Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

Wow.  I can barely believe SEVEN months have gone by without a blog update.  Yikes.  The problem was that I found a surrogate for blogging.  In January I started doing Project Life, which I like to call Scrapbooking Lite.  I've put pretty much all my time & effort into keeping up with Project Life and it satisfies my need to document things in my life.  And trust me, I've often thought about my blog and I wonder if anyone has even noticed that I don't update anymore.

And I had a great reason to start blogging again starting in late February.  The Mister & I found out we're expecting a baby!  I'm pregnant!  Due at the end of October!  After I found out, I definitely thought about coming back to the blog to document everything but then in addition to Project Life, I decided to DIY a pregnancy journal using the same pocket-scrapbooking technique.  So again, analog trumped digital.

But man.  Pregnant.  It still feels surreal at times.  And then the little one starts kicking and moving around and it's like, "Yep.  Definitely housing a wee tiny adorable parasite in there."  We think we are having a boy.  Here's why I say "think" there.  My mom & step-dad were visiting us a few weeks ago and they tagged along to my widwife appointment because I thought it would be pretty cool for them to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler.  Well, since everyone was there, the ultrasound tech managed to squeeze us in for a mini anatomy scan.  She was moving the wand all around and was about to tell us we were expecting a girl when she changed her mind and said, "I think that might be a penis!" She printed out a photo for us with the supposed penis circled (which I tucked into a notebook and then carried around in my purse for weeks, thinking to myself, "I'm carrying around a photo of my baby's penis everywhere I go.  WEIRD.") and we went on our merry way, talking about our son.

Then two weeks later we had the real anatomy scan where they check all the organs and body parts and make sure Baby is developing on schedule (he is!).  And I guess since we had already had the mini scan, she just sort of glossed over the bits and said, I quote, "That could be a penis" and continued on her merry way.  In the moment I didn't think too much of it, but now it keeps bugging me that she didn't sound very convinced.  Baby wasn't being cooperative enough for her to capture the profile, so we have another ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow.  I'm going to play Preggosaurus Rex card and ask very nicely if she'll take one more look at his bits just to make sure he has boy bits and not girl parts.  Not that it really matters except that we've started buying some boy things and we've been calling him by a boy name.  And I just want to knoooooooooow.

Interestingly enough, my sister is also pregnant and is due about two weeks ahead of us.  She is NOT finding out the baby's sex until the birth.  I don't know how she can deal with that level of suspense.  I was dying to find out.  But to each their own.

That's a VERY flattering selfie from about a week & a half ago.  I've put on more weight than I was hoping to and I feel enormous.  Last week the Mister & I joined the local Y and I started going to water aerobics classes and walking hills on the treadmill when the Mister is swimming or in yoga.  There is a slow yoga class on Tuesdays and the instructor told the Mister she was comfortable teaching me as long as I got a note from my doctor, so I'll ask for that tomorrow at our appointment.  I'm trying not to eat so many snacks and sweet stuff, but man.  Ice cream is SO GOOD.  But then I think about how much harder I'll have to work AFTER the baby is born to get back into shape.  I've already told the Mister that I would really like to hire a trainer for that and he thinks it would be a good idea.

I'm out on maternity leave from flying, which is nice.  But it means I have a LOT of time to kill.  Project Life helps with that especially since I still haven't finished documenting our honeymoon, which we finally took last month.  Oh, yes!  We went to New Zealand and Sydney at the end of May!  It was amazing!  I took a zillion photos, which I am slooooooowly editing and printing and journaling about.

Also, the Mister has begun a twelve month sabbatical from work to focus on his graduate studies, which is great for so many reasons.  But it's means that we are BOTH home 24/7.  We probably spend way too much time together.  So far it hasn't been a problem, but I encourage him to take his studies OUT of the house.  And I should probably take some of MY time out of the house as well.  Going the Y helps.  I'm really enjoying water aerobics even though I'm the youngest person in the class by at least 25 years.

I don't even know where to end this post.  I still have so much I could talk about.  But maybe I'll come back soon.

Happy New Year!

So! New year, new blog post? Every time I compose an entry, I promise to stop neglecting this blog. And then I neglect it again. Oops. So, maybe no more promises.

I'm typing this with the on-screen keyboard of my new iPad mini. I saved up a bunch of points in an employee rewards program& cashed them in for so many traveler's checks and made the plunge into the world of tablets. I may never look back. I think I may still want a separate keyboard, but I am getting pretty adept at using the on-screen one. I have no idea how this will format though. I'm using the Blogger app.

