My 2011 Top 11

Where’ve I been all year, you ask? Not on this blog, that’s for sure! Here’s my top 11, 2011…things.

11.   Project 2011, daily blog entries that lasted all of 7 posts. Nice.

Oh holy huge!

10.  10 months of pregnancy. Whaaa?? Yep. It’s not 9, it’s 10 months, ladies. I think it’d be easier to handle if it was 10 weeks, not 10 months.

9.    I traveled to The Big Easy (New Orleans, LA or NOLA) and Music City (Nashville, TN). Why do I go to the party cities when I can’t party?!

8.     I began a food blog with two friends and abandoned it after only 10 posts. I do find myself randomly taking pictures of my food still, yet I never do anything with those photos. I’m sure I have a half-dozen drafts saved under that blog as well, with no clue as to what the password is to even access it.

7.     Only a pregnant woman in summertime knows swelling. Fingers = sausages. Toes = mini-sausages. Legs, knees, arms, belly, back = swollen and sore.

6.    Dan got a baby girl after all his smack-talk about having a boy. Oh yeea, outnumbered – booya! And she looks just like him.

5.     14 weeks of maternity leave which included, True Blood, Dexter, United States of Tara and lots of sitting on my bum.

4.     Came back to work determined to get where I wanted to be. I was greeted with half-answers, a slap of stress, a lost employee (she was let go) and eventually the gain of another.

3.     I started a list of lessons learned…I cannot believe I reached 89 in no time! It began on Facebook and grew so large I moved it to its own blog, Mila & Me, where my soul finally found its home.

2.      I’ve made new friends and strengthened bonds with existing. There’s nothing like having your family as best friends and your best friends as family.

1.     Learned how to crochet. Heh, I’m old. I’ve made 2 pot holders, a scarf, 1 and a half place mats and another scarf for the homeless. It really does ease my daily stress.

Bonus: My family saw 4 generations together this year! And in other news, my stalker is still stalking…

Happy 2012!

Happy 2011!

Apparently we can't take a good picture...

unless we're all goofy!

Merry Christmas 2011! Can't wait for New Year's. <3 you!

Come on Irene

Come on Eileen/Irene seems to have become the anthem of Hurricane Irene that just passed over the East Coast.

I’ve been hearing this song for decades; does anyone really know what it says?

Come on Eileen, 
I swear (well he means) At this moment you mean everything, 
With you in that dress my thoughts I confess verge on dirty 
Ah come on Eileen. 

I didn’t even know who sang it until now. There are a ton of parodies out there for the hurricane. They kinda hurt my head.

So back to the hurricane itself… Of course local media, as expected, over-dramatized the hurricane. Ok, we aren’t used to hurricanes up here, so sure, it was better to be safe. Our grocery stores were mobbed, our gas stations ran out of fuel, and the traffic was horrendous – everyone jamming the roads going nowhere. I didn’t understand it. I mean, bread and milk were completely cleared from store shelves, (I wonder if there was any peanut butter or jelly left either). What are you going to do with all that now? Your milk will go sour and your bread moldy before you can eat it all. And really, if you lost power, how were you going to keep that milk fresh anyway?

Then there’s the gas. Huh? Why gas? Where ya gonna go when a state of emergency was called and you were urged to stay in your home? One person on Facebook made me laugh with her daughter’s reasoning for this:

MJ: So apparently my VERY SMART daughter thinks the reason everyone is filling their tanks is so the cars won’t blow away!

At one point Governor Christie said, “stay the hell off the beaches” and someone even told us that if you were in the evacuated areas and stayed, the emergency crews would not come rescue you. Well, at least everyone has a full tank now. If you’ve had massive flooding, that full tank is useless. If you didn’t, well, at least you could get to work today.

So everyone along the east coast prepared for the storm of a lifetime. Even this guy:

Seriously?! What the hell is that gonna do?

And, awww, the poor president had to end his vacation. (Do we see a trend here? “Two years ago, Obama’s first vacation on Martha’s Vineyard as president was delayed by Hurricane Bill.”)

I bunkered down in my house with my baby, husband and brother. I tracked what was expected to be a bitch of a storm, (that little green pin is where I’m located).

It looked worse than it was. I was more frightened for my friends near the Maryland, Delaware and Jersey shores and Virginia Beach and North Carolina areas – they were sure to get slammed. Not to mention the loads of tornadoes that were forming and passing through the area.

By Sunday morning, when the hurricane/tropical storm Irene was mostly passed us,

we began to assess the damage. We had a lot of rain and wind during the storm and the damage I found outside was nothing compared to the storm we had last year, (and that was not a hurricane).

