happy new year

How is it possibly the end of a decade? Seriously, when various magazines I read started to do decade-roundups I thought they were doing the math wrong. It seems like it couldn't possibly be more than a year ago that we were waiting for Y2K to BLOW UP THE WORLD. I actually bought bottled water and everything. Because that would have saved me.

If there are any of you out there still reading this blog, I just wanted to say that I hope your 2010 is fantastic - I think a lot of us endured difficulty in 2009, and it's time for things to get better. And not only better, but great. And thanks for reading.

See ya on the flip side.

a decade in very short review.

Here is my decade in review, in very, VERY short form:

2000: Started new relationship. Dad died. Mom had skin cancer. Theater friend died. Year sucked, overall.
2001: Depressed. Uncle died. Bro got in major car crash, six brain contusions, broken ribs, smashed leg. Nightmare - but recovered! 9/11. Moved. Ended relationship. Was weirdly single for two months. Met Greg on blind date - finally, some good news!
2002: Growing pains w/Greg relationship. Started doing more theater. Moved again.
2003: The decade starts turning. More theater. Got Junior. Got engaged.
2004: Year of the weddings. Went to seven; planned our own. Much family and friend drama. Got married. Went to Hawaii!
2005: Went to San Diego. Began love affair with San Diego. Saw U2 three times. Created Summer Stage program w/friends.
2006: Started this here blog. Knocked up!
2007: Down syndrome test weirdness. Gestational diabetes. More theater. Healthy Jane! Became a mom.
2008: Work/life balance struggle. How do people do this?
2009: Ridiculous year. Didn't feel great. Went to Chicago. Saw U2 twice. Junior's surgery. New decade, stat!

Fin.

time for some pics.

My camera is slowly dying. Here are some not-so-high-quality pics from the past couple of weeks (the third one is about the happiest pic we got of Jane on Christmas Eve - little did we know she'd be puking a few hours later!).

christmas: a recap

So, you know how hard you work towards Christmas? The shopping, planning, working extra hard so you can take some time off, the wrapping, the cooking (not me), the baking, etc etc? It's AMAZING how all the anticipation that is worked up from all of those preparations can fizzle into misery when you are approximately .2 seconds from your mother's house, so you can pick her up and head off to church on Christmas Eve, and your toddler projectile vomits all over your car, her carseat, and, most importantly, the very specific and clean and specially-bought Christmas outfit you wrestled her into just 20 minutes before.

We thought we rallied and saved the day when we just had my mother go to church herself and did a load of pukey laundry and re-dressed Jane, but then my mother ended up getting into a fender-bender in the parking lot at church, and because she was then outside talking to the cops my brother was inside the church waiting for her alone, then Greg gets a call that his 97-year-old grandmother is in the hospital....and while we did manage to get through dinner and present-opening and one really vicious political argument between my brother and myself, Jane then woke up from her pack and play at around 10:30 (she DID go to sleep in it after all!) and puked again. SO, it looked like we couldn't blame the first puking on her just drinking milk too fast and coughing it all back up ..... it seemed she had a full-fledged bug, only confirmed when she puked AGAIN on the way home.

I really have to pat myself on the back a little bit here. While I did indulge in a pity party (YOU'VE GOT TO BE EFFING KIDDING ME ALL OF OUR CHRISTMAS PLANS ARE CANCELED WE HAVE A SICK KID ON CHRISTMAS OMG I HATE PUKE OMG I AM GOING TO CATCH IT AND BE SICK ON MY VACATION THAT I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO SOO MUCH) I didn't actually cry or anything. I'll save that for when I'm puking during my time off.

Jane was fairly OK yesterday morning and loved opening all of her presents, and so we decided to brave it and head off to my in-laws, after my mother-in-law said it was OK (I didn't want to bring a potentially-contageous child over without letting them know). And she did really great. Although she had only had Pedialyte in the morning, she ate crackers and chips and onion dip and a roll and chocolate cake (I know, I know, WTF am I doing as a parent, but it was either let her do it or listen to her cry) and she kept playing this game with me where I flip her over my shoulder on the couch (again, I know, I know, but AGAIN, it was either I do it or listen to her cry) - so filling my kid up with junk and then treating her like a giant martini shaker isn't the BEST way to deal with a child recovering from a stomach bug, but hey, she was laughing, and it was good.