I'm currently on a 3+ hour sit in Orlando. This is how I like to start my new year. But soon I'll fly back to New York for the night before I start a 3-day tomorrow. I slept in the lounge last night, but treated myself to a hotel for tonight. Partly bc, you know, sleeping in a bed & taking a shower kind of rocks. But mostly bc I am just that ridiculously committed to my Holiday Streak. I committed to running at least a mile a day between Thanksgiving & New Year's & today is the final day. Once I finish this turn & go to the hotel, I will run the 2 miles necessary to put me over 100 miles for this 34ish day streak. I'm super excited about that.

I spent Christmas working, which was lame, but alas, I am still just a junior baby flight attendant. The Mister & I exchanged gifts and I received an awesome monogram necklace (clearly I've been living in the South for too long bc I asked for it!) and a super cute quilted vest for hiking. His mom also gave me anew backpack for hiking. While I am less sure about camping,I am 95% certain I will love hiking. So these items will get a lot of use.

I gave the Mister the first 2 seasons of McGuyver, the movie Paul, a print featuring The Rocketeer (his fave movie of all time) and a pair of cuff links he has been eyeing in a jewelry store window for a year. I think we both made out pretty great.

The Big 3-0

So I got a little caught up in the hubbub of my birthday and didn't get a chance to post.  But now it's Monday, all the festivities are over and the Mister is back at work.  I mentioned that I was going do a sort of wrap-up post about my 30-Before-30 list, and the long & short of it is that I didn't do so hot.  I've been trying to be a little less hard on myself, so I'm going to look at this as a learning experience.  What did I learn?  I've learned that as much as I love a good to-do list (and my-oh-my I do!), I do better with smaller amounts of time.  Knowing that I had a whole year to complete all the items contributed to my procrastination.  And so a few months out, I was trying to cram in all the books I didn't read and all the tasks I hadn't accomplished.  Which was sort of exhausting.  And I've put off doing things I really want to to do because of things I think I "ought" to be doing.

Of the 19 things I didn't do, I think its a tie between run a marathon and do a Color Run for the thing I most wished I had done.  The marathon idea fell to the wayside over the summer when I was flying like a crazy lady.  And the Color Run didn't end up happening because we had a bit of a last minute wedding invitation that we couldn't turn down.  But!  I did run 3 races this year, which is more than I've done before!  I'm hoping to do even more next year, including maybe a destination race or two!

The rest of the items were things I found myself less interested in or were dependent on other people.  Skiing and camping are definitely happening next year.  I was hoping to knock out SCUBA, surfing and visiting a new continent when the Mister & I took our honeymoon but we haven't been able to schedule that yet.

All of that said, there was one item on the list I just wasn't NOT doing.  So, on my birthday last week, I walked into a salon and had a stylist chop off just over a foot of hair!

The girl decided to cut it off in two pigtails rather than one ponytail in an effort to save me a little bit of length.  So my hair is actually longer now than I thought it might be.  I've been having fun trying to style it, but I haven't figured it out quite yet.  Today's style is leftover from a bit too much curl yesterday.

I've been wearing my hair up so much this summer (I am a master of the braid) that I think I hadn't really realized just how long my hair had grown.  It is taking some getting used to, but it is so nice not to have it get stuck in my bra straps accidentally get zipped into a dress.  The Mister is hoping that maybe now that it isn't so long he won't have to be constantly cutting it out of the vacuum brush.

That photo is from my birthday dinner and shows how the girl styled my hair.  I liked how sleek it looked, but I'm not sure if it is very "me" yet.  I haven't tried it on my own, but I will.  I'm also pondering picking up a pair of hair scissors to do a bit of work on the bangs.  I told her I liked a deep side part, but she parted it just off center to cut my bangs.  Other than that, she did a great job and I'm pretty happy with it!  My envelope full of hair is on its way to Pantene Beautiful Lengths and I'm excited that a woman out there who has lost her hair to cancer will benefit from my loss.

Super Fun Pre-Halloween Weekend!

Sure, it's Wednesday, and I'm only now getting around to writing about our weekend, but at the rate I've been going, I'm just glad I'm posting!

Last weekend, the Mister & I drove down to our old stomping grounds, Norfolk and Virginia Beach, to have a super fun pre-Halloween weekend.  The first purpose of our trip was running the Anthem Wicked 10K, which is a super fun costume race.  This is my third year in a row doing a Halloween-themed race for my birthday and I have declared it a tradition!

Ahh, he's got me!

Drac makes sure the Mister gets a good night's sleep!

Matchy McMatchersons over here!

The Mister was able to leave work relatively early Friday afternoon and we hit the road.  Remarkably, we didn't hit ANY traffic and made amazing time.  Our first stop was the Expo at the Convention Center in Virginia Beach to pick up our packets.  I've been trying to take more photos when we do fun things and the Mister was willing to indulge us.  I think the shirts this year are way nicer than last year's!

