I am definitely NOT tough enough

My husband did this on Saturday while I stayed home and lounged by the pool. Thankfully he came home alive and in one piece, albeit a tad muddy. Perhaps next year I'll take part - in the spectator category that is!

Just keep swimming

I wanted to go swimming today but I waited too long and the pool is now full of yelling, splashing children. Our pool isn't that big to begin with so trying to share it with kids is a bit pointless - especially if I want to do laps. I can always go to the gym and use that pool. At least that one is heated!

A Whole New World

It's safe to start up my blog again because the whole world knows our news. Hubby and I are expecting! What we are expecting, exactly, is still up in the air, but we are going to be parents come November. Given this news, please don't be surprised if this blog aims more towards the "OMG I'm going to be responsible for an entirely new life that isn't an animal, WTF am I going to do" side of things. 

We are 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant today, which equates to 4 1/2 months. We've received our first ultrasound back in April and we're waiting for our second one in a couple of weeks. Thankfully we are having a baby and not an alien, which I was originally concerned about carrying. We are both planners so we have every intention of finding out the sex of the baby. We were told back in April that it's "looking like a girl, but no shopping yet". This is very exciting but also frustrating because I want to shop now already! We'll know for sure in a couple of weeks, though, so that's a relief. Hubby has started transforming our second bedroom into a nursery but needs to be sure of the sex before he can begin painting. I don't feel comfortable registering for things until that vital piece of information is determined as well, so we'll both be relieved come July 3 comes around.

Hubby and I have already been gifted a lot of baby furniture, for which we are grateful. We've received a baby swing from his parents (which my 3 month-old nephew enjoys), and a crib and pack and play from my parents. Our nursery theme is Classic Winnie The Pooh. Our home will be transformed into The Hundred Acre Wood before we know it!

I don't understand those moms who claim that they "absolutely loved" being pregnant. They clearly never had morning sickness, swollen legs and feet or back pain. Their hormones must've always been leveled and their skin clear and shiny. From day one I looked chubby, acne covered and moody. Combine that with my young looks and I could've been a participant on MTV's 16 and Pregnant. My ankles have disappeared and I'm beginning to forget what my feet look like. Bending over in the shower is no longer an option, so I have to sit on the floor to shave my legs. I'm hot all of the time and I'm peeing every hour. Yesterday I caught a movie with a friend and I had to use the restroom four times: twice before the movie, once during and once afterward. Then I believe I had to use it again by the time I got home a half hour later. My bladder was the size of a pea before pregnancy and now it's a pea being pressured by something the size of a melon. How's that for a visual?

To tide you all over until my next entry (most likely filled with more pregnancy ailments), I thought I'd include a picture of our little one. Enjoy!

Goooooooooooooooals!

My two goals for this week is as follows:

1) Get up and out of bed by 6:00 am at least once this week and read for a  ½ hour. I originally thought that I wanted to get up at 6:00 to walk, but since I seem to be allergic to exercise, I figured I should probably start slow and work my way up. Besides, I haven’t read my book in months and I feel that I need to exercise my brain. So I guess I am exercising after all. See, silver lining!

2)  Detox from chocolate. It’s not that I’ve been OD’ing on chocolate recently, but I know I have been going a little overboard when it comes to sweets so I wanted to take a break from the bean for a while. Yesterday was day 1 and so far so good. If you run into me, though, and I seem extremely irritable and sweaty, then you’ll know why.

You know you're getting old when...

you step into Lenscrafters on a whim and walk out with a pair of driving glasses. At least I look good with four eyes :)

Merry Christmas!

'Tis the season and that time of year again - Christmas! Where did the year go? I feel like it was just yesterday when we were battling 100 degree weather in the dead of Summer. Now we're battling 60 degree weather in December. Go ahead, be jealous, I won't gloat.

We put up our tree early this year. Hubby took a few days off around Thanksgiving so he was all gung-ho to start decorating for the holiday. Despite its crookedness, I really like our tree. We have an artificial tree because my dad is a retired firefighter and that's what we've always had. When my sister or I would beg our parents to get a real tree, my dad would lecture us on the dangers of having real trees in the home. Apparently they're high fire risks. It's probably for the best that we have a fake one, though, considering we have two cats and a dog who like to eat foreign objects off of the floor. They also like to chew on things so I wouldn't be surprised if our cats channeled that one cat from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and electrocuted themselves and short circuited the house. They're most definitely cute animals but none of them are going to be inducted into Mensa.

