31 reasons...

...why my 31st birthday on Saturday was so fantastic:

1) Being able to sleep in(?!) until 8am (it still makes me roll my eyes to think that sleeping until 8am is considered "sleeping in").

2) Waking up to the smell of healthy, homemade "birthday" blueberry muffins...and then having to eat around the wax from the candles that melted in the muffins because Mark stuck them in before the muffins had cooled. Ha! :)




3) No words needed:

4) The Starbucks gift card Anthony gave me.

5) And then realizing that Mark actually had to spend some of his hard-earned money to purchase said gift card, and in the process, supporting the Evil Empire.

6) The 2001 Syrah from Zaca Mesa and the 2005 Pinot Noir from Sanford - both of which are from wineries that were featured in Sideways and were visited by yours truly on our trip out to CA in '05 - from Mark.

7) Being able to get a shower and follow-up with all the other "getting ready" stuff alone(!)...while listening to my iTunes...and singing as loud as I wanted.

8) Voting absentee (so I won't have to stand in ridiculously long lines with Anthony on Election Day) for President Barack Obama. WOO WOO!

9) The brown rice sushi and Sam Adams Oktoberfest I had for lunch.

10) The full-body, deep tissue massage I got - so relaxing and felt sooooooooo good!

11) The (first one of the season!) skinny, no whip PSL (pumpkin spice latte, for those of you that aren't down with the lingo) that my mom bought for me.

12) Sipping said PSL while getting a pedicure and chatting with my mom.

13) Following-up the pedicure with a manicure....

14) ...flanked on either side by Mom and Laura doing the same...

15) ...and engaging in some pretty amusing conversations while drinking mimosas on the house!

16) Coming home after our girls' day at the spa to find the house vacuumed, the bathrooms cleaned, and the homemade (from scratch, including the sauce!) lasagna all prepared and ready to pop in the oven. Marcus, YOU ROCK!

17) The 3 bunches of lilies Laura surprised me with for my "32nd" birthday...

18) ...and the fact that she drove up from Richmond for the afternoon/night just to be here to help me celebrate.

19) Having Heather and Looney over for dinner because they wanted to celebrate with me, but didn't feel comfortable hitting the smoky bars because she's pregnant.

20) The birthday cupcakes that Courtney made and the "fruit cup cake" that Heather brought over for dessert...and eating way too much of both.



21) Getting dressed up to go out.



22) Going to the Skydome, a bar that spins to give you a 360 degree view of D.C.

23) Martinis, rum & Diets, Absolut Mandarin shots. Need I say more?


24) Tech's 35-30 win over Nebraska, in Nebraska. GO HOKIES!

25) Spending "adult time," having "adult conversations," and doing "adult things" with some of my favorite people.





26) The fact that Brian was finally home, after a tour of duty in Lithuania...and knowing how happy Tina was to have him back.



27) Heading to the hookah bar with Courtney, Caity, Laura, & Mark to cap off the evening with a few more drinks and a double-apple hookah.

28) Coming home after a night out and having Toni tell us that Anthony is a pleasure to babysit and that he is the happiest child she has ever known. AND she said she wasn't lying. :)

29) Realizing that I had left my Amex at the hookah bar, tab open, and texting Caity who still (fortunately!) happened to be there with another friend and was able to grab it for me. The vino is calling, PIC, the vino is calling!

30) Laura and I taking forks to the pan of leftover lasagna...

31) ...while Mark was out getting us value meals from McDonald's. That's right. Lasagna and then McDonald's. No wonder I didn't have a hangover on Sunday.

Good times, my friends, good times! A wonderful day, all around. I couldn't have asked for better.

"Helpy, Mama?! Helpy?!"

Anthony LOVES "helping" (yes, that's in quotations and if you have a toddler or anything resembling one, you'll get it) and so, as I put together the pot roast for tonight, I let him lend a hand.

You can tell by these pictures that he was just so excited that Mommy wanted his help.


I'm positive that tonight's dinner will be that much better thanks to the added touch of sweetness that wasn't in the recipe. Thanks, Bud!

