Category Archives: Life

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We were supposed to close on the house on Friday. I should have known better than to get my hopes up with the way our luck has been going. The only thing they needed was one last employment verification for CJ and his HR manager was unavailable yesterday. That one thing has now held us up until next week.

I am told this will be the last hold up. There is nothing from this point on that could prevent closing unless CJ and I see something on our final walkthrough. To be perfectly honest, there would have to something crazy wrong for me to walk away from this now. I cannot wait for MJ to finally be able to sleep in his bed again.

From the time he was five months old until now, he has been sleeping in a pack-and-play and I feel like the worst mother ever whenever I think about it. We were only supposed to be staying with my grandparents for a few weeks, so we did not think we would need the crib and it is buried in our storage unit. My baby deserves better. At least him and his batman do not know any better, but I still cannot wait to spoil MJ big time to make up for it.

He loves his batman...

He loves his batman…

Paleo

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I have a couple of resolutions this year. I think one of the most important is that I want to recommit to the Paleo lifestyle CJ and I followed for the year we lived in Denver, CO.

While we were living in Denver, I worked at Barnes and Noble. One day when he came in to pick me up, CJ was scoping out the resolutions section and noticed The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf. CJ bought the book, was an instant believer, and talked me into trying it out.

Wolf encourages a 30 day trial to detox the body. Within the first week alone however, CJ lost ten pounds. This is not a diet per say, it is a lifestyle change. I have never felt healthier or more energetic than while we were following this way of eating. For us, it was not about losing weight, it was about feeling better overall and leading a healthy life.

It was very easy to fall out of this way of eating while staying with my grandparents. I love my grandmother with all my heart, but she is a definite “food pusher.” When we finally get into our house, which is supposed to happen the middle of this month, we both have said that we are once more going to be Paleo. I CANNOT wait.

My First Date

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At work tonight, I was talking with one of my girlfriends about old boyfriends. You know how the conversation goes: I do not know why I dated him, he was such a jerk, he was not even cute, etc. The boy I went out on my very first date with though, I will always brag about him 🙂

I met Sean in our Confirmation class. There really are not a lot of better places to meet a boy. He was smart, funny, and unbelievably good looking. I still cannot really believe that we dated at all.

I had never met him before this class because even though he was a country boy, he went to an all boys’ school in the city. He played football and rugby. He was tan with dark brown hair and gorgeous blue eyes. Are you getting the picture yet? Who ever meets boys like this in real life?

After the first couple meetings of the class, he started making it a priority to be in my group. Being only 16 at the time, I just thought he was being nice and that he, being an outsider, just felt more comfortable being in the same group all the time because of the familiarity of it.

He asked me questions about school, about the sports I played, about my job. Again, I thought he was only being friendly. He asked me about my friends, what I did for fun, did I have a boyfriend. I still hang my head over how clueless I was.

We had somehow never seen each other at church and it came out that we just always attended masses at different times. Now with the knowledge of when I would be at church, he must have been waiting outside in his car one Saturday night. As soon as people starting pouring out the front door, he hurriedly pushed his way inside.

My mother was the first to see him. “Isn’t that Sean?” she asked me.

I immediately perked up, saw him, and (after being pushed in his direction) went over to see why he had appeared. He led me back over to my parents, looked at my father and said, “Sir, I would like to take Amber out to dinner. Is that ok?”

“Now?” My father is a man of many words…

I had a mini panic attack thinking first of all, that my father would say no. Secondly, I was embarassed about my outfit choice. Who wants to go out on a date with the most handsome boy they have ever seen while wearing your church clothes?

My mother, ever helpful, nudged my father who agreed I could go with Sean as long as he had me home by curfew. He agreed and we walked out to his truck. The thing was a monster. You needed to step up on a platform in order to climb in it. Unfortunately, there was no platform on the passenger side of the truck. Sean was kind enough to hold my door open for me, but being shy and embarassed, he did not offer to help me up. I unceremoniously jumped/launched myself into the cab of the truck.

I could feel the flush on my face as he walked around to his side and got in. Not a SINGLE word was spoken the entire way to the pizza palor he took me to. While we were waiting in line to order our food, I did something that I am more than glad he did not notice.

At this point in my life, I was obsessed with this pair of brown clogs that I wore until they fell apart. While standing next to Sean, I could not decide if he was actually taller than me. I slipped one foot out of my shoe and put my socked foot on the floor. Relief spread through my body as I realized that he was more than a head taller than me.