But now. It's after 7 a.m. and she's still asleep. While some parents would love this fact, it is SCARING me because she only sleeps late when she's sick. And I REALLY want her to be better. I hate it when she's sick and it makes me nervous and I just want to have another puke-free day. Is that too much for a girl to ask for?

I hope you had a Merry Christmas, if that's your thing.

merry merry.

We kicked off our Christmas Eve not in the relaxing way I expected, but with an unscheduled trip down to the boat so we could get Jane's pack and play (baby jail) that Greg thought he left down there. We need it for tonight when we're at my mom's - see, I live in fairy fantasyland where Jane will go to sleep so I can play board games and have fun until the wee hours (10 p.m.-or maybe even later!). Anyway, Greg couldn't find it at the house so off we all went. Of course it wasn't there. So we stopped for breakfast and now we're back home, where he still couldn't find it. We were just about to call my friend to borrow hers, and then I finally decided to look around and spotted it in the garage. I am obviously awesome like Nancy Drew, solving mysteries and shit, but perhaps I would be even awesomer if I looked before we took our early-morning field trip.

With all that said, I hope you have a very merry and safe Christmas Eve and Christmas. I am both excited for the holidays and the fact that my overdue friend Jackie is currently in labor, all Mary of Nazareth style, on Christmas Eve. New baby!

xo

oasis

I'm not one for races, but the past two months have pretty much felt like a race against time at work. And when I return on January 4, the race will start up again, full-force. But right now, I am beginning a little oasis of days off - 11 of them to be exact - and I need it so. so. badly. I have loose plans here and there, and of course the next couple of days will be busy with that whole Christmas thing we've got looming, but I am really going to try to recharge during the break. I am not very good at this most of the time; usually I just create a ridiculously busy vacation schedule for myself so that my work schedule starts to look, if not relaxing, more manageable. But over the next week and a half, I only have a few official "plans" - and we'll see what happens the rest of the days. But I know this much: I expect to watch a tremendous amount of Dora, so much so that I expect to be fully bilingual by 2010.

visit.

I went to visit my dad today.

For those of you who know me, you either think a) I've lost my mind or b) I went to the cemetery. The answer is no to both (although perhaps just a little for choice a). I went down to the beach.

Despite the merriment/joy/holly-jolliness of this season, there is always a tiny undercurrent of sadness that my dad is not here. So I took today off to do some last-minute stuff and took a very last-minute trip down to the beach. I've probably said this before, but I'm too lazy to look back into my archives, so I will say it again - the beach reminds me so much of my dad, and some of my very happiest memories with him took place at the beach. He worked very hard and was often in a lot of pain from arthritis, but he just loved the beach (sound familiar?).

Of course, we didn't spend a lot of time at the beach in late December - the water would have been too cold even for him. But I feel like his spirit is there, and I feel close to him there, so there I went. So much preferable to visiting the cemetery - I hate going there, I hate feeling like everyone is looking at me, I hate the fact that someone I know might be driving by and see me - but being at the beach, even if I'm with hundreds of other people, feels eternally more private.

(I also took a detour here - God, I love this bookstore!)

weekend. update.

Just a quick weekend update before I run out the door - it's a busy one!

Friday: We had a holiday potluck extravaganza today at work, and I feel like I'm going to explode. Why, oh why, do I give myself the free eating pass whenever I'm at these things? But it was so good. Then I had my parent-teacher conference for Jane, which went excellently (I hope to post more details later). Tonight I am stage crewing a show called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - and I have not been to one rehearsal or seen the show in my life, so this ought to be...interesting. How many bruises will I have from running into set pieces? Only time will tell!

Saturday: Crewing two performances of Best Christmas Pageant so that will pretty much take up the whole day.

Sunday: Supposed to crew the last performance, except now it looks like we might get a bazillion inches of snow - or no snow at all. Um, OK weather people....figure it out with your super dopplar machines!

That's about it! It's old-skool Amanda, with a weekend of shows!

