ugh

so I stayed late at work on monday to make up for being late due to evan's school delay. I decide to take the highway home because it's faster. well it wasn't on Monday. I'm driving along and I hear in sound of "muffler-on-pavement". Crap! so I pull over. sure enough my muffler was making sweet love to the pavement. So I go to call Jay, and I can't find my phone. I know I had my phone, I had just used it outside of Dunkins. so after 10 minutes of moving stuff frantically, I notice I'm pulled over just in front of one of those highway call boxes. so I go over and push the "service" button and return to my car. thankfully I found one that actually works. decide to continue the phone hunt. I eventually find it on the floor in the backseat under the passenger side chair. whew! so I called jay to inform him of the situation. ok.

20 minutes later I need to use tha bathroom, and still no tow truck or statie in sight. so I decide (after much debate) to call 911 to see about how long of a wait there was (ie.. did I need to head into the woods?) well the dispatcher guy transferred me to the barracks, and as it was ringing, the statie pulled up behind me. ok.. but I waited for the guy on the other end to answer and I told him nevermind that the trooper just pulled up.. I didn't want to hang up and have him think something was seriously wrong, ya know?

so of course I don't have AAA, we talked about it.. on several occasions, but never really had the extra funds at the time to get it. The trooper called the tow company, and a coat hanger and $65 later, I was on my merry way home, with instructions to get it properly fixed in the morning.
so in the morning I call the place I wanted to go to, closed. so I call meineke.. oh good they can fit me in.. while I was there I had them check out this "rattle" I've been ignoring for months b/c I had a feeling it was going to be expensive. so the tell me it's the tensioner (ya know keeps that timing belt nice and snug) well my car don't have an ordinary tensioner.. it's hydraulic.. which means it's a very costly part. Thank You Toyota... new belt and tensioner can be replaced at meineke for a whopping $533 bucks! I asked how much he charges for labor, he says $75/hr. yikes! it's cheaper to go to the dealer. so I tell him not right now, and call the husband, and tell him the scoop and that I'll ask around.

The meineke guy was nice enough to not charge me for the new bolt for my muffler support strap, and I was on my way... to the mechanic that I wanted to go to in the first place. he calls up his part place and when he talked to the guy his reaction to the price of the part was "holy shit, that's not cheap".. lol.. and from what I understand the tensioner is a pain in the ass to get to. He says he can do it for $401. woo. It's needs to get done so I schedule for next thursday. I guess my belt is all cracked too, and either way it's not really good, and I knwo I've been putting off too long anyway. so in the mean time lets hope my belt doesn't snap and my car needs a tow.. what are the chances that it's gonna snap this week? (knowing me prob very likely)

so yesterday I'm wearing a brand new shirt.. brand friggin new... I go to a clients house and return back to work with friggin bleach spots on my shirt. WTF?! so I say to my boss, "is it possible for road salt to do this?" thinking htat maybe I brushed up against my salt covered truck. he said no, which I was expecting, but I couldn't figure out where it came from.. "unless.." i say " it was from when i stopped at the Shell to use the bathroom".. he says " I could see that.. they clean it with the bleach and don't clean it up well.. " i did shake my hands after I washed them b/c they have one of those super turbo blow dryers that distorts your skin in funny ways.. I don't like it, so i shook off the excess... grr.. stupid people not cleaning up friggin belach.. I can't have anything nice.. and this time it wasn't even my own fault! (I do have a bad tendency to drop food on my clothes. lol)

there might be a snow day friday! we'll see I guess.. apparantly the storm is moving fast.. channel 5 in Boston says the snow is coming thursday afternoon.. I'll have to check our forecast though.

for crying out loud.

I got a letter in the mail today from my doctor.. she's leaving the practice and going back to working in the ER. This is the 3rd doctor I've had since I've graduated college in 2002 that left being a primary care doctor. I never even had a chance to meet this one.. I would have recently, but she was booked and I had to see a different doctor in teh practice. the doctor before that I saw once, just once.. it was the "i'ts nice to meet you" appt... and the one before that I saw twice.. she retired. The retiree's office moved and I didn't know until I showed up for an appointment and there was a sign in teh window stating they had movied 6 months prior! and I only found out she retired when I wanted to make an appointment. so then I moved my records up to greenfield and picked a new doctor. she was nice.... I only found out she left when I was sick and needed to make an appointment. Then I waited a while to pick a primary care doctor b/c I was annoyed so I picked this new doctor.. a year later.. well atleast I received a letter. I think I'll hold off on picking a new doctor.. again.. I'm doomed.

I wish I could have one of the mid-wives as my primary. I know them real well!! I saw them a bunch and they never left.

Mr. Evan's school picture!!

came out Great!! I was so excited to see that it came today! don't worry, mom I've got one here with your name on it for when you come visit!

updated

I updated parts of my blog today.. instead of a stagnant photo of me at the top, I embeded a slideshow of selct pictures from my web album.

I also updated my links. may I direct you to my Real Estate page that I created. visit it, and tell me what you think. It's basic, and it was created using google page creator. It looks nice and I hope somebody will find it useful :) know anyone? send them there.

I also deleted the links to peoples blog that I don't really read on a regular basis. No offense to those who I deleted. I'm just busy, and don't get to read them.

also very important:
the writers deserve theri money! Give it to them God damn it!

Birthday

Poor evan. he was excited all day for his party, and then it was finally here. Evan picked up the present that Cecile brought, and then she said "That's mine".. meaning that, that was the gift she brought. a couple minutes later Evan got really upset.. he was just a bear for pretty much the entire party.. he stormed up to his room a few times. when it was present time, I went up to his room where he was all huffy, and asked him if he wanted to open them up and he said no, and then I said "are you sure?" and then he said "but everyone already just opened them, but I want to open them". ooh.. so that's why he was upset.. he thought the other kids were going to open up his presents. so I explained that no one opened the presents and that earlier Cecile was just saying that gift was the one she brought for him. and then he was prefectly fine after that..



we made caramel apples, played pin the badge on the firedog's hat, had a pinata, and cake and ice cream.. jays says, "man I never had parties like this", and I said.. "me neither" atleast that I could rememeber.

I remember always being jealous of Christine b/c she ALWAYS got invited to birthday parties. my first ever Birthday invite (from someone at school) was when I was in the 2nd grade. It was from Josh. it was a great party.. he had pony rides. (then christine was jealous of me! ha!) I had a great time.. then we were best friends for many years until he moved away thanks to Hurricane Bob destroying his house.

I also remember being jealous of Christine because she (and kristen too) always got bunches of money for their birthdays from family (like $50) and I was always *lucky* to get $10. I was always grateful for my gifts, but secretly angry b/c it was so unfair. and it wasn't just one year... it was EVERY year, I think except for one.

oh wait.. this is supposed to be about Evan's Birthday, not mine.. so anywho.. he was fine after he realized no one opened his presents. and a couple hours later was the family party.. he had a great time here.. got lots of kool toys.. some of which the grown ups had fun playing with. he got an awesome pirate ship for Jeff & Becky, the marble thing from Grammy and Mike, and a knight dress up set from Trev, and some Diego toys and pants from Mimi and Grandpa.. and from us he got new shoes and a "laughtop".. he also got some interesting toys from all his friends.

how are you all? I have this bad habit of not posting. Sorry about that... This past month has been going well. The cat is doing good. she's got a follow up appointment next week. the vet had said she was a under weight so I've been feeding her kitten food trying to pork her up. not sure if it's worked, but I guess we'll find out.. getting herself locked in the attic for about 2 days sure didn't help my efforts though. (oops)

the family is finally feeling better after a rough few weeks with some nasty bug, that kicked everyone in the house on their asses.. except me.. I didn't get it. after it was all said and done, though, I woke up last friday with an earache. It hurt and I couldn't focus on anything! I went to the doctor's and got eardrops.. it worked apparantly.. my ear is now fine.