We had a pleasant meal, saw each other a few more times, and then, as relationships with seniors tend to go, petered out after a few months. He was preparing to go to school and I was just glad we had the fun we did.

The first time he had called the house and left a message on our answering machine (totally dating myself- oh boy!) my mother happened to check the messages and was so excited on my behalf that she wrote down his phone number on the nearest thing. This happened to be the box for the game of LIFE. To this day, that telephone number is on the side of the box at my parents’ house. CJ has seen it before and he thinks the story is quite funny. He is glad that when I met him I was much less oblivious as we never would have started dating if it were not for me. That, however, is a story for another time.

Should be Working on Other Things…

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Today, as I was driving home from work, I heard a song on the radio that made me very sad. It was not so much the content of the song that touched me so, but the fact that it made me think of a scene in my head.

I have many ideas that I wish I could bring to fruition. I have notebooks filled with outlines, plot summaries, and character info. When it comes down to actually writing, I do well for a while and then peter out. I can achieve maybe one page at a time so any project seems to take forever. The project I am currently working on has the scene that the song today made me think of.

I recently made a Twitter account and started following one of my favorite authors. Today’s tweet of hers had to do with how she hammered out 6,000 words of the novel she is currently working on. All done today! Maybe it is just something that comes with time; the ability to write with that much speed.

This is something I aspire to. Maybe, someday, I will be able to write something “full length” with some kind of speed. I have been published in the college newspaper and in a short story anthology, but it is my dream to have a work that is just my own published. Writing anything of length requires time and determination. The more I work on my piece, the more I realize that it is different than anything I have ever tried to do before.

Poems, short stories, newspaper articles, all these things can be done in short periods of time; weeks at most. Without being able to produce thousands of words per day, I know now that I am in for a long and arduous process.

One of this year’s resolutions will be to give my stories the time and attention they deserve. Of all the BIG wants in my life, this is one of the few still left unfulfilled in any way. I thank CJ for his constant love and support and for not being near as hard a critic as I know he should be when he reads my work.

I have given myself a limit. If any of my work has not made it onto a bookshelf near you by the end of 2017, someone please come kick my butt into gear.

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So, no post yesterday. Do I have an excuse? Sure…just not a very good one. I just figured my day yesterday did not amount to much and I did not want to sound whiney.

I received a phone call a few days ago from Zales that my ring from my parents had been fixed. This was the real reason that we stopped at the mall yesterday.

While we were there, we decided a nice stroll would be good for us. MJ loves people watching in his stroller; he laughs and yells at the people walking by. On impulse, we walked into Burlington Coat Factory because we have found some great priced things in there before.

MJ is getting too long for his rear-facing car seat, so we went back to the baby department to see what they had. There was not a single car seat there for under $100. We ended up spending $170 on his new car seat. He better keep it pristine! It is crazy to think about how much it costs to buy anything baby related. With how quickly they outgrow things, sometimes I feel as if I am just throwing my money away.

There; that was it. That was my whiney moment from yesterday that I thought I would keep to myself. Today was not very exciting though so I was hoping a combined effort would make my post a bit longer.

Today, MJ got to ride in his new car seat for the first time. He laughed and clapped the entire car ride. I am assuming this means we picked out a good one 🙂 After this ride, he got to play with his cousins for a bit. Whenever I arrive at my sister’s house, I swear her children are always in some state of undress. When I arrived today, the oldest one, D, (she is almost four) looked so pretty. She had dressed herself I was told and was wearing black leggings with a pink and white striped top. I snatched her up and told her, “D, you look so pretty today. Aunt Amber cannot believe how grown up you look.” She acted all shy and gave me some extra hugs. I still cannot believe how much of a difference her outfit made considering my sister normally lets D run around in her underwear all day.

The rest of my day was rather uneventful. The volunteer I worked with today lent me a book, Half the Sky and I am really enjoying it so far. I will share how I feel about it when it is finished.

Just a Few More Weeks

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Tomorrow marks four months that CJ and I have been staying with my grandparents. We love them dearly, but we are more than ready for our “visit” to be over.

CJ and I were supposed to be buying a house. We were in the final proceedings, and had a closing date. We gave our landlord our notice and started putting everything in boxes. About a week before we had to be out, we were informed that the woman we were buying from had decided to back out of the sale. Not having anywhere else to go since we had to be out of the apartment, we moved into my grandparents’ house.

