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Yep, I forgot to blog on Sunday. If I’d had that extra hour we lost because of daylight savings time, I would have been able to do it! Nah, that’s just a lame excuse. Oh well. Since I’d already forgotten on Sunday, I got extra lazy yesterday and decided to skip blogging again. That was a conscious decision. Sunday wasn’t.
The other thing I’ve blown is 7 Days. It’s a group on Flickr that has you post self-portraits for a week. Yep, I totally forgot about that too. And I was really excited to give it a shot. Oh well, next time.
In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of the boys.
Andy and I just got back from the annual Quad/Graphics “winter party.” No kids, just adults, free food, free booze, live music, pool, darts, and other random games. They set it all up in one of the warehouses in Sussex. The highlight of the evening is the “State of the Company” address by the president, Joel. The party is worth it for the food, drinks, and the speech. Because that speech makes you proud to be part of this company. It also makes you realize how huge this “local” company really is.
Joel listed some of the magazines/catalogs that have just signed new contracts:
- In Style
- J. Crew
- National Geographic
- LL Bean
- Land’s End
- Newsweek
- Playboy
No, we don’t get free subscriptions to any of these. But they do sell some in the cafeteria, and if I’m lucky, Andy can get his hands on a copy of Spanish Glamour magazine!
The highlight of the evening, besides the Saz’s mozzarella marinara and tasty cream puffs, was Joel’s entrance. The theme was “Full Throttle” and had a racing theme. People were invited to dress in their favorite racing clothing. I took it as an opportunity to wear jeans! Joel came in for his speech, driving a Grand Prix style race car. No, not a Pontiac! An actual race car that he drove around the perimeter of the warehouse, then up a ramp onto the stage. Pretty awesome. And I don’t like racing very much!
We spent a good amount of time wandering around, hoping to see someone familiar. We did see our friend’s sister, and “New Guy” that Andy works with, so it wasn’t a total bust. But Andy’s realizing he needs to make some more friends (now that he’s branching out into a pretty independent position) so we have people to sit with next year!
That’s what I thought when, at 7:55 this morning, I saw the big box truck backing into my driveway. Our windows are here! My house is all out of sorts, I can’t watch my DVR, my kids can’t figure out what to do, but it’s all for good reason. We’re getting our windows!  And not a moment too soon. As I opened the shades in my bedroom, one of the grids came falling toward me, and the trim was falling off, too. The team of two (husband/wife, I believe) are making quick work of our crappy old windows. It’s only supposed to be a high of 21 today with wind chills in the single digits, so I’m hoping that means they’ll work faster! Stay tuned for updates…
…to a not-so-perfect day.
I just got back from dinner at North Star American Bistro with a crew of friends from high school. Yes, I’m still very good friends with a decent number of people from high school. It probably helps that a bunch of us married “incestuously” by marrying people from high school, myself included. Alas, my hubby couldn’t be there tonight because of a work commitment, but it was a good time nonetheless.
It was a rough morning, from about 10:50 to 11:30. That was the amount of time it took the boys and me to go from Barnes & Noble story time to Old Navy, look at a few things, return some things, and walk back to the car. During that time, we had numerous meltdowns, mostly by Noah, and several crying/screaming fits, mostly by Noah, but including Caden once he realized what Noah was so upset about. In short, they wanted to play with the Thomas the Tank Engine train set at Barnes & Noble. But after pushing a stoller with a child crying and screaming along the mall (Noah), I don’t have much interest in taking them to play, knowing it will be another battle when we leave. So we headed back to the car-almost with coatless boys because they were refusing to put their jackets on.
We headed to my mom’s house, where Caden had three time-outs, two before I left for work and one when I went back to pick them up. Noah did pretty well. Work was a nice respite. I have great co-workers, and my patients today didn’t really try my patience like my kids did! Plus, I made a few more sales for my Wildtree party!
When I went to pick up the boys, Noah got a bloody nose. Not a surprising incident, but not the best foreshadowing for the night to come. Andy’s brother, Chuck, agreed to watch the kids for us while we went out. It turns out that Andy got home at a decent time, but I was worried about leaving Chuck to deal with Noah, who tends to have numerous nose bleeds before being done with it. He had one more before I left, but not before I was already late for dinner. We got it handled, reminded Noah how important it was to not rough house too much to keep his nose from starting up again, I said my goodbyes, and I headed to dinner.
I quickly had a glass of Pinot Grigio in front of me, ordered a nummy spinach and goat cheese salad with 5 shrimp (as noted on my receipt), and enjoyed the company of old (read: long-term, not aged) friends. The only thing missing was my sweetie. I came home to find him sitting in front of the TV in the kitchen (the TV in the living room had to be moved to be ready for windows tomorrow), looking slightly like a zombie. It’s been a long week for him, and for me. And it’s not over yet!