Inside though was another story. Because we lost electricity (for 14 hours) our sump pump stopped working, which meant a flooded basement. Again.We had 3 shop-vacs picking up water for hours yesterday trying to get the river that was my basement cleared up.  It’s now Monday afternoon and the sump pump is still pulling water out of my basement at a steady rate.

We have no idea if our washer and dryer work, (probably not the dryer at least – the last storm knocked it out of commission and we had to pay $300 to get it fixed). For the most part we didn’t lose much. A bunch of clothes got wet (along with baby clothes that Mila has yet to fit into), some cards and items I planned to scrapbook with and my pregnancy journal. That was the real upset. The book is falling a part yet I’m hoping the pages are salvageable. I’m still kicking myself in the butt for even having it down there in the first place.

It could have been much worse and if my only upset is a journal, we got lucky. And really, I count my blessings because it was nothing at all like this.

Closing a Decade: My Life in 2009

As I sit here and ponder the end of the year, flashes of events, laughter, and good times  throughout 2009 are spinning around in my head. It reminds me of how it’s claimed that your life flashes before your eyes as you leave the material world and venture off in to some strange, unknown universe. With that in mind, I figured a blog of this “scene” wouldn’t be a bad idea. Here’s my ode, as I sniff and wave good-bye, to 2009 and welcome with bright anticipation the coming of 2010.

Apollo has been the source of many laughs. He has made many boxes his home and bags his toys. I would save him when he got stuck and let him out when someone decided to put a heavy book on top of his box lid, trapping him inside. Not nice.

Athena has her own quirks and when her and Apollo get to playing together, the fun ensues.

I’ve been to bunches of meetings and different cities. I’ve explored their streets and tasted their beer. I’ve been through their snowstorms and thunderstorms and intense
heat…not to mention the mild, beautiful weather that just can’t be beat, making me long to return.

It’s amazing – I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy Washington, DC (again and again); Cleveland, OH (a couple times); Newport, RI; Albuquerque (soon for the third time) and Santa Fe, NM; Charlotte, NC (twice); Tampa, FL (quite a few times); I’ve had road trips from New Jersey to

Vermont and through the mountains of Pennsylvania; York, PA; Bloomington and Crane, IN; Princeton, NJ (twice); trips, parties, bon-fires and camping (with Duraflame??!!) all over south Jersey; and a visit to Maplewood, NJ that led to New York City, NY. And let’s not forget

Daytona, FL for the Daytona 500, which included an unexpected appearance by Tom Cruise and performance by Keith Urban.

.

.

My 2009 included the Phillies with dad and the Flyers’ suite with Dan, debates on Snuggies, themed parties,

good food, tailgating and concerts (XTU and Pat Green – or was that 2008?), a wedding, much drinking and hangovers, engagements (THREE!!) and father’s meeting, jeep “things”, time spent with soon-to-be family, family, friends, my favorite almost-four-year-old and favorite one year-old. 

2009 brought mom’s first tattoo  and dan’s first pumpkin carving, ghouls and black eyes, corn mazes, frightful hayrides (not that the engagement was frightful…the people just creeped me out ) and haunted houses.

2009 gave us a house we love (after seeing so many and long months of waiting), a trip to Atlantic City with the girls, dancing and more hangovers, (well, for only one of us and it wasn’t me).

2009 provided my addiction to the Twilight series and awesome artists and music and if I had to think about it off the top of my head, I’d say I love  John Mayer, Kings of Leon, Halestorm, Maroon 5, Evanessence, and so, so, many more.

With A lingered “bro-hug”, the ”copacabana” and some strange girls and a bobblehead fit for a goof, yep, I’d say 2009 was a good year!

***

Originally written: January 6, 2010…why was this never posted? Sheesh…

Grammar Mistakes That Drive Me Nuts

Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I cannot spell. Aaand I’m not that great when it comes to grammar. However, the simplest of “rules” are most often broken. I can forgive those quick messages and those small slip-ups, it’s just the constant, over-and-over again mistakes that make me go bonkers.

