Out of Control

Just in case you're thinking that I'm just being lazy by not really blogging at all lately, I'm here to let you know that life really has seemed out of control these days. I don't think I've felt this stressed in a very long time. Here's a bit of what's been going on here:

• Working on the house. Still not making the progress I'd like to see, but my super talented husband has been jackhammering our back patio & this weekend he's installing a french drainage system around the house. That means digging a trench & doing all sorts of manly things I don't understand. I'm slightly frustrated that this big project is not one that we actually see results of, but it's a big one that needs to be done.


• Trying to figure out what to do with my FIL. Yep, it's now officially been 3 months. I knew that it would never be just a month or two. It doesn't appear that there is an end in sight either. Eddie wants to make our next project fixing up the huge room behind our garage so it's an in-law unit. My BIL wants to look into a veterans home or something. I mostly just want him out of my house. I know that's awful to say, but I really need my life back. I honestly spend lots of my time cleaning up after him (he makes a mess in the bathroom & last night he forgot to put the carton of ice cream away, leaving a sticky mess for me this morning). When I'm not cleaning up after him, I'm trying to make sure he doesn't go out anywhere & get lost. Most of the time his wanting to go out is so that he can get something to eat, so that means that I need to offer to make him breakfast, lunch & dinner so he'll have no need to go out. I could go on & on here, but I'll stop.


• Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning cause life with an almost 1 year old who's close to walking means a clean house is necessary but never really achieved.


• Mom's group. I've met some great mom's & find myself doing things with them at least a few times a week. I need to get out so it's been the best thing for me lately.


• Work. I hate this one. It's not a huge part of my life, but it is time consuming & stressful. I'm so ready to stop working but I don't think it'll happen anytime soon. Unfortunately, my friend who babysits just gave me her 2 weeks notice. She's decided to either go back to work full time or take in a full time kid rather than just part time like she's doing for Ava. I actually have a back up babysitter lined up through August because my friend had already planned a month long vacation through August. Now she's telling me she's just not taking Ava back after her vacation. So I'm on the lookout for a part time babysitter.


• Sick. Yuck. I've had a stomach bug all week. I just can't shake it. I'm okay enough to go out & do things, but I just feel gross.


• Parties, weddings, bbqs, baseball games. The summer social activities are in full force right now which makes us feel popular but makes it hard to get much done around the house. I have a bbq on Sunday but Eddie is staying home to work on his project. Oh, and the bachelorette party this past Saturday night was fabulous! My first overnight away from home without Ava. I missed her, but it was so nice to have an adult night out!


• Trips. We're going to NY in September & our cruise in October. I so need a vacation. I can't wait!

• Shopping! I'm still trying to find the perfect dress for my BIL's wedding which is only a month away now. I'm still not convinced of the other two, so I'm keeping my eyes open. I did find another one that I love that is similar to Cady's, except it's pink with brown down the middle. I'm not sure yet about it. I wonder why I care so much?
  

I'm sure that there are many other things going on, but I just can't keep track of them all. Besides, I think I've given the big picture here. Life is insane. And I'll leave you with an adorable picture of my little baby who will be 11 months old on Monday. How do they grow so fast?

Another Break

Without really intending to, I'm taking another blog break. Life has gotten a bit out of control lately, and I need some computer free time to catch up. I had a horrible stomach bug yesterday, which I'm still trying to get over. I'll be back soon, I promise.

Just... Living

Has it really been almost a week since I last posted? Sometimes life just gets so busy you don't have time to blog about it. We've done so much this past week, I can't even remember most of it.
We discovered yesterday just how much Ava loves swimming. She swam for almost an hour yesterday at the BBQ we went to. It was so much fun to see her having so much fun.

I won't even bother going into the details of all the stuff we've done this past week, but I will say it was a fun week. There was a transvestite dinner show with the girls, a San Francisco Friday evening, BBQ, and I even went to see the musical "High School Musical."

Today is cleaning, laundry & then relaxing in the sun day. Wednesday we're going to the zoo. Looks like this week might not be any less crazy than last week.

Cruisin!

For the first time in my almost 29 years of existence, I am taking a real vacation. No going to visit relatives, no people to visit. Just 7 days of relaxing with my family aboard the Norwegian Star. That's right ladies and gentlemen, we have officially booked a cruise to the Mexican Riviera!

Ava is coming with us. I realize that means not as much relaxing as we'd hope, but I think it will still be a fun family vacation. A bit of work having a baby with us, but hey, it's still a real vacation.

We leave from LA on October 25th so we'll be driving down that morning. We cruise until the following Saturday so we'll most likely stay on Saturday night visiting Edward's mom. The only downside to it all is that Ava will have to celebrate Halloween on the ship. I already have a costume for her, but I suppose I can bring it along.

Obviously I've never been on a cruise, so any tips are welcome!

Oh, and I totally forgot to mention how much I hope it's like being on the "Love Boat!" They used to port in Puerto Vallarta all the time.

Weekend Update

Obviously my blog has taken last place on my list these days. I don't even know if I have any loyal readers left. Life with a 10 month old is certainly busy. I'm honestly not sure how any of you mom bloggers manage to keep it up.

