goodbye for now

With speaking gigs, events, my kiddos and everything else I just can't fit time in for my personal blog :(

I'll keep it up in case one day I have time for it again.

If you're interested here is the link to my professional blog (mostly about marketing) http://stillisms.com/

Zoooooom

The hubs taught me how to ride a motorcycle today. Like everything I do, I now believe I will be the best in the world at it and am already planning out my race season for next year (if you don't know, hubs is a racer see pic on the left, yep ladies, hawt, sometimes its the only thing that saves him... totally kidding). Lyric was especially impressed (back to my skillz). She's having a sleepover at Grandma's tonight and I called to tell her the exciting news, that yes, she did in fact have a professional racer for a mom. She responded by telling me about the spaghetti dinner she enjoyed, of which she made a happy plate.

Stefan and I (along with Marc) are celebrating finding my hidden talent by enjoying some vanilla stols and diets. 

ZOMG I have a blog!?

Yeah better get on that.  Lots of things just swimming around in my lil head.. I'll be back soon.

Nothing stronger than a stubborn old man!

Great news on my Grandpa. They took him off life support and he decided he wanted to prove modern medicine and his doctors wrong. He woke up and said he was hungry. His sepsis is completely gone and he is going to be released from ICU soon. It just shows that we may be in a bit more control than we think. My Grandpa said he wasn't ready to die, and that's good, because I wasn't quite ready to say goodbye to him just yet.

Saying goodbye to grandpa

I went to Boston yesterday to say goodbye to my grandpa. He was put on life support and not expected to make it through the weekend. My uncle called to say that he went from totally conscious believing the pneumonia he had battled for the last year had finally cleared, to quickly deteriorating in two hours. Finally in a coma. My family began making travel arrangements to say our final goodbyes, those of us from out of town hoping that somehow he could hear us, understand us and know that we were here to help him make the journey. My uncle was over in Afghanistan; once he arrives the decision will be made on whether or not to continue the support. As I said my goodbyes I couldn’t help but feel regret, all of the weekends I could have visited but didn’t, all of the phone calls I could have made but chose not to, a simple email how hard could that be? We write a hundred emails for work, what does it take to write one, even just three special words I love you, or I miss you. I know my grandpa wouldn’t want my memory of him to be filled with regret, so instead I will remember him fondly, all of the good times I had with him, the visits I did make. I am happy that he is finally in heaven with my grandma, watching over my girls for me. I will miss him dearly but I know he knows that. Grandpa I love you XO.

Blogging from Delta flight 6560

I often find myself wondering while traveling, especially on planes, is this how you act all of the time or do you just become supremely annoying while on vacation? It seems as if there is only a small population of Americans who understand and abide by proper travel etiquette. This behavior, or lack thereof, I find is most evident in airports and while on planes. It all begins in the security line. There are some people who can handle the pressure of this event and some who fail miserably. I never understood the difficulty in it, but a large majority will fumble awkwardly with their belongings while simultaneously trying to remove their shoes forgetting of course to remove their liquids and gels from their oversized, overstuffed carry on. I guess it just takes practice and proper packing both of which I have down, if the security line were an Olympic event, I’d be a gold medalist.


Next in the airport adventure is the gate. When I am patiently waiting at my gate it may look to the untrained eye like I am engrossed in my book and/or magazine, but I am not. I am carefully scanning my fellow passengers identifying who I believe to the best and worst seat mates. Who make the best seat mates? Business travelers and teenagers these two demographics are both apt to demonstrate impeccable in-flight etiquette. For example they generally have some sort of activity to occupy themselves with and they stay out of my personal bubble (and they expect the same courtesy from me). Now sometimes you will get tricked (which is what happened to me right as I type these words). I am on a flight from Boston to Atlanta (where I will catch my connection to Mississippi). I am in seat 11C, one row behind first class and an aisle. A good amount of time and effort with the gate agent went into this carefully selected seat and it is a good one (not an easy fete on a completely full flight). Well I thought I was in seat mate heaven, a business guy on the window a young guy watching his movie in the center. I was mistaken, center seat guy has spent the entire flight hysterically laughing at some unrecognizable movie, every time resulting in the entire row of seats shaking, beyond annoying. Even more annoying than the stinky food guy I sat next to on my flight up here. Now there is some mid-air excitement as the guy in front of me is receiving oxygen from the flight attendant. Time to put the computer away and inconspicuously eavesdrop. Happy travels!

I own fat, I make fat work.