The old, six bedroom farm house had more than enough beds for us to sleep in, but as nothing of ours has a real “home” within the house, our area upstairs is disheveled to say the least. MJ’s toys always seem to be in every room and constantly underfoot.

A few days into being at the farmhouse, our realtor took us to see a few more houses. The first house- well it was love at first sight. We visited the others, as we had an obligation to do so, but we put in an offer on that first house the very next day.

We were told that there was another offer on the house that had been accepted, but the sellers preferred our offer. What the sellers did was tell the other potential buyers that they had to remove the contingency of selling their current home before the sale. We were told they did not turn in their paperwork; that the house was ours. We paid for an inspection on the house. We were told the paperwork was found and they could remove the contingency, so the house was theirs. We were told they could not prove the availability of funds; the house was ours. We scraped and painted the outside of the house for FHA approval. We were told the proper paperwork had not been properly filed; the house was theirs. We were told the other buyers were sick of the back and forth so the were officially backing out; the house was ours.

The house really was ours this time, but our loan officer at the time seemed to think we did not deserve the property. She handed papers in late, requested forms one at a time, and asked for things she just did not need. By the time we realized she was giving us the runaround, we were closing in on all our dates and were facing the very real possibility of losing the house- again.

We found another loan officer in the same bank and he has been most helpful. He said that all the paperwork that was needed, we had already completed. The sellers were contacted and new dates were set. CJ and I have no doubt in our minds that if it were not for the fact that the sellers know my grandparents, they would have backed out on the sale and not given us the extra time.

Now that we know the house is in the very near future, we cannot help but to be excited that our four month ordeal is almost at an end. Of course, I am not referring to the delightful company of my grandparents, but I could survive a little less teasing in my life.

My grandfather is part of a poker club and one of the Mondays “the boys” were here, CJ and I were in one of the upstairs bedrooms that we used as a sitting room. CJ jumped on the bed in there and it broke. Loudly. I rushed downstairs to inform my grandmother of what happened since I know how they think. It did not matter. It still does not matter. My grandparents “know” what happened and the poker boys, well they think my husband is The Man.

For weeks now, the types of jokes you are thinking are exactly the types I have had to deal with because of course, my grandmother had to inform EVERYONE about what we “did.” Good thing I have a good sense of humor.

Wednesday, CJ is supposed to get our move-in date from the “powers that be.” First time home buying, we were told, is meant to be a joyous experience. After the emotional roller coaster we have been on, we are just more than ready for this to be over. As I have been telling myself for about a month, “Just a few more weeks.”

We are looking forward to 2013 for being in our new home (finally), for MJ’s first birthday, and for another year of health, family, and friends.

Happy New Year!

MJ

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I realized that I talked about MJ a lot in my last post. As other parents know, it is hard not to talk about your little one. MJ was born in March of this year. He is my first baby and a beautiful little boy.

My pregnancy was an easy one until I got toward the end of it. My job at the time was a high stress one besides being one that mostly kept me on my feet. As the first person to greet people who come into a hospital, you have to be ready for all types of emergency situations and also be prepared to deal with the family/friends that come with them. I was taken out of work about four weeks before my delivery for my gestational hypertension and put on bed rest.

Since my numbers would not regulate, my doctor decided that I needed to be induced. Needless to say, I was petrified about being induced because all my girlfriends decided it would be a good idea to tell me horror stories about it. MJ, being the good little boy he is, had other plans. An hour before I was supposed to go in for my induction, my water broke.

I spent my time, for as long as I was able, walking the hallway of the small OB department. My husband, CJ, walked laps with me and rubbed my back during all my contractions. He stayed with me the entire time.

I will forever appreciate the nurses who cared for me during my labor. A few months after my son’s birth, the OB department was closed and the nurses had to find new employment. The women were 100% supportive of my decision to not have an epideral and were very helpful in providing alternative ways to have a healthy labor. I know that the risk of complications from an epidural are very small, but I know women who ended up with spinal headaches and such from them. The nurses were there for constant encouragement. I hope they were able to find other situations where they could be happy.

At 10:58am, MJ was born and our lives forever changed.

just a few weeks old

just a few weeks old

He is a handsome, smart little man who just turned nine months old. He furniture walks like a pro and can run away from his daddy pretty quickly when threatened with having to put on his pants 🙂

His two-toothed grin can make anyone smile and he makes me proud to be his mama. I cannot wait to make him a big brother.

