coming along!

The packing is coming along. I'm optimistic that we will get it all done before Saturday.  I had been pretty evasive about an actual date that I am going to Maryland full time, but since my tonsils have forced me to get an appointment with an ENT out there, I will be going out on Tuesday.  We have people on both ends to help load the truck and it seems like everything is coming together!

I'm optimistic about this ENT appointment, as this is the guy that took out my friend's tonsils. I really don't see any way that they won't look at the disgusting things, make a cross with their fingers and immediately call to schedule an OR.  Yeah, they are that bad, and pretty much constantly hurt.

If I stop eating junk I will be close to my weight loss goal for this month (which, losing 5lbs last month instead of 11 I totally missed).  I know that if I did more cardio that I would be hitting goals left and right, but along with not doing enough cardio, I do a lot of weight training which develops muscles, which weigh more than fat.  I am eating a lot less than I used to, I know that. I am more aware of what I am eating, when and how much. Right now I am eating junk.  Not a lot of it at a time, but junk devoid of most nutritional value unfortunately.  I can't wait to be settled into the new house.  While I don't want to fall into the trap of talking about what I'll do in the future constantly, being settled and less stressed will be wonderful!

I have been working on finding new doctors in MD, and am so far super encouraged by how easy it was to find an appointment with an ENT.

I have been doing a lot of A loving lately. I feel...okay, I know that I can be a bossy pain in the butt occasionally, and I want to let him hear and see that I love him and that I am striving to be a better person, daily.  I really have struggled during the last 3 years we've been together to break old, and learn new habits.  Habits that aren't about  stress and drama, but love, caring and patience.

Hugs to all...I hope that I can continue to update, but my internet availability is really limited since I don't have it at my house, and shouldn't be farting around all night with my neighbors...although it is super fun.

Welcome to the family

My husband I at our dorkiest!

This is O Henry.  He is a love bug but complains frequently, and loudly.  He is also afraid of his own shadow! Visitors to our house rarely meet him, but he sleeps on my feet most nights. 

Newton (or Noootin as my cousin spells it) is my WV kitten.  We adopted him the day after we moved to WV. He is a very curious boy who loves EVERYONE that pets him, but me especially! This is his first move and he is actually enjoying getting into all of the boxes and dresser drawers

Yeah, this is my husband. He'd rather play with his veggies than eat them!

This is A with his baby Kit Kat. Kit was the most amazing cat you'd ever meet, and had a purr for everyone.  He sadly passed away last summer leaving a kit sized hole in our hearts.  

Who are your family members?

It is...

snowing. Oh my goodness, it is actually snowing.  Yes, it looks like little pebbles, but it is cold enough that it is sticking.  I'm not amused since we are moving next weekend. I'm praying that the mountains aren't too bad and that my hubby will make it over them safely.

What are you doing today?

An international turkey :)

About a week (maybe less) before turkey day, my family friend, M, asked if we would like to come over and share an informal thanksgiving with her and her kids since her husband would be out of town.  I jumped at the idea having no prior plans, and not even knowing if A would be home.  I offered some food that I had in my freezer and she happily accepted, and then emailed me a little panicked because she had invited another family and the count was up to 10 people.  With 4 people, you can do informal; 10 people take a leeetle more planning.  I bought a 14lb turkey, made a couple of pies and corn bread and she made all of the sides. Our other friend brought cheese and crackers and salad.  It was fantastic.
My friend SM and her family are devout Muslims and her kids have food allergies. As someoane who followed Islamic diatary laws for years, which at one point prevented my from eating my mother's pie after I discovered there was lard in the crust; I desperately wanted a dinner that everyone could eat.  I wanted a dinner, where no child would be prevented from tasting something because it had nuts, or eggs in it.  I rolled out my dough myself, and helped create that dinner.  No, sadly my dough didn't taste as good as it would have with lard, and other crap ingrediants, but since it was only my second homemade dough, I'll give myself some time to find the perfect recipe.  I oddly enough have NO problem rolling out the dough (probably b/c of all those tortilla's I decided to hand-make when we were saving money and I had 10lbs of flour), but rather making it taste like store bought crusts.
I was a great and diverse crowd, and had plenty of hilarious moments, such as A deciding that my friend M's kids needed to experience redi-whip sprayed directly into their mouths.  The 2 yr old was excited, but scared to close her mouth, so she sat there is shock for a minute before spitting it into A's hand with all of us laughing.  The 5 kids had a great time playing together and running off all of the sugar, turkey and energy.  I enjoyed sitting at the grown up table and having very few responsibilities.  I finally felt...like an adult.
It was fitting that we have a diverse Thanksgiving, as we are a diverse group of people.  My friend M is a professed atheist, as is my husband.  I am religiously confused and my friend SM and her family are Muslim.  We all became friends during my time in WV.  M and I found out that we are related through marriage, and her kids and me share a cousin (very cool to find out!), and she was friends with SM through her kids school. I met SM independently at the local mosque where she was leading a discussion group and really liked her, and then realized she was friends with M.  I am really going to miss the small town feeling here!
It was really fun to show a family that never celebrated Thanksgiving before (SM is Canadian) and show her the traditions.  She was blown away by all the variety of food, but really enjoyed it! Her kids loved it too and cleaned their plates.

