I love literalism


I love me a good dose of literalism. Especially when it comes to bookends. Thanks ModCloth for the amazing find. Swoon.

Swiss designer love

Swiss designer Juri Zaech has won my heart...


via Gizmodo


Anniversary as seen by twitter

Our first beach trip






Maddy and I went with Maddy’s BFF Georgi and her mommy Heather to Verona Beach to enjoy all that is summer.  It was a blissful trip full of yummy snacks, a healthy lunch and a whole lot of attempts as swimming.  Bliss.

Is anyone still out there?

Does anyone still read this thing?  I do.  Sometimes. 

I have been a horrible blogger and a horrible blog friend as of late and I know that.  I looked it up.  My last entry of any substance was 28 January.  Before that, who knows?  I do blog everyday for Gwyneth Paige.  Seeing as I have know idea where I left off, or if anyone out there is listening, let's just break it down for as much as I can remember until my hands cramp from typing it all.

The Home Front
  • Maddox is by far the tallest toddler EVER.  Maxing out at 97%, he met a 3.5 yr old the other day and was still an inch taller then him.  He spoke better too.  Maddox's speech is incredible lately.  He uses "well" and "whom" properly.  A lot of the "baby" words are leaving and being replaced by the proper words.  This makes me sad.  I miss "faffles" instead of "waffles."  Yet I am still so proud of him.  He makes me beam.
  • Maddox was bit by a spider last week and just like his dad, has extremely adverse reactions to insect bites.  Swelling, bruising and hives.  Mad was bit six times over his legs arms and back.  The bite on his knee swelled so extreme that it looked like he had two knee caps.  It's been a week today and finally all the swelling has gone down but they still itch him.
  • Maddy has also been playing wonderfully by himself.  Imagining everything he can imagine.  That boxes are trains, broccoli is a tree, that he is a helicopter.  It's bliss.
  • He can reach the pedals on his tricycle now but can't get the hang of pedaling.  He loves to go for wagon rides and play on the swings.  Sometimes the slides make him nervous but once he goes down he is unstoppable.
  • He also broke my heart the other day.  We took him to the playground maybe three weekends ago and there he met a little girl named Roslyn.  She was almost four years old.  She went up to him and said you're my friend and took his hand.  He was smitten.  They found a caterpillar and Ros named him Fuzzy.  Maddox came over to me to tell me Roslyn was his friend and they have a caterpillar.  I asked him to be gentle and wonderfully he was.  After they played for a little while longer, Roslyn's daddy had to take her home to nap.  Maddox was heartbroken.  He cried "But she's my friend!"  That is when I realized that my little has no friends.  Not a one.  Sure, he has his cousin Connor.  Sure he had little buddies at the YMCA's Gym Class (which we resigned from due to the summer busyness).  And yeah, his babysitter brings him over to her friends house who has a son six month older than him, but it's infrequent.  Maddox doesn't have friends because we don't have friends with children and I am beginning to feel like the worst mom in history because of it.  How do you make other parent friends when you have your own friends you barely see and you are introverted home bodies who love to go to the park and what not but on their own schedule?  Poor Maddox.  This is a problem I am still in the process of solving.
  • Bruce.  What the hell kind of name is Bruce for a dog?  No kind if you ask me.  Bruce came to us as a puppy to sit for three days over the memorial day weekend.  Come to find out, Bruce is not wanted and neglected at his current residence.  Well this is just not acceptable so we are now fostering Bruce until we find him a good home.  He is an Akita German Shepherd and perfect.  Almost 5 months old and already 35#s.  He'll be huge.  To be honest, check back with me in 3 weeks.  I bet he is still here and his name is Milo or Jake instead of Bruce. ;)
The Work Front
  • One month, three days ago I was hired on full time at Gwyneth Paige as their Creative Director (my title from before) as well as being handed the title of Marketing/PR Director.  Super fancy.  In turn my amazing hubs and FIL build me an office in a weekend for under $200 and it's perfect.  I feel like a rockstar working from home.  It's blissful in every way.  I wish I could find the time to do more me stuff (i.e. Laundry, updating my personal blogs, etc) but I haven't quite figured it all out yet.  I work about 35 hours a week and it's amazing.  I also quit my job in the best way possible.
  • My old job was hell.  They hated me, but I never knew why.  I know I gave them about 10% of my brain functions but I always did my work... went I felt like it.  Nothing was late, but things were done on the "Andrea doesn't give a shit" schedule of time, not their.  Nemesis, the evil bitch whose whole purpose was to make my life hell there continued to do so.  She was toxic.  So when Jodi hired me at noon a Wednesday I accepted and went back to work.  There I sat.  For two hours just DYING knowing that I could walk out at any moment and have it not matter.  That inspired me.  This is my chance.  To quit the way I wanted to quit.  I didn't owe them a damn thing.  They were shits to me the whole time.  I cleaned my cube, my desk and answered all emails.  Put in pending orders.  Erased my voice message for my phone.  Put up my out of office permanently message.  Took all the pictures of the walls and brought them to my car (it took two trips) and over those 45 minutes no one noticed.  Finally I took my keys to the office off my key ring as well as my badge, set them nicely in front of my keyboard and wrote an email to the head of HR.   The email read Subject: Manifest Destiny -- Body: I resign.  Blissfully, Andrea.  I hit send and I left.  Not a word spoken from or to anyone.  I smiled the entire drive home.  About an hour later HR must have read the email or noticed I was gone, called my house, left a message that I didn't return (I thought the email was self explanatory) and I haven't regretted it since.