PS Of course I have a fresh new cold as well.

the babies are coming

I adore this.

nice

Because I tend to do a lot of vague and not-so-vague complaining on this here blog, I thought I'd report that today I had a lovely day. Surprising, considering it started at 4:30 a.m. when Jane woke up and if you mix in the fact that this afternoon it starting raining that cold, nasty rain that only December can serve, it really wasn't a recipe for a great day.

But it was nice. We brought Jane to Au Bon Pain and managed to have a relatively nice breakfast as a family. We went grocery shopping, so it's pleasant to know we have some food in the house for the week (Greg and I have never grown up in this regard; we tend to eat weird meals comprised of pretzels and soup and other such nonsense-I promise I do feed Jane normal meals). Then when we came home, Greg dragged Jane around the backyard in her brand new sled - it was her first real experience sledding and she LOVED it. It's nice to have a reason to like the snow again.

Jane took a super long nap this afternoon and I proceeded to eat a kajillion Hershey's Kisses, watch TV and read. Tonight we went to my niece's birthday party where I gave her what I know must be her favorite gift (tickets to see In the Heights. With me. What's better than that?). And now I'm watching Tom Cruise run away from aliens. Although listening to Dakota Fanning scream is kind of putting me on edge.

So, overall, a nice day. And I thought you deserved a nice entry for once. (Upon review, I have used the word "nice" too many times in this entry but I am not going to change any of it. Because apparently that's how I feel about my Sunday.)

quiet.

I know it's been quiet around these parts. I know. There is so much I would talk about here, if I felt like I was truly talking to a great void of strangers - faceless people that I don't know, and never will know. But that's not the case. And I'm just not one of those people that can vent out everything that is happening to me to the whole world, despite how "TMI" I may seem if you know me in person.

Suffice to say - life has been truly chaotic and dizzying, and not in an altogether pleasant way. But you don't need to hear about my problems (unless you are already one of the people who endlessly have to hear about my problems, and to you I say - I'm sorry!). But I'm OK and I don't want to make this sound more dramatic than it actually is - it's just the craziest parts of my life right now tend to fall into categories I don't blog about.

BUT. We are getting ready for the holidays, and plan to go get a tree this weekend - YAY! I love how the whole house changes once you have that tree smell and lights going on. Now that I think about it, "tree smell" doesn't sound like a good thing, but oh, it is. And we will be going to my niece's 14th (!!!) birthday party this weekend, and for the life of me, I cannot believe 14 years has gone by since she was born. Mostly I can't believe that because I was in college then. And college feels like yesterday.

I hope you have a great weekend!

kibble!

Check out my new button on the right - if you go to http://www.freekibble.com/ daily and answer trivia question, you automatically donate 10 pieces of kibble to a dog in need! Plus you learn all sorts of cool dog trivia to use at all of the holiday parties you're going to this year. While there, you can also click to donate kibble to cats too! Do it (and enjoy these Christmas card reject photos!)!

weekend. update.

WELL, friends, be glad I didn't blog this week. Because you may have learned some new bad language.

Yes, once again, not the best of weeks. Have I mentioned I still have the cold from hell? With a fresh new cold on top of the old one! But it's the weekend, and for that I am thankful. Here we go:

Friday: I had today off, thank God. I went Christmas shopping with two of my friends, and it was very cathartic. I don't get to spend nearly as much time hanging with my friends as I would like, so it was really a treat. I actually got a decent amount of shopping done and had a fun lunch too. After we were finished, I went to Barnes and Noble and read my gossip mags (hey, did you hear? Tiger Woods cheated on his wife!). Now I'm on the couch with my homegirl Jane, watching Dora. Continuing to be irritated by Diego's field journal, for no good reason.

Saturday: My sister is having her big annual bonfire/neighborhood party tomorrow, which coincides with our first mini-snowstorm. So we'll see how that goes. I love the bonfire party. It it so much fun - lots of food and drink and people I know.

Sunday: No official plans, but I have been bugging Greg to get out the Christmas decorations, so maybe we'll get all festive up in here. Or maybe not. Depends if I'm looking for a fight - because as you know, nothing brings on the arguments faster than getting ready for the holidays, with the mother of all triggers being decorating the tree.

Have a good weekend!