As you all know my post-baby weight loss plan includes mentally willing the weight away and eating whatever the eff I feel like.  As you might guess, this method isn't exactly working, at least not with record breaking speed.  When I had Lyric five years ago I was a fabulous size two (ok fine, size four), I gained 20ish pounds during my pregnancy and was back to fighting weight four weeks after popping her out.  What did I do you ask.  Absolutely nothing.  I was younger and apparently back then my metabolism was my friend.  Well flash forward five years, my metabolism has flipped on me, it is now my foe.  Pre-Brae I was size four (FINE size six), I gained 30 pounds and six weeks later am not even close to my fighting weight.  Granted, I didn't go into this at an ideal weight, but I'm not even at my acceptable fat weight!  I went back to work last week and since a naked first impression wasn't the impression I was going for, I needed an entire new wardrobe.  I had to swallow my pride, suck it up and buy the size 10 pants (and a few 8s) *sad face*.  I drowned my sorrows by treating myself to two weekends of retail therapy and since I felt so terribly for myself, I really spoiled myself, because I can and because I deserve it!  I love my new fat girl wardrobe and it will now be my new excuse to avoid the gym.  If I lose the weight, I won't fit into my new clothes; we can't have that now can we ;).

Mmm feta

What you need: three fairly thick chicken breasts, 6 oz. of tomato basil feta cheese, butter, seasoned bread crumbs.


Pre-heat the oven for 350
Cut the chicken in half (but not all the way, you want to create a "pouch")
Lightly grease a 9X13 glass cooking dish
Fill the middle of the chicken breasts with feta cheese and smoosh down and place in cooking dish
Brush the chicken with the butter and cover with bread crumbs, then lightly spray with cooking spray
Bake at 350 for 35 - 45 minutes

I served this with pasta salad and a regular salad (lettuce, feta cheese crumbles and croutons).

How it was received:
Stefan made a happy plate and loved it. I thought it was really good. I think the next time I make it, I'm going to try to stuff the chicken with regular feta and add some salt and pepper. Lyric wasn't thrilled, but unless its ramen noodles or spaghetti she rarely is. She refused to even try the chicken and had a MAJOR melt down when we wouldn't let her have dessert. This morning on the way to school she asked me why I didn't feed her dinner last night, so I'm sure she is going to tell everyone who will listen how deprived she is and how we starve her. I kindly reminded her that I did feed her dinner but she chose to only eat the pasta salad and refused the rest, but I'm sure it fell on deaf ears. Tonight on the menu: meat loaf, roasted potatoes (my mom's recipe which NEVER taste as good as mom's) and bread.

SAHM no more

I'm headed back into the workforce next week!!  I've accepted a position as Director of Marketing at MRIS.  I couldn't be more excited about the work I will be doing, the company, and my new co-workers.  I spent my last four months at AOL taking a deep, hard look at the position I had ended up in, the new management team and their strategies/work style and whether I was still happy and excited to come to work each day. I came to the conclusion that it was time to explore other opportunities after Braelynn was born.  Well, we all know how that ended up, a month before my due date I was put on the list!  I have always been a firm believer of everything happens for a reason, and once again I have proven myself correct. 

Now what this means for the girls and I over the next week is this: pure chaos!  I was thinking that I still had 2-3 weeks to get all of my loose ends wrapped up.  I really didn't expect to have an offer and start date so quickly.  Now we have one week to accomplish the following: get Lyric registered for her new school, find Braelynn daycare (Lyric's school doesn't take infants), change my name, go to DMV get new license, get Brae's hip ultrasound, go to my 6 week doc check up, buy all new wardrobe because I still am not fitting into pre-prego clothes, and I'm sure I'm leaving off about a million other things!  But I'm a total workaholic and beyond ready to get out of this house and get started on building out my strategy and plan for the new position!

Hooked on funics

It would seem I go to McDonalds a lot seeing as how it is the scene of crime for many of my blog posts. Since my weight loss plan is to mentally will the weight away, I think I may need to re-evaluate my food choices. Or not.


On to the subject of my blog. While visiting the McDonalds drive through this weekend I witnessed, first hand, a sad mutilation of our fine language in the form of a sign. If the picture is hard to see, here is what it says "Nex window please tanks" *sigh*

Baby updates: Sleepless nights and a doc apt.