Okay, that is all I can brain dump right now.  Back soon.  

If you are out there, wanna drop me a comment and see if there is any reason other than my record to update this thing? 

xoxo

My best made me cry

I just logged on to my gReader.  I have eyes full of big fat tears.  Big fat happy tears.  I saw a post called "why Andrea is amazing" written by one of my bestest best friends.  There is a link at the bottom, but I am so blown away I thought I would cut, paste and blockquote.

once upon a time i had a very good friend with a bad habit of finding girls to love who hated me. seeing this pattern emerge and endure was hard for me, but i knew i was lucky to have found my happiness and wasn't about to deny him his, even if ultimately i feared it would draw away his friendship and he would be lost to me. im so noble. actually i was a huge baby about it.

and then, one day, he surprised me.
i was throwing a huge last party for my brother before he left for army basic training. all of our friends caravaned to my house for a night of revelry. it was this night i met andrea. i recall bits and pieces of the night, but mostly its a blur. i remember thinking she was lovely, with piercings and tats and technicolor hair, rocking her perfect bikini bod in my dining room (where the hot tub was). i also thought what a shame it was that this vibrant girl was going to hate me, cause she was so cool.

and then, she didn't.

in fact, we connected. we had so much in common... it was like opening the door and being betsies at first sight. i felt like all of my time in cny i had spent 25 minutes away from another version of me and i must actually be quite awesome, cause she was.

and when my now hubby called up her now hubby to share the news of our engagement... so were they

and when we were dealing with the delights of our wedding planning, so were they.

and we celebrated each others weddings and they marched on and we waited, afraid of the next few steps.

andrea struggled through losses, and heartaches, and betrayals that i cannot fathom throughout this period. im sure any of those would have cowed me. not andrea. andrea has one stunning attribute that i have long lacked.

andrea has a perfect paper heart. cotton paper i believe. stacked deeper than the world. nothing so cold and impersonal as gold for andrea. her heart burns with love, passion, and friendship, and lights the way. andreas heart guides her, and her family, and not just a few others. her heart is strengthened from its troubles, and yet not locked away behind glass as mine would be were it not already a shiny small black thing i wear around my finger. her heart is strong enough for all of that and yet like the cotton paper its made from we all leave our marks on it. some shallow, some deep, some indelibly inked. and in her heart she holds these marks and knows they make her ever more perfect and beautiful.


she plays her own tunes, and finds her own fun, and loves her own loves,
and in being her very own engine inspires me most of all that i can too.

andrea reminds me that despite how i view the world,
there are strange treats around every corner

she shows me that being strong is beautiful,
but that softness isn't the same as weakness.

because even in our differences
we're even more the same.


thedailybroke.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-andrea-is-amazing.html
I love you SO much Jenny Lenny!!!


A call for help. Just a simple email will do.

I am not the type of person to ask for help. Maybe I should be, but my pride always gets in the way. Also I hate bugging people with "help me with this cause that you don't care about!” However, this is different.


A really brief overview that may not do much justice to the story but I'll try. In preschool I had a best friend.  Who can say they had a best friend in preschool?  I mean a person at the tender age of four that would play with you, hug you, love you just because they were a kind soul.