Last night I felt more exhausted than I have since the first month of Ava's life. I managed to go all day yesterday on 4 hours of sleep the night before. Entirely my own fault. My BIL & soon-to-be SIL came over on Saturday night to babysit for us so we could go celebrate our 2nd wedding anniversary. It was an amazing night out. A very drunken night out.

I suppose I should start by telling you all that it was a double celebration for me. And, um, I'm not a big drinker to begin with, but since I didn't drink at all during the pregnancy and only allowed myself a glass of wine here and there while I was nursing, I'm a bit of a lightweight right now. But as of last Thursday, breastfeeding is officially a thing of the past. Over the past month we'd gotten down to just nursing in the morning. I realized that I was the one hanging onto it, not her, so I decided it was time to stop. It was easier than I thought it would be.

So back to Saturday. We went to a Moroccan restaurant with belly dancing shows. We shared a bottle of wine there. By shared, I mean I had most of it, Edward had a glass, maybe? We followed up our fun & delicious dinner with a drink at the bar. Well, I had a drink at the bar. Then we headed to Marie Callenders for a $5.99 whole pie (the entire month of June, FYI!) because pie just sounded sooooo good to me at that point.

Then we headed home only to convince Nicole to open a bottle of wine with me to go with our razzleberry pie. Did you know that 'razzleberry' sounds hilarious after you've had a bottle of wine? We ended up sitting there talking to them until around 1:30am when we all realized how late it was.

Then my good little sleeper woke up at 6am yesterday morning instead of 7am like she usually does. I'm really not sure how I made it through the day yesterday. We had a busy day. Church in the morning, then off to this home show thing Edward wanted to do in Antioch, then off to Alameda for a birthday picnic for my friend's boyfriend. I went to bed right after Ava last night at 7pm.

11 hours of sleep can do miracles! In fact, I feel so great today that I've decided it's time to get back into WW (I've been slacking for over a month now) and lose the last 10 pounds. I know I can do it. I'm worried that this isn't the best week to start back up again because we're all going out tomorrow night for my FIL's 77th birthday & then I have dinner out with the girls on Wednesday night. It's when I eat out that I make bad choices. I just have to remember that it's all worth it when I step on the scale two months from now & see the magic number.

Oh, our garage sale went very well. We still have lots left for another garage sale next year, but we made $240 and we sold our old fridge. I now have a real laundry room that doesn't have a fridge in it. I also was shocked at the things we did manage to sell. Someone seriously bought my ratty old tennis shoes for $1. I seriously used them for mowing the lawn, but they weren't even good for that anymore. I was about to throw them into the trash bin & figured I might as well leave them out just in case even though I never thought in a million years that someone would actually buy them. Who knew?

Now that I've caught everyone up on my oh so boring life, I'm off to spend the morning hanging out with my baby before getting started on the housework. Have a Happy Monday!

Garage Sale

We're having a garage sale this weekend. Well, it's more of a yard sale, or a driveway sale. Our garage is set too far back from the house so we don't want anyone going back there. My FIL has so much stuff that's just sitting in our "artist's cottage." Since we have no room for it, it's getting sold. Don't worry, it was his idea! I went through & found tons of our stuff to sell. I cannot believe how easy it is to collect stuff. I really hope that we manage to get rid of a lot of stuff.

My living room is full of boxes of stuff to sell. I wanted to organize & price things in the garage, but my husband won't help me move everything out & it's actually easier to do the organizing in the living room with a certain baby crawling everywhere. I just hate that there are boxes all over my living room. It will be all over on Saturday though. I just need to keep reminding myself of that. Wish us luck on unloading all this stuff!

Random Monday Thoughts

It's Monday again already. The weeks are just flying by. We had a great weekend. We did leave the baby with my FIL on Saturday night & everything was just fine. We were able to enjoy a night out & I was able to enjoy a couple of glasses of beer. I never drink anymore, so it was a treat!

The regular daytime "tea party" shower was exactly like all other showers. Nothing special, but it was fun. Spent yesterday relaxing with Eddie & the baby then spent 3 hours after Ava went to bed going through the stuff in one of our back closets for garage sale items. Big sale at our house this Saturday. I hate having garage sales but if it gets rid of some stuff it will be so worth it! We finally get to get the fridge in our laundry room out of the house. I hate how having the garage sale is meaning my house will be a disaster this week though. My living room has boxes & boxes of stuff for me to sort through & price before I put it out in the garage.

The weight loss is not a loss at all anymore. I got down to my pre-pregnancy weight pretty fast when I started WW again in March. Then I've just been maintaining there for over a month now. At least I haven't gained, but I just haven't been trying. Part of me wants to lose 10 more pounds before the wedding in July, the other part of me just doesn't care. The doesn't caring part always ends up winning out when it's lunch or dinnertime.

Thanks for the advice on the dress. It looks like the black dress wins, although looking at the pictures myself I'm not sure I'm crazy about either one. I think I'll keep looking around & see if I find anything better. If not, I'll go with the black one.

Today is my little sister's 26th birthday! Happy Birthday Kimbers! Tomorrow is our 2nd wedding anniversary. We have absolutely no plans yet, so I highly doubt we'll do anything.

That's all the random thoughts I have today.