_________________________________
Anybody else still not sure who the hell their going to vote for for president. Let me just say that I tend to vote Democrat, but I'm on the progressive side of the spectrum. I listen to left-wing radio shows in the car.. (the Disney Channel has left me unable to watch news at home when the kids are around) I listen to the local AM station that has local news in the morning, and then switches to syndicated radio shows. I like it. It makes me feel informed.

After watching SiCKO my biggest thing I want to hear about in a candidate (besides teh Iraq fiasco) is what their plans are regarding health insurance. I like Kucinich's idea of Medicare for all. His plan is to phase it in over 3 years. The only other plan that I've heard talked about (not to say that others haven't been, I jsut haven't heard it) is Hillary's plan... which I absolutely DON'T support! it's pretty much teh same crap that we have going on here in Massachusetts.. where insurance will be required, and if you can't get it through you're employer you can purchase certain plans from the state from a sliding scale for fees. This is a good idea... IN THEORY!.. and of course Fmr. Gov Romney implemented this plan... let's get him and Hillary to live on say 19K a year.. and busting their ass working to do so at a industrial or manufacturing job.. and let's make them live in an area where the cost of living is fairly high.. where the median income is about 35k-40k.. let's watch them see how they pay their bills, rent, and food, and just for fun let's make them HAVE to pay for the health insurance they can't afford.. even with the sliding scale.. ha.. they would never do that, yet they expect many in our lovely state to do just this, and now Hillary wants the country to have battle this too! that's Crap and it makes me angry. It makes me angier that the media is not talking about this in regards to Romney, and to Hillary..

but at the same time, I think she'll be an okay president if it weren't for this healthcare crap. *sigh*.. atleast by the time elections come around here to MA many will have dropped out of the race and I won't have as many candidates to choose from.

and while I've got yor attention on pres candidates.. why hasn't the media gotten Romney to explain why when he left our great commonwealth, why she swore up and down that he was leaving us in $2 million (or there abouts) in a surplus when it was really in fact, a $2 million DEFICIT (or there abouts) that gave a new Gov a run for his money, and gave him a rough start in office.. (of course there is always the office furnishings and the new car)

yay for Caelan!

so the cat is back, only she appears to be sore and/or weak. she's got some battle wounds on her ear and is walking gingerly. no doubt she got in a scuffle with something, and got her ass whooped.. I offered her some food.. and canned food, but she doesn't seem to be eating. if she doesn't perk up by tomorrow sometime I'm calling the vet.

here kitty kitty kitty..

Anyone seen our cat?

she went out yesterday and didn't come back.. it's not unusual for her to miss the last call into the house, and she's spends the night outside, but she's always waiting to come in when the sun comes up.

but she wasn't today.. so me and Evan went for a walk around the block. The good news is that there are no kitty bodies in the streets. the neighbors hadn't even seen the cat in a while either, and she goes all over the neighborhood. It makes me wonder if someone brought her to the animal shelter. I hope she comes back tomorrow.. if not then I'll call the shelter.

long weekend!

so as part of the long weekend festivities, we went to Yankee Candle for the fall festival or whatever. we bought candle stuff wel. b/c I can't help myself.. honestly it's like a kid in a candy store for people who like smelly candles. We went on a Hayride, and Evan painted a pumpkina nd got his face painted and got a balloon dragon! we had a good time.. now we're home, and the kids are sleeping, and jay will be leaving for the church supper shortly. give me a few minutes, and I'll upload some new pictures!

edited to add:

look! it's an update!

so here I am on my lunch break at work, blogging. It's been a while, I understand that... but life has gotten in the way. It's funny though.. well not really, but I often think that when things happen in the course of my day that I should blog about somehting that happened.. and I never do. I forget. I'm forgetful, it's just the way it is. I accept it, and so doesn't my family. i.e. Evan will ask me for a drink, and I'll say ok I'll get it. I go into the kitchen and return empty handed. Evan says, "Hey you forgot my drink!" oops.. and then I head back into the kitchen again, get distracted, and forget his drink again. it's pathetic really, the amount at which I forget to do things. My problem is that I get distracted easily from what I'm doing, and then I forget what I was doing int he first place and start to do something totally different. then 2 hours later, I remember that I forgot to finish something, so it seems as though my day never ends.

Life is otherwise going good. Liam started his new daycare today. Thanks so much to Tamar for watching him for us over the past several months!! I know he'll miss it there!

Have I told you all that he's got 2 teeth? others are on the way.. he chews all the time... He's eating solids like a champ, and is practically crawling. it's cute. I've got to get in on video for you guys.(riiiight, that will happen sometime this century) Hell I've just got to upload some more pictures. and take some!

The weather here has been incredably dry the past couple of months.. not much rain even for our dry season!! the temps last week were in the 80's.. but still chilly in the mornings.. hard to figure out the best way to dress the kids in the morning.

the cold nights, warm days, and lack of rain has caused the leaves to start to turn. it's beautiful around here the second week of october.. that's usually the peak of the season. I'll be heading out to North Adams for work next week, and I'll be sure to stop along the way and take some pictures!

Evan has started school as well. poor kid says every monring that he doesn't want to go to school, but every afternoon when we pick him up he tells us what a great day he's had. he doesn't realize that he'll be in school for the next 15+ years so he better get used to it! lol.. he had a very difficult time re-adjusting to being somewhere everyday after spending the summer home with Jason. I'm just glad that he doesn't kick and scream any more when i drop him off

that's all for now
i'm done

county fair!

we went to the county fair last night after the t-storms! it wasa blast.. Evan was so into it this year, it made it worth it to go! Evan digged the rides, which he usually doesn't do. he started off on the merry go round with Dad, and then Evan and I went on the little roller coaster, the flying airplanes, and the rocking boat, and then back to the roller coaster.. that was his favorite. He was very sad that he was too short for the bumper cars. there's always next year! and the rides were really quite fun! I remmber when we had the fair or whatever come into Cranberry highway when we were kids over where the old DQ used to be, which is now the spot with the Giant Walmart... Christine and I would ride the roller coaster, bunches of times. it was tons of fun! Evan played some games too, and won some prizes, and bought an over priced ninja set from the toy guy at the parade on thursday night... but of course it was th only thing on th cart that he wanted. he was sooooo.. excited for the parade! firetrucks, tractors, police cars, horses, oh my!

yesterday I gave my notice to my century 21 office.. i need to leave there. My broker is not a good person to work for. as a person, she's pretty nice, but as a real estate professional, she's pretty whacked. I'm hoping to join an agnecy, literally at the end of my street, andeven if I have to do some office time at least it's there, and not an extra 1/2 hour away. knock on wood for me that i can get a job there, as I really enjoy doing real estate stuff.

so yesterday after my office time, i went and showed a couple of houses to a coworker.. he who gets out of the car.. the boss from umass.. lol.. not expecting that.. Aaron wanted a second opinion. it was fine, and we had a good time. he figured out which house he wants to put an offer on, but says he wants to think about it some more. hopefully he'll wait a little bit long enough so i can figure out the stuff with switching offices.

I'm off.. gotta get the kid some food, and then clean our hovel and then the car!

I'm done

we're proud parents again!!

only this time a a beautiful butterfly!!



we have 2 more to go!

TA DA!

I finally worked on and finished the bag I promised to my sister for Mother's Day. hush up.. I've been working 2 jobs and taking care of a family. I'm just glad I finished it before her birthday.

1 closing down, 1 to go! The next one is scheduled on october 9th, and I've got a co-worker who's ready to buy a house too. who said real estate was slow? for some reason little-ol-part-time me is go-go-going...