A person who would become your first kiss at 6 years old, even though it was gross. A person who when you are being horribly picked on in the 7th grade (because, like most children, you were outright awkward) stood up for you risking his popular reputation to call out the asshole for being so. A person who never forgot your birthday and no matter how many years has passed, always check to see if you were okay. A person that when you were 23 years old and you father passed away drove all over your hometown, just to find you, to remind you that they love you, to take you out for a beer. All just because they are a good person.

A person, that when they opened his wallet after he was killed by a hit-and-run driver, found that it had your father's prayer card in it.  That person to me was my childhood best friend Jerry Masterpol.

If you could just read below about the Masterpol Tragedy and if you could find it in your heart to write an email to castnewyork@gmail.com I could not thank you enough.

Written by Jerry & Jeff's Aunt Debbie:
I wanted to ask a favor of anyone who might have known my sister or her family or even if you did not know her and just want to help support them.
The producers of the hit show “Extreme Home Makeover” are looking for nominations of a deserving Central New York family to be on the show.  Nominations may be submitted by the family or by a member of their community.
To nominate someone you can either send an e-mail to castnewyork@gmail.com or go to the Extreme Home Makeover website.  Entries must be submitted no later than February 1, 2010.
Each nomination must include the names and ***ages*** of every member of the household along with a description of the  *** major challenges within the home *** (see below)
Ages now: Jerry Masterpol, Sr. – 58, Linda Masterpol – 57, Jeffrey Masterpol – 28, Lindsey Masterpol – 25, Joey Masterpol – 22 and Mandy Holst - 27 (Jeff’s fiancee)
Anyone submitting a nomination should be sure to explain why the nominated family deserves, heroic and/or a great role model for their community.  All nominations must include a contact phone number (your phone number).


Read more »

Vaccines

Confession: Prior to yesterday Maddox has not been vaxed since he was 6 months old.

I freaked out and had no IDEA what I believed about vaccinating, glaxo smith, cow fetus blood, thermisol---I was lost. Since then I did what I always do when I don't understand something; researched the ever living shit out of it. 

When he was born I turned down Hep B… I mean, what 22 hour old baby needs a Hep B shot? We also turned down vitamin K for his eyes.

Then at his 4 month appointment I didn’t say much and they vaxed him. Same at 6 months but after his 6 month shots, he spiked a fever and didn’t sleep more than a hour at a time each night for 4 days. It. Was. Hell.

I went into panic mode. Skipped his appointments. (Confession: I am an ostrich when it comes to confrontation with something I am either a) scared to fail at or b) feel that I do not know enough about it to make a valid argument for my view-point or c) have no stance to take what-so-ever)

Hell, my son never went to his 1 yr well baby visit. I am a terrible mother. Moving along. My doctor, who is a family practitioner and whom delivered me, yeah he’s been my doctor for 28 years, he called me personally. Told me how I missed Maddox’s 2 yr well baby and he was behind on vaxes. I told him to make the appointment but I need to talk about vaxing. He said no prob. 

Yesterday was Maddox’s 2 yr well baby. He is 2 years 4 and ¾ months old. He is 37” tall and weight 34 lbs. He is the 92nd percentile for both weight and height. Perfectly proportionate. 

He was late on HiB, DTaP, PCV, Varicella and MMR.

After our Dr told us that I told him I really didn’t want to do varicella unless he didn’t contract chicken pox by age 10. That I didn’t want MMR till school and even then I wanted them separated. Also, no PCV…

His exact response: “I’m your advisor, not Maddox’s parent. You’re the boss!” <3 <3

Then he told me he didn’t need the HiB and the PCV because after 2 they are no longer serious infections. Yay!  He also said he would much prefer Maddox to get varicella on his own because that is a permenant vax, unlike the temp vax he'll give him.  The only problem is you can't FIND anyone who has chicken pox anymore. :/

We went ahead with the DTaP and scheduled Maddox for his M, M and R shots at age 4.

I love my doctor. And son. And husband.

This.

Losing it!

I am losing weight!  

Start: 147.8
Current: 143.6

That's 4 fucking punds!!!!  Sure, not a lot to those who have lost more, but it's progress!   I've been counting my calories for just over three weeks now.  I don't feel starved.  It was eye opening to see HOW much I was putting in my body.  No wonder I have gained so much.

Persepective: I graduated highschool 5'6", 98#s and was gaunt.  College: 120#s, 5'7" happy.  Before Maddox: 133#s just feeling a bit big.  Top weight with Maddox 158#s.  Two month post partum: 128#s... Two years post partum 148#s.

Goal?  125#s
 
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