art gallery. I will post them after I finish this post.
At this point in the weekend, my pregnant body had pretty much had enough excitement, and I was ready to go back to my mom's house, maybe play a board game, and go to bed early. But there was more excitement to be had. A few hours later, I was upstairs on my mom's computer, when I heard the door open, and someone said the name of my sister's dog. My sister lives in Vermont, and, although she couldn't make it up to Canada for the shower, she decided to bundle up her dog and my nephew, and surprise us on Sunday night for a visit. It was awesome to see my sister, and Nick who has doubled in size and mobility since I saw him last. He's even saying a few words now, and most adorable of anything, he makes little fishy faces when he wants you to pick him up to ring the fish chime that is hanging from the door frame.
So, counting Auggie, all three cousins were together for the first time, so we made some fumbling attempts at a family portrait. Here is, sadly, the best one of the bunch. Hey, it was getting late, and we were all pretty over-stimulated by this time. Even the babies.
Monday morning, I got to spend a bit of quality time with Alana and Nick before hitting the road. We took Eli for a walk, which I thought would be a good idea, since I was about to sit in the car for 8 hours. Unfortunately, I think it was the walk that ultimately did me in, allergies-wise. Between that, and the stubborn gas bubble in my chest that mysteriously appeared sometime after eating the shawarma (completely unrelated, I'm sure) and didn't go away until Tuesday morning, I was feeling pretty lousy by the time I hit the road at about noon. The trip home was miserable. The only highlight, really, was a relatively easy border crossing, where the border guard peeked in my trunk, but didn't even need to see my extensive list of all the gifts I had received with all of my rough price estimates. So yeah, let's fast-forward through the overly long drive, with far too many stops (several of which might have ended with me sleeping in a parking lot somewhere if it hadn't been for the fact that I had to keep driving to keep the AC on), and a burning sore throat, and a nose that wouldn't stop running. But I made it home eventually, tired and miserable, and really not feeling up to going out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary when I got home. We've decided to postpone that particular celebration.
And that brings us up to today. Well, okay, not really, but we can fast-forward through the rest of last week, last weekend, and the the beginning of this week, and that will bring us up to today. I'm not as sick anymore. The sore throat has gone away, which is good because it was the symptom I was most worried about, and the cold/allergies/whatever has mostly settled in as a stuffy nose and glop in my chest. Still no fun, but better than before. Besides, I'm on vacation now, and that makes everything better! I'm on vacation for two whole weeks, during which time I will be doing a bit of cleaning at the house (but only a bit), and then heading off to Massachusetts to play story games with some friends I met in a forest in Virginia, and then off to New Hampshire to sleep in a tent and spend some quality time with some friends from college. I will bring my face paints along, and if I happen to see you on my travels, maybe you can paint my belly!
Right, so about that trip to Canada.
I had booked a four-day weekend off of work. I am part-time now, which makes booking time off that much easier (and also me much happier and less exhausted). Jeremy chose not to come with me, because he wants to save his time off for when there is a baby to spend it with. I spent Friday driving, and even with my frequent, pregnant-lady pee and food stops, I still made it to my mom's house at exactly the time I had estimated. That was very un-Davis of me.
Benjie and Trish were there when I arrived, and I got to meet my niece, April, for the first time. Such a sweet baby. Auggie is going to love her cousins.
After dinner, I got together with my friend-since-we-were-eight-years-old, Sarah, and we bought slurpees, put candy in them, and sat in the park talking on the swings for a long time, just like we used to do in high school. I have many fond memories of hanging out in that park with slurpees and good friends. It almost makes me miss being a teenager. Almost.
Saturday morning was my baby shower, which was the original purpose of my trip to Canada. My mom still attends the church that I grew up going to, and, to this day, I have a hard time calling any place but Sunnyside my "home church". But I've moved around so much since graduating high school (11 years ago now - man, that makes me feel old), so I haven't been a regular attender there for more than a summer here and there, and that one year when I was articling in Ottawa. I was really touched that anyone other than my mom even wanted to attend a shower for me, and when I saw how many people came out, from every era of my life, to show their support for me on my journey into motherhood, I was really blown away. I'm pretty sure I cried once or twice, but I'm gonna blame the hormones for that. Yeah, hormones.
I also acquired a lot of stuff for the baby, and I'm finally starting to feel like it might just be possible that I won't have to wrap Auggie in one of her dad's old shirts and have her sleep in a cardboard box. Although I do have some very nice cardboard boxes, I think, in the end, I might find the highchairs and whatnot that came inside them much more useful.
In fact, I acquired so much stuff that those who were helping me carry it all to my little Mazda 626 seriously doubted that it would fit in my trunk. But all those years of watching my packing-guru father load the family car up for trips to grandma's or to the lake or to Algonquin park seem to have paid off. Also all of those hours of Tetris he and I used to play. See? Who says video games rot your brain!
The big surprise of the shower was that my aunt and cousin had made the trip up from Rochester to join in the festivities. It was really nice to see them, and we spent a really nice afternoon on Saturday sitting and talking and visiting. Then it got late, and I went to bed.