The latest development?

...learning to get undressed...everywhere!

After working hard at encouraging Anthony to take his own shirt and pants off for bath time, he just learned how to completely do it himself yesterday. And now, he can't stop. At all.



Even though getting dressed and undressed is now a much longer and laborious process since you've figured out that you can do it yourself, I'm still so proud of you, Bud! You're getting to be such a big boy!

The Simple...and Not-So-Simple...Life

Life is strange. The older you get, the more complex life gets. When you're young, you yearn to be older. But when you grow up, you wish you could revisit the simplicity that comes with being a kid. Irony at its best.

Jenn and I took the kids to a fall festival yesterday afternoon. While there, I got to view the world through Anthony's eyes and was reminded how simple life is when you're young. The joy that comes with jumping around in a moonbounce with a friend. The excitement that goes hand-in-hand with getting to wear a red fireman's hat. How special you feel when a life-sized bear stops to give you a high-five. How nothing else in the world matters when Mom buys a bag of kettle corn...and shares it with you...and how special that makes you feel.

And then there's the not-so-simple life that never ceases to remind you that you're not a kid anymore. It's the long, meaningful talk you have with a friend over a glass of wine while the kids are napping. Conversations in which you confide in each other things that you're scared to share for fear of being judged. It's the phone call you get from another friend, informing you that her brother is in trouble - that he has become a cocaine addict and that he feels desperately depressed and alone. And then getting another phone call from her, in tears, at 11:15 that night with the news that her grandmother is dying...most likely within the next couple of hours.

Life happens. And I think that instead of being either simple or not-so-simple, it's a mix of both and accepting that we must sometimes experience the not-so-simple in order to truly appreciate the simple.

Little Boy, Big Shoes

Dear Anthony,

I am so proud of who you are and the person you're growing up to be. I marvel daily at how much you've learned and how fast you've learned it.

I have no doubt in my mind that, one day, you'll fill those shoes - and fill them well - but in the meantime, please hold on to that mee-mee (blankie) just a little longer.

I love you lots, sweet boy.

XOXO,
Mama

Screw the cap on tight...

As we're laying in bed this morning, watching who-knows-what on Playhouse Disney so that Mark and I could try to savor every last minute before having to get out of bed and chase after a 2 year old all day, this took place:

Me: "I love you Bud."
Anthony: leans back so that he's resting on my chest "Dubbaya Mama."

These are the moments I want to bottle up forever.

September 11th, 2001-2008

Wow.

Has it really been seven years?

I remember that day so vividly. I had just gotten to my desk around 9am at my old job as a social worker and logged on to AIM quickly before heading to our weekly case management team meeting. Jenn IM'ed me and asked me if I'd heard the news. What news? Little did I know...

The weather was gorgeous. The skies were a bright blue, no clouds in sight. No humidity. Temps in the low 80s. I was wearing a pair of black linen capris, a striped sleeveless sweater, and my black Nine West slides.

As the events of that day unfolded, some literally in our backyard, it was easy to watch because it was so hard to believe the realness of it all. I remember being worried about my sister, as she was in D.C. that day volunteering at an art museum. Nobody could get in touch with her for a long time because all of the cell phone lines were overloaded. I remember thinking, "What the hell is next?"

Mark and I walked down to the Pentagon that night, after ordering Chinese takeout. It was then, standing on the hill at the Navy Annex on Columbia Pike and looking over at the (still burning) fire that the firemen were trying to put out, that I really grasped what had happened...and how close to home it all was.

It was scary. We certainly remember, but we have moved on. And we don't let that day and all the propaganda surrounding it push us further out from the city or scare us into believing that we're not safe living where we do. We love it here and feel fortunate to be able to live right outside the nation's capital.

*****************

As I was at the gym this morning, I began to reflect on some of what's happened in seven years.

