I'm a Mommy!

Loverboy and I adopted our first baby last month. Her name is Stella. She's nearly a year old and full of life. Oh, and she is a dog. Our lives have been much different since we brought her home.

Up until we adopted her, Loverboy was "training" me to run my first 5K. We jogged pretty consistently for almost a month and I even bought new running shoes. Then, once we brought her home that trend quickly came to a halt. Since then, I have packed on a handful of pounds (i.e.5 pounds) because I continued to eat as if I was still working out. Now that Stella is calming down I started jogging again last week. Meanwhile, I started paying attention to my food and fluid intake. Diet Coke is fine, but the amount I was drinking was not. I kept myself hydrated, but not with water. Now I am drinking at least 1.5 liters a day, which is a huge change for me. My biggest weakness is ice cream. I love it so much that Loverboy bought me an ice cream maker for my birthday! I was up to almost 2 or 3 pints a week. It's been a week since I've had ice cream and believe me, that's pretty damn good!

Initially Loverboy insisted that Stella sleep in our bed with us. Needless to say that has put a HUGE damper on our alone time together so now that is used to sleeping with us we are trying to get her to sleep next to the bed.

Our conversations have taken a huge turn since we got her. It is mind boggling how often we talk about Stella's bowel movements. I bet you are all jealous now!

If you're not, then just look at these pictures of my little girl

My Current Forms of Entertainment

Loverboy took me to a glorious book store last weekend. The store has 32 rooms each of which contains books of a different genre. Some of the books are used and others were just discounted for the sake of it. Nearly all books were 5% off but I was able to spy with my little eye the best discounts (thank you family for training me so well) and in the end I bought 4 books for $20.

What did I get? Well, I am a sucker for literature so I spent most of my time in that room (by the way I am still not exactly sure what constitutes as literature or not; I only know because I find my favorite books in that section). From that section I found Jane Eyre [by Charlotte Bronte]; Wuthering Heights [by Emily Bronte]; and Six Sherlock Holmes Mysteries [by Arthur Conan Doyle]. I read Jane Eyre several years ago and I remember liking it, but for the life of me I cannot remember what it is about so I am excited to read that. Her sister wrote Wuthering Heights and I am pretty sure it is her only book. With those to in my library I am set for countless nights filled with crying.

The fourth book Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories by different authors with an introduction to each by David Sedaris. He is responsible for many of my laughs in the past. If you have not yet, read Me Talk Pretty One Day. It is his first memoir. If it doesn't make you laugh give me a call so I can smack some sense into you.

One of the reasons I haven't blogged much this summer is because I have been reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's set in 12th century England and it basically chronicles the lives of a family of builders, a monk, and an earl. Their lives are all intertwined in one way or another. The book gives a good insight into what life was like back then. There were so many things I never thought about before reading it. For instance, a girl becomes a woman in the book so another young woman gives her some cloth to bind herself. Where the hell are the Tampax??? A man in the story went his life without knowing who his father was until somebody told him 35 years later. Instead of having some form of a paternity test they just did a visual test. How would Maury Povich made a living back then??? Anyway, the book is nearly 1,000 pages, but each was worth turning.

I started a subscription to Netflix yesterday. If you have an account let's be friends! I want to see what movies you are watching so I can either steal your ideas or judge you based on your movie choices (I think I'm kidding, but you never know). I was shocked by the number of Watch Instantly choices were available. Unfortunately I could not install the movie player successfully. After trying to get it to work for a few minutes I decided to call Netflix Support. I talked to an employee for 55 minutes!!!! He tried so many different ideas and still we could not get it to work. Finally he suggested logging off of my profile and logging into the dummy profile my dad created on my computer and try installing the movie player there. It worked! Neither of us had any idea why, but at the point I had to let him go because I was on my cell phone and 55 minutes is precious to me.

O Batman, Batman Wherefore are thou Batman?

As most of you know, the new Batman movie is coming out this weekend. The previews look amazing and needless to say, I am overly excited to see it. I am actually throwing my cheapness out the window and going to see it at the IMAX if I can find one in the area. In an attempt to subside some of my giddiness I wanted to have a Batman movie marathon week. Unfortunately, I am having a hell of a time finding any of the Batman dvds. After scouring four stores this weekend I finally found Batman Begins [in widescreen only :( ]. I really just want the Michael Keaton Batman movies. I didn't think it was too much to ask for, but apparently it is. I even tried buying them online. The only place I could find them was on Amazon, but they were each 15.99 and seeing as I am cheap...I didn't buy them. I shouldn't have to pay that much for a used dvd! Somebody please help me!! Do you have any other suggestions?

Having the Ability to Sleep in is Spoiling Me

It's 6:30 in the morning and I have been out of bed for a half hour...I have been awake nearly all night. Lately, I've been experiencing mild anxiety while in bed which has had a negative effect on my attempts to sleep. What is the cause? My future.

I cannot seem to prevent myself from thinking about my "real" life every night after resting my head on the pillow. In case you are unaware, I finished my first year of grad school a month ago. I came back to the Midwest the day of my last final to stay with my parents for awhile and ultimately moved in with Loverboy for the remainder of the summer. I have been here for almost 3 weeks now.

Naturally, him and I have shared a few rough moments since I arrived, but those moments rest in the shadows of the wonderful time we have spent together. He truly does make me happy. I love the ability he has to make me smile. I love that he can convince me to forget my worries...of course I mean temporarily forget...and unfortunately he has a hard time convincing me while he is sleeping. WAKE UP LOVERBOY!