Sunday morning, I was able to attend church at Sunnyside, which is always one of the highlights of my trips to Ottawa. I still feel so much like a part of that church, and I received many warm hugs and congratulations from old friends and practically-families. It also boggled my mind, as it always does, to see the growth of the church since I was a kid there. I had one Sunday school teacher for most of my childhood, and I was almost always the only one in my class. Then, when I finished a grade, she would move up and teach me in the next class, because there were no more than a handful of other kids in the church, and there was no one waiting in the class below me, and no one graduating from the class above me. Now, there is such a crowd of kids (over 50, I'm guessing), that you wouldn't know that it was the same church, except that it is filled with the same loving spirit under which I remember growing up.
Sunday was hot. You'd think it would be less hot in Canada, but Ottawa gets its fair share of heat and humidity, and when it does, it's extra miserable because many people (my mom and brother included) don't have air conditioning. And I'm usually okay with that, because I believe that it's healthier to turn on some fans and keep cool naturally, but pregnant, I find it unbearable. AC has become a necessity for me.
So, after Benjie and Trish and I had a quick lunch, we took April to an indoor pool for her Very First Swim Outside the Womb. It was a lot of fun, although April didn't seem entirely sure what to make of the gigantic bathtub. She seemed to have a good time, though. After swimming, I was craving shawarma, so we stopped at a little place I used to go to all the time with Sarah, and I indulged my craving with shaved beef and heartburn on a pita. I've pretty much resigned myself, at this stage of my pregnancy, that anything I eat is going to give me heartburn, so why not eat what I want? It was delicious. I really need to find a shawarma shop in Philly.
After shawarma, the four of us laid claim to one of the air conditioned lounges in the church that was not currently being used (my brother lives above the church offices), and spent the rest of the afternoon not being miserably overheated. I broke out my water-based face paints, and Benjie and Trish created the first two entries in my belly art gallery. I will post them after I finish this post.
At this point in the weekend, my pregnant body had pretty much had enough excitement, and I was ready to go back to my mom's house, maybe play a board game, and go to bed early. But there was more excitement to be had. A few hours later, I was upstairs on my mom's computer, when I heard the door open, and someone said the name of my sister's dog. My sister lives in Vermont, and, although she couldn't make it up to Canada for the shower, she decided to bundle up her dog and my nephew, and surprise us on Sunday night for a visit. It was awesome to see my sister, and Nick who has doubled in size and mobility since I saw him last. He's even saying a few words now, and most adorable of anything, he makes little fishy faces when he wants you to pick him up to ring the fish chime that is hanging from the door frame.
So, counting Auggie, all three cousins were together for the first time, so we made some fumbling attempts at a family portrait. Here is, sadly, the best one of the bunch. Hey, it was getting late, and we were all pretty over-stimulated by this time. Even the babies.
Monday morning, I got to spend a bit of quality time with Alana and Nick before hitting the road. We took Eli for a walk, which I thought would be a good idea, since I was about to sit in the car for 8 hours. Unfortunately, I think it was the walk that ultimately did me in, allergies-wise. Between that, and the stubborn gas bubble in my chest that mysteriously appeared sometime after eating the shawarma (completely unrelated, I'm sure) and didn't go away until Tuesday morning, I was feeling pretty lousy by the time I hit the road at about noon. The trip home was miserable. The only highlight, really, was a relatively easy border crossing, where the border guard peeked in my trunk, but didn't even need to see my extensive list of all the gifts I had received with all of my rough price estimates. So yeah, let's fast-forward through the overly long drive, with far too many stops (several of which might have ended with me sleeping in a parking lot somewhere if it hadn't been for the fact that I had to keep driving to keep the AC on), and a burning sore throat, and a nose that wouldn't stop running. But I made it home eventually, tired and miserable, and really not feeling up to going out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary when I got home. We've decided to postpone that particular celebration.
And that brings us up to today. Well, okay, not really, but we can fast-forward through the rest of last week, last weekend, and the the beginning of this week, and that will bring us up to today. I'm not as sick anymore. The sore throat has gone away, which is good because it was the symptom I was most worried about, and the cold/allergies/whatever has mostly settled in as a stuffy nose and glop in my chest. Still no fun, but better than before. Besides, I'm on vacation now, and that makes everything better! I'm on vacation for two whole weeks, during which time I will be doing a bit of cleaning at the house (but only a bit), and then heading off to Massachusetts to play story games with some friends I met in a forest in Virginia, and then off to New Hampshire to sleep in a tent and spend some quality time with some friends from college. I will bring my face paints along, and if I happen to see you on my travels, maybe you can paint my belly!
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
You should try soft pretzels with ranch dressing. Yum.
So, I disappeared for another month. This is starting to become a bit of a habit. Maybe I should just change the by-line of the website to, "Now with monthly updates!" Then we will all know what to expect.
Speaking of expecting, Auggie is doing well. She (and yes, I am using the feminine pronoun in a gender-uncertain context; I blame going to law school in Canada for that tendency) has become extraordinarily active in the past month. She remains almost completely quiet the entire time I am at work, and then as soon as I am at rest, she likes to disturb my rest with pokes and prods and kicks and jabs that cause me no end of amusement. Except when I am trying to sleep. Then they are less amusing.
