surprise!

So Saturday night’s super-secret surprise party was for my sister’s 50th birthday.
 

My sister Sue is so cool. I’m serious. She’s 11 years older than me but I’ve always looked up to her and really idolized her when I was a kid. She was a glamorous college girl in California when I was going through my most awkward and wretched pre-teen years, and I absolutely loved when she came home for holidays and vacation – it felt like a celebrity was visiting, it really did. And she’s still so pretty and fun and awesome and so much cooler than I could ever hope to be.
 

Her life (like everyone’s) hasn’t always been easy, but her attitude is so positive and infectious it’s really hard not to have a great time when you’re with her. If you think I’M loud and outgoing, well, then, you haven’t spent time with my sister.
 

So I was really excited about her party this weekend, especially since she’s always the one planning the parties and celebrations for everyone else. Greg and I had a great time (sans Jane) with 55 of my sister's closest friends and family members. Something I learned: when your 22-year-old niece peer pressures you to go shot-for-shot with her, don’t give in. I did, and uggggghhhhhhh is all I can say to that. Who do I think I am? AMANDA YOU ARE NOT IN YOUR EARLY TWENTIES ANYMORE AND NEITHER IS YOUR ALCOHOL TOLERANCE.

 

 

Side note: it’s so weird to have a niece and nephew (22 and 25, both children of my other, non-birthday-girl sister) who can legally drink. OMG, I babysat these kids! But I was a very young aunt. Thankfully my other niece (Sue’s daughter) still has five years to go before I can run into her at a bar.
 

Please do enjoy these shitty pictures, courtesy of my Blackberry (apologies to those who already saw these on Facebook). ETA: I realize now that I am in all of these pictures. Sorry bout that.

 

 Just say no, Amanda.

Me and my bro. 

 Me and the Greg.

 Me and the sisters.

 Me and the birthday sister.

Surprise!

 Cousins





The siblings and mom.

The nieces.

 



 

 

weekend update.

Has anyone noticed that I am desperately trying to post more often around here? Because even though I would rate all of my posts a D- this week, at least I slapped them up here, and that’s half the battle. Go me! With that, it’s time for the weekend update:

To which I say, I don’t have a weekend update right now. Or, I do, but I can’t share it here, because there is a surprise party involved and shhhhhhh. Other than that, this weekend we have to get a pumpkin and wings for Jane’s Halloween costume (she’s going to be a princess fairy ballerina, obvs) , do homework with Jane, and continue to celebrate my everlasting 39th birthday, this time with my in-laws. I like to keep the party going for at least a month, you know? And who am I to refuse lunch and cake and presents? I may be many things, but I am not rude.
 

What are you up to?
 

SIDE NOTE HAVING NOTHING TO DO WITH WEEKEND STUFF BUT NOT WORTHY OF ITS OWN POST:Get this - I was just looking at Jane's school notices this week, and saw that she has November 6, 12, 22 and 23 off, and early dismissal November 19, 20 and 21. OMG. I had no idea that when she started school, she'd barely be going to school. Do you think they'd notice if I stuffed her in my purse and brought her to work? Working moms for the win, once again!

 

my weekend in three pictures.

My weekend started with this:

Really, we did have a bigger pool at Jane's birthday party. But who can understand five-year-old girls? Not me.

Continued with this:

Heather and I out past 6 p.m. on Saturday night without kids for my friend Larry's 40th! Wahoo!

And ended with this:



This would be my windshield after getting shattered as I was driving home last night from my mother's house. I was on the highway, no trucks or cars close to me, and my windshield exploded. Is someone out to get me? Scary.

How was your weekend?

Five.

Jane turns five years old in about 90 minutes. Five is kind of magic, isn't it? She's had two cupcakes today already. If that isn't a sign of a pretty magical year, I don't know what is.

Things Jane loves at five:
*princesses
*purple
*being an extreme drama queen
*dancing
*saying "YESSS!!" when she gets the answer she wants
*coloring and drawing, specifically mermaids and princesses
*Barbies
*dressing up
*Disney movies (favorites right now are The Lion King and Pinocchio)
*the beach
*Singing songs to people after telling them to listen to her but not to look at her or laugh at her (they are allowed to clap for her when it's over)
*macaroni and cheese
*popsicles
*her friends

Every year, I think I can't possibly love her more. And every year I'm wrong.

Happy Birthday, sweet Jane.

Birth
One
Two
Three
Four

oh hey! It's April.

Where the hell have I been?

This blog has been painfully neglected since the end of Scintilla. So what have I been up to, anyway?

Well, last week was total balls to the wall. Greg was away all week in Florida for work. In the meantime, I had to be a single parent (ALL HAIL THE SINGLE PARENT quickly became my mantra), spring clean the house like a crazy person, shop for birthday presents for my mom, whose birthday was last Friday, and Greg, whose 40^th birthday was last Saturday. I also had to shop and prep for Greg’s birthday party that I was hosting on Saturday night, and Easter, which I was hosting a mere 18 hours later, on Sunday.

Whew, right?

I also had to take Jane to dance class, I auditioned for a show (and got a part), I took Jane to another kindergarten orientation meeting, and took her to see my friend’s production of Seussical the musical.

Saturday was the most excellent party for Greg. Oh, here's something funny that happened that day. When I went to go pick up his cake at Stop and Shop (I had ordered it a few days earlier) they had no record of my order. This was three hours before the start of the party. They were all over it though - they had a new cake for me in 15 minutes and didn't charge me. Yay, Stop and Shop!