Aaron and I spent the morning sleeping, and then looking through some stores together.  While I didn't get my 20% off at Bed Bath and Beyond by getting there before 10am, I did get A his big Christmas present, which I got his approval for first. Yeah, I'm bad with surprise presents, although our anniversary present of a new really nice pillow and down comforter surprised him.  We ate, and went to see Tangled--very funny movie.

What did you do this thanksgiving? Did you make any new traditions, or stick with the old?

On this Thanksgiving

This is a beautiful poem that my brother wrote. Please share--but give him credit.  Thank you.




On this Thanksgiving... 

 Most people seem to forget that the politicians they voted for are the ones in charge of the military, the ones who give us our orders. The ones who sent us to Vietnam, to Iraq, to Afganistan, and a hundred other places far from our homes, for causes and reasons valiant or futile or simply bureaucratic. 

But they didn't have to go, and you didnt either. We did. And we did it, not because we wanted to, but because that was one of the freedoms we willingly gave up...for you. 

 We were the ones who saw our fellow soldiers, our brothers and sisters in the service, killed before our disbelieving eyes...not you. 

We were the ones who had their minds and souls scarred forever by what we experienced...not you. 

We were the ones mutilated by terrible devices that shouldnt exist in a supposedly sane and civilized world...not you.

 And what of when we got home, after so long? 

Yes, we may find love, and warmth, and comfort. By all rights we should. We've earned it for our service.

But sometimes, too often...we don't. 

We find people who moved on, who couldnt care enough to find the strength to wait and share even a tiny part of our suffering. 

 We find loved ones who turn their backs on us, because we come back changed, and they don't feel that we're worth enough to help us through our pain, our darkness, our struggle, to heal from wounds inflicted not only on our bodies, but on our minds, and on our hearts.

We find people...no, not people, monsters who pervert a freedom they have never understood nor truly appriciated in order to justify continuing their dispicable agendas of hatred and ignorence against us.

 Yet we still go on.

Because our will and our courage is far too much. We are soldiers, after all, not cowards. 

Because we can truly understand what it is we defend, and we deny those who don't, or can't.

Some of us stumble, some may even fall, but we will never leave a brother or sister behind.

 So, to those who pledge their support to us and give it with even the smallest kindness, 

to those who would help us with all their strength and love back into the light,

to those who would stand up for us and those we love,

We thank you, with all of our being, for your understanding, your nobility, your honor.

We do this for you, and you alone.

Even in death, we can not fail you, for you are the reason we exist.

 -Shawn Denny, 11-25-2010     

Shopping Queen!

Wow I did a lot today, and I felt great while doing it!  I had an excellent workout this morning with my trainer E. after were were done doing our circuit, we headed to the floor to do abs and stretching.  I asked if  I could do more crunches/curl ups, so after doing a couple hundred of those I hit the elliptical for a half hour. I sweated up a storm and my feet didn't go numb like they typically do after long periods of time. Before I hit the cardio machine E and  I had a conversation about our motivations in getting fit. I told him that I didn't want to work out thinking that I could be skinny and have a perfect body, but rather because I really do desire to be healthy. I really do just want to have a healthy body, and a healthy baby.  I know that I will NEVER look like a catalog model and I'm ok with that.  My body was, frankly made for having kids. I'm German--come on!  Us good German girls are NOT waifs.  A healthy weight for me is around 180, and I'm 273 as of this morning.  I finally started dropping weight again so I'm excited.
Thanksgiving is looking more exciting as a scored an invite from my aunt for A and myself.  We are in charge of the turkey, stuffing and an apple pie.  I can't wait!  I'm going to make the crust from scratch, for the second time.  I am going to use butter this time instead of crisco.  I only used crisco because I wanted to use it up last time. I generally have a rule against that crap; at least butter comes from a natural source.
This evening my friend M and I went shopping.  Lots of shopping! I had to return some towels because I got them for half the price at a different store.  I think we went to EVERY store in Star City.  I got this awesome bubbler cat water dish, and a catnip ball for the kitties.  Anyways...lots of fun, and since I saved so much on other stuff, in the end I used mostly that money and birthday money.
Overall...excellent day :)
What did you do today? What are you doing to prepare for Thanksgiving? Do you Black Friday shop? I totally avoid the crowds if possible--it totally isn't worth it.

