It's my birthday

It's my birthday. I thought I would take this opportunity to get back into the swing of things. Many of you have chastised me for being a bad blogger. You're right. And, I don't have an excuse - interesting things happen to me every day. I should share more.

Because this has been a jam-packed 10 days, I thought I would catch everyone up on what has been happening.

Last Thursday
We got back from Hawaii. It was a wonderful trip, and an opportunity for Mike and I to really reconnect. Oh... you want pictures? Click here.

Last Saturday
Angela's sister Michele got married! Anyone who knows me, knows I love weddings. Mike and I were responsible for watching Zach during the ceremony. I said a little prayer while we were in the beautiful catholic church during the ceremony, "Dear God, Thank you for Cheerios." The wedding was stunning, as was Michele. The reception was at the Lincoln Presidential Museum. We ate and danced between the White House and a Log Cabin. It was truly charming (with the exception of the John Wilkes Booth was statue, which I swear was giving me the evil eye).

Tuesday
We're refinancing! We have successfully completed a year of payments on our house, and with rates low it's the perfect time to save a little money each month. We are keeping our fingers crossed that all of the hard work we have done over the past year has paid off when they do the appraisal.

Wednesday
We bought a car. Like I said, it's been quite a week. This is the first new car either Mike or I have ever owned. It's a 2010 Volkswagen GTI. 4-door, manual, white. We are nervous about driving it, parking it, eating in it, and looking at it. The best part... satellite radio, baby. That's 24 hours of show tunes a day for Ann. (Sorry, Mike!).

Thursday
My family doctor finally told me it was time to go see a specialist about my sinus problems. Yesterday, I met with Dr. Raviv and had a wonderful and reassuring experience. He knew exactly what I was going through and did not seem worried that we would be able to knock it. It's a combination of heavy hitting drugs right now to completely kill any infection, followed by "maintenance" drugs to suppress further infections. To find out what exactly my body has decided is trying to kill me, I am going to see an allergist. Good news, even if it's the cats, he says we can work around it.

Friday
That's today. And, today is my birthday.

The Cat Lady

Mike and I are leaving for vacation on Friday afternoon. We are heading to the Georgia coast for a week. It's our first real vacation in over three years. We have taken lots of weekend trips, but we are ready to get away!

One of the last details I needed to iron out was cat care. I know saying that out loud makes me sound like a crazy cat lady. But, let's be honest, you all think I'm a crazy cat lady already. You (well, some of you) are just too nice to say it to my face.

Vacation pet care is big business around here. We found a service online that seemed reputable, and met with the catsitter (?) tonight. She provided references and a brochure about her care. She also sent over paper work for new customers. The form is three pages long and includes questions such as "Is there something that will bring your cat out of hiding (the sound of the can opener or treat jar, for example)."

Not only will she feed the cats, she also scoops the litter, brings in our mail, waters our plants and makes sure the house is ok. That's $15 (per visit) well spent!

In other news...

I like for my blog postings to have a theme. Unfortunately, tonight's blog is full of one-off stories about my day. While I hope you all enjoy the This American Life style of tonight's post, I apologize in advance for the random nature. Our story tonight, in three parts.

Act one: Lady, are you serious?!

While rants about the gym (and more specifically, the gym locker room) are usually the property of my cousin-in-law-in-law, Angela, I felt this story needed to be shared.

For those of you who have never been to a Lifetime, let me help you visualize the locker room layout. Imagine a long rectangle. At the top-left corner is the entrance. Flanking the entire left wall is a row of sinks and a continuous mirror. The rest of the space is full of groups of lockers shaped like a U, with the open portion of the U facing the mirror.

We all know that the locker room is full of naked people. It's one of those things no sane person looks forward to. I look straight into my locker and try to move as quickly as possible while changing in and out of workout clothes. Tonight, when I finished my workout, I returned to the locker room to find a woman sitting on the bench in the middle of my "U" of lockers butt-naked, facing the mirror and plucking her leg hair. She was still there when I left.

Act two: a shot, a pill, a spray, and an addiction...

I am, once again, suffering from a sinus infection. We have finally found a family doctor, which makes it so easy to make an appointment. As this is my third infection this year, the doctor felt I was probably going to need to get some imaging of my face done in the next few years - joy! But, for the time being, he gave me an allergy shot, an antibiotic to kill the current infection, and a nasal spray to help prevent future infections (which is said I could take or not take depending on how I feel over the next month or two). Because my sinus infections usually manifest as a terrible headache, he also offered me pain medication. Seriously? He offered it twice. I thought about saying, "oh yes, can you make that oxycontin?" just to see if I could get away with it.