Evan starts preschool on the 10th, we're all so very excited. Hard to believe my little dude is ready for school. Little does he know he'll be in school for atleast 15 more years. ugh.

ok i'm done.. i'm tired

life as it stands

is a bit less crazy with 2 house deals under agreement. although one of them has become quite the headache. the buyers are getting their home loan through the USDA, and apparently the USDA failed to inform my buyers what a pain in the ass it is to get a loan with them. It doesn't help that the loan contact woman is a big douche, thinks she's all righteous, says things are going to be fine and then 2 minutes later she's coming up with yet another reason to hold up the deal. grr. according to my buyers the rural development loan program sounded like a great program, but as the deal moves forward it has come apparent that the loan lady didn't explain to my buyers the process very well, as well as what hoops needed to be jumped through and all the ups and downs. The loan douche said near the end of july for them to go find a house and put in an offer. they asked her if closing by September 1 would be a problem. she said no, so the buyers said 'okay', and didn't renew their lease at their apt. now anyone who has ever been involved in purchasing a home knows that the normal transaction time is about 2 months not 1. well we had the home inspection this pat week, and she said a couple of easy fixes needed to be done. ok. and the home inspector said the foundation needed to be supported or it will buckle (thanks to the high water table and fieldstone foundation walls).. and he added in a few other things in the report that were catorgarized at 'unacceptable'. well the loan lady says that all of these stupid little things that don't really need to be fixed now need to be fixed now before they move in so they can get their loan money. this is bullshit, and it's frustrating everyone. so now we've had her inspection the buyers home inspection, and now she needs a contractor to go in and get an estimate for all the stupid repairs so the money can be put in escrow. me and the listing agent were talking this and it seems stupid to have to many hands in the honey pot. ugh.. here's to working with the feds i guess.

Jay's great aunt's health is very poor right now, and no one expects her to live past the next couple of days. It's so sad. Jay's grandmother has 8 or 9 siblings, and most of them live in town, and even we know them all fairly well. Poor Bertha's passing will be hard on the entire family. She's lived a good long life, mostly healthy, and has a great big family that loves her to pieces. She was even one of my godparents when I got baptized about 8 years ago. It's one of those bittersweet moments in life, similar to when my grandmother died. It was and is terribly sad, cancer got the best of both of them, and both women did so much for their family and for others, and yet God decides to take them early. At the end of their lives, you're just so thankful for all that they did when they were able, and it's so hard to see them not being able to do the simplest things in life, and then you're (sadly) thankful for that they will not be suffering much longer. Jay's eldest great aunt is in denial about the while thing and hasn't been to see her sister since her health has gotten really bad. she had it set is her mind that she was the one to go first, she's nearly (if not already) 90 years old. I have a feeling that it's going to be a rough next couple of years.

+++++++++++++

on a different note, the family is doing well. the bay is huge, evan has bundles of energy, and loves to swim, jay's ready to go back to work in a couple of weeks, and me? I've been the space cadet around here.. I feel like im always supposed to be doing 12 things at once and no time to slow down. life will 'normalize' once again, right?

suppose I should get dressed now.

ok i'm done

anybody else?

I know i received a comment on one of by blogs on here a couple weeks ago, and the comment never showed up. I got the email notification, but no comment. anyone else having this problem? perhaps i need to update my template.

so.friggin.busy

so.friggin.busy I feel like I've fallen off the face of the Earth.. well internet Earth that is.. so not only have I been working full-time, but many of my clients who are buying houses decided that they wanted to go out this week and weekend. friday I had a walkthrough and a closing in the morning, and later in the day I showed three houses (I played hooky from UMass), Then on saturday i was in the office until noon, ran to florence to pick up a key ran to Deerfield/Yankee Candle where I met the family, and proceeded (as a family) to my first showing for the afternoon, not far from Yankee Candle, then we drove back to northampton where we looked at 2 condos with a new client, returned the key to Florence, and then went to Amehrst to look at another condo. My cousin Kelly was supposed to stop by, but she was unable and it was okay... our house is a disaster.

today is Sunday, no huge plans for today.. that I know of I need a day off thankyouverymuch.

but tomorrow i go back to work, where i'll be heading out to Boxford, and then I'll be running home to get ready to show 3 more houses to the family i showed to on Friday, and on Tuesday I'll be at work all day and then going to Deerfield to show another condo. Thank God we're going away next weekend.. phew..

and the house still needs to be cleaned. desperately. and the laundry hasn't been put away in about amonth. and man o man i've got to get the recycling out of the kitchen.. it is overflowing, and I still have got to mail that package to my sister (sorry).. Think I'll request a pick up for monday as we speak so I don't have to go to the post office

So I haven't been purposly ignoring anyone or any internet sites (DIST mostly) and blogs I normally visit and be social with. hopefully soon life will be back to normal-ish and less crazy.

but the good news is that I've got soem buyers that wnt to put in an offer this week hopefully... the ones going monday, and the other buyer, is pretty much ready too. My co-worker who just started looking yesterday will be ready by september. so it's good.. it's not a fruitless effort like with some of the others I have gone out with.

oh and little dude loves sweet potatoes.. watch for pic and video update shortly. he gobbled up more than half of the jar! he could care less about the rice cereal. (and honestly I don't blame him)

we went to beach, and I don't mean the river or a lake!

So yesterday morning, we're sitting in the living room reading, when out of the blue the husband says, "Let's go to the beach",
me: "well I was planning on heading over to the river later",
him: "no, I mean the ocean".... what?!
me: "but it's so far away"
him: "where's you're sense of adventure?"
I point at the kids.. "gone"

so about 5 minutes go by, and I say "Let's go tot he beach!" so we decide to head to hampton beach in NH. we call around to people to see if anyone wants to go. perfect. Trevor is coming with!

The weather was absolutely perfect! and the kids we amazingly good in the car. Evan had a blast, and even the baby seemed to enjoy himself! of course Jay doesn't really take pictures, so I grabbed a couple, which I'll download and add when I get to the other computer. we left at like noon and didn't make it home until 10-something. but we took the long way home on 101 in NH, and had dinner in Keene. it was about 2.5 hours there. arrived at 2:30 ish. We
spent atleast 2 hours at the beach, and then headed back. Man I sure miss living close to the beach, especially one is warmer, and you don't have to get out b/c your numb (atleast at this point in the summer).

maybe today we'll head over the the river for swimming or something. who knows.

speaking of the river, I took evan swimming there on friday after work. Jay was exhausted, and the baby was sleeping, so it was just me and the Evster. While we were having a good time in the water, and little boy, about 2 years old, goes up to our stuff at the beach and started playing with evan's toys. I look around, no parents in sight? wtf? it wasn't a big deal that he came over to play, but where were his parents. Then the lifeguard goes over and tries to tell him that they belong to us, but he still wanted to play. So i asked Evan if he wanted to go play in the sand with that little boy and he said okay.

I ask the lifeguard where his parents are, she shruged and said, "He doesn't speak English". um, ok. So here is when I bust out my Spanish, "Adonde estan tu Mama o Papa?" his response, "el carro" and points to the car at the end of the row about 50 feet away. I said to the lifeguard that he says his parents are in the car, and she said she hadn't seem them in over an hour. I look over and sure enough there were some people in the car, but who really knew if they were his parents or not. So we play for a while in the sand, and I keep looking over at the car, they're not even watching, and I see them playing with the baby. I"m getting annoyed at point. but then his older siblings came over to play too. The little boy's name is Michael. They were supposed to be watching him. ahh. Even so, if they were supposed to be watching him, then watch him, don't be down the other side of the beach. and the oldest was about 11 or so. It made me angry. You just don't leave a 2 year old to himself at the beach. But I felt like it wasn't my place to go over and bitch at the parents because the lifeguard didn't say anything to them... And my spanish was not even close to good enough to start up a conversation about how they should leave their 2-year-old near the water. Especially without a life jacket on the kid. Especially after knowing someone who just lost his son b/c he drowned at a public facility during a lifeguard change.

The poor kids diaper had fallen off too. and he was trying to hold it on, when I had come out of the water the first time. It was full of water, poor kid. "panales?" (you'll have to excuse my lack of tildas, can't figure out how to get them in blogger) he nods,"si". so I helped him. He went diaperless from there on out, but he did have shorts on..
All I could think was, ' I wish i knew how to speak better Spanish so I could tell them to watch their child'.. but wait shouldn't they learn how speak English? The older kids spoke English too, so atleast I could talk with them, but how careless of the parents to leave their 2-year old who doesn't speak English at the river without anyone really watching him. I called jay, and bitched at him. looking back I wish i had gone over, but I when I left all the kids were playing with each other, and he was being watched. he wasn't going in the water at all... Jay wondered if it was the same little boy we saw on a past trip to the river that was playing by himself off by the dam. I said I didn't know. The lifeguard of all people should've gone over to tell the parents they needed to be out on the beach. does the town not have a rule about adult supervision for kids under a certain age? gah! had i known more spanish I would've gone over. That was really the thing that was holding be back. sometimes i wish i had balls.

ok i'm done.