I learned an important lesson this Sunday in church: Don't wear shirts that are skin-tight across your six-month pregnant belly if you want to be able to pay attention to the sermon. Auggie loves music, and whenever I sit down after singing or drumming, she decides to keep the beat going for a while. This week, "for a while" lasted throughout the entire service. I kept laughing, because you could actually see my belly bounce up every time she kicked it. And, of course, the other people in my row kept looking at me to see why I was laughing, and then they would see the little kicks, and laugh, too. I really hope the pastor was trying to be funny, because an entire section of the church was suppressing giggles for the entire sermon.
My mom turned sixty this year, and I turned thirty, so we decided that we should do something special to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime "I am half your age and both our ages end in zero" event. So, we went to see a Broadway show with my sister and her mother-in-law. Believe it or not, this was my first Broadway show. I saw "Phantom of the Opera" in Toronto when I was 11, but this was my first New York City Broadway with a Capital 'B' Broadway show. It was awesome. We had coal oven baked pizza for lunch, and saw a matinee so that my sister could get back in time to feed her baby before bedtime. I snuck my baby into the show without buying her a ticket (shhhh....) but I'm glad I did, because I think I have a Broadway baby. Easily the most active Auggie has ever been was during the big choral numbers of the show. I wonder how young is too young to start your child in tap lessons?
The show was Curtains, with David Hyde Pierce (and a couple of other people from "Frasier," too), and it was amazing. But then again, I am no Broadway critic. I probably would have been starstruck and impressed by anything.
My sister sent me a picture of the four of us outside after the show. I'm the fat one in the purple shirt.
So, let's see, what else has been going on in my life in the past month or so? I spent most of the month of April quite sick. I even went to my doctor because I thought I had something serious like mono (and, if you know me at all, you'll know that it takes a lot to get me to believe that I am sick enough to go to the doctor). Fortunately, I did not have mono. Unfortunately, I did not have anything treatable, so I just had to stick it out until the pollens changed and my allergies died down a bit. Yeah, allergies. I spent a whole month sick from allergies, and there is not a single blooming drug that you can take for allergies while you're pregnant. I've never had allergies like this before though, so I can only hope that it was just some kind of fluke combination of a bad pollen season and being pregnant and having no immune system, and that I won't ever get them like this again.
Meanwhile, I have still been working full-time at the store, which has left me completely drained. Eight hour days on your feet the entire time is pretty exhausting when you're simultaneously building a human being. The paperwork hasn't gone through yet, but hopefully, by the end of the month, I will be down to part-time hours. Then I might just maybe have time to blog more than once a month again. And get that daily nap that I was supposed to stop needing about 13 weeks ago when I entered the second trimester.
Oh yeah, and we also moved. See? This is what happens when I only blog once a month. I forget to mention big things like moving all the way back to the opposite side of the city, to a lovely townhouse that we have yet to move all of our crap into, so it still looks nice. Or at least, it still looks new and empty, which is nice in its own right.
This just proves to me that I need to blog more often. I still don't think I wrote about my trip to Florida in March. I definitely didn't get to write about the lovely day I spent in Princeton with Katie and Mike and Isla (and Squidgy), who were down from Canada for a conference. Nor did I write about the fantastic weekend, albeit cold, that I spent in a Virginia forest with a bunch of story-gamers playing all sorts of fun games. Jeremy even learned how to make boffer weapons out of PVC and duct tape.
But, when you're always either working or sleeping, and you manage to squeeze in a day (or even a weekend) to do something fun for yourself, you pay for it afterwards with extra working and sleeping. Hence the infrequent blog posts. I've been told that now is the time to do things for myself, to go on trips and have fun, because it's the last chance I'll have to do those things without having to figure out how to include or make alternate arrangements for the baby. I'm not 100% convinced by this argument, because I'm truly looking forward to sharing camping trips and, one day down the road, games and Broadway shows, with Auggie. But I do understand that, in just a few short months, my life will be changed irrevocably, and if there is something I really want to do now, I should do it now, before my life and priorities are turned completely upside down.
That said, I am making it my goal to thoroughly enjoy my third trimester. And yes, all of you mothers out there, I heard that snigger you just made. But really, I have been so tired and overworked for the first two trimesters, I have had very little chance to enjoy myself and my pregnancy. But I'll be dropping to part-time hours, I have several trips planned, and, always subject to providence throwing me a curve ball, I want to make the most of this. I might even (wait for it...) blog more often! I have a few ideas for the third trimester, including a weight/date pool and featured guest belly artists. Wow, I don't think I've ever done a "coming attractions" thing on this blog before. I guess I'm stuck with it, now!
Speaking of expecting, Auggie is doing well. She (and yes, I am using the feminine pronoun in a gender-uncertain context; I blame going to law school in Canada for that tendency) has become extraordinarily active in the past month. She remains almost completely quiet the entire time I am at work, and then as soon as I am at rest, she likes to disturb my rest with pokes and prods and kicks and jabs that cause me no end of amusement. Except when I am trying to sleep. Then they are less amusing.