It's mind-blowing to me:

• Mark and I got engaged and married.
• I began and completed a Masters program.
• I switched careers from social work to special ed.
• My dad died.
• I became a mother for the first time.
• I became a homeowner for the first time.
• I got to travel back to the Middle East and reunite with family that I haven't seen in almost 20 years.
• I've traveled to places like Hawaii, the Bahamas, the Caymans, England, Cancun, and Vegas.
• I've been the Maid of Honor in two of my best friends' weddings.
• Mark and I bought a pop-up camper and have taken numerous memorable trips with it.
• I welcomed my 30s. And I was excited about it.
• Mark's mom died.
• I began liking (and now love!) the taste of wine, shrimp, and Brussels sprouts - all of which I detested.
• I rekindled friendships with some of my closest friends.
• I bought and completely paid for my Civic. (The student loan debt is another story. Will that ever be paid off?!)
• I bore witness to the "Virginia Tech Tragedy" - something that I never in a million years thought would happen there.
• I've learned to be much more comfortable in my body and to be more at peace with myself and my decisions.
• I've been to a U2 concert, several REM concerts, a Prince concert, a Cher concert, and a Buffet concert. Legends. All of them.

I wonder what the next seven years holds...

Today's Version: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

The Good: I had my follow-up appointment with the rheumatologist today. All of the blood work that was done in an attempt to discern the cause of my Baker's cyst came back negative. So, I'm not going to need treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, Lyme's disease, or a host of other illnesses anytime soon...I hope. And, my knee/leg continues to feel better and better everyday. Aside from a minor case of shin splints due to walking the hill course on the treadmill at a pretty good pace for an hour yesterday, I'm almost (dare I say it?) feeling normal. So the current POA is to keep on keeping on and hope that I make a full recovery.

The Bad: Because all of the tests and scans came back negative, the doctors have no clue what caused the cyst. That means that they can't give me any guidelines or framework on how to proceed from here on out so as to ensure that this won't happen again. I just need to "ease back into things" and check back in with the doc in 3 months.

The Ugly: Hurricane Ike. I know people that live directly in the "cone of uncertainty" (am I the only one who thinks that term is ridiculous?) in Texas. They are evacuating from the coast to go farther inland this evening. This storm looks nasty. Please keep them in your thoughts.

It's Been A Long Day

So yes, I will admit that I have a Matchbox 20 CD and that I do occasionally listen to songs off of it. Now, with that said...

I was at the gym this morning walking on the treadmill, listening to my "cardio workout" playlist on my iPod, when Matchbox 20's Long Day came on. And I thought to myself, "No sh*t. This has been a 'long day.'"

See the reason I haven't blogged in a while and why I was walking on the treadmill and not running or participating in my normal Tuesday morning Body Attack class is because I'm having a knee issue.

In an attempt to not rehash every single detail of the past 4 1/2 weeks, I will leave it at this: I came back from Maine with some sort of injury to my knee. It began as something very minor, not painful, but instead just kind of annoying. However, that quickly turned into almost unbearable pain that forced a trip to the ER to get ultrasound-ed for possible blood clots (negative, thankfully) and at my lowest low, calling Mark in tears begging him to come home from work one day because I couldn't walk around without intense pain well enough to make Anthony lunch or to change his diaper.

The culprit? A Baker's cyst (I'd never heard of one either) located in the back of my knee that has apparently burst.

Yea, it's been fun. Especially with a very active (almost) 2-year old.

So in the last several weeks I've become a patient of an orthopedist and a rheumatologist in an attempt to figure out what caused the cyst so that a proper POA can be developed. Aren't you jealous? So far x-rays and MRIs haven't revealed anything spectacular, so I go back to the rheumatologist tomorrow to discuss the results of blood work that was done 2 weeks ago. Hopefully I'll have some answers at that point.

Until then, I'm loving my rheumatologist for giving me a shot of steroids 2 weeks ago that has allowed me to get back to sort-of-normal. At least I can walk around and climb stairs without grimacing in pain. But I still can't exert myself physically like normal. So after a 2-week hiatus (that was KILLING me!) on working out, I have returned to the gym but have to remind myself that I can't overdo it - at least not until we figure out what's going on.

So yea, it's been one hell of a long "day."