Brae had her two week check up (well I slacked a little and she was actually four weeks old) but we eventually made it to the ped's office and everything checked out just fine.  She now weighs a whopping 6 lbs 13 oz and is 20 inches long.  When Lyric was born she was 6 lbs 15 oz and 19 1/4 inches long.  Which is interesting since Brae technically was due right around now.  When I have another baby I'm having a contest to guess the weight and length I am fairly certain, unless other participants read this, I have it in the bag!  We are getting there as far as sleep is concerned, on good nights I get about a four hour stretch.  I certainly am not going to complain about four hours,  I know what two/three hours feels like, and its not pretty!  Nights right now are still kind of a blur though, I often find myself falling asleep in the middle of feedings waking up to Braelynn on the bed next to me with the nipple poking her in the eye or half the bottle pouring out all over the bed.  But we are troopers and we are powering through it!

My kid is hilarious

If you don't have kids you are seriously missing out on hours of entertainment.  I, not unlike most moms, believe I have the funniest kid in the world (along with the smartest, most beautiful, nicest, I could go on for hours). The girls and I drove through McDonalds for some grub this morning and Lyric says to me "Mommy, I love hash brownies from McDonalds". Hopefully if this is repeated in public people will know she is referring to the delicious, fried potato dish McDonalds serves alongside their breakfast meals and not the illegal variety, but either way it had me laughing. It also reminded me of a mispronunciation my best friend, Jeanine's son used to have when he was younger. When talking about cotton
balls he would say c____ and balls (in order to stay work safe I'll let you all fill in the blanks!).  Of course, being the mothers of the year that we are, we would have him say cotton balls repeatedly and then continue to laugh our a$$es off. Poor Jake, he probably could never figure out why we thought plain old balls of cotton were so hilarious.

I'm dressing this post up with some self portraits Lyric has taken on my iPhone (I believe they are fitting). Generally when my phone disappears by the time I find it again my camera roll is filled with close ups of her mug and 700 shots of her feet in various poses all over the house, enjoy!

Olympics

My husband likes to bring my patriotism into question, but I really just can’t get into the Olympics. I have never been able to watch sports on TV, but even the opening ceremonies, I just had no desire. Now I’m certainly not putting down the Olympics or defending my taste in television (how could I with a DVR filled with hours of mind numbing reality shows) but this year, I choose not to participate.


I do however enjoy the mascots and the online debate they have sparked. Personally I think they are cute, and characters kids can enjoy, however, some netters find them offensive. As with most creative outputs, you can’t please them all. At the end of the day, despite the naysayers, I’m sure Vancouver will sell plenty of branded memorabilia and Sumi, Quatchi and Miga will have done their job well.

Bitter.... party of, too many...

First I would like to say Happy 5th Birthday to my big girl, Lyric.  I wish I could bottle up my girl's childhoods and save them forever.  Time passes by way too fast and it is bittersweet in so many different ways.

The other big event this weekend was Valentine's Day. If you look to the left I have posted a pic of me and hubby in honor of this day of love. Lyric went to Disney on Ice with Auntie Laura and Braelynn had a sleepover at Grandma's, so we actually got a kid free night out! In addition to flowers, a dinner and card I also was given the gift of finally being able to squeeze into my pre-prego jeans, a night of win all around.

My random thoughts on Valentine's Day:

There are two different types of people that present themselves on Valentine's Day: the Happys and the Bitters. The Happys fill their day with candy hearts, silly stuffed animals, sparkly jewelry and overly sweet Hallmark cards. There are both single and committed Happys, this group is just, well, happy.  They want to celebrate love whether it be a significant other, parent, child or whomever. Now the other group is the group that generally I try to avoid especially on days such as Valentine's Day, the Bitters. The Bitters hate everything about the evil, evil holiday that is Valentine's Day, and they will tell anyone who will listen how they feel. Not only are they miserable and unhappy, but they want you to be miserable and unhappy too. Why should they be all alone with their agony? What this desolate group doesn't get is that their gloomy attitude is what is keeping them from getting the exact thing that is making them depressed in the first place. Who wants to be with an Eeyore? The answer, no one! So ladies, enough with the man bashing, find happiness within yourself and everything else will fall into place. If you are happy and confident and not trying so hard to hunt and devour love, love will find you and you will be ready to accept it.

It seems as if...

We are never getting out of here!  We woke up to a nice surprise left by the plows, a 7ft wall of snow across the entire bottom half of our driveway.  All that shoveling for nothing.  Supplies are running low, panic will set in soon!  (The picture to the left is the view from our porch, if you look past the monster icicles you see a car driving past, notice the snow pile as high as the car, that is our driveway.)

Snowmageddon, SnOMG, Snowpocalypse and we all go a lil cra cra

We are currently on day 8 of being snowed in and everyone is starting to show signs of cabin fever.  The first to go was Lyric, of course.  The fever presented itself as random outbursts of lap running around the downstairs with Diego in tow (not annoying at all).  The first round of SnOMG (which is, btw my favorite storm pet name so that's the one I'm going with) we totaled about 30", the second round was today and along with the snow was hurricane like wind.  I'm thinking we got maybe

another foot, but it is hard to tell.  There are snow drifts as tall as Stefan.  It looks cold and uninviting, I have yet to step outside and experience it first hand, and I'm just fine with that. 