1. To and Too: I can’t tell you how often I see, “I’ll go with you to” or “I can’t stay to late”
2. Their, There and They’re: This is my biggest pet peeve and it seems I run into more and more people who don’t know the difference. Let me make this simple:
   1. There: A locale/distance – “Over there”
   2. Their: Possession – “Their house”
   3. They’re: Contraction of “they” and “are” – if you can’t break it out in the sentence, you have the wrong one. “They’re nice people.”; “They are nice people”.
3. Who and Whom: I’m not the best with this one either. Here’s my rule of thumb: If you can answer it with “him”, it’s “whom”, (and “he” is “who”). For example, “You’re going with whom?” I’m going with him. Whom.
4. Affect and Effect: I was told once that “affect” is related to emotions, (“His actions affect me deeply”). Effect I remember “Cause and Effect” from science class. Recently, I saw an article that said it simply: “Affect” is a verb and “effect” is a noun.
5. Then and Than: Than compares. “I’d rather have an apple than a pie.”
6. Past and Passed: “Passed” refers to movement. “The car passed by me.” “Past” refers to time. “It’s over and all in the past”. I found this that breaks it down (and honestly, makes my head spin) even more.

***

Another unfinished post.  After I began this one, I started questioning all the “rules” and how I was using them (at least #s 4-6, anyway) and got myself all confused. haha Not sure why I never finished this one, but it’s as good as done now. Originally written: July 21, 2o10.

Character.

Why judge a person on their looks when it’s all about character? When you’ve obtained all the material belongings you could possibly want, when youth is dying and looks fade, what is there really left but conversation….and maybe food?

***

haha Another draft I found…not sure where I was going with this; probably just another random thought that I had to capture. I think this is fine left as it is. Originally written on October 30, 2010.

Vegas or Bust

Another unfinished post I found…Hey, it started out well…back on November 12, 2009! Enjoy what I never finished. haha

***

So I wrote about the engagement…And the dress…And the nightmare. But I have yet to touch upon the ongoing saga of the wedding location. *sigh* Here it goes.

My cousin was engaged a week or so before I was, so what a trip this would be! We both scooted our butts down to the local Barnes and Noble for a little peek into the books of wedding planning, decorating, crafting and budgeting, (we planned to cut costs by making a lot of things ourselves). We both have no idea what goes into this. Kim and I are similar in a lot of ways and when it comes to girly-girl weddings, well, we both could gag. Simple. Stunning. Classy. These were things we looked at.

My first thought after the proposal was a mid-October wedding the following year. It gave us more than a year and a half to enjoy the engagement, get a house and begin to settle down. It also meant colored leaves and mild weather and I’ve always wanted an outdoor wedding. After a day of rummaging through wedding how-to and picture books, I decided I wanted a vineyard wedding. I had begun sketching ideas for what I liked and the way I would have things set-up and arranged. I had no concept of what this would cost, so I began contacting local vineyards and pricing equipment rental companies for items like tents, couches, and rustic, long, wooden tables and matching chairs. Heh. It didn’t take long to figure out how expensive my dream was actually going to be.

The money really wasn’t the worst part though — not yet, anyway. I like simple and small and when I wrote out my entire guest list, I came up with 24 people (including guests). I was excited and thought: oh goody, we can have a 50 person wedding! Then I talked to Dan, arms filled with information and excitement on my face. I told him my idea and he said he liked it, BUT he was thinking more along the lines of 200 people! My stomach sunk. I didn’t want all these people — people I didn’t know, people that I would have to accomodate and entertain — people that I would have to spend my entire wedding walking around to, talking to and thanking. Well there went my nice, simple, quiet, enjoyable wedding! *pout* I pointed out that 175 people, 92% of the guest list, would be on his side. My family would be so overwhelmed! No one would even know I had friends and family… *sulk* And worst, I wouldn’t be enjoying MY wedding at this point.

I was at a loss. And it didn’t help talking to his parents — his mom wanted a HUGE wedding (with a 7 layer cake, nontheless) and was even willing to help out with some of the expenses. My first thought: Great. You help with expenses and now it’s your wedding, not mine. I wont have a say and all of a sudden, everything will be out of my hands. I don’t want to fight for my wedding and I don’t want to end up despising you.

***

In the end, none of this mattered. We went to Vegas with 15 guests! =)

A Crafty Weekend…Plus

So I was going through my draft posts, looking for some writing inspiration and found this…written back on August 17, 2009, almost TWO years ago! Figured it was complete enough to post, so here you go! haha I’ll find that photo, one of these days, and post it…so you can see the dress I didn’t get.

***

Well, I was feeling crafty the other day and decided to document my weekend. Unfortunately, there is one photo that I cannot personally share in this post; you’ll understand when you get there.

Aside from the cleaning and scrubbing I did, I actually did a couple “crafty” things this weekend. After an extremely frustrating Friday evening and avoidance all of Saturday, Sunday morning I sat down and actually got my thank you cards to layout and print. I was pretty happy with the finished product.

