Dear Baby Girl - 1 Year Old Edition!

Dear Baby Girl,

On February 11th you turned 1 year old!

I still can't believe it a few weeks later. 

We had a birthday party for you this year - really a celebration that your mom and I had made it! We survived one whole year with you!  And I can honestly say, that while it was probably the hardest year yet, it was far and away the most breath-takingly amazing year of my life. I've never felt more like I'm my truest self-est Me than I have this year. Just like I always knew I would be a good wife, I also knew I was meant to be a Mama - and this year has only solidified that this, this mama-ing is me.

I am lucky though, because I couldn't have asked for a sweeter, easier baby. Of course you have your moments (like the part where you started throwing full on tantrums at 11 months...the Doctor says your advanced....lucky us?!) but in general you are so smiley. You eat everything (like EVERYTHING) and you sleep. And for those gifts your mom and I are so grateful.

Lately you've been really into the following:

-Saying Uh-oh

-Talkin!

-Eating anything you can get your hands on and A LOT of it! I think eating is probably your favorite activity.  Even if you've already eaten, if somebody starts eating...you want some!

-Baby dolls - in all shapes and sizes

-Opening and closing doors and cabinets

-Trying really hard to say "Thank You"

-Signing please

-Pointing

-Cruising around the furinture

-Shaking your head back and forth like a maniac and laughing

-Skype-ing with Grandma and Grandpa

-Eating

-Then Eating some more!

I can't imagine my life without you baby girl! You are the light of my life :)

Love,

Mama

And some scenes from your rockin 1st birthday party (PS...your mom and I have agreed...you're not having another birthday party for a LONNNGGGG time!)

Mommies and the Birthday Girl in the Flower Photo Booth

Aunties in the Photo Booth

Birthday Girl and her Buddy

Birthday Friendsies!

Buggy Bean Bag Toss!

Decorate your own cookie

The Aunties!

Fun in the Ball Pit

Plotting how to get ALLL that cake into your mouth!

 WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH BABY GIRL!!!

Treading water - in white water rapids

You guys.

It's been one hell of a ride lately around here my friends.

Let me just start out by saying - no babies.  No babies no babies no babies.  Now that we've gotten that out of the way, we can move onto this little piece of news...

We bought a house!

I'm not going to lie to you, purchasing a house prior to the age of 30 is making me feel pretty damn powerful these days.  A good thing too because let me tell you what, to buy a house (in California none the less) is no small feat.  

It takes several things:

1) Wine (if you're me, like 9 bottles or so...)

2) Patience (oh yes, clearly my forte)

3) Ability to not become emotionally attached (again with my forte)

4) A patient and loving spouse (thankfully I won the lottery on this one!)

5) All your money, and then some you don't have as well (oh sweet lord help me)

6) Kleenex (get the costco pack, you're going to need it)

7) A zenlike demeanor (BWAHAHAHA)

Luckily we worked with amazing people (if you live in norcal and need a recommendation let me know!)  Otherwise the process would have been terrifying beyond belief.  Instead it was only marginally terrifying (since handing over so much money in one big cashiers check is pretttyyy terrifying in any situation)  

Buying a house is also a good way to test your marriage.  You survive buying a house and you're probably doing pretty well.  Because let me tell you what, "we're buying and moving into a new house sarah" - she's a BIOTCH for lack of a better word.  She's snappy, cranky, sleep deprived and her control freaky-ness is off the charts (like in the stratosphere!)  But seriously people, it shouldn't be that bad should it?  Shouldn't buying a house be shiny and happy and full of gauzy smiley pictures.  Yeah.  My experience was not that way.  Most of the time I was freaking out - in a good way generally- but freaking out none-the-less.  It was happy, but it was no sparkles and rainbows - it was work!

We were "moved in" less than a week and we had our first house guests this past weekend. Luckily it was just my family because it looked like a natural disaster went off in the garage (and the master bedroom...the kitchen's wasn't great either)  But alas, everybody had a place to sleep and there is more than one bathroom - so it was pretty much shangr la!

To add insult to injury I spent the 5 days prior to the big move on Jury Duty!  w00t!  And while the process was fascinating, the timing literally couldn't have been worse - work is super busy, life is super busy. I suppose there really is no GOOD time for jury duty but still, come on universe, throw a sister a bone.

I have to say though, waking up in the morning thinking - this is our house - is a pretty amazing feeling.  Even if there is still much work to be done, and an old crappy apartment to clean etc etc

And maybe one of these days we'll get to turn one of these rooms into a nursery...but that's another story, for a less sleep deprived day.

Hope you all are well, I miss you blog people!

Besos,

Sarah 

P to the S: we have no internet yet in the new place (yes I know, blasphemy!) so no pictures for a little while...