I learned an important lesson this Sunday in church: Don't wear shirts that are skin-tight across your six-month pregnant belly if you want to be able to pay attention to the sermon. Auggie loves music, and whenever I sit down after singing or drumming, she decides to keep the beat going for a while. This week, "for a while" lasted throughout the entire service. I kept laughing, because you could actually see my belly bounce up every time she kicked it. And, of course, the other people in my row kept looking at me to see why I was laughing, and then they would see the little kicks, and laugh, too. I really hope the pastor was trying to be funny, because an entire section of the church was suppressing giggles for the entire sermon.
My mom turned sixty this year, and I turned thirty, so we decided that we should do something special to celebrate this once-in-a-lifetime "I am half your age and both our ages end in zero" event. So, we went to see a Broadway show with my sister and her mother-in-law. Believe it or not, this was my first Broadway show. I saw "Phantom of the Opera" in Toronto when I was 11, but this was my first New York City Broadway with a Capital 'B' Broadway show. It was awesome. We had coal oven baked pizza for lunch, and saw a matinee so that my sister could get back in time to feed her baby before bedtime. I snuck my baby into the show without buying her a ticket (shhhh....) but I'm glad I did, because I think I have a Broadway baby. Easily the most active Auggie has ever been was during the big choral numbers of the show. I wonder how young is too young to start your child in tap lessons?
The show was Curtains, with David Hyde Pierce (and a couple of other people from "Frasier," too), and it was amazing. But then again, I am no Broadway critic. I probably would have been starstruck and impressed by anything.
My sister sent me a picture of the four of us outside after the show. I'm the fat one in the purple shirt.
So, let's see, what else has been going on in my life in the past month or so? I spent most of the month of April quite sick. I even went to my doctor because I thought I had something serious like mono (and, if you know me at all, you'll know that it takes a lot to get me to believe that I am sick enough to go to the doctor). Fortunately, I did not have mono. Unfortunately, I did not have anything treatable, so I just had to stick it out until the pollens changed and my allergies died down a bit. Yeah, allergies. I spent a whole month sick from allergies, and there is not a single blooming drug that you can take for allergies while you're pregnant. I've never had allergies like this before though, so I can only hope that it was just some kind of fluke combination of a bad pollen season and being pregnant and having no immune system, and that I won't ever get them like this again.
Meanwhile, I have still been working full-time at the store, which has left me completely drained. Eight hour days on your feet the entire time is pretty exhausting when you're simultaneously building a human being. The paperwork hasn't gone through yet, but hopefully, by the end of the month, I will be down to part-time hours. Then I might just maybe have time to blog more than once a month again. And get that daily nap that I was supposed to stop needing about 13 weeks ago when I entered the second trimester.
Oh yeah, and we also moved. See? This is what happens when I only blog once a month. I forget to mention big things like moving all the way back to the opposite side of the city, to a lovely townhouse that we have yet to move all of our crap into, so it still looks nice. Or at least, it still looks new and empty, which is nice in its own right.
This just proves to me that I need to blog more often. I still don't think I wrote about my trip to Florida in March. I definitely didn't get to write about the lovely day I spent in Princeton with Katie and Mike and Isla (and Squidgy), who were down from Canada for a conference. Nor did I write about the fantastic weekend, albeit cold, that I spent in a Virginia forest with a bunch of story-gamers playing all sorts of fun games. Jeremy even learned how to make boffer weapons out of PVC and duct tape.
But, when you're always either working or sleeping, and you manage to squeeze in a day (or even a weekend) to do something fun for yourself, you pay for it afterwards with extra working and sleeping. Hence the infrequent blog posts. I've been told that now is the time to do things for myself, to go on trips and have fun, because it's the last chance I'll have to do those things without having to figure out how to include or make alternate arrangements for the baby. I'm not 100% convinced by this argument, because I'm truly looking forward to sharing camping trips and, one day down the road, games and Broadway shows, with Auggie. But I do understand that, in just a few short months, my life will be changed irrevocably, and if there is something I really want to do now, I should do it now, before my life and priorities are turned completely upside down.
That said, I am making it my goal to thoroughly enjoy my third trimester. And yes, all of you mothers out there, I heard that snigger you just made. But really, I have been so tired and overworked for the first two trimesters, I have had very little chance to enjoy myself and my pregnancy. But I'll be dropping to part-time hours, I have several trips planned, and, always subject to providence throwing me a curve ball, I want to make the most of this. I might even (wait for it...) blog more often! I have a few ideas for the third trimester, including a weight/date pool and featured guest belly artists. Wow, I don't think I've ever done a "coming attractions" thing on this blog before. I guess I'm stuck with it, now!
Monday, January 28, 2008
Birthday Week
So, I turned thirty this week. And I didn't really think I would care, but, man, there is something about not being "in my 20's" anymore that just feels so life redefining. Not necessarily in a bad way, I don't think. But I've definitely been introspective this week.
That didn't stop me from having fun, though. It started last Sunday with a big, family, combo birthday party for me and Jer (whose birthday was in December). We managed to convince Jeremy's extended family that, since it was a birthday party for us, they should all travel outside of their normal five-mile-radius stomping ground to have the party at our house. It was fun to have everyone down here, and it was a great motivator to get the house thoroughly cleaned. I wore myself almost completely out, but it certainly felt good to get it all done.