I'm a hobbling disaster area

so i got poison ivy a couple weeks ago, and i was treating it with some Benadryl cream 2% of whatever drug it is that i can't pronounce. and it seemed to be doing the trick to kill the itch. however i'm pretty sure that i had an allergic reaction to BENADRYL (wtf?!) because it got all red and splotchy. I just thought it was the poison ivy getting worse, ya know, like poison ivy does. and then i realized i wasn't having the same reaction to poison ivy this time that i had in the past.. no blistering or oozing, so i called my sister who has psoriasis, and asked her what she thought (because now it' all dry and scaley looking), and she didn't think so, b/c of it's location. so i did some hunting online for pictures, and it looks like it's contact dermatitis.. aka an allergic reation rash. great. so now i'm doing hydrocortizone 1%, and it's happy and looking alot less red now.

to top it off yesterday while i was home with the kids my monster feet got out of control and i kicked the highchair with my little toe. it f-ing hurt! and now it's all purple and stuff. I think i broke it.. it seems to have a mind of it's own when i walk. i need to tape it.

i'll post pictures when i get home from work. that's right. i'm working.

ok i'm done.

it just ain't right..

i think i might have to give the baby a haircut soon.. it's just past his eyebrows! (he's only 4 months old!)

our party

we had a party yesterday.. everyone got loaded.

i made my famous teriyaki steak and cabbage salad (aka coleslaw but vinegar based, no mayo) and spicy rice and kale.. everyone loved it. we had to make a drunken run to to store for desserts. thnkfully the store is only a block away.; we had enough salds to chock a horse! it was all really good though

3 or 4 games of horseshoes were played. by the time croquet was requested it was starting to get dark, and poor becky set it up b/c she really wanted to play, but i think most people were to drunk to get up. hahaha. I was holding the baby and wanted to play too but i wanted to get the baby asleep first so instead of playing croquet or Munchkin, we watched the fire for many, many hours

jay woke up with an upset stomach. not me though.. i ended up forgetting to have more daiquari's

Evan the great knight

defeated the armless monster at the scottish festival yesterday! he did it twice.... gotta love the free games.

impending doom

I hate driving into severe weather. There's nothing like driving down the highway and waiting for that dark cloud up ahead to start spitting out lightning. Yesterday thankfully there was no lightening, AND I managed to not actually drive into super nasty weather. ever time I approached said nasty looking cloud the road turned. This was not the case a week or so a go on our way to Hadley to go to target. we drove right through nasty weather, and I got really paranoid. It's one thing to drive through rain and have no lightening around you, say way off in the distance, and then driving through it praying you don't get struck. oh... you say to pullover and wait it out do you? well see is it better to wait it out or drive through it b/c you'll make it through the storm faster? what do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO? I say drive through it. I made that decision out on route 2 about a month ago. I was heading west, and most often the weather here moves from west to east, unless there's some weird super big low pressure off shore and we're getting nor'easter type winds or unless there's a storm system moving up from the south.. anyhoo.. driving through it makes it go by faster. Shut up. I don't want to hear you logic.. IT DOES I SAY, IT DOES!!

We had some friends over last night.. like we do every Friday night. I got drunk. lol .. off of 3 glasses of wine.. granted they were large full glasses of wine.. and our homemade stuff too! It was funny. I honestly can't remember the last time I got drunk. so needless to say I was up past my bed time of wicked early, and made myself go to bed at 12:30. I have to be at work for 9 and I knew the baby would wake my up around 6. ugh. The baby did indeed wake me up around 6, so now I'm wicked exhausted. Such is life I guess.

Things here have been going well. Jason made it through his first week home with the boys with everyone in the family still alive and with hair. the first day was a little hard, but all in all the week ended up going well for Jason. Me? I'm just working alot. I start my Umass job full-time July 1st, and doing real estate stuff on the side. I'm going to leave my office at the end of the summer I've decided. My broker does stuff that urks me, and I just can't take it anymore. So at some point I've got to contact a couple of agenies up here to see if they'll let me work with them. I'm pretty sure of one that will.

So thanks to the baby I'm losign my hair, literally. And I"m fine with it. I know it's normal and it happened with Evan and whatnot, but seriously when is this shanannigan going to stop?! I'm sick of hair, hair everywhere. I'm shedding like hair is going out of style.. thankfully I have really thick hair to begin with.

okay. I'm done. I'm tired. Take a look at the pictures i posted and linked to inthe last entry.. they're wicked cute!!

new pictures

a spare moment

Is hard to find these days. between the 2 jobs and tending to the family, I often find myself running crazy until the boys go to bed. I am thoroughly grateful Liam is an easy baby! He has been sleeping through the night for many weeks now, and that has helped me make it through the day by leaps and bounds. He's 3.5 months old now and weighs approx 20 lbs already! It's amazing really. the baby is snoozing, Evan is outsie playing, and the husband.. he might be snoozing on the couch or watchign tv or something.. I'm not really sure.

So as of July 1, I'll be employed full-time at Umass doing the job I'm doing now.. only now I'll be getting paid more and I'll be benefited b/c of teh full-timeness. I'll still be doing real estate part-time too. This was strictly a financial decision. trust me.. I wouldn't be working full-time at the lab if I didn't have to. We need the money to pay the bills, and besides benefits trough UMass cost less than half of what we currently pay through Jason's work. We'll be saving $200+ a month with the benefits switch alone. Hopefully by doing this we'll be able to pay the bills and buy food AND gas without using the credit card.

We realized a few months ago we were heading up shit creek with credit card debt ever since my job at UMass went hourly in October. I wasn't bringing home as much money as i had been for the past two years even though I was putting in more hours.. and the cost of gas sky rocketed! We also traded in Jay's Escape (which we loved) for a more fuel efficient car. We got a 01 Nissan Sentra. The idea was to make an even trade so we would have no payments on it. we were able to get the sentra thanks to Jay's grandparents who lent us some money to cover the difference of about 1000 buckaroos.

Luckily I have some buyers that just got an accepted offer on a house (which is practically across the street from us) so I should be getting a good chunk of money from that which we'll be able to pay back Jay's grandparents. The downside to real estate is that once you get an offer in it takes about 2 months for the closing to happen.. and it's the closing where you get your money.


that is all for an update for now.. we are apparantly off to the park!

another year has come and gone

and i think the only think that's really different is the weather. lol. it's supposed to be gorgeous this week! i'm very excited.. so excited that i'm having a bbq. why not. i love having ppl over.

but all in all my birthday went well. nothing went wrong. and that's all i can really ask for.
i droveout to timbucktoo with the office to look at some new listigs. and while out on the hills i saw a farmer plowing his fields. using horses! my god i had no idea people still did this task without a tractor! (the amish don't count.. i'm sure they don't use tractors) it was neat though. and if i had my camera and wasn't in a caravan of cars i would've stopped and taken a picture.

happy mother's day!

While i remember b/c i know i'll forget tomorrow.. I just wanted to wish all the wonderful mother's out there a wonderful Mother's Day!

cows and crosswalks

gotta love living in the country... for many people, including myself, i don't consider Greenfield country living.. but drive 15 -20 minutes out of greenfield, and your out in the sticks... some directions it takes less time than that.

today i headed out west on the Mohawk Trail for work to the restaurant on the hairpin turn... I brought my camera. today I was headed for the Berkshires! clean crisp air, gorgeous views.. and apparantly bad well water contaminated by the highway dept (road salt)

i took some pictures of the views from the restaurant i was at. just gorgeous views of North Adams, and Mt. Greylock. on the way back i stopped at one of the summits and took some pictures there too. I love that this is only about 45 minutes from my house. As much as i miss the beauty of the beach on a daily basis, I love how it's so gorgeous out here, when you just look at it the right way. I guess any area is like this. unless of course you live in crack central than you have a different story. But a good photographer could get worthy shots of crack central if they wanted to... and felt safe enough too i suppose.

yesterday i was driving up the mountain in Leverett towards Shutesbury, when i see an on coming car (down the mountain/large hill) going very slow and behind it to cows running, so i slow way down almost to a complete stop, b/c i didn't want to spook them.. after they passed, i wondered if that was even necessary. i know when you drive past horses you drive super slow as to not spook them, so me thinking quick, just figured it be best to do that when driving around cows.. why not.so when i got to the top of the mountain i pulled in to the fire station and let them know that there were cows running down the mountain. I'm a good little citizen, aren't I?
and a couple weeks ago While out in the southern berkshires i saw 3 moose in somebody's front yard! Didn't have my camera that day though.