Stefan's office has been closed all week so he has been filling his days with shoveling the driveway.  I think it has all been a bit overwhelming for my poor southern husband.  Being from Mississippi this is more snow than he ever imagined possible, he has gone through various stages of shock, awe, excitement and after logging about 16 hours of shovel time, hate.  He was however, able to take a break from the driveway long enough to dig out the grill and cook some nice steaks to enjoy while watching the Super Bowl, yum.  My car has been at the doctor's for two weeks, a three year old car apparently can have thousands of dollars worth of items that need fixing, thank goodness for warranties!  It is finally done, so my hope is that the big dig will be completed by Friday, we can go get my car, therefore I will have my freedom back and all will be right with the world again!

The Mysterious Mystery of the Disappearing Neighbor

Stefan and I only have one neighbor, besides that we are surrounded by farmers markets, wineries and farms. We aren't extremely close to our neighbor; however it was nice knowing that there was someone else there. Imagine our disappointment when we came home from our Thanksgiving trip to find the neighbor's house abandoned. There was a pile of stuff left in the yard, but besides that nothing seemed changed. (A picture of the stuff is to the left it is sitting next to the tree. It is snowing and cold outside so forgive the poor quality as it is taken from my kitchen). We never saw a for sale or rent sign in front of the house so naturally we were confused. One of our favorite pastimes became making up stories about the neighbors and what became of them.

Mr. Al stopped by yesterday to bring us some fresh eggs from his farm (Mr. Al is our land lord and since his farmer's market is closed for the winter he has eggs for days). He was finally able to solve the mystery of the disappearing neighbor. Here's what happened. Our neighbor was having an issue with his oil heater (apparently I'm not the only one engaging in a war against one of these things). He tried to fix it himself but Mr. Al says he breaks everything he touches and this was no exception. I didn't really absorb all the specifics but somehow oil ended up leaking out and he didn't re-attach something properly, so it continued to leak out. The oil caught fire and here is where the story gets odd. There is smoke in the house and neighbor and his wife decide to go to bed. He wakes up the next morning and before heading to work he calls an oil heater repair man, because smoke is now filling the entire house. Most people would call the fire department or 9-1-1 at this point, but not our neighbor, he decides to go to work! The oil repair man got to the house and opened the door to the basement, the entire basement floor was on fire, and looked like it had been that way all night! He immediately called the fire department and they were able to put the fire out, there is a lot of damage to the plumbing and wiring but besides that the house is fine. And our mystery was solved, the neighbor didn't disappear, it just turns out he is a bit dense.

Kids say the darndest things...

Lyric got to meet Braelynn finally and she didn't put her down for hours, she is completely in love. After she finished ooing and awwing at her new baby sister she took one look at me and said "Mommy! If Braelynn is out of your belly why do you still look pregnant?!?" Hahahaha she will be the best motivation when I'm finally able to work out again, guaranteed honest feedback. ;)

Braelynn's Birthday

Braelynn decided to surprise us and make an early entrance Monday. I am beyond in love, she is perfect. I can't believe how lucky I am to have two beautiful daughters and a wonderful husband :)


Her stats:
Weight: 5 lbs 6 oz
Length: 18 inches
Birthday: 1/25/10 5:47 pm





And here's how it happened:

9:00 am: Lyric and I get up and head over to Reston Hospital to get a bio physical ultra sound exam. After the exam we head home and are back to the house by 2. Lyric heads upstairs to play dress up, I hit the couch for a nap.

2:30 pm: I get a call from my Dr.'s office. They told me to head to labor and delivery right away for monitoring and a possible c-section tonight. I asked if I could wait for my husband and was told no, go straight there. They also told me to bring Lyric with me and not wait around for a sitter. The urgency had me a bit worried. Lyric was great, she got ready and helped me get ready fast.

3:30 I parked my car and was walking to the front of the building and by some miracle everyone arrived at the hospital at the exact same time, Stefan appeared from one direction and my mom from the other. We said our goodbyes to Lyric and headed upstairs.