Wednesday was my actual birthday, as well as our regular Wednesday night gaming group. Erin made hot roast beef sandwiches (one of my all-time favorites), and Rachel made an amazingly rich chocolate-raspberry cake. Rachel also gave my character a lovely surprise birthday gift in the form of her first kiss with the non-player character she has fallen in love with. I know it's only imaginary, but it left me on cloud nine.
So, to finish off a nice, long birthday week, I decided to throw together a last-minute birthday party with my non-family and non-gamer friends for Sunday night. I shot off a quick email to a bunch of friends, and invited a few more people that I didn't have email addresses for in church on Sunday morning. The lovely thing with last-minute parties is that there isn't nearly as much pressure for everything to be perfect, and I'm not nearly as disappointed if no one ends up coming. The house was still relatively clean from last weekend, so getting ready consisted mostly of taking a nap. And thawing out frozen pizza dough. At least a dozen people ended up coming, which was really awesome considering the short notice. We had lots of fun, even if we did only end up playing a couple of games (I won at Settlers, while those with less patience for tiles firmly established that they were, indeed, smarter than the DVD-game version of a fifth grader). And everyone left fairly early, which might have disappointed a younger me, but the old lady who had to get up for work at 4:00 the next morning appreciated it.
Unfortunately, between the three parties, there were at least three cakes, and at least half of each remains. I might just need to throw another party, and call it the "Please Eat My Cake Before I Eat it All and Get Fat; My Aging Metabolism Can't Handle All This Sugar" party. You'd come to that, right?
That didn't stop me from having fun, though. It started last Sunday with a big, family, combo birthday party for me and Jer (whose birthday was in December). We managed to convince Jeremy's extended family that, since it was a birthday party for us, they should all travel outside of their normal five-mile-radius stomping ground to have the party at our house. It was fun to have everyone down here, and it was a great motivator to get the house thoroughly cleaned. I wore myself almost completely out, but it certainly felt good to get it all done.
Wednesday was my actual birthday, as well as our regular Wednesday night gaming group. Erin made hot roast beef sandwiches (one of my all-time favorites), and Rachel made an amazingly rich chocolate-raspberry cake. Rachel also gave my character a lovely surprise birthday gift in the form of her first kiss with the non-player character she has fallen in love with. I know it's only imaginary, but it left me on cloud nine.
So, to finish off a nice, long birthday week, I decided to throw together a last-minute birthday party with my non-family and non-gamer friends for Sunday night. I shot off a quick email to a bunch of friends, and invited a few more people that I didn't have email addresses for in church on Sunday morning. The lovely thing with last-minute parties is that there isn't nearly as much pressure for everything to be perfect, and I'm not nearly as disappointed if no one ends up coming. The house was still relatively clean from last weekend, so getting ready consisted mostly of taking a nap. And thawing out frozen pizza dough. At least a dozen people ended up coming, which was really awesome considering the short notice. We had lots of fun, even if we did only end up playing a couple of games (I won at Settlers, while those with less patience for tiles firmly established that they were, indeed, smarter than the DVD-game version of a fifth grader). And everyone left fairly early, which might have disappointed a younger me, but the old lady who had to get up for work at 4:00 the next morning appreciated it.
Unfortunately, between the three parties, there were at least three cakes, and at least half of each remains. I might just need to throw another party, and call it the "Please Eat My Cake Before I Eat it All and Get Fat; My Aging Metabolism Can't Handle All This Sugar" party. You'd come to that, right?
Monday, January 14, 2008
Two fun things in one weekend!
So, the trade-off for having Monday and Tuesday off was that I had to work the other five days last week. So of course, a friend of mine had a party on Saturday night that I wasn't able to make it to, and I was gearing myself up for having to miss out on all the fun again for another weekend. But then some friends from church decided to go out for Vietnamese food on Friday evening, and I had to look at my schedule seventeen times to convince myself that I really was free to go along with them. I love Vietnamese food. It was practically a staple for me when I lived in Canada, and I've been missing it since we moved. It was really yummy, too, even if they didn't have that drink with the coconut milk and beans and grass jelly that I love so much. (I asked the waitress about it, she said that used to carry it, but there just wasn't enough demand in that particular region of suburbia. So sad.) So, good food, and lots of good conversation with people that all-too-often I only get to greet for 45 seconds during "extend the right-hand of fellowship" time at church.
I really love my church. It may not be big, but it really feels like a family to us. It did from the very first day we were there. This Sunday, after church, we found ourselves talking for a really long time with two other couples (who are both fairly new to the church and, in an incredible twist of providence, are both expecting babies only two days apart in April), then we were joined by the pastor and his family and we all went out to lunch at Appleby's. There's something really nice about fellowship with Christian families/families-to-be. And I suppose I should say something witty or introspective in closing right about now, but what can I say, my blogging is rusty.
