How My TV Obsessions Reflect my Phase in Life

There was a time in my life when I was totally addicted to the TLC show "A Baby Story".  I think it started about a year or so after Jason and I got married, which is probably when I started thinking about having a baby.  I loved hearing the couples' stories and seeing the labor and birth process.  I especially liked the 6 weeks later update.  This obsession continued all the way through my pregnancy with Cyrus.  Sometimes, I panicked about how my birth would go, especially after watching an episode that ended with unplanned C-section or some other complication.  Since I was aiming for a natural birth, these episodes really upset me, especially as I got closer and closer to my due date.  On several occasions, after a panic session, Jason "banned" me from watching it!  I watched it anyway, but tried to limit my panicking, at least for a while.

I'll be accepting my award next week...

...for mother of the year.

This beauty happened this afternoon while I was apartment hunting (online).  He ran for the dog bed (one of his favorite places to hang out), slipped, and ran into the heat register.

This happened about three weeks ago while I was working in the garage.  He was playing on the cement step outside of the garage.  I heard him whimper, but he never cried.  Then 20 minutes later, my mom exclaimed "What happened to his head?!?"  This is what it looked like three days later.

My mom keeps chalking it up to "boys will be boys"...but perhaps it's just "kids will be kids"?

Flashback Friday: Apartment Hunting in the Bronx

I have basically spent all afternoon trying to find apartments in Phoenix, which has had me thinking about the last time we looked for apartments.  It was the fall of 2005, and Jason had just moved to New York.  I was living with a friend at the time, and things between us got kind of tense, so Jason and I needed to find a new place to live pretty quickly.

Our budget was $1,000 a month, which, almost anywhere else in the country, seems lush for a 1 bedroom apartment.  However, it was actually quite meager in NYC.  We considered Queens and Brooklyn, two far more hip and happening boroughs, but ultimately decided to limit our search to upper Manhattan and the Bronx.  I felt comfortable with these areas, as I had been living in the Bronx for the past 18 months and commuting through upper Manhattan.  Plus, we figured that we could get more for our money in both space and proximity to the train in these areas.  

Soaking up the Fall

My blog background isn't just a nod to the current season, it is an homage to my favorite season!  For as long as I can remember, fall as been my most anticipated time of year.  I have been lucky to spend most of my life in places that have beautiful falls.  New York's summers and winters leave a lot to be desired, but fall there is amazing - all the leaves change colors, there is a crispness to the air before the bitter winds of winter set in and there seems to be a general air of festivity.  I happen to love all of Portland's seasons, but fall is especially amazing.  Then there were my four years in Los Angeles...not so much fall happening there. Since I am soon moving to the land of no seasons, I am pleased to be spending this fall in Denver, where I can soak up most of my favorite things about the season.  Hopefully it will hold me for a few years before I can make my way to another beautiful autumn.   Here is why I love fall (and I realize that these things are kind of cliche, but they truly are my favorites, so who cares?)

Timing is Everything

As you may know from previous posts, Jason and I are not currently living in the same city, nor even the same state.  Our lives are in major transition and we really thought that we would be living together again by now.  However, as of the weekend, Jason was no closer to having a store and I had resigned myself to the goal of being together by Christmas.  I figured that, this way, if we got to be together sooner, I'd be overjoyed, and if it actually took until Christmas, I wouldn't be terribly disappointed.  To this end, on Monday night I bought a ticket to go see Jason for 10 days at Thanksgiving.  On Tuesday morning, I paid for a month of Stroller Strides classes.  Wouldn't you know it, Jason called me Tuesday afternoon with the long anticipated news that he had finally been given a store!  I guess Murphy's law is in full effect in the Wells family.

Not a Teacher or a Doctor, but a...?

Remember when we were kids and someone asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up?  I seem to remember that I thought there were only a few handfuls of possible professions available to me: the standards (Teacher, Police Officer, Doctor, Lawyer, etc) and then whatever professions my parents had.  In my case, construction worker, produce deliverer and chef (the latter two were my mom - and yes, at some point around the age of 4 or 5, I wanted to own my own produce company and drive a big blue pickup truck and deliver produce...)  I think that this relatively narrow view of potential professions or careers continued on up through at least middle school, widening to include things like veterinarian or orchestra conductor (don't ask).

NaBloPoMo is Here!

It is that time of year again, and I won't lie, I've been looking forward to this for quite some time.  Last year, I revived my blog with NaBloPoMo in October.  It was the first time since I started it that I posted regularly. I loved feeling like I was finally contributing to the blogging world, instead of just reading everyone else's blogs. While I maintained the posting momentum for a few months, things petered out and then died altogether by the end of April.  I went a full five months before I picked it back up, and I have to admit that part of the reason I started posting in October was to gain momentum for NaBloPoMo in November.

While I enjoyed writing alongside my friend Kristen in October last year, come November, I realized that  many of the blogs I followed were taking the challenge during that month.  I felt a little left out and determined that this year, should my blog need reviving, I would take the challenge in November, right alongside Bridget and a few others.

So here I am.  Ready for 30 posts in 30 days! I've got all kinds of good stuff I've been saving just for this occasion.  Now, I realize that it is late on this, the first day of November, and that the few of you who read this blog will likely not read this until at least the 2nd of November, but I urge you to join me anyway!  Who cares if you're a day late?  Write an extra post one day if it makes you feel better!  All right now, who's with me?