Such An Irish Lover!

HAPPY SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!!!

Ahhhh, one of my favorite days of the year! Unfortunately, today was a little different than usual. The past 3-5 days have been a little busier than I expected, so I didn't get to do any grocery shopping until today. Result? A fairly simplistic St. Patty's Day feast. It was still NOM, though! Just not traditional. That's ok, though!

Here's the menu:

Reuben Sandwiches
Tater Tots (Hey, at least it was potatoes! haha!)
Juice (with special "sprite cubes" that didn't quite work out)
Coleslaw
Lime Cheesecake

And here's the pics:



Here's the table partially ready to go. It wasn't quite ready when I was taking pics, but I knew I had to do it so I didn't forget!



Corned Beef and Swiss Cheese. I took a shortcut today and just went to the deli at QFC. Of course that was after I tried the deli at WinCo and Safeway. I missed Wegman's today like crazy. Mainly because I went to FIVE different grocery stores looking for everything on my list.



Here's the (homemade) Coleslaw and Rye Bread, along with sandwich toppings.



Here's our special juice. Pineapple Starfruit Limeade with fizzy soda and Lime Sherbet. OH what I went through for that sherbet!

And here's our little Irish Pixie all dolled up and celebrating!



She fell in love with my Irish Bears, both gifts from awesome friends who know of my deep love for St. Patty's day. :D

My lime cheesecake (another experiment) is still in the fridge. I'm nervous about it. I really don't experiment that often in the kitchen, but the past month or so I've been going a little crazy. Overall, dinner turned out nicely. It was definitely "St. Patrick's Day Lite" at our house, but that's ok! Next year I think we'll host a huge party and invite lots of friends. Mark your calendars!

A Few Things

I have some things to throw out there and there is no good way to segue between it all, so bullet points it is!

• Caroline had her arm tugged by mommy yesterday for trying to hoard all the snacks instead of sharing with our friend. As a result, she suffered something called Nursemaid's Elbow. Basically I yoinked her elbow out of socket. We went to the doctor (luckily they were able to get us in 15 minutes after I called) and it was popped back in. She's fine now and I think I'm over the "you're a horrible mother" feeling. It helped that the 3 medical people I saw all informed that it was normal and happened all the time. No one tried to cart me off to prison, so hooray for that!
• Caroline has learned to unzip her pajamas. Safety pin time is here! I'm having flashbacks to Soren stripping himself and pulling his diaper off. This would be why Caroline still wears a onesie underneath everything. So far so good there.
• I just finished my second week of the Couch to 5K program I'm doing. I know I went further today, too, so that was an awesome feeling. I'm almost to 2 miles now and over halfway to a 5k. I start week 3 on Monday!
• Jogging in the rain isn't so bad. Really. I've done it twice this week. Today I had a shower before I took my shower because I got that wet! Haha!
• I'm so grateful that Soren cuts through the church parking lot on his way to school. Three kids were hit (in a crosswalk!) yesterday at the intersection that short cut allows him to avoid. Ugh, I hate that intersection.
• I have an amazing husband who loves me, supports me, and is just generally awesome. My prayers are always with him, but especially today. I will share more if/when I can on this.

I think that covers all of my bullets for today. :)

Don't forget - Wednesday is St. Patty's day! Dust off your green and celebrate!!!! I've got to figure out what the feast will be this year. Woot!

Baby

I want another baby.

Isn't it kind of sad that after so many years of waiting and longing, I can't just appreciate my handsome, amazing, wonderful little (big, really) boy and my sweet and spicy little princess and not long for more?

I suppose it's because they are both so awesome. I want to add to the awesomeness.

Quite a few of the people around me are (apprehensively and most of the time saying DO NOT TELL ANYONE) announcing the impending births of additional children. I want so much to be in that crowd, to know that I'd have a baby for their babies to have play dates with and all of that fun stuff.

But here's the thing.

I know that my body doesn't do that whole "baby" thing without plenty of drugs and doctor intervention. And I know that at this point it would not be a good time (for various reasons) to go through all the treatments that would enable another kiddo to join our family.

So that's annoying.

Oh well. At least I have other projects to keep me busy. Like my running thing (week 1 went very well, by the way). And I'm knitting. Have I mentioned that? Well, yeah, I'm knitting. Once I finish my second project, I am planning on taking pics and posting all about my new found hobby.

I also have my kids. And just the two of them keep me plenty busy. Especially since Soren now wants to start wrestling AND rugby. He's already quite busy with his other activities, but that's ok, right? Oh, and Caroline is getting older and more opinionated, so that's fun.

But they are both so cute and fun!

Anyway, just needed to dump. :) Can't be too sad, though.

It's March, after all!

March

I love March. It brings with it a few things that I adore, including Spring and St. Patrick's Day. March is also when we went in for treatments 2 years ago so we could have our beautiful Caroline join our family. March is all about new beginnings and hope for me. And green. Lots and lots of green.

Man, I sure love St. Patrick's Day. Did you know? Well, if not, now you do.