I'm typing this enjoying lunch today at home.. as it's on the bay back to work from rt 2. we live like 5 minutes from the highway.. andd on the way home i discovered it's officially crosswalk painting season.. it's like an obstacle course out there, dodging oranges cones and oncoming traffic... in a suburban nonetheless!

so back to work i go in a few minutes now that i'm done enjoying my calorie rich Ellio's and Coke Zero

Enjoy this gorgeous weather.. (it's beautiful and like 85 degrees!)

the new nephew has finally arrived!

Brayden finally made his debut on May 1st! only 9 days late. Poor Christine wanted a diamond on her mother's ring, but it appears as though Brayden really wanted the emerald. click the picture to see the album. scott's sister had uploaded pictures on her myspace and i downloaded them, so I could share them!

Brayden!!

I can't wait to see him! he's not all bruised like Liam was.. my poor baby was all black and blue in the face.

I need a drink!!

*note* this post was started on friday night, the 20th, jay was working at Target:

and anyone who knows me well, knows that I dont' ever say that.. that's the kind of night I've been having. It was going good until just before dinner. It started with the computer. Evan wanted to play a game.. okay. he finds said game and puts it in the cd tray. okay, never a problem. Well apparantly he managed to slide the chair over to the tray and wedge it underneath.. (our tower is on the floor under the desk) and before I could take it off the chair Evan is pressing the close button only the tray is unable to close. Now it appears that the drive tray is broken.

*************
2 days later:

let me begin with i fell asleep at 8:30 in evan's room and didn't get to finish my post. It was a very long night... so not only did he break the cd drive, he decided to pull the bobbin thread all out of my sewing machine,a nd while doing so, knocked some dirty dishes on the floor.. thankfully the dishes were his, and were plastic.. but they had food in them from dinner the previous night. so then i'm cooking dinner, and he wants this and that, and this and that.. and i'm frying chicken on the stove so i didn't want to go too far. then the baby starts up, and that goes off and on for a while. Evan spills juice all over the rug in the living room as he's climbing on top of his little table next to the pack and play. he's reaching for a horn (aka empty toilet paper tube) in said pack and play. he kicks everything off his table and makes a huge mess. oh did i mention? he's stark naked. ugh! eventually i finish dinner... it wasn't that long really .. maybe 1/2 hour, but it felt like eternity. then we ate, and he wants to read a story. ok. so i read a story, and it when i finish i noticed he's ripped off a pretty good size section of wallpaper! that was the last straw. i sortof yelled.. i was pissed off, but i try to not yell.. but i punished him.. no tv for the rest of the night... and no more eating/drinking messy foods in the living room. i'm sick of picking it up and him making messes. at 8:15 he asks to go upstairs for bed, so we did, and i fell asleep at 8:30 or there abouts. at some point before jay got home at 9:30 i wlaked into our room and slept there. thankfully the baby went to sleep at 8 or something.

he wakes me up when he gets home, and i tell him all the hell that broke loose in a total zombie-half-asleep state while he had dinner. i fell asleep on the couch. what time i don't know? but i was exhausted. never did get that drink. heh

*************
so i'm back at work, full throttle. and it's kicking me in the ass.. i'm just tired. work itself is fine, but at 8:30 or so i start yawning and it's all down hill from there. while i was on leave i wasn't eating that well.. and then for the last few weeks i made myself eat better, and now that i'm working again, i'm eating like crap during the day again. it's mostly b/c i'm on the road so i'm limited as to what i can bring for lunch. up until this week i haven't been eating a bunch of foods b/c the baby was very sensitive to my diet and was painfully gassy. it seems as though i can start eating those foods again. yay! but i'm still not eating as good as i should be b/c i'm nursing.. i'm supposed to be eaing an extra 500 calories a day. right. well... i did discover Caribou Coffee granola bars.. they are to die for.. they have coffee in them, and are mighty tasty! i eat 2 at a whack. lol and i'm an ice creamaholic so i eat some of that on an almost daily basis. i get the edy's slow churned (dreyer's on the west coast) it's super yummy, and healthier than regular ice cream so i can feed my addiction nearly guilt free.

today evan was a little shit at church. but the wether has been gorgeous, so i can't complain about that!i can complain about evan just waking up the baby, however. that's to be expected every once in a while.. he is 3.

but needless to say i've been super busy now that i'm at work full-time again... i mean how long has it been since i posted a blog.. i barely get the opputunities to go to the forums and read never mind post! work has been very busy for me this month b/c i had to schedule all my clients into the 2 remaining weeks of the month. may should be more calm.

speaking of work. ya'll know how much i can't stand my job at umass. well my first week back i felt appreciated for the first time in 3 years at the job. see i have a job where my boss never says anything to you about your work unless something has gone wrong, so no one eve feels appreciated. but that first week, pretty much all my co-workers said "it's so good to have you back" the boss even said it to me in the email i sent saying when i would be returning. so as of current: i don't loathe my job. not sure how long it'll last, but it's good anyhow.

Hoppy Easter!

so Easter is this weekend. we're very excited. The boys and i ventured down to Yankee Candle b/c the Easter bunny was going to be there. for Free! and Evan was all excited. on teh way down i talked to him about how the Eater bunny is going to be big, but he'll be very nice, yada yada.. and Evan kept talking about how he was going to bring him "candy and presents just like Santa".. lol. i hope he's not too disappointed. it won't be nearly as much as santa would bring, but it's goodies none the less.

so we got there.. and mind you this is their flagship store, so it's huge. it's not that little nook you see ing the mall. it's practically a department store within itself. its a nice place actually. oh yeah.. so we get there, and evans so excited, and the bunny is on break "eating carrots" she said.. i highly doubt that but i digress so we venture forth onto the fun fact scavenger hunt. whoopee! it wasn't that fun, but evan behaved very well.. stayed with me while i hunted down posters so we could get our prize. we got these fantastic foam bunny ears, and a little packet of jelly belly's! when we get to the area with the bunny, evan sees him froma distance it got scared. poor kid. i was expecting it actually. so we didn't get a picture with the Easter bunny. but that's all well and good anyway. we had a good time

and where was Liam during all of this? sleeping.. the kid slept through the whole thing, and is still sleeping as i type this. i suspect his nap will end soon though.. there's always next year..

Whirlwind of a Fool's Day

5 weeks have come and gone since i've had the baby, and it feels like i've never lived a day without him. b/c of his size it often slips my mind how young he still is. he weighs atleast, and i'm sure more than 14 lbs. yup.. you heard me right. 14 lbs at 5 weeks. he's filling out his 3-6 month size clothes nicely, and i fear that if i try and save money by buying diapers in bulk at BJ's that we'll end up wasting money and donating more than half the diapers to the new nephew. so we buy them at Tarjay or Wally world in the larger size there. we need to buy diapers soon, but i'm waiting b/c i'm not sure what the weight range is for the size 3's... i think we'll need those in the next few weeks. i just don't know when.