I really love my church. It may not be big, but it really feels like a family to us. It did from the very first day we were there. This Sunday, after church, we found ourselves talking for a really long time with two other couples (who are both fairly new to the church and, in an incredible twist of providence, are both expecting babies only two days apart in April), then we were joined by the pastor and his family and we all went out to lunch at Appleby's. There's something really nice about fellowship with Christian families/families-to-be. And I suppose I should say something witty or introspective in closing right about now, but what can I say, my blogging is rusty.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
A Week With a Baby
I arrived at my sister's house late Saturday night. I was supposed to be there Friday afternoon, but a bunch of last-minute stuff came up that threw my plans off. Once I had done everything I could on Saturday, however, my awesome husband shoved me out the door (figuratively, of course) amidst promises that he would take care of everything else (which he did).
The thing that struck me most vividly about living with a five-week-old baby for a week was how irreversibly a baby re-centers your life. And you'd think that would be a bad thing, but it's really just different. For one week, I got to see what it's like to have a baby at the center of my universe, and what really amazed me was how much life still continued to move along pretty much normally around that new center. And I'll stop there before I start to wax too poetical. I'll admit that I got off easy, because I didn't have to get up for thrice nightly feedings, and my sister insisted that I shouldn't have to be on diaper duty all week. But I really enjoyed the rhythm of living with Alana and Eric and Nicholas for that time. And Alana took lots of pictures of us for me to post on my blog.
I won't go into a detailed blow-by-blow of the entire week. We ate three meals a day and evening snacks at night, Nicholas eating approximately twice as often as us. I did as much of the cooking as I could, vacuumed, did dishes, went grocery shopping and stacked firewood. While Alana nursed, I read. When Nicholas was fussy, I walked around with him and let him look at the world to keep him entertained.
When his neck got tired of twisting around to see what there was to see, I held him on my chest until he fell asleep (exhausted, no doubt, from the strain of trying to read the words on my shirt).
Sometimes, he would sleep soundly, and I would rest him on my knees and send Alana to bed while he napped and I read (or just stared at him).
Sometimes, I would entertain him by reading him his dinosaur book,
and sometimes, he would entertain me with his Dr. Evil impersonation.
Other times, we would just hang out and let mommy do housework unencumbered.
During the week I was there, I learned to tell his hungry cries from his bored cries, and he learned how to stick his tongue out for me when I encouraged him with laughter. (Sadly, there are no pictures of this, which is odd, since he did stick his tongue out an awful lot.) Alana and I both swear we saw him smile real smiles, not just the gassy ones. While I was there, Nick discovered his hands, and by the end of the week, he had developed a really strong grip.
We took walks with Nick and Eli (Nicholas' big, hairy, canine brother). We visited Alana's Taiko group to show Neko-chan off to Alana's second family. One night, Tim and Allison (a friend from college and his girlfriend) came to visit me and we played Settlers of Catan while Alana and Nick napped. We picked a whole bunch of tomatoes from Alana's garden and made sauce. We talked, we laughed, and we splurged and ate ice cream almost every night.
As I was looking over the pictures that Alana sent to me (and over them, and over them, and over them), I realized that not only was I enjoying how adorable my nephew looked in those pictures, but I was also enjoying how I looked in those pictures. I haven't liked very many pictures of myself in the past few years - I always seem to look old or tired (to me, of course, everyone else always seems to think I look fine). But since I quit my job at the law office, I have had several people tell me how much happier I look. And a week at my sister's, a week that for all intents and purposes should have seemed routine and boring, a week of living simply on a schedule driven by the needs of an infant, that week seems to have been the icing on the cake. I look at these pictures, and I like the way I look because I look happy.
The thing that struck me most vividly about living with a five-week-old baby for a week was how irreversibly a baby re-centers your life. And you'd think that would be a bad thing, but it's really just different. For one week, I got to see what it's like to have a baby at the center of my universe, and what really amazed me was how much life still continued to move along pretty much normally around that new center. And I'll stop there before I start to wax too poetical. I'll admit that I got off easy, because I didn't have to get up for thrice nightly feedings, and my sister insisted that I shouldn't have to be on diaper duty all week. But I really enjoyed the rhythm of living with Alana and Eric and Nicholas for that time. And Alana took lots of pictures of us for me to post on my blog.
I won't go into a detailed blow-by-blow of the entire week. We ate three meals a day and evening snacks at night, Nicholas eating approximately twice as often as us. I did as much of the cooking as I could, vacuumed, did dishes, went grocery shopping and stacked firewood. While Alana nursed, I read. When Nicholas was fussy, I walked around with him and let him look at the world to keep him entertained.
When his neck got tired of twisting around to see what there was to see, I held him on my chest until he fell asleep (exhausted, no doubt, from the strain of trying to read the words on my shirt).
Sometimes, he would sleep soundly, and I would rest him on my knees and send Alana to bed while he napped and I read (or just stared at him).
Sometimes, I would entertain him by reading him his dinosaur book,
and sometimes, he would entertain me with his Dr. Evil impersonation.
Other times, we would just hang out and let mommy do housework unencumbered.
During the week I was there, I learned to tell his hungry cries from his bored cries, and he learned how to stick his tongue out for me when I encouraged him with laughter. (Sadly, there are no pictures of this, which is odd, since he did stick his tongue out an awful lot.) Alana and I both swear we saw him smile real smiles, not just the gassy ones. While I was there, Nick discovered his hands, and by the end of the week, he had developed a really strong grip.