Your kindness will never be forgotten...//Thank you for your support, generosity, and most of all...your love.

Worked out perfectly, so a friend and I headed to Haddonfield for a little boutique shopping, gallery browsing and bistro lunch. Can’t beat historic Haddonfield for a nice Sunday afternoon stroll. First stop, Jay West! Umm, shoulda never gone in there.

I’ve currently been debating a Vegas wedding vs. a semi-traditional, somewhere-near-home, vineyard wedding. The financial “obligations” tied to each makes an extremely convincing argument for Vegas. That was, however, until I put on a beautiful dress by 2bebride. I cannot portray exactly how I felt with that dress on…I keep looking at the pictures. Something about this changed things. A wedding and marriage in my near future became more real. I felt it in the pit of my stomach – and I loved it! I can picture myself walking down a bed of fall colored leaves in the cool autumn air… So now I’m stuck on debating venue again…ugh. If anyone reading this has any suggestions, please comment. I have my pros and cons of each…I just can’t make up my mind.

Anyway, we head out of the store and walk around checking out some galleries – art and antiques – until we finally settle on lunch. Have lunch and head home…

***

Kinda seems like I left this hanging…guess that’s why it was still in the “drafts” file. Ah well…

Second Trimester, Ahhhh or Third’s a Turd!

Well, I guess it’s about time that I finished up this pregnancy “journal”. I left off writing about a few weeks into my second trimester. I gained my energy back, lost the heartburn (momentarily) and sickness. I was feeling great and moving around well. I still procrastinated painting and setting up the nursery, of course, that’s just me. I played music for the baby and anticipated the first movements I would feel and see. Ultrasounds showed the baby clearly – and boy was that an active baby! I was frightened to have that peanut grow and kick the crap out of my insides.

Since I’m beyond this trimester, it’s all a bit vague. I do remember it was my “golden trimester” and for the most part things were great and I was happy.

Thumbs up!

My third trimester, well, that’s another story. A turd it was. It was difficult to get around, my feet and fingers swelled, my knees hurt, I was cranky and moody and irritable (not to mention impatient). My rings went around my neck instead of around my fingers. The small workouts I was attempting to keep up with faltered. And the worst, I got carpel tunnel in just about all my joints (every knuckle of every finger, my knees, my elbows), except my wrists, where I thought it only occurred.

I should have taken stock in Tums and pillows – they went everywhere with me.

I loved feeling the baby – that was the best part. I didn’t love the toes in my ribs or what felt like a broken sternum at the end. And as my pregnancy progressed, I was bumped all over the place – moved from a comfortable position or startled out of my seat from a large kick. Man, that baby was strong inside of me!

Face up, fist above head

So that about wraps up the remainder of my pregnancy – in a nutshell.

If you are pregnant, these readings/guides came in handy for me, (not so much the multiple, hefty books I purchased or received from friends):

1. Similac: A week-by-week reading of your baby’s growth and tips for your pregnancy. Also, sign up for Strong Moms, you get free samples, coupons and gifts.
2. “Pregnancy Magazine“
3. “Pregnancy & Newborn“ (magazine)
4. Pregnancy Do’s and Dont’s: The Smart Woman’s A-Z Pocket Companion for a Safe and Sound Pregnancy
5. And numerous websites.

Please keep an open mind when reading and surfing the web. Just about everything I looked up had an ambiguous result – some said “yes, it’s ok” and others said “no, stay away”. Talk to your doctor – s/he is the expert, not the internet. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to follow all the rules, you’ll only succeed in adding unnecessary stress to your pregnancy. Remember, just in dieting and about everything else in life, moderation is key.

I’M NOT FAT!!!

I’m pregnant.

Today I had someone stop by my office and say “Congratulations! I had no idea you were pregnant”, then proceed to tell me just how he found out…

In speaking with someone else, this person thought it would be appropriate to say “Yeah, you can tell Andrea’s married” (if you don’t understand this, don’t worry, you soon will). The other person replied, “you do know she’s pregnant, right?” Oops.

So, if it wasn’t bad enough that he said this, this guy then has to blame someone else for the same thing. He tells me that he happens to be speaking with someone else when he mentions, “Have you seen Andrea lately?” The other fellow says, “Yeah, she’s put on some weight. You can tell she’s married now”, (got that? makes sense now, huh?). So this guys sets him straight.

What the hell people?! I understand that sometimes it’s hard to determine if a woman is pregnant or just gaining weight. But damn. Never stop to think about the situation – blame the apparent “fatness” on…a marriage?! Ridiculous.