After we got our packets and did a bit of browsing at the Expo, we headed over toward Norfolk to go to one of our favorite restaurants, Luna Maya, that we dearly miss.  We nommed on so much delicious food it was kind of ridiculous.  Then we headed back to our hotel to  get in a good night's rest before the race.  I forgot to get any photos before the race, but I am impressed at how great my costume looks after a 6.2 mile run!

Post-race selfie! We were the TARDIS and the 10th Doctor from Doctor Who, fyi!

Blurry shot of me & Richard Simmons!  This guy rarely broke character, it was awesome!

Ms. Frizzle & her Magic School Bus!  I was bummed that they didn't place in the costume contest!

Full shot of the TARDIS costume!

Extra special touch!

I love doing costume races because it makes the running part that much more bearable if you have something amusing to look at.  This was the longest distance the Mister has run since high school and I was running a bit injured, so checking out people's costumes was a big help!  Unfortunately, not too many people got our costumes.  Mostly just the cool nerdy high schoolers volunteering.  There was one girl who was handing out PowerBars who pretty much lost her shit, especially when I turned around to show off my Bad Wolf grafitti.

We stayed for most of the after-party and enjoyed our three free beers and then stumbled down the beach back toward our hotel lunch and showers.  We had lunch (in our costumes!) at our favorite fancy sandwich shop, Taste.  I joked with the Mister that it was no wonder I gained 10 pounds after moving in with him...there were so many awesome places to eat in Norfolk!

We spent the rest of the day bumming around and had dinner with some friends.  The next day we slept in and had a super yummy (but surprisingly spendy) breakfast at a place called Pocahontas Pancakes and then hit the road for the finale of our Super Fun Pre-Halloween Weekend.  Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream!

I totally intended to take way more photos while we were at the park, but then I forgot.  But I made sure to get a photobooth photo because last time we came, we didn't get one.  It's my favorite souvenir!  We had so much fun at Howl-O-Scream, but we wish the scary stuff started a bit earlier.  We did all our favorite non-scary attractions early in the afternoon and then we were left sort of just wandering around for two hours before the haunted houses opened up.  But man.  Once they did?

Have I ever mentioned that I am a TOTAL baby about scary things?  Like, I don't watch scary movies or scary TV shows.  Even some episodes of Doctor Who are too scary for me.  But I was like, Yeah!  Let's go through these crazy haunted houses!  We got through four of the six they offered before we needed to hit the road (it was a school night, after all!) and they were insane.  I screamed.  A lot.  To the point where I finally just warned the people behind us in line.  Everyone, especially the Mister, had a good laugh at me.  I was totally an easy mark for the ghoulies because they'd see me clutching the Mister's arm and cowering behind him so they all came at me.  I felt bad for the ones who I screamed at right in their faces.  Oops.  I wonder if they are provided with earplugs.  I certainly hope so!

Even more fun was that, after dark, there were ghoulies just wandering around the park, creeping up on people to scare them.  It was super fun to watch other people's reactions.  And of course, the Mister laughed at me every time I jumped or screamed.  What can I say?  I startle easily!

That's all I've got for now.  Tomorrow is my birthday!  The big 3-0.  I'm planning to write up a recap of my 30-by-30 list (short version: didn't accomplish much of it) tomorrow.  Until then, Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch!

You guys, it's October!  October is my favorite month, not just because of my birthday though.  You see, Fall is my favorite season.  And sure, September is the official beginning of fall, but September is just like August Plus.  But October is when the leaves really start changing colors and when the weather gets a little crisper.  And I love me some crisp weather.  It means I can start wearing boots and sweaters and scarves and jackets, but I don't have to wear a coat.  It's the best weather for running.  And for doing fall things.  Like going to the pumpkin patch!

Yesterday afternoon, the Mister came home from work early so we decided to take a drive out to Belvedere Plantation to get some pumpkins.  I've been dying to do something Fall-like and this was pretty high on my list, but we got rained out last weekend.  Well, last night could not have been more perfect, weather-wise.  Although I should have listened to my original instincts that told me to bring a sweater.

But even though I was a little chilly, I looked darn cute with my pumpkin!

And the Mister was handsome, as always.

We felt a little awkward when we first got there because it is totally geared towards families with kids and as yet, we are child-free.  But after a while, we ran into a few other child-free couples out on a Friday date night and felt a little more comfortable.

With it being Fall and all, the sun began to set and the moon to rise pretty early in the evening.

