Bring on the 30's!

If the rest of the 30's go the way my 30th birthday went, I'm ready for some great years ahead of me! I should have posted about this awhile ago, but September has just been a crazy month.

My birthday started out great & just kept getting better! Both of my college roommates were in town because another one of our college friends got married in SF that weekend. Alisa has two kids the same ages as my kids. She stayed in the south bay with her husband's family. Caron flew out the night before my birthday to spend a few days with me.

The morning of my birthday Caron & I dropped Ava off at my friend's house & Caron, Alexa & I headed up to the Napa Valley to meet Alisa & her family for an afternoon of wine tasting. It was the perfect afternoon with a perfect picnic lunch.


We got back just in time for my wonderful husband to come home with these beautiful flowers for me.
Then we all quickly got ready, got the girls settled in with a babysitter for the evening and took off for my birthday dinner at my favorite pizza place. We had a fairly large group of 20 people show up. I felt so loved. I was shocked at the amount of gifts that I got. Two of my best friends from my mom's group gave me granny panties & denture cream to welcome me into "old age." They also gave me a fancy shmancy crock pot that I've been drooling over. Yep, I'm definitely 30 now!

After dinner, most of the mom's group took off, but the rest of us went out to a bar in Walnut Creek. Our friend Aaron was also in town for the wedding, so he took the train out from the city & Alisa left her kiddos with her husband & came out as well. It was a reunion of college friends, along with friends from different parts of my life.

I wasn't to thrilled with the fact that the second we got to the bar each group of my friends started in with their "remember when Liz got drunk" stories. It was quite funny, especially since I'm not really a huge drinker.

The Cornell Crew

We got home around 2am. I haven't been out that late since long before I had Ava. It was such an amazing start to the next decade!

Golden Gate Bridge

A friend of mine from my mom's group recently started her own photography business & we decided to try out a session with her. A bit more expensive than your average Sears or Penney's photo shoot, but you just can't get this personal at one of those places. Plus, since she's just starting out, she's giving us all the pictures to keep & do what we want with.

She did one shoot last month and we got some cute shots of the girls, but we didn't really get any great family shots so she suggested that we head to Baker Beach in the city & try to get some shots with the Golden Gate in the background. It ended up being a bit of a foggy morning, but hey, SF is a foggy city! I took a quick peak at the pictures she took on the drive home and these are really just a sampling of some great shots. I'm probably going to use some of them in our Christmas cards this year. I could not be happier with how these turned out... don't you agree?

There's a Purple Croc in the Apple Pie

From the first moment I got pregnant with Ava, I started losing brain cells & got what I refer to as "the mom brain." It's only gotten worse since. I do dumb things. I'm a very intelligent person but you would not know it since I've become a mom.

For instance, there was that time a few days before Alexa was born that I somehow managed to hit the front end of my car, while backing up, into the fire hydrant next to my driveway. That "mom brain" moment cost us $1,000 deductable & a higher insurance premium.

My latest mom brain moment you ask? Can you see where this is going by the title?

The other day we had plans to go out to dinner with some friends, so I took advantage of not having to cook for ourselves & spent the day making a meal for my friend who just had her third child. I also had a lot of granny smith apples, so I made two apple pies. All day in the kitchen cooking & baking.

When Edward got home from work, I had him choose the apple pie that he thought looked nicest to give away. The other we couldn't wait to try ourselves after dinner. So he's rushing me out the door because we had to go drop the food off to my friend, then run another errand before dinner.

I go to the van & stick the meal for my friend on the floor underneath Ava's carseat & put the apple pie on top of that. I had a moment where I decided I should not keep the apple pie where it was. However, just as I was about to move it, Edward handed Alexa to me & said he needed to run in the house for one more thing. So I walk around to put Alexa into her carseat & without thinking, without moving the apple pie, I tell Ava to go climb into her carseat.

Just as she steps into the van, I remember. Just in time to see my pie get a nice big purple croc smushed right into it. Yum!

I thought quickly & I ran inside & swapped out pies. My friend was thrilled to get dinner & dessert & I managed to save one slice of pie for Edward & I to share that didn't get any purple croc time. It was delicious.

The Skinny Jean

Um, so I realize that the few times I've actually been blogging lately I've been a bit of a downer. It's hard to be optimistic when life is beating down on you. So I was trying to think of something positive & upbeat to write about today. For some reason what popped into my head isn't really positive or upbeat at all. It's how much I really dislike the skinny jean.