In other news, I was lucky enough to find a summer job the day after I arrived here. It is (knock on wood) the perfect summer job for me. I am working at a tutoring facility that specializes in K-12 help in reading, writing, and mathematics. It pays enough so that working 18 hours a week is enough for me to get by for the rest of the summer. Even better, during the summer it's only open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (thus only 18 hours) so I get a 4-day weekend. I am loving it so far.

It's unlike the private tutoring that I am used to. The facility has a curriculum of its own that I follow. Plus, I have never tutored multiple students at one time nor have I worked with kids this young. For some reason I have always thought that I would not like working with kids. I thought that I would only be able to handle post high school students. Now, I am not so sure.

Now to the reason I got out of bed so early this morning. As I stared at the ceiling this morning, trying to block out the sounds of the birds chirping (oh how I loath bird chirps in the morning) I thought about how much I am enjoying working with these kids. It dawned on me that this is the first job I have had that I look forward to doing. Yes, I realize I haven't been there for long, but so what. So, while I laid in bed, I thought about the steps I would need to take to make teaching these kids a permanent job (i.e. to become a teacher).

It turns out I have my cards in line (I think that is the expression I'm looking for). I'm not going to do anything drastic though. I am returning to Georgia in August to continue school. Meanwhile, I will continue to keep my mind open to the idea of teaching in the K-12 venue.

Alright everyone, it's 7 a.m. and time for me to take a nap.

Finals Week....

Day one: My first exam is at 8 am today. I woke up at 5:30 and I am surprisingly alert. Unfortunately, being alert does not imply that I am ready.

Exam number 2 is going to be a take home test given to us tomorrow. That scares me a little because the professor can put more difficult questions on it.

Exam 3 (my last) is on Monday in the afternoon. Afterwards, my sister and I are packing up the car and getting the h out of here.

Question Sharing

As mentioned my friend from home and I have been sending each other odd "test questions" to answer on our downtime. She recently sent me 2 questions, both of which I enjoyed answering so I thought I would pass them along to you onlookers:

1) Who did you share your first kiss with? Make a prediction as to what he/she is doing nowadays.

2) Put these professions in order starting with the one you would most likely do: gyno, king crab fisherman, chimp trainer, dentist in Mexico City, dairy farmer, stun gun/tazer inspector, Wal-Mart return counter person

My answers*:
1) A: The first person I kissed was C. D. It was in the 6th grade at a Halloween party. Him and I were "dating" and our friends plotted against us by forcing us to play spin the bottle. It just so happened that when he spun the bottle it landed on me (meant to be, eh?). It was a puckered lip fish-kiss...and it was glorious.

I predict that he is in a near catatonic state, sitting in a Barcalounger (note: i had to look that word up) in his parent's basement that is facing a gigantic poster of me in the 6th grade. He is and will forever be pining over me and that one amazing kiss we shared. He will never get a job because of his obsession with me. He does however, continuously apply at Island Tanning in CC, where I held my first job at age 14 as a receptionist/bed cleaner. He is so demented that he has yet to realize that Island Tanning closed down 6 years ago shortly after I moved away.


2) A:
1. King Crab Fisherman-I pick this first if and only if I could star in The Discovery Channel's: Deadliest Catch. I want to be famous someday and I will do whatever it takes to get my foot in the door.

2. Chimp Trainer-Yes, I will likely get poop thrown at me, but the things are just so darn cute AND I am not opposed to throwing my own poop back at them.

3. Wal-Mart Return Counter Person-Seeing as I despise Wal-Mart, I would have zero desire to be good at this job and slash or would get a kick at being rude to rude customers and denying them a return for bogus reasons. I would be the law. Because of me they would be stuck with defective "shower massagers" and the like.

4. Tazer/stungun tester-I put this job in the middle as hopefully after holding this postion for a short period of time, I will become numb to all of the horrible sights, smells and tasks that I will perform in the following jobs

5. Dairy Farmer- Sure I would get all the free milk I could ever ask for, but I only ask for one Milk Chug a week to pour into my cereal. I don't mind the udders, and in fact might enjoy stroking them to get the milk out, HOWEVER, the constant smell of manure would make me gag so much that I would probably sustain severe esophogeal injuries.

6. Dentist in Mexico City-I did a little research and actually Mexico City has a pretty strong economy so the quality of teeth might not be extremely poor, HOWEVER, the thought of putting my hands in anybody's mouth gives me the heebies. The only joy I would get out of this job would be from yelling at people for not flossing enough (while knowing that I have zero intention of doing it myself).

7. Gyno-As mentioned, sticking my hands in anybody's mouth gives me the heebies, and quite frankly the thought of sticking my hand in a vagina gives me the bleeping JEEBIES!

*Note: I apologize if my answers offend you in anyway. It was not my intention. If you hold any one of these professions, my hat is off to you as I know that you must be a much stronger person than I.

Mark Your Calendars

As I am coming home soon I would like to propose to my family member readers that we get together one day to enjoy each other's company. It has come to my attention that Mother's Day falls on the weekend that I get home. What better day for us to spend together? In past years we have met at Cantigny Park and enjoyed the beautiful flowers (and tanks if you're into that sort of thing) so I would like to put a suggestion in the box that we spend the afternoon together there. I know one of you would love the flower gardens! So what do you say family? If you have another suggestion, please feel free to let it be known.

Did I mention I miss you?