Thank God for my friends!
Our snowman carnage in our front yard:
You’d think this means it’s warm outside. Not so much.
I had my Wildtree party tonight, and there were 7 people that attended (including the Wildtree rep, my friend, Jamie). Not a big showing, but nice. And very tasty. Here’s what we had to eat:
- Beer bread
- Garlic & Herb Blend (mixed with cream cheese) with pretzels
- Carol’s Cranberry Horseradish Blend (mixed with cream cheese) with pretzels
- Red Bell Pepper & Garlic Blend (mixed with cream cheese) with pretzels
- Strawberry Cheesecake blend (mixed with cream cheese and Cool Whip) with graham cracker sticks
- Heavenly Chocolate Mousse Mix (mixed with Cool Whip) with graham cracker sticks
- Alfredo Extraordinaire-sooooo tasty with French bread cubes for dipping (think Olive Garden, but better!)
- Dipping oils:
- European dipping oil
- Basil Pesto grapeseed oil
- Butter flavored grapeseed oil
- Zesty lemon grapeseed oil
- Roasted garlic grapeseed oil
Add some pinot grigio or some merlot, and you’ve got a pretty scrumptious evening!
…with results I love:
- Sweeping-a pain to do it (sweeping under the table, moving chairs…), but I love that I can walk in my socks and not feel little gritty things for at least 4 hours after sweeping!
- Â Grocery shopping-I hate putting everything on the conveyor belt, waiting to get my bags packed, unloading my car at home, then finding homes for all of the somewhat unnecessary items I bought.
- Laundry-I’m really bad at changing loads as soon as things are done. I keep forgetting about it! But I love having clean clothes and sheets-especially sheets!
- Making the bed-I’m extremely anal about this. I don’t let anyone else do it. And I get so annoyed when it’s 11:00 at night and I forgot I washed the sheets so I still have to make the bed. But I love getting into a bed of very crisp, clean sheets.
It’s just been a long night getting ready for my party tomorrow, and I’m tired. So I felt like complaining a bit!
I’m going to list the craziness of what I need to do for the week (I’ll spare you the minutiae of daily basics):
- Monday:
- Call the window installers to change the install date
- Call the bank to start our financing for the windows
- Work 10-6:30 (after dropping both boys off at their respective schools)
- Prepare dips and dessert for my Wildtree party
- Try to clean the house for my Wildtree party
- Tuesday:
- Work 8-4:30
- Frantically finish food prep and cleaning before my Wildtree party
- Host Wildtree party
- Wednesday:
- Drop off/pick up Noah at school
- Hang out with Caden
- Take Noah to karate
- Dinner at Andy’s parents’ house for Lizzy’s birthday (I suppose sometime before this I need to get her a present!)
- Thursday:
- Work 2-6
- Dinner at North Star American Bistro with friends, including Dr. Becky, home from Denver for the week!
- Friday:
- Out with Sandy, Amy, and Becky
- Saturday:
- Work 8-?
- QuadGraphics party-Racing theme (think Nascar fans in full gear-awesome!)
I’m sure there will be plenty more to add to this week. But looking ahead at the rest of the month, it would be nice to spread some of this out over the next couple of weeks. Oh well. I’m sure this is just the start to crazy schedules. I wanted to be a mom, right?
NaBloPoMo is starting up again, monthly this time, with themes each month. This month, the theme is “Lists”, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
These are the highlights of my day (chronologically):
- Watching “Survivor” on DVR before everyone else got up this morning
- Making gingerbread pancakes with the boys
- Talking to my friend Liz, new momma to Elijah, and hearing a sweet newborn cry in the background (though not so sweet at 3:30 am!)
- Watching Noah’s karate graduation, recognizing his improvement, realizing how proud he is to have his gold leadership belt
- Meeting Tony, Lizzy’s new “friend”
- Eating lunch at Panera-yum!
- Reading my People magazine
- Going through piles of junk, feeling like I was accomplishing something
- Watching “American Idol” on my DVR so I could skip over the really bad singing and lame ensemble songs and needless commentary
- Coloring with Noah
- Talking to my brother, Matte, wishing him a happy birthday, and realizing how much I miss him
- Listening to Caden sing “Happy Birthday” to Matte (actually, “Happy Bithday”)
- Watching Caden eat all of his green beans on his plate with very little coercion!
- Watching Bambi with my 3 favorite boys in the whole world
Today was a good day.
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