They are horrible on all levels. Very few people can pull them off. Those that can? Well, who really likes those really skinny types that can actually pull them off. Don't get me wrong, I have a few friends that can & do pull them off, and I do like those friends. Honestly though, even if you can pull them off, I still dislike them.

If you can't pull them off, then well, they really don't work for you. You know how sometimes you can have clothes that maybe don't do anything to really flatter your figure, but they can still look okay on you? The skinny jeans do not fit that category. If they don't flatter you, they make you look fat. And ackward. And, um, not skinny.

They were horrible in the 80's. They are horrible now.

Someone needs to put an end to the skinny jeans before those of us who really can't pull them off (which is really almost all of us) end up being forced to wear them because boot cut has been forced out of being fashionable. I beg all of you, please help stop the skinny jean fad now before it gets out of control.

Frustrations

Before I really get into all of this, let me start by saying that I am actually not depressed right now & I am handling everything pretty well. That said, life has been beyond difficult for us lately. The important things in life are fine. We have two beautiful children, we're all healty & we have tons of family & friends who love us & support us. Everything else though? Not going so well.

I still can't really go into any of the details on our house, but it's not looking promising. I really don't want to say too much, but it's huge & going to affect us in a big way & we have no idea what is going to happen. Life feels pretty out of control when your house is worth $300K less than waht you owe on it & is literally falling to pieces around you.

The other really huge thing that's causing us major concern is the stupid, stupid condo that we own. It was Edward's condo before we got married. For the record, I didn't really want him to buy it in the first place because I really hate the neighborhood that it's in & the complex itself isn't all the great. But he insisted it was a great investement. When we bought the house, I wanted him to sell it, and he thought we should hang onto it & rent it. I agreed because it was technically his condo, but it was yet another bad decision that we made. It ended up sitting vacant for almost 8 months before we rented it out & now it's worth about $150K less than what we owe on it. To top it off, our tenant hasn't paid us since May and now refuses to move out. California law favors the tenant, so we just paid a lawyer a $2,500 retainer to start the process to get her out of there. We figured we could try to do it ourselves, but one little mistake could end up costing us. Seriously so annoyed right now! Why does she get to be a deadbeat & live for free when we have to pay the mortgage on the place still?

As I said before though, I'm hanging in there. I realize how lucky we are to just be healthy & happy & we'll bounce back from these things eventually. We both still have our jobs & we're still able to afford for me to work just part time. If things keep going this way, I may end up having to go back to work full time, but if that does happen, it's not the worse thing that could happen to us.

I do feel a bit like life is kicking us financially when we've only ever made responsible decisions & have tried our best to make the right decisions for our family & our future. But we're young & we will come out of this eventually. It can be challanging to fight the tears some days, but I know that everything is out of my hands right now & I just can't waste energy worrying or getting depressed. I'm angry & frustrated more than anything.

The Big 3-0

Technically, I'm still on a blogging break, but I woke up this morning to find both girls still sleeping & a few minutes of peace to myself. With only 2 days left in my 20's, I thought a little writing time should be allowed.

I realize that when I turn 30 on Friday I won't actually feel any different, but there really is something special about this milestone. I think the first 30 years of your life tend to be one anticipation after another. You're learning new things, trying new things, hitting up all sorts of lifetime milestones. At this point in my life, there aren't really any more big events left that focus on me.

I'm not saying that I think my life it over by any means. I realize that life is what you make of it & I intend to start traveling. I want to see the world. I want to work on my career once the kids are in school. I have my children's milestones to look forward to. We're at a crossroads of our life right now & there are more houses to move to, adventures to take, parties to go to. There's even one more baby to be born. (Nope, not yet, but someday!)

I'm excited to be turning 30. I'm happy to have have gone through so much already knowing that now I can ponder life a bit as I go along. I have this picture that time will slow a bit after 30 & not whiz right by like childhood tends to do.

I'm lucking out this birthday weekend. A good friend of mine from college is getting married on Sunday so a few of my college friends are going to be in town for my birthday on Friday. My very good friend Caron will be staying with us for part of the weekend too, which I'm so excited about. On my birthday morning I'm dropping Ava off at a friend's house & Caron, the baby & I are heading up to Napa for some wine tasting (obviously no wine for Alexa) with my college roommate & her family, who are also in the Bay Area for the wedding. We'll come home for a short rest before leaving both girls with a babysitter for the night. I have a great big group of people heading to my favorite pizza place for dinner & then going out for drinks after. I feel so lucky to have so many great friends willing to celebrate this big day with me!

Bring on the 30's! I'm ready.