Blue (boo hoo) Cheese

Bring on the sushi and the deli meat and all the soft cheese you can think of.  I'm going to guzzle caffeine and alcohol and I'm going to like it.  Right now I'm sitting on the couch drinking a rum and diet coke and eating raw cookie dough with a side of sashimi (I'm really not but I could if I wanted to).  So there pregnant people, SO THERE.

It's fine, we don't want any babies up here anyway.  I mean why would we?  They aren't cute or snuggly or life-fulfilling or anything, right?!  You hear me Universe?  Don't you send me those babies because I'm too busy eating my blue cheese undercooked burger.

Ugh.

I'm having a hard time these days trying to figure out that perfect little balance of optimism and realistic expectations and attainable goals.  Is it too much to ask to get pregnant and finally finally get some babies up in here?  Maybe it is.  Maybe I've got to stop asking and start letting it all go with the flow.  But we all know how well this little control freak does with the letting go.

Lately I'm grasping for signs.  Signs that my body can work the way its supposed to (it appears that with a few medications it definitely can), signs that I'm making the right adulty choices, signs from God that I'm in the right place, signs that fat rolly polly babies are in my future.  I have a cramp - that's a sign!  I saw a baby and didn't burst in to tears - its a sign!  My mom dreamt I was pregnant - definitely a sign. I'm hungry, i'm tired, i'm emotional, i'm happy - signs signs signs.  Perhaps the problem is that it appears the signs are in another language.  One I clearly don't speak.  In fact I'm pretty sure the signs are in hieroglyphics and I don't have the key...no way to translate them.

So I've decided to stop praying for signs and instead start praying for clarity and patience and peace.  I'm the queen of telling other people that "things will work out" that there are "divine plans for all of us" that things will always "come to pass as they should"  and yet I'm clearly not honoring that belief myself.

So I'm making a change.  This month we're letting it all go and in turn letting it all come.  I'm going to be more gracious, more patient, more loving and more open.  I refuse to let the pessimism take me over - because I'm pretty sure that's not doing me any favors - and it's just not me.

I will be a mother.  Some day.  Some how.

And until then.....

Blue cheese sushi baby!

June - over and out

Remember that one time I was going to blog more often?  Oh yeah that's all the time right?!

Well I have no excuses (except the whole SP and I both started new jobs simultaneously and between the 2 of us we are working 3 jobs thing...except that)

Nothing totally monumental has happened but there's been a lot of good happening around here.  So I'm definitely not complaining.   I can't remember all of the details because its been kind of a whirlwind but I do remember some pretty great moments.  Like this:

I mean really, who doesn't love a spa night at home.  Clearly we're goobs!

There was also this:

Which was A to the MAZING!  I'd forgotten how much I love some live musical-ness.  And the music in this show just blows everything out of the water.  More musicals please.  

And to bring June fully into gear there was this:

We played it small and close to home this year and went to our local, smaller Pride instead of the giant SF Pride  and I have to say I kind of loved it.  We spent the day with friends, soaking up some serious sun, watching the parade, and laughing and enjoying ourselves.  It wasn't clausterphobically packed or super duper dirty and it was nice to spend time with some close friends and 10,000 allies.

And now June is rapidly heading towards its close.  And I'm frantically prepping for my nerd kids to come.  It's pretty bittersweet - my last year working directly with these kids.  While they and their parents have made me crazy these past few years and while the working hours have been pretty heinous - I'm not going to lie, I'm a little sad to be letting go.  (But not that sad!)  Especially because I'm just moving on to new nerdy kids - older ones (grad students) and I'm loving getting to know them slowly and learn who they are and what they are doing.  It feels good to be part of the nerd family - even if I have no nerd skills of my own!

Happy June friends.  Enjoy it while it goes whizzing by!

Dear Mr. Sandman...Seriously?!

A terrifying yet accurate portrayal of how I feel right now

I've never really been a great sleeper, its true.  Even when I was younger I was always an early riser.  The sleep overs of my teen years found my friends sleeping until noon and me in the other room reading an entire book.  Or me and my one other early riser friend making ourselves breakfast, reading an entire book, taking a walk, doing a little dance, and our other friends still not being awake.

It got a little better towards the end of high school.  My terrifying nightmares stopped (thanks crazy brain) and I was exercising a freakish amount (thanks water polo) and doing so many extracurriculars that I was so insanely physically exhausted I could always sleep.  I even took naps after school.  Oh Naps.  I wish I had that capability these days.

In college I learned to sleep like the dead.  I spent a good 6 years of my life living in residence halls and let me tell you what - when you live with anywhere from 150 - 500 18year olds who have just recently discovered their new found "freedom" you learn how to sleep.  Like sleep through a tsunami/hurricane simultaneous earthquake sleep.  