Act three: a tree!

I know I keep promising updated yard pictures to the entire family. Well, here it is. The petunias have taken over the hostas, but neighbors continue to comment on the remarkable transformation from last year to this year. Way to go us!


p.s. - Please forgive our brown grass. We are trying to kill the weeds and the yard is mostly weeds.

Lunch break

Today I was rolling into my third day of headache. At first, I thought it was another sinus infection rearing its head. I did the neti thing and the Zyrtec and went to bed. None of that seemed to do much. After a bit of investigation (let's be honest, one can get addicted to WebMD), I have decided that I get tension headaches. My mother was prone to terrible migraines and, while I have thus far escaped these, I too suffer from headaches that are best treated by an early bedtime.

Today after sharing my hypothesis with Mike he said, "Sounds about right. Maybe you should try to relax." Brilliant deduction Holmes. Why hadn't I thought of that?

But, the more I thought about it the more I realized he was probably right. Even though my motto lately at work has been, "it's just paper," translating that into behavior is easier said then done. So at lunch today, I took Mike's advice. I found an equally stressed (and likable) coworker and told her we needed to go for a walk. We both brought our lunch, but couldn't bear to spend another day eating something reheated while hunched over our computers.

I have to say... it worked. I felt better all afternoon. I think this is going to be a new lunch tradition. If nothing else, I need to step away from things for 30 minutes or so in the middle of the day and regroup.

A baby, a fence and a tomato

This weekend was a success. It was actually full of multiples successes.

Mike and I had a great date on Friday. We ate sushi and just talked. With the endless house projects, we don't spend much time sitting around. It was a great way to start the weekend.

On Saturday, we got up early and headed to Clarendon Hills to babysit Zach. Angela was in Rhode Island racing hard and David needed to finish up his investor report at work. We had so much fun with Zach. We went on a walk, took a trip to the grocery store, and played hard. Mike and I have always been good partners and it is fun to see how our parenting roles are naturally evolving, as well. While I spent time cuddling (Zach is working on his fifth (or one endless) cold and teething), reading and changing diapers; Mike was all over the place playing with blocks and trucks. My favorite part of the day was when Mike showed Zach his new juggling skills. The sweet little guy would just sit there staring wide eyed and with a full smile. Then, right at the end of each routine as the balls started to fall he would giggle. To top it all off, Mike kept saying, "I'm a clown." Mike and Zach also have this new routine where Mike points at Zach and says "You the man!" Zach then points back at Mike and smiles at himself. David scolded Mike for teaching Zach to point, but I am secretly (except that I am posting this all over the internet) going to encourage it.

On Friday, I made an ambitious to-do list for our weekend. The big project was to remove the chain link fence that runs along the side of our driveway. When we were looking at this house, I said to Mike, "if we buy this place, that is coming out on day one." Well... it may be day 280 (or something like that), but it still feels like quite an accomplishment. I think our neighbors were thrilled as well. All of the posts were sunk in serious concrete (over 18" deep) and covered in some horrible plant. We still need to finish taking out some stumps, but it's an amazing improvement.

And last, a little surprise. As many of you know, I miss farm tomatoes. I tried to grow them last year in pots, but it didn't turn out very well. This year, I picked a spot with good soil and plenty of sun. The plants are thriving. Both have outgrown their cages once and are close to doing so again. (Which is bad news bears since I bought the largest ones I could find.) The plants are covered in buds, so it should be a delicious fall of BLTs!!! And, today the first little tomatoes appeared.

Our Tree

*Family and friends have reminded me that my blog is a great way for us to stay connected in a personal way that is difficult for all of us in our busy lives. As such, I have recommitted myself to letting you know what's new and interesting in our lives. I cannot promise that I will post every day, but I will be better about staying connected. So... here we go!


Today we bought a tree.

Mike and I found very early in our relationship that we are both Magnolia lovers. My grandparents had two southern magnolia trees in their beautiful yard. I remember the lovely white blooms and the rich, waxy leaves. Alas, these trees cannot survive in the cold Chicago winters. I had two magnolias growing up, full of bright pink blossoms. It was the perfect climbing tree (which, I managed to fall out of a few times). As soon as we bough our house last year, we knew we wanted to plant a magnolia in the front yard.

But, did you know about all of the different types of Magnolias? Turns out our local garden center did. They didn't make the choice easy. There were hard decisions to make. More like a tree or a bush? White flowers or pink flowers?

We settled on an Elizabeth Magnolia. This coming spring it should fill our lawn with beautiful yellow-white flowers. It's going in the ground next Saturday. I'll make sure to update with new front-yard photos

Welcome to Our House!