So it's fitting that in March - actually on March 1st - I started something called Couch to 5k. Now, goodness knows I don't spend all day on the couch, but the concept is that you go from a sedentary lifestyle (which, unfortunately, is more true than I'd like it to be!), to being able to run a 5k. In 9 weeks.

Yeah, I said run.

I hate running. I don't want to hate it, but I hate it. Maybe because I've never done it correctly or because it's too much work or . . . who knows. But seriously? Running is so easy compared to some of the other options I have chosen in the past to be active. For example, I love swimming, but I don't have a pool. I've never had a pool! I've had access to pools, but that doesn't mean it's as easy as walking about my front door. My point is - running really isn't as horrible as I like to tell myself it is.

So I loaded up the IPod and off I went. And I actually liked it. I liked being out in the crisp, Spring morning air. I liked listening to music that made me want to dance. I liked the silence of the world at 5am. I liked being able to think and have some time to myself. So far, this program is pretty awesome. And I know, it's only March 3rd. But remember what I said about March?

New beginnings.
Hope.

I don't need January for that. I just need March.

Those times...

Do you ever have those times in your life where you just think - I can't do it anymore. I can't go on this way. I can't function under these circumstances any longer.

I do.

And it's what I'm dealing with right now. There is nothing specifically wrong. There is nothing for me to point my finger at and say - yes, this is the problem and if I just did/didn't have that, life would be fine. Because I don't think any of it, really, is about what's going on around me. Sure, life isn't easy right now, but when I really stop and think about it, it's not about all of that. It's about me.

That sounds really self absorbed, doesn't it?

The past week or so, I feel like I've been dragging my family down with me and it's not ok to do that. I've been short tempered, morose, abrupt, moody, and just generally not a fun person to be around. I didn't major in theatre without reason - I'm able to put on the smile and do what I need to do in public . . . but it's exhausting to keep pretending that I'm ok when clearly I am not.

What bothers me most of all is not being able to figure out what it is that has me so suddenly in this mood. I cry at the drop of a hat - or have the desire to anyway. I mean, STUPID things that normally I might feel sad about, but now I'm like - woah, what's with the waterworks, lady? Like I was watching Intervention (WHY?? I don't know - I couldn't sleep) and this mom was sitting there drinking herself stupid in front of her little girl. Made me so mad. And sad. And I nearly cried for that little girl. Ok, seriously? I don't do that. Sure, I might be like - argh, punk mom get it together for you kid - but nearly crying?!?! No. That's not me.

Then there is the insomnia. And the anxiety. Which causes the insomnia. But why? What am I so anxious about? Why can't my brain shut off and let me sleep. Wow, I love sleep. Sleep used to be like - yeah, whatever . . . but now I SOOOO cherish my sleep. And it is elusive. And, here's the fun part, when I don't get my sleep, I am GRUMPY. Like, ridiculously grumpy. And I don't feel I have control over my emotions when I'm that grumpy. So that leads to the mood I was discussing earlier. It's like a vicious cycle. And it's lame. And that could explain the crying every 3.2 seconds.

My point is, I'm very tired. I hate complaining about life because I know things could be so much worse. There are so many good and wonderful things I have in my life. But I'm just going through one of those times. Ya know? I'd say I need a vacation, but I just did that in January. Maybe what I need is a kick in the hind quarters.

Sometimes you just gotta do it . . .

Just for grins and giggles, I entered Caroline in a contest a while back. Her pic finally showed up on one of my random searches:



She might not be the winner of it all, but she'll always be my beautiful baby girl.

The last few days have been rather emotionally charged for me and I'm still feeling it. So that's all I've got for today.

Time Keeps Ticking

I can't believe how long it has been since I posted in my blog. I used to be such an avid blogger . . . then I had a baby for the first time in a decade and my life has been a whirlwind of insanity ever since! I'm not going to make any promises about updates, but I'm going to try to be more diligent. It may help when I get my camera back. I left it in DC in January at my friend's house and it is supposed to be headed my direction this week. I hope all the storms haven't held it up for too long!

So what's been going on?

Let's see - I spent a majority of January out of town - first in Colorado for an amazingly awesome reunion with my college roomies, then off to DC to visit friends and help one of them organize and declutter before she drags too much across the ocean on her move to Paris. I returned home just in time to celebrate my birthday with a fun little party and run an activity for the kids at our church (aka Primary Quarterly Activity). That pretty well sums up January.

Last weekend I took Alan (for his birthday) downtown for an overnight stay at the Marriott as well as dinner at Macaroni Grill and a fancy pants breakfast at the hotel. We wandered around downtown at Pioneer Place Mall and then headed up to Powell's - the coolest bookstore ever. It was a wonderful little get away with my sweetheart and one of my best birthday present ideas, if I do say so myself.

Things have been busy around these parts with a toddler who definitely enjoys attention and a tween who has plenty of homework, plus piano, scouts, basketball, and now the knowledge bowl. Plus we have a commuting husband and a mommy who has lots of cooking, cleaning, and errands to run. There isn't much time to be on the computer these days . . . .

Ok, the toddler is losing it. Time to go!