Peace:)

Thankfulness

I would just like to say, in case you haven’t heard me complain incessantly about it already, I hate moving!  I don’t hate the idea, or the adventures after we move to a new place, but I really hate the mechanics of it; the packing, the actual movement of my belongings, the feeling of being in-between places and being unsettled and then the dreaded unpacking.  Some people look at unpacking with delight, seeing a new place to put up decorations and re-organize, while I see it as a personal upheaval.  It takes me forever to figure out where I want stuff to go, especially in my kitchen, and I constantly move it around.  Ironically, I think I have hung and put my clothing away the exact same way since I was 10. However, I am looking forward to decorating this house having taken pictures of the superb decorating of the previous owners.

We are moving into a large and beautiful townhouse, while I'm generally am not an advocate for moving into a townhouse; after looking at other houses in the area, and feeling more and more frustrated and stressed I decided that we would go with the house that I liked the most, which just happened to be a townhome.  It is also...huge.  Way more space than we need, and I hope to always be able to offer friends places to stay, and have someone move in with us to offer their company and friendship. Also...living almost next door to a mall is going to have its perks.   

The house is somewhat packed. We didn’t unpack most of our books when we moved here, since we never got around to buy the perquisite book cases for turning our extra room into a library so they simply got moved into the guest room closet, still boxed.  Those were moved downstairs right before my birthday party on Sunday.  Oh yeah, I had 20 people in my house, which was a disaster, half packed and I didn’t care.  Why? I was too busy being surrounded by people that loved me and didn’t give a damn.  It was pretty awesome. All the kids that came also seemed to have a 'buddy' in their age group so no one was bored.  I think the dynamic worked quite well. 

The not so awesome bit came at 2:48am when I received a call from my husband telling me that he wasn't injured, but had been in a car accident.  Instead of the adrenaline pumping reaction I would expect from me, I calmly got myself together, fed the cats (not knowing when I would return), made sure I had warm clothing, and drove to where he was which about an hour away.  Considering my constantly fear of losing my husband, I think I reacted and behaved admirably when I saw that the front of his car had been basically sheared off on a wall, and the back had been crushed when the car spun and hit another wall.  Miraculously he wasn’t injured…at all.  He has a small bruise on his chest that hurts ‘if he pushes on it.’ His car however was totaled, but in the long run...who cares, it can be replaced.  Fortunately we are well insured, and were able to put those payments over the last 10 years to good use immediately by getting it towed to where he is staying in MD, and getting a rental.  In the mean time I had driven him back to his house in MD so that he could take a shower, get ready for work and pick up a rental car.  I was supposed to be sleeping but decided to hit the road and head back to WV.  It was a long day. 

But…I am thankful. I am thankful that we are moving because my husband found a good paying job, in an area that despite my bitching about MD is a good area.  I am thankful for my friend that helped me pack, and my other friends constant support and love. I am thankful that we have the money to move into a beautiful house. I am thankful most of all though that my husband wasn’t injured, and will hopefully be around for many more years.  I cannot imagine, do not want to imagine, and hopefully will not, for many years have to face the reality that he isn’t here any longer. 

Next weekend we celebrate our third anniversary. As clichéd as it sounds--time really has flown by. I wish I could slow it down and relive all of the wonderful moments, and sorta fast forward through my bitchier moments.   I have lived a tumultuous life full of ups and downs, but these last three years have been the happiest of all of them.  I don’t know what force in the universe brought us together—but thank you.  Hey sweetie--I love you :)

What are you thankful for?

Leaving My Lily

When I met you, you hadn’t been walking very long.  You didn’t talk, or really have opinions and didn’t have much hair.  You were damn cute though!  You couldn’t reach the railing on the stairs, and went down on your butt.  You too two naps, and most of your food was pureed.  Kiddo–we’ve come a long way.

Now you run, jump, skip, hop and dance like a mad woman.  You like ‘Dor’ (Dora) and ‘Sesama!’ (Sesame).  You can speak in complete sentences, even if you still can’t pronouce all your letters correctly.  All colors are blue or yellow (no matter what color they really are).  We have an elaborate nap time ritual that includes, monkey, pacifier, silky blanket, various other blankets, a sound machine and your favorite songs.  I love doing it all, but I have to admit that it is easier when you just fall asleep in the car.

You are so smart!  You realized that we couldn’t understand you, so you decided that talking was in your best interest.  What we didn’t realize is that you would start with sentences!  You know where we go in the car, and point things out to me.  You are best friends with my cousin which has allowed me to spend more time with her family getting to know them.  You know where your dad works, where we go to class, where the sheep play, Newton (my cat) lives, and exactly where all the cows reside between my house and yours.  You demand your music by name, and love bopping along.

You give the best snuggles in the world, and make me smile every day.  Babe, I’m going to miss you more than words can discribe.  I will keep in touch, especially because you are going to be the best big sister in the world! I know that it will never be the same, but I won’t forget all of the fun times we have had together.  Thank you for being my ‘Lil Bean.

Transferring Back

I was posting at leaniepi.com/blog for awhile, but I decided to come back here and try to get followers that DON'T have to register to comment.  There is a lot going on in my life, and I hope that I can get comments and feedback from friends.
Thanks!!