This is my last full week at maternity leave. 2 weeks earlier than originally planned, and 1 week earlier than we anticipated after i took that last week off of work b/c i couldn't do anything.. i couldn't sit or stand for more than 2 hours, and i felt just useless. i'm going back early b/c we can't do math.. we counted the weeks wrong and i already told both works i was coming back on the 9th. oops. however it's not all bad. i'm getting stir crazy being at home so much anyway.. i get bored easily.. always have. so i'll go back to work, but i won't work a full week. i won't have to drive anywhere, i just need to get in the swing of going back to work and getting the boys ready by myself in the morning. i'll take advantage and work on my morning routine, and not work a full 8 hours, and get paid. going back a bit early is helping our wallets out too. we saved all our money from tax returns to use as my paychecks while on maternity leave and going back early means i have an extra "paycheck" per se. my first pay check that i'll get when i return to work will only be half of the normal bi-weekly pay so we have a few hundred dollars "extra", that we didn't plan on. we're buying food. great sales this week, and our house is getting a bit dry. it's a good day when we are able to purchase gas and groceries and not put them on the credit card.

the last trimester of pregnancy really kicked our asses financially and we didn't notice until about a month ago. b/c of doctor's appointments and daycare cancellations and whatnot, i wasn't able to work my full 32 hours a week needed for several months at the end of my pregnancy, which meant that we have had to put alot of things like food and gas on the credit card, and boy that added up real fast. so jay has decided to get a second job at Tarjay for a while. it'll suck, yes, but hopefully we'll be able to make ends meet without adding much tot he credit card so hopefully we can pay that down, but it is much higher than we would like. jay will also be getting several stipends this spring from things at work and a seminar he did, so that will help as well. we plan on sending a bunch to the cards with that money too.

all in all life is alright. not much more to complain about. the day care situation has been resolved. our dear friend Tamar (aka Tammy) is helping us out by watching the boys for us through the end of june which jay should be able to take care of them over most of the summer. She'll then be taking the baby in the fall and evan will be going to preschool! yes you heard me.. the big pre-k! i can't believe it. thankfully pre-k is on a sliding scale fee schedule so it'll only cost us about $15/day or so. 1/2 the price of daycare. woo! speaking of which i have to go to the registration day tomorrow... i'm actually quite excited.

+++++++++++++++++++++

for most people april 1st is a day of silliness and laughter. but this is not the case to my group of friends that formed while in college. a childhood friend of jason and tyler, and several others, and then a college friend of mine and becky's and god knows how many more lost a friend on April 1st one year back in college. junior year i believe. we were living in Amherst in our little apartment with our friend Wes when we found out that Bill had committed suicide.. hung himself in the trees by the river near his apartment in sunderland. it was devastating. him and i weren't close, but he was close to many of my other friends and jason. the reason you wonder? it was b/c of a girl. she dumped him. it was stupid. every year at this time jay and i honor him, by having the sanctuary lamp burn in his honor and since on this day a drink is drunk in honor of Bill, who is told by all (from now varying points on the eastern seaboard) what a stupid thing he did. RIP.

happy birthday little guy

Liam turned 1 month old yesterday... and i opened the size 2 diapers! i laughed.. it's insane.. he weighs 12 lbs 12 oz as of weds.. so he's gaining about a pound a week.. just like his big brother did. great.
my mom came out to visit with us on thursday night. it was good to see her.. it had been awhile. we hada hard time getting good pictures with the boys, but i posted a few in my web album.

that is all for now.. time to pay the bills b/c i forgot to yesterday..

boy time has flown by

Liam will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. hard to believe it's been three weeks already. it has been a crazy time i must say. so on top of juggling the 2 boys in daily activities, we've been trying to get our day care situation settled.

our daycare's youngest is finally getting out of the hospital today after over a week in the hospital. poor little guy had double pnemonia, and was in the hospital down the street, but wasn't improving so the bussed the boy to Baystate medical Ctr in springfield so he could go into ICU. he's only in kindergarten. and during this time i recieved an email from our daycare, that pretty accused us of being bad parents, and how careless we've been with germ exposure of our son (who hardly gets a cold, nevermind something serious) by letting him go to daycare when she says there's illness in the house. her kids get sick at the drop of a hat, Evan doesn't. she also accused us of not caring that her little guy was in the hospital and "to show some compassion" as she put it. i must admit that had i known the day her husband called to say that their son was in the hospital how serious his illness was, i would've responsed differently. her husband called me up on tuesday morning, waking me up and simply said that their son was at the hospital. no stress in his voice. (mind you he is in the hospital several times a year for pnemonia.. he gets it alot, and rebounds very quickly) and i simply had said to him, "okay, I'll keep Evan home" and he said ok, and we hung up the phone. i had talked to our daycre on monday night and she said he had the flu and should be better by thurs at the latest.

so as days went by, i would call up to see if she was open, b/c we honestly had no idea that thier son's health was going down hill. no one said anything to us, and they surely didn't mention that they'd be closed until further notice, so it was left to us to call them and see if they were open. if daycare is "open" and we choose to not bring Evan for what ever reason you still have to pay. it's the way daycare works. so if daycare was open, i would've brought evan so i could relax with the baby. so needless to say she took offense to my calling everyday to see if she was open b/c i was endangering the health of my child among other things. well jay flipped his lid and sent her a really nasty email... which he thought wasn't nasty at all... well i read it after the fact and it was. She emailed back and said that she's going to be saving us money every month by not watching evan or taking the baby anymore! WTF is that all about? so now we're trying to arrange with some friends to watch the boys for the remainder of the school year. Everyone has since apologized, and she said she shouldn't have said anything in the first place with her being so upset about Wil. but she hasn't mentioned anything about the boys so i just assume, she still won't have them. and besides if she honestly feels that when we put leftover chinese in evan's lunchbox the next day that we could be better spending that money on paying her the full price for daycare (we were getting a discount b/c we po') among other things, then i don't want to have to justify everything we do to our daycare.. and she can fill the slots with a family that can pay full price then so be it.. we know they need the money too. and jsut for the record we spend about $20 on chinese once in a while, when it's late and we don't want to cook, or if we have company... not only do we get dinner out of it, but there's often plenty left over for a couple lunches too. we get those combo dinners, and unlike her we're not feeding a family of 6. she may spend $50 or more, but we don't. and when we do get chinese, we almost always put it on the credit card b/c we don't have any money. if daycare took credit card... that's a different topic.

so three weeks into maternity leave.. (technically 4 b/c i just couldn't work really the week i went into labor.. i was massively uncomfortable and swollen) i haven't had a chance to rest at all. everyone asks if i'm resting.. ha.. i have a 3 year old, and a newborn who needs to eat every fews hours and needs diaper changes all the time.. who has time for rest.

photo update

taken this morning. Liam is 2.5 weeks old, Evan is 3 & a qtr years old

a baby story in case people want soem details

(i can't belive i forgot to post this.. i had sent this out as email to people but here it is for the blog world to read)

Things here are going well. as some of you know, (some of you don't) Little Liam was born on friday feb 23rd at 4:05 am. he weighed in at 10 lbs 14 oz (!) it was no wonder i got as big as a house. and no it wasn't a c-section.. yes folks.. holy crap is right.. thankfully labor was quick. by quick i mean i woke up at 1:30, woke jay up at 2:30 called mom in law and the OB at 3, got to the hospital at 3:30, was on the monitor for 20 min, and then it was time.. yeah.. 2.5 hours. it was crazy.

Liam had some breathing problems on the first day, b/c he had swallowed some meconium during delivery, but that resolved itself by saturday night or so. he was a bit jaundice on sunday morning, but we got sent home with the light blanket, and were told to get a lab done inthe morning.. no biggie.. evan had the biliblanket.. but the numbers came back high, so we were told to bring him back to OB so he can go under the lights.. that was monday at noon.. today is weds, and we were finally able to bring him home weds the 28th.. his bilirubin numbers are no longer scary. they got so high that the doctor said that if they don't come down he might have to get a transfusion (!) but luckily they had come down enough that we didn't have to worry about that.. thank God. and i get to sleep in my own bed.. what a treat!

his jaundice is pretty much gone now and he's quite the sleeper... i couldn't ask for anythign more.

i've uploaded some pictures to my web album for you all to check out http://picasaweb.google.com/evansmom111003 enjoy!

we're good

we're home and we're all doing well.. i don't have much to report other than it's going to get bitterly cold this week! keep checking my online album for pictures of the family!

