Manic Monday, except now it's Tuesday

I was trying to post this morning, but my desk top got all bitchy on me. Ugh! Cupcake clean-up. No pics of the Smore's cupcakes...sorry, Chris had to bring them to work.
Shopping at Trader Joe's all the way in Danbury, CT.

New to us wagon that my mom got at a tag sale for 10 smackeroos.

Squash bloom in my garden. I kick myself everday for getting a late start.

Mowin' the lawn.

At the park with Daddy.

Tuckered out Alexander. We had a bit of a disagreement, he and I. He thought I should sit in his room and hang out until he fell asleep. I did not think that was a good idea. So, he decided to camp out in front of his bedroom gate instead.

And a big thanks to Sarah who hosts the fabulous Manic Monday from her blog. If you care to join us next week, take a peek here!

By Golly, I"m Back

Sorry for the tremendously long break folks. Here is the run down of what's been going on:

• We had a death in the family that I don't care to share at this point. I will let it be known that Chris, Alexander and I are doing well, and we are all healthy, happy, and chugging along.
• I am on vacation form school and I am loving every minute of it. Alexander does go to day care for two mornings a week so he won't forget Lina, his sitter. I wish I didn't have to send him, but I don't want to be anxious in September when he has to go back. Plus, he gets to play with his little friends when he's there.
• I am 1/3 finished with my last graduate course for the summer. This will make 24 credits (8 classes) since February. I'm hoping they all get final approval from the lady in Human Resources so I can move from the +60 pay column to the +90 pay column.
• I bought a fancy new MacBook Pro, which I am on right now. I love it, but I'm finding a little bit intimidating as I've been using PCs for years. So far, I love it, but I haven't had a lot of opportunity to use it other than typing things up for graduate classes, and frankly Microsoft Word is Microsoft word for the most part no matter what type of machine you happen to be using.
• I want to start doing the Manic Mondays again, and I'm hoping to do so this Monday. The following Monday might be a challenge because we'll be on vacation. I'll see what I can do.
• Alexander is turning 2 in less than 2 weeks. Can you frickin' believe it? I certainly cannot. He is giving me issues about taking a nap these days. He won't stay in his bed, he climbs out of the pack and play. I can rock him until he's drowsy and then put him down, or drive him around in the car. If I wait too long to put him down, he gets wound up and totally nutso, which is funny until he starts putting his feet in my shirt whenever I pick him up and then he's stuck. He thinks it's hilarious, I find it frustrating. I think he gets it from Chris, who gets really dumb and silly when he is lacking sleep.

Well, there you go. My drive-by update!

Manic Monday

Here we are in another Manic Monday!

Rise and shine!

Looking under rocks.

Checkin' out the grass.

Running really, really fast!

Raspberries soon!

Pushing the little tykes car.

Pansy!

Thank you Sarah, for hosting another Manic Monday. If you'd like to see what Manic Mondays are all about, and perhaps even join, please visit Sarah's blog!

New Look

Hey, look 2 posts in as many days! Yay for me!

Let me know what you think of the new look I've got going on here. I decided that I needed a new look and a new name. I didn't want to start a whole new blog because a lot of my history is on here, but things have changed. I haven't done a triathlon in more than 3 years, and all my priorities have shifted since then.

Today is a chilly, rainy day in New York and I found that I had 3 over-ripe bananas in the freezer- that can only mean one thing! Pecan Banana Bread. The recipe is not mine, it's Fanny Farmer's, and due to copyright infringement, I can only say this...I don't use the walnuts her recipe calls for, I use pecans.

Alexander got to wear his new apron while helping me smash the bananas.

Pecan banana bread for Chris.

Pecan-free banana muffins for Alexander. I made a total of 6. Half of one is simmering in Alexander's belly, and the other three are resting comfortably in my freezer.

Obviously Alexander approves.

Manic Monday Failure and other stuff

I fully intended to start doing the Manic Monday photag posting starting with this last Monday because I'm on vacation, and there was a lot to be done: I had a doc appointment, went to the tearoom with my mom and my brother. It would have been awesome, but I forgot to take pictures. I had my good camera with me and everything. Bah. Maybe I can get it done this Monday. I'm at work, so it's not going to be terribly exciting...but there is always the afterschool hours, right?