Intent

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For about three days I did what I had been trying to do with this blog all along – make it part of a daily ritual to have at least five posts per week. While home on early maternity leave, I attempted to accomplish this goal but quickly petered out between baby prep and just plain being uncomfortable.

I had been taken out of work early and was put on bed rest for gestational hypertension. I worked full-time at the registration desk of a hospital and my blood pressure was skyrocketing along with uncontrolable swelling in my feet and ankles. Being taken out of work was a mixed blessing because I was looking forward to having the extra time to get ready for baby but then not being able to get up and move around quickly became depressing.

One of my resolutions for this year is to make the most out of this blog; I mean, my life can be pretty exciting, I guess 🙂 I want to make the most out of every writing opportunity I have because I would like to be able to stay home full-time with my son. Hopefully between my music lessons, tutoring, and writing I will be able to make this dream a reality.

Here’s to a new year with a new outlook! I hope my experiences can bring knowledge and laughter because I laughed a lot while learning the things I would like to share.

TSO in the Snow

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What could possibly be more frustrating than being hurt and not knowing how you did it?

On Wednesday I somehow injured my lower back. In the morning I suffered in silence, but by the end of the day I knew that this would not be a quick heal. I called into work on Thursday not really wanting to use my sick time; it is something I just hate doing.

It is always my fear that when you call in, your boss sits on the other end of the line rolling their eyes because they believe there really is nothing wrong with you. In this instance though, there really is something wrong.

I started out Thursday hoping that by the time I needed to get ready for work that I would be fine. I woke up feeling good but, per my usual, did too much too quickly and really hurt myself. By the time I would have had to leave the house, I could barely make it from room to room. I had to bite the bullet and take the me time. If I could not pick up the baby, then I sure was not going to be able to function at work.

My husband and I had purchased tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and Thursday night was when our tickets were for. My husband was all for me staying home and resting, but I was not willing to have spent such a sum of money on tickets and then not go. I convinced my husband that after having rested all day, I would be fine going to the concert.

By the time we were finally able to make it off the exit ramp, there was only ten minutes until the show started. We could either drive around to find a close parking spot for me and potentially be late for the show, or park at the closest lot and walk. I was feeling pretty good and decided we should walk because I was paranoid about being late.

The walk turned out to be about three quarters of a mile; normally a walk I would have enjoyed, but under the circumstances…Also, it did not help that the city had not taken care of the sidewalks very well considering there was a concert that night. There was a flight of stairs that were extremely unkempt and an older gentleman fell down them. Good thing my husband was there to help him up.

When we finally made it to the arena, it was only to realize we were in the highest row. I had to constantly remind myself not to look down at the crowd or to consicously think about where I was sitting. Mini panic attacks aside, I had a BLAST! I recommend a TSO concert to anyone who has never been. It is an amazing musical experience with laser lights and pyrotechnics.

In order to avoid the “scary stairs” as they had been dubbed, I let my husband find directionally challenged wife -me- a safer route to the car. After wanderding around and getting some super cilly toes, we made our way back to the car, thus ending our fun night out. The heating pad and Tylenol were much appreciated when we got home.

My Fake Stalker

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I’ve never had a real stalker, but then again, I guess he wouldn’t be a very good one if I knew about his existence.  I did have a fake stalker once though. It just might have been one of the silliest things I was even involved in. There must have even been a certain level of believability to what we did because an elderly woman did look quite concerned on my behalf.

When my husband was still in college, I came to visit him at the student gym where he worked. This was a regular Friday night routine. He is normally a little bit more than your average goofball, but this night he was really on a roll.

I was down by the equipment cage waiting for him when I heard someone from the walkway above yell, “Hey, good looking! You got a boyfriend?” This is not at all an unusual thing for him say so I answered with a caustic, “Won’t you leave me alone? How many times do I have to tell you? You need to stop following me.”

We continued our banter for a few more turns until I realized that one of the women on the same level as me was beginning to look extremely worried on my behalf. I became afraid that if we did not show her we were simply goofing around she would take action on my behalf.

I told my husband to come down and we made a bit of a show over the fact that we really did know each other and were together. I never did figure out if that lady looked more relieved that I was safe or upset that we would be so callous.

I felt that the situation had all arisen in good fun and that there was nothing to worry about. To this day, whenever my husband bumps into me, like if I’m walking into the house as he is pulling into the driveway he still asks, “Hey, good looking. You got a boyfriend?” and I must admit that every time it still makes me smile and I secretly hope that he never stops.