Liam update

just letting you all know that I greatly appreciate all the well wishes for little Liam. Liam's bilirubin shot through the roof (and htus has jaundice) so he is still in the hospital under the UV lights and it looks like he'll be there through thursday atleast. He'll be fine soon though... the good news is that the bilirubin is coming down pretty steadily, but the bad news is that Evan isn't taking my absence well at nighttime and has become very stressed b/c i'm not home to spend time with him.

hope all is well

please check out my web album for pictures of the little guy! the link is on the right --->

still no baby

the most anticipated birth of the year (or so it seems) has not occured as of yet! trust us.. we're annoyed as the rest of you. lol.

I'm swollen and achy all over and is having those stupid braxton-hicks contractions all the time.. in fact it's been days.. and is practically uselss when it comes to working b/c of these contractions that don't ever stop really. thus maternity leave has started.

due date is officially on the 24th.. and we're trying all sorts of things to help this kid out. it's probably wouldn't be so bad if evan wasn't 3 weeks early, and if i wasn't so achy b/c atleast i could still be working

no baby yet update

Hi all,
fist off.. still no baby.. ugh...at my appoinment on thursday the dr said i was 4 cm!.. man this is taking forever. so pretty much anyday now the baby could come. she said she'd be surprised if i didn't have the kid over the weekend. and just for the record i'v eonly gained 8 lbs this entire pregnancy! (don't shoot *ducks*) so i wonder how much i've lost. at my appoinment two weeks ago (wheni was 3 cm) i called the midwife and said.. "at what point do i call if my water doesn't break?".. her response.. "when it feels different".. wth does that mean? but okay

well all day yesterday i was having contractions, and we were getting all hopeful and stuff. i've been having the constant back ache as well for the past couple of days.

well at 11:00 last night i get woken up out of a sound sleep with one of those contractions of death. or so it felt like. so we called the doc and went over to the hospital where they could monitor the baby. the good news is that the baby's doing really well. but b/c i wasn't progressing they said we could go home. what a drag. but atleast we didn't have to sleep in those uncomfy beds.. my tailbone was killing me. i don't rememeber them being so uncomfy before.. perhaps it's b/c i'm as big as a house at the moment, and i wasn't with evan.

so here we are at home. still waiting and still having contractions and moving as slow as a turtle.

Happy Valentine's Day Osama

A little Jewish girl, Melissa, comes home from first grade and tells her father that they learned about the history of Valentine's Day. "Since Valentine's Day is for a Christian saint and we're Jewish," she asks,"will God get mad at me for giving someone a valentine?"

Melissa's father thinks a bit, then says "No, I don't think God would get mad. Who do you want to give a Valentine to?"

"Osama Bin Laden," she says.

"Why Osama Bin Laden," her father asks in shock.

"Well," she says, "I thought that if a little American Jewish girl could have enough love to give Osama a Valentine, he might start to think that maybe we're not all bad, and maybe start loving people a little bit.

And if other kids saw what I did and sent Valentines to Osama, he'd love everyone a lot. And then he'd start going all over the place to tell everyone how much he loved them and how he didn't hate anyone anymore."

Her father's heart swells and he looks at his daughter with new found pride.

"Melissa, that's the most wonderful thing I've ever heard."

"I know," Melissa says, "and once that gets him out in the open, the Marines could shoot the lousy bastard.

no baby yet

my appointment last thursday confirmed nothing had really changed changed.. my belly didn't grow so now i'm right on track as opposed to ahead, and i even lost a pound .. wtf?! can't complain i guess. and i'm not any more dialated. on friday at work i was having some contractions every 5 minutes or so, so i went home. and of course while i was waiting for jay to come pick me up, they stopped. but better safe than sorry... there's no where comfy to sit at work except on the couch in the main lobby aoutside the lecture hall... yeah.. 20 year-olds do not need to see me go into labor. thanks, but no.. it's where i had waitind for jay, but i wasn't about to go back up to work.. i was very uncomfortable. so we've been waiting since then for any other since that baby is eminent.

last night i was getting very uncomfortable. as the night went on the bay felt like it was getting heavier and heavier, and felt so low that if he was any lower he'd just fall out. i said to jason.. "i say 24 hours for some serious baby activity, and if not then i'll be surprised". i haven't been felling any contractions, but that doesn't surprise me one bit, b/c i never had any when i was pregnant with evan. my water had just broke when we returned home from a trip to Target, and that was that.... we went to target yesterday walked around for a while.. but no baby.

i think part of our anxiousness about having this baby, is that we're ready for him.. we've been expecting him early for months now, on this weekend... the room is ready, i'm packed for the hospital.. all the clothes are washed.. i think we're pretty much all set to bring the baby home... unlike with Evan.. Evan was 3 weeks early, and was so unexpected, that i think the only item is my hospital bag was soem travel shampoo or soemthing. we just weren't prepared.. so now that we're all prepared watch the kid come a week late or something... Oh God i hope not. that would be cruel.

we made it through Thursday, and that's all i wanted... We went to see Lewis Black, and he was hilarious! his friend that opened up for him was hilarious too. John Bowman was his name. Jay said he had overheard some people on the way out saying it wasn't quite what they expected... well for us it was... but then again wee're very familiar with his bits and his style of comedy.. i think we own all his dvd's. and some of his bits he used the other night, referenced bits of his we had seen in the dvd's so i think they were more funny for us than people who had never seen his routine before. the only thing that was bad about the show was that it was like 90 degrees inside the little theater, so everyone was boiling.. i bet people complained b/c at one point we felt a little bit of cool air coming down, and then it got warm again. thanks guys *smack*... and that we didn't have much leg room, but the theater is old, so there was nothing we could do about that. except kick the little wooden wall in front of us everytime we moved. i ended up taking my shoes off b/c my feet were swelling up.

We even went out to dinner beforehand with our friend Trevor who had a huge gift certificate to one of the really nice restaurants 2 minutes away from the theater where the show was. so we all went out.. it was really good food... and it was the type of place that if you didn't get there real soon after they opened the doors you had to wait atleast an hour for a table. our wiat was 10 minutes... we got there about 5:30 and left about 7:40 or so.. timed perfectly for the show.

and it finally happened! we got snow a couple nights ago! not a dusting like we've been getting everytime they predict snow, but we got 3-4 inches.. of wet snow that has now sunk down to about 2.5 inches. and it's going to be really cold for the next week, they say, and some more snow on the way! it's scary to think that it's February, and we *just* got our first real snow. by the time my boys are going to school, they won't even know what a snow day is... what is this world coming too.

and speaking of which why is it all of a sudden global warming is being recognized and a problem that *people* have had a factor in.. I mean, duh, C'mon.. I think we started having a major effect on the environment since the locomotive was created.. it's been down hill since then, but only back then they had no idea. the general population has had an idea for atleast 15-20 years or so that something needed to be done soon, and what 20 years later 'experts' and our stupid president say that within another 5 years or so we'll BEGIN to regulate pollution.. or some shit like that.. WTF is that all about?! what a douchebag of a president we've got folks. he just has no clue.

so i dont' get to watch the national news much these days b/c Evan is addicted to Dora the explorer. a friend of mine on myspace changed his picture to that of the lite brite guy that shut down Boston. so i sent himi a message saying that that stupid thing shut down Boston.. he replys with telling me that it's been in the news for 3 days.. ! oops.. lol. i had no idea it was in the national news.. it didn't surprise me, but i still didn't know.. that was funny, guess i've been a little out of touch with the news. we watch the local news, but i dont' get to watch the tody show in the morning anymore.. i didn't realize that iv'e been missing out.. especially since they only have real news for like 45 minutes, and then go into fluff news and human interest stories. I still think it's pretty funny that those things shut down Boston. but i'll add that many people who criticize the fact that the city over reacted to the event, weren't the ones who had their airplanes hijacked killing thousands of innocent people. we're just that much more sensitive about strange ongoings, than most communities, and sometimes that needs to be recognized.