Alexander is getting bigger and bigger. I'm sad to say that he's definitely a toddler now, complete with "no more!" and "go!" Very fun to play with, but where is my little baby? Ah, life, it's a kick in the pants.

No Resolutions Here

Sorry, folks.  I didn't mean for so much time to go by without posting, but sometimes life gets in the way.  Eh, it happens.

I decided that this year there would be no resolutions with the new year.  Instead, I decided to make habits. I'm figuring if i can start and maintain a new habit every 2 or 3 weeks my health will improve and I'll probably loose weight without tryting really hard.  Right now, I'm working on drinking a lot of water.  Pretty easy to do at work.  Not so easy on the weekends, but I'm really working on it, and it's getting easier. 

My next habit will be to plan out dinners for the week; healthy dinners, that it.  This habit will help me to be sure to get in more veggies at dinner, and it will help me budget food money better and will help to use leftovers more effectively.  Roast chicken yesterday?  Okay, faux chicken pot pie today.

On another note, things at work are getting weird.  The weirdo that I had such issues with a few years ago is pregnant again.  I'm very happy for her.  She and I had to have a meeting recently and we were talking about our sons. (She has twin boys about a month older than Xander).  The baby she is carrying is a girl, so we were talking about baby names.  I told her that if Chris and I were blessed with a girl the next time around we'd have trouble naming her because I love really ethnic Irish names and he doesn't.  To this, she replied, " I really don't think you're ever going to have a baby girl."  Wah?  Who says that kind of thing?  Especially to someone you're not friends with?  I dunno.  She's just a tad strange.

And just for fun, a picture of the baby for no reason. 

Life has been just a litte crazy...

Well, my title might be a tad mis leading...not so much crazy as just busy, busy, busy now that Alexander is hell bent on running.  He is trying to be as active as possible, which is fine by me because he sleeps like a champ.  Hardly a peep out of him once I put him in his crib (after milk, brushing teeth, at least 2 books, and some rocking and singing) and show him who's waiting for him (one of the puppy brothers, a stuffed bear, and a blankie).  In fact, he's in there now listening to his fisherprice musicbox/aquarium thing.

If you look at the water in the bath shot, you can see it's moving quite a bit.  He's active in the tub, too, trying to splash and kick as much as he can.  It's pretty dang entertaining.

As for me, things are a-okay.  Even though we have tons of leftover Halloween candy, and I've been helping myself to some everyday, I'm still slowly, ever so slowly, losing weight.  And that's fine.  Since I stopped WW, I've actually been thinking less about food, and I think as a result, less goes into my mouth.  I'm eating things that I would "indulge" in when I was on plan, and I would go overboard, but now I just have a little..I suppose because it's really not "bad" anymore.  It's just food.  Eh, who knows.  I'm just going to try to be aware, in a general kind of way, of what I'm eating and how often.  We'll see where is leads me. 

And while I'm here, maybe someone could tell me where the spellcheck button went?  It's making me just a little bit insane.

Overdue update here

Things around here have been a tad hectic.  Alexander had a terrible couple of weeks.  First he had a virus that gave him 5 days of horrible diarrhea, followed by about 3 days of being well, only to get another stomach virus that was all about barfing.  This one only lasted 3 days, but he cut his last front tooth and 4 molars during those 3 days.  It was heinus.  Mark my words.  Heinus.  He's fine now, thank God. 

Aside from the teeth, Alexander has been learning to do some really cool things.  He can stack 3 and 4 blocks.  He can say "Touch", "touch that", "again", "dog", "cat", "uh-oh", "this", "that", "dada".  He can also sign for "more" and "please"  Of course, he doesn't say "moma".  Boo!  It'll come in time.

Other than that, we are rocking and rolling around here.  I'm trying to get ahead on bills, like paying off my car a little early, and clearing up the house renovation stuff on my credit card (at 1.9% interest).  I think that I'm going to have to cut 2 things out of my life that I haven't been committed to:  Curves and Weight Watchers.  I haven't had the time to go to Curves since the summer.  That's $49 bucks a month.  As for WW, I haven't been working the program, I haven't been attending meetings.  My head just isn't in it.  Strangely, I've been losing a bit of weight on my own, so I think I'm going to quit that at least for a little while.  That's $39.95 a month.  So, that's 88.95 I could be putting towards the principal on my car.