4:00 By this time I was in a room, registered and hooked up to the monitor. I figured that they would do some monitoring over night so we settled in and got comfortable. (I should have known better). A few minutes later my doctor (Dr. Wilson). came in and said the fluids were dangerously low and she needed to deliver right then. Before I had time to absorb that info a nurse was in the room putting an IV in my left arm and the anesthesiologist was at the end of my bed reviewing the details of my epidural. My head was spinning, I started sweating and a billion thoughts/fears/prayers went shooting through my head. I heard Stefan laughing and looked down to see blood flying out of my IV and all over the bed and the nurse franticly trying to fix it (she was a noob), it was taking everything in me just to concentrate on what the anesthesiologist was saying so I decided to file the IV incident away and react later (Stefan and I had a good laugh about it post-Braelynn). Everyone finished their task at hand and the room was suddenly very quiet. Stefan and I had a few moments alone, the calm before the storm. He was able to talk me down off the ledge and get me calm and ready to have this baby!


5:30 Next thing I knew, I was walking down to the c-section room, I felt like a prisoner being led down death row. First things first, the epidural. Once that was in (and it wasn't so bad at all) Stefan was brought back in, the tent was put up and Dr. Wilson got to work.


5:57 I saw Braelynn for the first time, she was blue, tiny and so beautiful. They assured me the she was healthy and then I heard her cry, the best sound in the world I was overcome with emotion and tears were streaming down my face. I fell head over heels in love with her and my heart felt like it would burst. She got a little bit of oxygen to help her color, but they were soon able to bring her over to me and while they finished up the c-section, I got to hold her; Kent, the anesthesiologist was even nice enough to take a ton of pictures of Stefan, Braelynn and I.

About a 1/2 hour later they finished up the surgery. Turns out I only had about 2 table spoons of fluid left and had she stayed in a day longer things could have taken a dramatic turn for the worse. Thank God my doctor made the right decision and Braelynn made a safe journey into this world. After the surgery I was taken to recovery and Braelynn went to the NICU with Stefan. Stefan got her settled and then came back to help nurse me. My recovery was uneventful and on the way up to my room I was able to stop in the NICU and spend some time with Braelynn. They kept her for a few hours due to low sugar levels, but those cleared right up and the three of us spent our first night together getting acquainted.

Dos and Don'ts of dining out with your kids

My inspiration for this post comes from a meal Lyric and I shared at McDonalds recently. Now I know McDonalds is not the epitome of class and fine dining, but it is still a public place and people are still trying to enjoy their meals. Lyric and I stopped at McDonalds the other day to kill some time before my doctor appointment (and to enjoy a nice large fry and cheeseburger, I won't be able to indulge much longer!) It was 11 so we were literally the only people in the entire restaurant. We settled in to a booth in the back and had a very serious discussion about how doctors tell what kind of baby you are having (boy v. girl), followed by a very informative lecture from Lyric on the differences between boys (they have penises) and girls (who of course have vaginas). I was enjoying our talk (and learning so much) when all of the sudden a mom and her very obnoxious child sat in the booth directly behind us. Looking around the restaurant I noticed that there were 15 open booths/tables, FIFTEEN! Her son then continued to hang over the back of the booth screaming in my ear, drinking his juice and spilling it on my seat and then, the clincher for me, coughed all over me, I could feel his spit hitting my back! Not once did this mom ask her son to turn around, not once did she ask him to stop screaming. So I asked myself, why did they choose to sit at the booth next to the only people in the entire place? and why did she not think it necessary to try and discipline her son? Was she really that rude or just oblivious to the fact that her and her child may be the source of discomfort to those around her?


I'm afraid that the answer may be the fact that there are people out there that just don't get it, they see their children with nothing but love and could not possibly imagine that others would not view their children in the same light. Well for those of you who just don't get it, below are some tips for dining out with you children. If there is ever any doubt the answer is, yes, your children are annoying to those around you and no, it is not ok for them to be out of control in public, and yes it is your responsibility to either get them under control or to leave the area so that those around you may enjoy their meals. I'm sorry, I know it's harsh, but you chose to be a parent and raise kids, your fellow diners did not, don't make them suffer.

Tip 1: Good table manners start at home. Teach your children how to behave at the table at home and dining out will be much more pleasurable.

Tip 2: Bring activities, lots of activities. Be prepared for every situation. Do you have an iPhone? Then download games, this can provide hours of entertainment.

Tip 3: Ask the waiter to bring your child's dinner as soon as it's ready.

Tip 4: Be firm and recognize bad behavior. Ignoring it will just make it worse, let your kid know that whatever they are doing is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

Tip 5: Abort. If your child is not getting it together and they are continuing to make a scene leave the restaurant, it will make you and those around you much happier. There will be plenty of nights in the future for you to eat out, don't try to suffer through a horrible experience.