We took walks with Nick and Eli (Nicholas' big, hairy, canine brother). We visited Alana's Taiko group to show Neko-chan off to Alana's second family. One night, Tim and Allison (a friend from college and his girlfriend) came to visit me and we played Settlers of Catan while Alana and Nick napped. We picked a whole bunch of tomatoes from Alana's garden and made sauce. We talked, we laughed, and we splurged and ate ice cream almost every night.
As I was looking over the pictures that Alana sent to me (and over them, and over them, and over them), I realized that not only was I enjoying how adorable my nephew looked in those pictures, but I was also enjoying how I looked in those pictures. I haven't liked very many pictures of myself in the past few years - I always seem to look old or tired (to me, of course, everyone else always seems to think I look fine). But since I quit my job at the law office, I have had several people tell me how much happier I look. And a week at my sister's, a week that for all intents and purposes should have seemed routine and boring, a week of living simply on a schedule driven by the needs of an infant, that week seems to have been the icing on the cake. I look at these pictures, and I like the way I look because I look happy.
Monday, August 20, 2007
Weekend Redux (with pictures!)
Thanks to fortuitous timing (okay, fine, it was mostly deliberate), I find myself with nearly three weeks of "vacation" between the closing of one chapter in my work life and the opening of the next. I'm loving the break. And of course, in true Jule Ann form, I have packed the break so full of activity that I will probably be more tired when it is all over than I was to begin with. But that's just the way I am.
To be fair, several of my planned activities involve relaxation. I spent most of the afternoon last Wednesday at the pool with Ali to start things off, and it was blissful. Then, on Thursday, Ally and I went thrift store shopping, because I needed a dress to wear to a wedding this weekend. I found a great dress, and had a great time. I also found an awesome corset, which, of course, I purchased, because there is a moral imperative to buy a corset that actually fits you when you find it for $4.50.
As an aside, for the curious, and/or for those who think that I am simply an inconsistent speller: I do have two different friends whose names sound like a small street, and one spells her name Ali and the other spells her name Ally. Which either clears up or adds to the confusion, I'm not sure which, but I like to think it's the former. I was going to attempt to clear up / add to the confusion even more by posting some pictures of me with Ally and me with Ali, but I somehow can't seem to find a picture of me with Ali, so here is one I stole from Ali's Facebook:
And here is one of me with Ally:
And now, back to our story.
Jeremy took Friday and Monday off of work in order to make this weekend a nice, long one. Friday we drove up to my mom's cousin's cottage at Silver Lake, Western New York. We were hoping to get there in time for some lakeside relaxing / swimming, but we got a late start, took a long lunch break, and then arrived at the Lake at about the same time as a huge windstorm, which dropped the temperature to well below comfortable swimming temperatures. Fortunately, we also arrived at the cottage only a few minutes after my brother and his wife, so we had a nice visit with them before heading up to my uncle's house at about 7:30 for the after-rehearsal-dinner party.
It was nice seeing everyone at my uncle's house, even if everyone else was mostly pre-occupied with last-minute wedding preparations, which it was kindof nice to not be part of for once. I was mostly pre-occupied with meeting my nephew, Nicholas, for the first time. Such a cutie. Here, have a picture:
Actually, that picture was from Saturday, because I was too busy holding him and cuddling him and loving him to take any pictures on Friday. So, why don't we skip to Saturday in the narrative, so that I can post the rest of the pictures.
Saturday morning was nice and relaxing. We allfought over took turns holding Nicholas, until he and Jeremy fell peacefully asleep together on the couch, and no one had the nerve to disturb them.
The wedding on Saturday was beautiful, but my camera sucks, so none of my ceremony pictures turned out. We sat in the back row with Alana and Nicholas to keep them company while Eric was taking pictures, which meant that we were the last people to be released from the church. So, we did what bored people do, and took pictures. Here is one of Nicholas with Grandma Jill:
And here is one of me kissing Jeremy, which I am including in part because it is fun, and in part because it is the only one I have of myself from this weekend:
After the wedding, I accompanied my sister to the nursery while Eric was taking the wedding party photographs, which really doesn't add anything to this story other than context for this picture of Alana and Nicholas:
The reception was held on my uncle's property, in a pole barn that was constructed specifically for this occasion. In case you ever wondered about my tendency to take on enormous projects that sound like a great idea at the time, end up being more work than I thought they would be, nearly drive me crazy trying to get them done, and then end up being finished just barely in the nick of time, this is proof that I come by this trait honestly, through my father's DNA. The building was gorgeous, perfect, and completed mere days before the wedding:
And yes, for the more observant car enthusiasts among you, that is a 2007 Mustang convertible that Alistair and Heidi made their entrance in. With "Final Countdown" playing in the background. My family is awesome.
There was a lego competition, and our table's entry, an homage to the word "poop", earned honorable mention. There was a wedding cake on every table, which enabled my Aunt Ester (the one who brought the parachute to my wedding) to dig a little hole in our cake for Mr. Mouse to set up his home.