But my old age is setting in apparently.  And ever since moving out of the residence halls and learning to love the life outside (I LOVE IT!) and enjoying peace and quiet and a relatively normal schedule - I can't sleep.  A full, good night's sleep is really a rare commodity these days.  Yeah I probably get 5 hours of unadulterated sleep on a regular basis (which I know is really good for some people)  But 7 or 8 hours?  Of really deep good I feel rested in the morning sleep...almost never.  And on some nights, like this current one per say, I get about 0 hours of sleep.  Like I've been looking at the clock since 1:45am.  No joke.  And as I write this it is 4am.  And there has been no sleeping.  NO SLEEPING.

I don't know what to do.  Because I am tired.  Oh trust.  I'm tired.  And I exercise.  And I don't drink caffeine at night (and really rarely in general these days), and I try not to get to hyped up before bed, or read in bed or do anything you're not supposed to do to mess up your sleep cycle...and yet, I'm awake.  Again.

So, anybody got any suggestions.  I'm pretty game for anything these days short of needles in my eyeballs (wait...I might even try that)  Animal, vegetable, mineral.  I'm in.  Give me the goods people or find me a Sandman stat!

Yawn.

Swimming Home

Sexy goggle face!

You know what, you guys, the sun is coming out like crazy these days and for the most part I'm happier than a clam.  Because the sun and me we are besties 4-eva.  But  my other nagging friend "anxiety" is always there, lurking.  Even when I'm glowing with the joy of the every day sun there is that little nagging, scary worrier in the back of my brain.

Usually I can beat her back with gratefulness, and work, and friends and love and just be present in the moment.  But lately she's been creeping up on me more and more.  The work stress is a lot.  The questions about the future.  Future family, future jobs, future life.  Am I ever going to be doing something else, be somewhere else, be able to travel, have kids etc etc etc.  My brain.  It can go for days. And some days it just nags and nags and nags.

Work picked up like insane crazy in March.  And my gym routine went out the window.  Along with any kind of relaxation or normal sleeping patterns.  And then we went to NY and my anxiety and sleeping patterns went straight, on the express train, to hell.  But quietly my muscles were talking to me.  Along with my spirit.  Move Sarah.  Just move.  You're so worried about being stuck...then get up and move.  But the gym takes too much time, and then I have to shower and then etc etc.

My gym membership also allows me to use the pool.  What you may not know about ms. sarah is that she used to be a swimmer.  A bonafide water polo player/swimmer/diver.  If it was a sport in the water, I played it.  I've been a water baby from birth.  I loved swimming and would stay in the pool or the ocean until my lips turned blue.  I love(d) the water.  

And yet I probably haven't been in the pool in years.  Maybe to splash around a little bit.  But it's probably been nearly 10 years since I've swam laps.  Since i've moved my body up and down the pool.  And when I thought about going back to the pool I was filled with insane fear.  Inexplicable irrational fear.  

So it took a couple of months of self coaxing.  (And coaxing from SP)  But on Monday I finally put on my big girl pants (or bathing suit rather) and went to the pool during lunch.  

And it hurt.

Every muscle screamed with lack of use.  My breath burned in my lungs.  It was pathetic you guys.  

But it was amazing.  My body knew exactly what too do.  The slow slap of my hands entering the water, my arms stretching out in front of me.  My breath.  My rhythm.  It was deliberate and mindless simultaneously.  And I could just feel the anxiety wash off my shoulders.  I could feel my mind move back into my body, and out of that crazy anxiety space.  The sensation of the water around me. The sun and the slight wind.  That was it.  Just me.  In the sacred space of the water...surround by nothing. I could have swam on forever.  Except my shoulders wouldn't let me, paying for the years of neglect.

But I went back today.  And it was even better.  It was glorious.  I just slipped into the water and everything melted away.  And it didn't hurt as badly.  And I just released it all, everything, into the water.  Every moment, and fear, and naggy nag.  I shed a "skin" of worry with every lap.  I pushed it until I was absolutely going to be late back to work, just to have another minute.

I can't even explain it.  It's a feeling I haven't had in a long time.  The serenity of the ache in my arms and the feeling that it isn't for anything.  Its not even about losing weight or exercising or anything.  It's about therapy.  It's about not talking and just losing myself in the movement and the feelings and the repetitions.  It's about being home in the water...and also in myself.

The Day the Cable Died

Oh hello friends.  It’s been a while.  Thanks for indulging me while I wallowed in a little bit of the winter blues and some self-indulgent sadness.   I don’t even want to tell you what the middle of January looked like at our house.  Mostly a tornado of crap around the apartment and me in my sweatpants and a lot of the food network.  It was going to a bad place real fast.

And so the truth must come out.

We killed the cable.

Something had to be done to get me off the couch and catapult me back into real life.  And to be honest, that sh*ts EXPENSIVE.  While looking over our bills for the 900^th millionth time I thought to myself, self, why are we paying so much for the tv?  This is ridiculous.