October 1st Update

Ah, back to the blog. It's so comfy and nice here. I'm on break at work, so I'm allowed to be doing this, but I don't have much time so I'm going bullet style:

• I decided not to be upset by the "when are you due" question. I review what I was wearing and to be honest I was wearing a frumpy sweater that is starting to lose it's shape around the middle. I did wear it while I was pregnant with Alexander, so the stomach is a tad stretched out.
• Alexander, although is fine now, had a stomach virus for a week. That's lots of diarrhea, folks. The poor little guy. We were in and out of the doctor's office. He's as good as new now.
• Alexander has a newish game he likes to play. We call it doggie diving. Chris and I discourage it. I do have it on video and will have to post it later on when I have more time and I have my at home computer to post it with. It's basically played by Alexander walking (waddling?) up to a relaxed Reuben, crawls up one side of Reuben's back and rolls down the other. It's pretty funny, and Reuben doesn't seem to mind, but it's not fair tot he dog to let the little guy do it, so we're trying to get Alexander to use pillows and large stuffed animals instead.
• I've been knitting and knitting and knitting. I've become addicted to knitting socks. I love it! And then I have socks to wear when I'm done. Greatest hobby ever...except for my old sock monkey obsession...which reminds me, I have to set up my sewing machine...

That's it for now! I'm off to read blogs while I still have a little lunch time left.

New school, new faces

I'm digging being back at my old campus. It's a little bit closer to home. It's a little bit closer to Alexander's sitter's house. I have other reading people as neighbors, which is nice. My office is in the school library, which is ever so conveinient.

The downside of being on the main campus is that there is the lunchroom. It's catered by the student chefs, and right now the food is okay, but in another month when they learn how to make chicken cordon bleu and it's delicious and it's super cheap it's hard to stick to a diet. I think I will have to look over the menu and choose one lunch a week to buy in there because otherwise I am dead.

In other news, look what I did to poor Alexander's hair. (The pic is from my phone, so excuse the poor quality)

The kid looks shocked, right? Stunned, even. When I was doing the deed, he started to wriggle and I panicked and made the cut above the fingers holding the hair instead of below. I don't think I will be making that mistake again. Yikes!

Alexander is One!

I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to get another post out here in blogland. I was incredibly busy with Alexander's birthday party and then the aftermath of gift opening and thank you cards. It takes time. Plus, with the 12 month mark comes new fun things, like really taking an interest in walking and eating things you find on the ground. Things that an adult would never notice in a million years.

Here is my big boy. I cannot believe that it's been a year since he was born. Amazing how time flies!

I'll be back to post about other things like work coming up, and other amazing Alexander stunts. See you then!

As per usual, this will be a very random, rambling post. But hey, it's my blog and that's just the way my blogging brain works...

I have found something new to love. And do I love it. Let me present you with:

Yes, Nestle now makes a mini drumstick. Being the ice cream idiot that I am, I am so glad that I found and ice cream product that is pre-portioned and not huge. Each lil' cone has 140 calories and 7 grams of fat. Granted, I could find something that is frozen yogurt or reduced fat ice cream, but they just aren't the same.

Alexander has become attached to a toy these days. Although he is too young to sleep over night with his little toy, he does like to take it to bed with him and I later remove it once he's asleep. Let me introduce you to Blue Puppy:

There are actually 3 different Blue Puppies. Once I discovered that he preferred this little blue stuffed animal I bought 2 more so that I could wash one and still have another available...and if one gets lost, there are 2 more. Only 2 are in rotation right now. He really does love his Blue Puppy.

I think that's all for now, but I'm hoping to blog again very soon. It shouldn't be so hard because I'm on summer vacation! Woo-hoo!

Jeezie Creezie What a Day!

I have had a crazy 24 hours. It all began this morning with Alexander being awake at 5:45 when I went into his room to rock and nurse him. Usually I wake him a little, nurse and rock him and put him back into his crib where he will sleep until Chris wakes him up around 8:20 to get him dressed for the day.

So Alexander is already awake, I have him in the rocker and he's nursing and I'm rocking and he's not dozing off. Reuben is running in and out of the room being supremely annoying, especially since Alexander really wants to watch the dog. Reuben finally leaves for a few minutes, and I start to relax. That's when Alexander bit me. On my right nipple. Ugh! I suppose there is a first time for everything.