And, while we're on the topic of cake, here is the only picture I got of the bride and groom that is even remotely good enough to post (I really need a new camera):
What was that? You want another picture of Nicholas? Okay, here is one of him with his Auntie Trish:
Alright, this post is getting to be pretty long, so I will rush through the rest of the weekend. We got to spend some quality after-wedding time with the extended family, and said our goodbyes to everyone but my mom on Sunday morning. Then we headed to my mom's sister's house with her to have lunch and visit with my mom's side of the family. It was especially nice to see my cousin Sean and his wife Melody, along with their four boys, who are about twice as big as they were the last time I saw them.
And then, in case we hadn't packed enough into one long weekend, we stopped by Liverpool on the way home to see Dora and Scott and their boys, whom I also hadn't seen since they were about half the size they are now. It was a really nice visit, and it was really great seeing them all again. Hopefully, now that they are only four hours away, we will see more of them in the future.
To be fair, several of my planned activities involve relaxation. I spent most of the afternoon last Wednesday at the pool with Ali to start things off, and it was blissful. Then, on Thursday, Ally and I went thrift store shopping, because I needed a dress to wear to a wedding this weekend. I found a great dress, and had a great time. I also found an awesome corset, which, of course, I purchased, because there is a moral imperative to buy a corset that actually fits you when you find it for $4.50.
As an aside, for the curious, and/or for those who think that I am simply an inconsistent speller: I do have two different friends whose names sound like a small street, and one spells her name Ali and the other spells her name Ally. Which either clears up or adds to the confusion, I'm not sure which, but I like to think it's the former. I was going to attempt to clear up / add to the confusion even more by posting some pictures of me with Ally and me with Ali, but I somehow can't seem to find a picture of me with Ali, so here is one I stole from Ali's Facebook:
And here is one of me with Ally:
And now, back to our story.
Jeremy took Friday and Monday off of work in order to make this weekend a nice, long one. Friday we drove up to my mom's cousin's cottage at Silver Lake, Western New York. We were hoping to get there in time for some lakeside relaxing / swimming, but we got a late start, took a long lunch break, and then arrived at the Lake at about the same time as a huge windstorm, which dropped the temperature to well below comfortable swimming temperatures. Fortunately, we also arrived at the cottage only a few minutes after my brother and his wife, so we had a nice visit with them before heading up to my uncle's house at about 7:30 for the after-rehearsal-dinner party.
It was nice seeing everyone at my uncle's house, even if everyone else was mostly pre-occupied with last-minute wedding preparations, which it was kindof nice to not be part of for once. I was mostly pre-occupied with meeting my nephew, Nicholas, for the first time. Such a cutie. Here, have a picture:
Actually, that picture was from Saturday, because I was too busy holding him and cuddling him and loving him to take any pictures on Friday. So, why don't we skip to Saturday in the narrative, so that I can post the rest of the pictures.
Saturday morning was nice and relaxing. We all
The wedding on Saturday was beautiful, but my camera sucks, so none of my ceremony pictures turned out. We sat in the back row with Alana and Nicholas to keep them company while Eric was taking pictures, which meant that we were the last people to be released from the church. So, we did what bored people do, and took pictures. Here is one of Nicholas with Grandma Jill:
And here is one of me kissing Jeremy, which I am including in part because it is fun, and in part because it is the only one I have of myself from this weekend:
After the wedding, I accompanied my sister to the nursery while Eric was taking the wedding party photographs, which really doesn't add anything to this story other than context for this picture of Alana and Nicholas:
The reception was held on my uncle's property, in a pole barn that was constructed specifically for this occasion. In case you ever wondered about my tendency to take on enormous projects that sound like a great idea at the time, end up being more work than I thought they would be, nearly drive me crazy trying to get them done, and then end up being finished just barely in the nick of time, this is proof that I come by this trait honestly, through my father's DNA. The building was gorgeous, perfect, and completed mere days before the wedding:
And yes, for the more observant car enthusiasts among you, that is a 2007 Mustang convertible that Alistair and Heidi made their entrance in. With "Final Countdown" playing in the background. My family is awesome.
There was a lego competition, and our table's entry, an homage to the word "poop", earned honorable mention. There was a wedding cake on every table, which enabled my Aunt Ester (the one who brought the parachute to my wedding) to dig a little hole in our cake for Mr. Mouse to set up his home.
And, while we're on the topic of cake, here is the only picture I got of the bride and groom that is even remotely good enough to post (I really need a new camera):
What was that? You want another picture of Nicholas? Okay, here is one of him with his Auntie Trish:
Alright, this post is getting to be pretty long, so I will rush through the rest of the weekend. We got to spend some quality after-wedding time with the extended family, and said our goodbyes to everyone but my mom on Sunday morning. Then we headed to my mom's sister's house with her to have lunch and visit with my mom's side of the family. It was especially nice to see my cousin Sean and his wife Melody, along with their four boys, who are about twice as big as they were the last time I saw them.
And then, in case we hadn't packed enough into one long weekend, we stopped by Liverpool on the way home to see Dora and Scott and their boys, whom I also hadn't seen since they were about half the size they are now. It was a really nice visit, and it was really great seeing them all again. Hopefully, now that they are only four hours away, we will see more of them in the future.
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