And so the great cable debate began.  SP was pro cutting it for a long time now.  She never had tv pre me.  But I love the tv.  Like love love.  But the love was becoming the toxic kind.  The Stockholm syndrome was setting in deep.  You know like you love your abuser.  And my TV was abusing me.  Causing me to spend way way too much time on my hind quarters.  Vegging is a good thing.  But becoming catatonic, not so much.  And the money.  Do you know how many mani/pedis I can get now ;)  Just kidding.  But it will definitely help pad the future baby diaper fund, that’s for sure. 

And so on Monday, I said goodbye to my good friends on the food network.  And it’s been almost a week without any live TV (there’s still the internet…please…I’m not Amish) and I can’t believe I’m saying this…but I don’t mind.  It might be because I still have Netflix and have indulged in plenty of old episodes of 24 and Bones.  And it might be because now I am reading my book more.  And because SP and I eat dinner at the table now.  I always thought I liked background noise.  But the lack of constant TV chatter is soothing actually.  I find myself enjoying the quiet.  And the sound of my own voice singing me through my tasks.  I mean really…I love my own voice, for shizzle.

I don’t know we’ll see how it goes of course.  I’m sure (?) that this isn’t a forever change.  Probably some day I will get the food network back (I mean really, I love the food network, I really do) but right now, so far, its workin. 

So Adios Cable!  And helloooo Sunshine!

Sunshine.  And can we talk about how long my crazy hair is getting?

 

Also I joined the Gym.  But that’s another horrible story for another day ;)

BESOS!

Crashing Off the Wagon

 Symptom: All of my pictures are of food...

Remember that one time I posted about making changes and trying to be healthy and all that nonsense?  And then I did that for about a half a minute and then life really truly got in the way of doing anything else.  You know I got married and went to Europe etc etc etc.

I mean there's a million excuses and I've been doing this up and down thing my whole life.

But lately its so down.  (not life, my health)

I'm definitely getting some MAJOR signs lately that I am not treating my body the way in which it would like me to treat it.  And now I'm in this horrible twisted cycle of feeling bad and not treating myself well and then feeling worse.  And while sometimes my brain thinks that eating anything I want (like pounds of cheese and bottles of wine) and sitting on the couch sounds like the best idea ever - my body is rebelling in so many ways.

So now I have to get back on the wagon in some way that will actually work.  I was running again, prior to freakish back injury - sign #29384 that I need to get healthy, and I'm hoping that taking this week off to let that freakish injury heal will not throw me out of that routine.  But I have this problem - maybe some of you have it too - where when I'm exercising a lot (or more than not at all) I rationalize in my crazy brain that because I'm exercising I can eat anything I want.  Whattt? You'd think that getting moving would make me more conscious of the food going in my pie hole, but oh no, not me.  Run 3 miles, eat 3 cookies.

I do have a few things going for me.  Once I get exercising I really do like it.  The getting going is the hardest.  But I'm not a complete exercise hater.  And I have a treadmill so I have none of those weather excuses.  I also really love to cook.  WEIRD.  The problem is I like to cook things that are full of cheese.  I think the key here is to enjoy cooking whole healthy foods, instead of white flour filled foods.  Curiouser and curiouser.

There are definitely learning changing moments that need to happen though.  Like less quantity.  And these blocks in my brain that cause me to go to crazy crazy extremes (even now there is part of me that's like "lets go to the crazy work out for hours and eat nothing place", that makes me meticulous and nuts)  The problem is that the crazy extremes are tried and true.  They work.  If you exercise a ridiculous amount and only eat salads you lose weight.  But you also lose your mind.  And then you find yourself in the kitchen eating sticks of butter and blocks of cheese out of the fridge.  In my real brain and my real heart I know there is a healthy medium.  A place where one can eat healthy foods and move and stretch their bodies without being crazy.  And yet I still feel like now I'm too far gone, and maybe there is a place for a little crazy?

I don't know.  All I know is that today I'm taking a walk (because that's all my strained intercostal muscles will allow me).  And I'm going to eat a healthy dinner.  Because those are the things that I can control right now.  And I'm going to think about conscious eating and conscious movement and planning.  Planning is really seriously important to crazy control freaks like myself.  Because when your blood sugar is crashing and you're dying to eat and lay on the couch - if you already got rid of all the candy and you have some trail mix in the cabinet the chances of butter eating are much slimmer.

I'm also determined that this moderation can happen on a budget.  Because budgeting is a big part of adult life these days.  With all these future hopes and dreams we can't be spending exorbitant amounts of money on crazy diet foods or crazy health foods - we can't be spending lots of money on any foods (or anything for that matter really)

So here we go again.  Back on the wagon.  Well...after I find the wagon.

Any suggestions internet?  I just want to be healthy and not crazy (or no more crazy than I am now) 

Gimme what ya got...

Besos, Jabba the Hut Sarah