When the party ended around 11:30, I re-cleaned the house for Easter, and even remembered to do the crucial Easter Bunny duties. Five hours later, I was up getting dinner started. Overall, the weekend was fun and we saw lots of family and friends. Or something. I'm not sure - it was all a blur.

Seriously – I hardly remember anything. But it was worth it, because there seemed to be many happy faces at my house all weekend. Or maybe they were drunk. I don’t know.

Monday I felt like I was in a coma.

And Tuesday, I started rehearsal for the new show I’m in. I’ll be rehearsing three nights a week for four hours, and the nights I have off I need to cram to learn my lines, which we are supposed to be off-book for in two weeks. This is the funniest thing ever, if you know anything about theater. I’m really excited about this show, and the cast, and the fact that I am doing something for ME for the next seven weeks, but it’s going to be intense and time-consuming.

As for this weekend: we are off to another birthday party for one of Jane's peeps tomorrow afternoon. All of my friends will be there as well, so it should be good times. I have rehearsal Sunday night. And I should probably make out with my script for a while. That’s my weekend itinerary, at the moment.

Oh, oh, oh – I almost forgot. I’ve lost 14.5 pounds on the 17 Day Diet! This Sunday marks day 17 of the second cycle. On Monday I begin the third cycle, which introduces many more foods, like BREAD. OH YES BREAD.

And do you want to know a secret? I am PMS-ing so hard right now and I’m so hungry that this afternoon I trreated myself to a real lunch. I had fajitas. I’d been FANTASIZING about fajitas in a nearly an x-rated way for the past couple of weeks. And I haven’t cheated at all for the past month-plus, except for a piece of candy and a spoonful of mashed potatoes on Easter. So today, I had a real lunch - and promptly felt like shit for the rest of the day. And, perhaps, tomorrow's weigh in will show a 13.5 loss instead of a 14.5 loss, but what are you going to do.

And how are you these days?

weekend update.

And it’s Friday again, just like that. This week was full of birthday goodness (my mom’s was Wednesday; Greg’s was Thursday) and this weekend the birthday goodness will continue, with a little Christmas and Easter thrown in. Let me explain with this, your weekend update:

Tonight: Tonight we shall continue celebrating Greg’s birthday when we go out to dinner with his parents down at the beach. This afternoon has been hectic and now, on practically no sleep last night, I get to pick up Jane and drive an hour down to Westbrook. Luckily I really love where we are going. And there will most likely be cake, which is a mega-bonus.

Saturday: Merry Christmas, Greg! We are finally going to see that wretched train wreck of a Spider-Man musical on Broadway – yes, that’s two trips to NYC in less than a week! I bought Greg tickets for Christmas, because, as you know, Bono and The Edge wrote the music for this apparently god-awful thing, and I thought he would enjoy it. Gossip columns and terrible reviews be damned, we are going, although I really feel like I will probably indulge in a cocktail at lunch, because a) I hate comic books and comic book-related entertainment and b) if an actor falls on me, I want to be at least partially numb.

But seriously, it will be nice to spend the day with Greg, sans Jane, who will be spoiled to death at my sister’s during the day. I am sure she will get away with everything and have the time of her life.

Sunday: Jane and I are off to an Easter egg hunt at my friend Cathy’s house in the a.m., which will be fun and hopefully tire her out – I would love for her to nap on the way home and give me some down time before we head off to yet another celebration – this time for my mom’s birthday at my sister’s house. More cake!

Monday: BONUS WEEKEND DAY. I am taking Monday off because I am exhausted from all of this partying and directing and New York tripping and Broadway show-seeing. I mean, my life is rough.

What are you up to this weekend?

37.

So last Thursday I turned 37. For the past year, I have been referring to myself as 37 already, so it's like I get to be 37 twice in a row. And let's hope this time is better than the first time.

36 was not a great year for me, for reasons discussed here on this blog and other reasons not discussed here. I felt extremely run-over a lot of the year, dealing with one issue after the next, and realizing, at one point mid-winter, that I just wasn't happy. Which made me incredibly, incredibly sad. My life has all the ingredients for happiness - good job, great family, amazing friends, fun hobbies - but I just stalled out there for a while, caught in a bit of a black hole.

For the past few months, I've been working hard to crawl out. Life, I have realized, is going to constantly throw shit at you - you can declare "I'm going to have the best year EVER" or "I'm going to lighten up" - but sometimes life just doesn't let that happen for you. However, there are things you can control. And one thing I plan on controlling the hell out of is having more fun. Screw the chores, and the endless drudgery that can easily become your (my) entire life. I decided it was time to have fun - and over the past couple of months, I've been having a lot of it.

For example, on Friday, a small group of my friends met at a restaurant to surprise me for dinner - super fun. Then after that, we went down to the boat and stayed over until mid-day on Saturday. Fun. Then I went to my cousin's kids' birthday party at McDonalds....see, this is just one of those things life throws at you and you can't control. Loud. Insane. Not much fun (but the fries were good). Today we went to the Big E, which featured loads of food that was terrible for me but oh so delicious, as well as Jane's first time on a ride (!!). Awesome fun.

Now, I could have caught up on shopping and chores or gone crazy cleaning for houseguests we are having later in the week - but eff it. I didn't want to, so therefore, I didn't do it. And if they are checking for dust bunnies in the corners of my house, well that's just plain sad. (But really, I'm not friends with people who are the type to check for dust bunnies.)

Like I said, I get that life isn't always fun. TRUST ME - I get it. But my goal for 37 is to do my very best to make it as much fun as possible.

(How many times can I possibly say "fun" in one blog post?) (Don't answer that, Dwayne or Shane.)