Reuben comes running back into the room and he's frantic. Two feet away from the rocking chair he squats as if to pee on the baby's rug. I stand up, put Alexander back in his crib- he starts crying, I'm trying to explain to him what's going on, Chris gets up to see what the commotion is all about. I take Reuben outside and he urinates for a full 65 seconds. That's a lot of tinkle. I don't think I've ever EVER seen a dog pee so much before in my life. Well, maybe a great dane, but not a weim-sized dog.

Back in the house, Chris is patting Alexander's behind. I pick Alexander back up to nurse him, and he bites me again. Finally it's 6:30 in the morning and if I don't start to get dressed I'm going to be late to work. I give Alexander some stacking cups that he loves to run across the bars of his crib like a hardened criminal. He fusses, but I have to get dressed. He's still awake when I leave.

As I'm driving I realize I'm exhausted. Great. Being exhausted at my job is like having an open wound in shark infested water. My students smell any kind of weakness. I start sharing with people at work that I am being moved to the other campus for next year, and I get a lot of "whys", which I can't answer because I don't actually know why. I know the sugary coating I got to make me feel good about the move, but I really don't know the real reason. Whatever it is, I'm just glad to have a job that I enjoy and being at the other campus won't change that.

My reading appointments go well enough, but A, G, and P smell my fatigue and decide to fight me every step of the way. Students who aren't mine also smell the fatigue and try unsuccessfully to wreak havoc in my classroom and office. Not happening.

Finally, the students go home. I walk out to my car, put my work bag in and take my breast pump out. I walk back to my office, like I do everyday and when I get to my office door the English teacher is there. She's 7 months pregnant and needs her afternoon snack. She grabs her snack, and tells me she's locking my door so I don't have to get up. I proceed to set up and I start to pump. Five minutes in, the dean walks into my room to tell me that if I get to the meeting early, we can start early and leave early. I tell him I'll be there in a few minutes. Not one minute later the male social worker walks in to tell me something. Thank God my office is set up so that my back is to the door. Neither knew what was going on, but it was a tad unsettling.

So, there is my day. Probably the most interesting one I've had in quite a while. I'm hoping for a long series of bland until the school year!

There is no Alanna, only Zuul!

I kid, but it's true that I haven't been feeling like myself lately. All I want to do is overload on sugary carbs. Yum and yuck all rolled into one. At least now that I am conscious of it, I can try to manage it. I've got to start tracking, you know, like I should be doing because I'm paying for Weight Watchers. At this rate, I'll never lose the baby fat and I don't even want to think about the fat from before Alexander came. Yowzers!

On the upside of things, I did quit my big money gym and I joined Curves and am now paying less than half what I used to. I also have been going 3 times a week during my lunch break. It's a tight squeeze, but I don't have to do it in the afternoons when I prefer to spend my time with this little guy:

He's covered in green beans and bananas in this picture...but he's cute anyway, so who cares?

I also bought myself a new camera. My old camera was working fine, but the time between pictures was excruciatingly long for using with a baby, so my mom and I went to one of those big box stores...specifically the one that is going out of business and took a look at cameras. A nice man showed me a really cool camera that was on sale, but as it turns out they were out of them. I found the same camera online at Amazon for less. So I bought it and an 8 gig memory stick. I take tons and tons of pictures now. I'm loving it.

In other news, poor Reuben's OCD and separation anxiety was getting worse. When we would leave him alone in his doggy safe area in our new house, he would rub his nose on the door until it bled. When we put up a nice doggy gate, he bit into it and spent the hour trying to (and finally succeeding) jump over it. This is a familiar space to him... we spend time as a family in this space. We tried more exercise and spending more time in the doggy safe area to no avail. His vet decided to change his meds. My poor sweet doggie is now on Prozac. Real, human Prozac. He's been on it for almost 2 weeks and we see subtle differences: He jumps readily into the car, when before we had to cajole him a little bit. His turn and scratch OC behavior on his dog bed has lessened. What's even better is that he's the same silly dog that we all know and love.

This is all I can think of for now. Perhaps I will be back later!

Couldn't leave out pics of Xander

I couldn't leave blogger without posting some pics of Alexander...especially evil monkey wrestling.