The pumpkin patch is lit up on Friday nights, but we decided to get the pumpkin picking out of the way first thing.  There were really so many awesome pumpkins.  We were super impressed with the quality.  We each found a few awesome pumpkins a piece, but settled on two 18 pounders.  I'm pretty excited to carve them up and also to roast the seeds!

Most of the activities were geared towards the littles, but there was a Maize Maze so we decided to hit that up.  I had never actually been in a corn maze, so I was excited to give it a try.  The Mister thought it was a haunted corn maze, but I was happy it was just a regular one.  It was a little confusing what we were supposed to be doing, besides finding our way out.  There were these checkpoint signs and we only ever found Checkpoints 3 & 4 though some people we ran into claimed to have found Checkpoint 5.  Eventually though, our hot cider was long gone and my fingers were frozen so we decided to give up the ghost and go back the way we started.  The Mister's inner Boy Scout was a bit upset at not having conquered the corn maze, but we still had a lot of fun!

All in all, we had a great time and it was a super fun Fall date night.  I would definitely go back again next year.  And seeing as how we went out to the patch and picked our own pumpkins, I'm going to go ahead and declare this as "Berry Picking" as far as my 30-Before-30 list goes!

Stalker Songs

Have you ever had a song stalking you?  Like, you hear it everywhere you go?  And I don't mean a Top 40 song-of-the-summer because that would be like saying that the guy in the next cubicle is stalking you because he is always at work when you are.  Now, if he were also always at your dry cleaners and also always in the tree outside your apartment, then yes, he would be stalking you.  But anyway.  Back to the original question of stalker songs.  Because lately, this song has been stalking me:

I have heard it three times in the last week or two.  I remember this song was HUGE in the early nineties but listening to it now, I am so confused as to why.  Perhaps it's because it is a total earworm.  Since this song started stalking me, I've been walking around singing it to myself.  Except then I start singing THESE lyrics:

The only clips I can find skip the first part of the song which goes, "I am sitting on the sofa, there's a TV in the corner..."  Anyone else a huge Nick at Nite fan as a child?

Sustained Silent Reading

So!  Progress continues on the novel reading.  I'm currently about halfway through Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence and I'm enjoying it though I keep saying to myself, "Ugh, Paul is SUCH a momma's boy!" because he totally is.  Previously I read Darkness at Noon  by Arthur Koestler.  It was so out of my normal realm of fiction but I found myself really into it and not wanting to set it down.  It was about a man who had risen rather high up in the Party (communist, to be sure) and then fell to the bottom as he became disillusioned with the Party ideals and tactics.  Very interesting.  Before that was The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner and I'll admit I checked out the Wikipedia page on this one to get a better idea of the plot because the way it is written in the first part was a bit confusing.  I just realized that I skipped over Catch-22 because thus far I've been reading everything on my Nook but I knew the Mister had a physical copy of that so I didn't want to buy it.  Note to self: read Catch-22.

Basically, skipping James Joyce has made me a much happier reader.  If I have time and the inclination, I'll circle back around and give him another try.  But for now, I'm enjoying reading outside my comfort level.

Let's see, what else?  I've been diligently tracking my food on My Fitness Pal and I've been running pretty consistently, so that's good.  I think I'm noticing a difference in my body but the scale was kind of refusing the budge there for a while and then it did so who knows.  I'm sort of obsessive about weighing myself every day when I am home (even though I know I'm not supposed to) but I don't think I let the number have much effect on the way I got about my day.  I just keep trying to stay under my calorie goals.  Most days I do.

I did get a new phone, which is very exciting!  It's a rather sexy Samsung Galaxy S4.  I overthought the whole process waaaay too much, but I've had the phone for almost a week now and I'm quite pleased with it.  I've been setting up all the pages and widgets and downloading apps and figuring out settings and features and really geeking out over it.  I've also found myself using the Nook app on it instead of my Simple Touch just for the convenience of it.  So that's pretty cool.  I'm still working out what kind of case I want to get for it.  I originally ordered two wallet-style cases (this in pink and this in white) and while I enjoy not having to carry a purse while running errands, I think I'd prefer something a little less bulky for everyday use.  So I'm still looking.

Work is still work.  I applied for a four-month leave of absence they are offering for the fall.  The leaves are awarded in order of seniority and I have no idea if I'm senior enough to hold one, but it would be really great to have four months to actually Get Shit Done around here.  I'm only ever home for three or four days at a time anymore which is my own doing because I don't want to work weekends and I don't want my trips to back up to each other.  But still.  I'll find out sometime next week if I was awarded one of the leaves.  They are also offering single-month leaves for November, so maybe if I don't get the multi-month leave I might still get the single month leave.  I'll keep you posted.

That's about all that's new around here.  How are you?