baby update

had my 36 week appointment this morning. it's looking good. i'm measuring for 38 weeks. not surprised, and i'm already dialated a little bit but the midwife says the baby isn't really pushing down on it so it could mean that i'm pregnant for a few more days or a couple more weeks.... i'm only aking for one more week.. that's all. we have tickets to go see Lewis Black next thursday night! guess i gotta get on the ball and pack my hospital bag... I want to make sure that it's ready this time around.. with Evan I had only just started packing it the day before so it wasn't fully ready yet... the baby bag is easy enough and i'm pretty sure that's ready.. except for burp cloths.. but i've got to wash them first.

oh, and technically i've only gained 6 lbs so far. lol.. but that's only b/c i lost so much earlier in the pregnancy. i only gained 15-20 lbs with evan so even for me this is a light load. the midwife says she thinks i got a big one too.. lol can't wait until i have the baby, and see how much i weigh after. i bet i can figure out how much i gained by doing the math.. atleast a rough number.

hope everyone is staying warm.. it's nasty cold out this week over here

woo!

so I had a listing appointment yesterday for that house near me, and I got it... it's really not worth the price their asking but they can't afford to go any lower between paying the comission and paying off what they owe. I mean it might sell for the priced they need we'll see. my broker was hesitant to list it at $265k b/c it won't sell fast. It was sorta funny that after my Broker left, Diane, one of the homeowners said, "she looked like she didn't want to list it for that price", and i said that she was hesitant to b/c it's means that it'll be sitting on the market for a while. The homeowners were fine with that. it's really worth about $230-$240k. They seem to like me though, which is good. Thankfully, they don't really need to make any money off the sale other than just paying off the mortgage, so that wasn't an issue. They're looking at getting a house around $175 or a 2-family, so the mortgage will be way cheaper than what their paying now. taxes will most definately be cheaper as well. I'm going to be talking with her later today, and hopefully we'll be going out this weekend to look at some houses.

so that's that. Real Estate is going well.. well enough for me.. i don't want it to be too crazy right now. not witht the baby coming soon and all that. just knock on wood that i don't go into labor on feb 1st.. i bought tickets for jay and i for Christmas to go see Lewis Black in Northampton.. he's jay's favorite comedian... and i really want to go! any time after that we're good to have the baby! I'm officially 35 weeks now, and if we go by the Evan time table, that means we have 2 weeks until doomsday. if i don't go into labor the weekend of the 4th we'll be surprised. lol. watch me have this baby late instead of early.. only because we're expecting early.. that would suck.

Evans newspaper debut!

saturday january 13th. Dylan is a friend from daycare. melly took them last week and mentioned a guy from the paper was there taking pictures :)

Bono says it perfectly about today..

"It's a beautiful day"... indeed, Bono, it is.

so i went to the doc's this morning with Evan.. who was amazingly good. they weren't running late at all. and the good news is that the baby has flipped! yay! the head is down and it's all good from here. we even got a peek with a quick ultrasound just to be sure!






What a cutie!.. the foot one is kinda hard to see, the face ones came out good. The baby is still a boy.. i had her double check. lol. just want to be sure ya know? he's got those chubby cheeks like evan had too!

i've created a web album with picasa.. there's a bunch of evan pictures up there. http://picasaweb.google.com/evansmom111003

check them out.

i'm the type of person that only likes to blog when theres something worth mentioning. so i had to mention that of course. and i didn't mention how our new years went b/c i forgot.

our new years was pretty boring. we had friends over, and at 9:30 we're all zombies in the living room tired from work and life.. we were practically asleep, and probabyly would've been if evan wasn't off the wall... . there was nothing on the tv either. we watched will and grace for about 10 minutes, and i broke down and said.. ok, lets play cards or something. we we played cards for a while which combined with coffee and wine woke people up... i had jay buy me a bottle of sparkling cider, so i had that. when it was time for the ball to drop we paused our card game got up, watched the ball drop, said cheers, kissed our spouses, and went back to playing cards. i finsihsed my sparkling juice right from the bottle. everyone laughed.. they said we should've gotten a picture. and then at about 1 or so people went home. it was good and quiet. so that was our new years... by the sounds of it you'd think we were old fogies or something.. but nope.. the avg age is 26-27.


have yourself a beautiful day too!

i'm movin' on up... to the eastside.. to a de-luxe apt in the sky...

ok so not really, but i was going to blog about my first listing appointment i just got back from, and that song got stuck in my head.

real estate is treating me well considering i'm part time and not really able to spend money on promoting myself to get business. i'm just really lucky with people calling in when i'm answering phones. so i got a call on saturday when i was in the office from this woman interested in our comission rates and stuff. so i made an appointment to do a market analysis, and we did that appoiontment today. it seemed to have gone well.

the homeowner got the house appraised last year for $275k, but i don't think that they'll be able to get that with the prices of houses coming down. even in Greenfield. cross yoru fingers for me that i get the listing.. it would be nice to sell a house... and be the listing agent.. that's where the money is.

so tomorrow morning i go to the doctor's to see how the babe's doing.. little guy still hasn't turned. grr.. i can tell by the hiccups. lol. i'll let you know how it goes.

WalkAmerica for the March of dimes and a good friend of mine

We should all do something good when given the chance and have the abilities to do so. if your resolution this yeare was to help out others more, or donate to charities, here's a great one!

from my good friend Janelle:

As many of you know, my son, Jacob, was born 6 weeks early at Women & Infants' hospital in RI. He's doing great, and recovering better than we could have ever anticipated - I say to everyone that I don't really have a "sick" baby, just one that needs to heal a little bit before he comes home =) But this experience has shown me how valuable and neccesary the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) is - and how many other babies are born in desperate need of care to survive. The March of Dimes is an amazing foundation that help to raise money for reasearch to save babies' lives - and on April 29th, I'm participating in a Walk America, a 5 mile walk to raise money for this cause, in honor of my beautiful son, Jacob Michael Scott Lincoln. (Michelle, you are so amazing and I love you! Thank you for telling me about this, and creating Team Jacob!!!)

So... if you are up for a bit of a hike, come join Team Jacob and raise money for a great cause... the walk that I am participating in is in Manchester, NH, but if that's too far, by all means join us in honor at a different location. I'm thinking its going to be a lot of fun, and I can't wait =)

Of course, the other way to help is to sponsor Team Jacob. You can visit our March of Dimes website here, and donations/payments are accepted via credit card and PayPal.

and for a quick update:

he's doing great!!! 4lbs 14oz and up to 10cc's of milk every 4 hours! and of course, he's absolutely perfect. but then again, i'm biased ;-) i'll have more pictures up soon!

lots of love,

janelle

another friend from high school and is doing the walk as well! here's what she has to say:

Jacob and his mommy Janelle

Jacob Michael Scott Lincoln was born 6 weeks early on December 19^th, 2006 weighing 3lbs 14oz. He was born with Gastioentises (his intestines on the outside of his body) He has been receiving care in the NICU at Women and Infants Hospital in Providence RI. Every day Jacob has been getting stronger and stronger with the help of a great NICU team and the March of Dimes.

I am participating in WalkAmerica on April 29^th 2007 in Machester NH. because I believe in the March of Dimes mission to save babies. Please support my fundraising efforts by sponsoring me in WalkAmerica today.

Contributing to my walk online is fast, easy and secure. You can donate directly from my personal webpage with a credit/debit card or PayPal. If you prefer, I can also accept cash or check. Just click the appropriate box on my webpage.

The money we raise helps save premature and sick babies. Premature birth is the #1 cause of newborn death and the biggest threat to babies' health today, and through WalkAmerica, the March of Dimes is funding important research to find out why premature birth happens and what can be done to prevent it.

I've joined with millions of compassionate people across the country who support WalkAmerica each year. Won't you please help me in this worthy cause? Visit my webpage and sponsor me in the walk that saves babies!

With your support, there's hope.

If you would like to join our team or sponsor Team Jacob please visit our page on the March of Dimes / Walk America web site. http://www.walkamerica.org/leftyhooha

Thank you for all your support!!

Team Jacob