This year Hubby and I will be celebrating with Sister and Brother-In-Law in their new home. My parents will be visiting so it will be a family affair. I've realized that I haven't had a "normal" Christmas in 3 years. By normal I mean waking up Christmas morning at my parents' house and ripping open gifts in our PJ's, followed by a gluttonous Christmas linner (yes, linner) with family and ending the evening by Sister and I making our annual rounds to visit friends. Sadly I haven't been able to institute a new "normal", either, not since Hubby and I have been married. Christmas of 2008 was spent in Vegas with my parents. Neither Hubby nor I wanted to fly because we had done too much traveling for our wedding and honeymoon months before. We spent Christmas vacation 2009 on a cruise to Mexico, again with my family, and last year, Christmas 2010, was spent by ourselves at home. I always said that once we have kids I would like to institute a new tradition by combining a bit of Hubby and my childhood traditions as well as making our own. For instance, I would like to open gifts in the morning, followed by a breakfast of homemade cinnamon buns while watching Christmas themed movies. That's as far as I've gotten with my plan. The rest of the day is up for grabs!

What are your holiday traditions?

I'm a big kid now!

Hubby and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary yesterday. Instead of exchanging gifts between the two of us we decided, moving forward, to rally together and buy gifts that can be enjoyed by the both of us. We’ve been talking about getting a new bedroom set for a while. Our old set consisted of mismatched pieces of furniture including an iron bed frame from Ikea, a bookshelf used as an entertainment center from Target and a set of really old, really ugly nightstands from my grandmother’s menagerie of junk. My sister and brother-in-law recently upgraded their bed to a California King and we decided to follow suit. Not because we’re copy cats, as some people, whose names I will not mention, would like to believe (:::cough cough Sister cough cough:::), but because our bedroom is large enough to fit eight bunk beds, doubly stacked and side by side. That and our 8 year-old Queen sized mattress just wasn’t cutting it anymore. Hubby did some internet searching and came across a link to a hotel surplus warehouse in the San Fernando Valley that is opened to the public. They have both new and used hotel furniture which is fashionable and affordable. We walked out with a 6 piece set for $1300 before taxes. Not too shabby considering a 5 piece set at a retail store could run us anywhere from $1800-$2400. Can you say score? The only downfall about the experience was that we had to do the pick-up and moving of the pieces ourselves. The warehouse doesn’t deliver and the delivery companies that they suggested were all booked so we were stuck with the manual labor. The following day we rented a van and played He-Man and She-Ra for the remainder of the afternoon. Needless to say my upper body got a workout. The pain was well worth it, though, because we finally have “big kid” furniture.

We’ve also been able to get away as part of our anniversary celebration, so that’s great. Two weeks ago we took a weekend trip up North to visit Hearst Castle. It’s this amazing mansion in the Santa Barbara area built by uber rich newspaper and magazine publisher William Randolph Hearst. I don’t recall how many acres or rooms there are in total, but trust me when I say there’s a lot! The grounds are gorgeous, too, and he had two swimming pools, one indoor and the other outdoor. We took the “beginner” tour of only the grand rooms, but there are multiple tours and if we wanted we probably could’ve taken them all in one day. Hubby wanted to take pictures of the gorgeous grounds, though, and I like to roam freely and touch things which you couldn’t do on the tours. That was torture, by the way – not being able to touch stuff inside. Whew! I had to keep my fingers laced together behind my back the entire time. For more information on William Hearst and Hearst Castle, check out these links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst and http://www.hearstcastle.org/tours.

Hearst Castle wasn’t our only trip this month. Tomorrow we leave for a weekend adventure at Big Bear Lake. A friend of ours organized the trip and found a group of cabins that house 15 people and that are pet friendly, so we’ll be bringing Elphie along. This will be our first time traveling with the dog so I’m a little nervous, but luckily she’s older now and used to riding in the car. There will be other dogs there, too, so it’s not like she’s going to be alone. Hell! She’ll probably think the entire weekend is for her! She’s pretty ridiculous like that. I’m looking forward to the time away from the office, with friends, and the ability to sit by the lake and have a glass of wine - or six. Don’t judge. The downfall is that we’ll have to keep Elphie in our room at night. If you haven’t been reading my The Wicked Life of Elphie blog then you wouldn’t know that she’s a snorting, snoring, stinky dog! Maybe we should invest in some nose plugs along with our ear plugs.

In other news, I jumped back on the weight loss bandwagon and joined Weight Watchers for the third time. Maybe, just maybe this time will be the charm and I’ll be able to sustain a healthy weight for the rest of my life, but considering I have yet to bare children, we’ll see how well that goes. The process has been slow moving this time around and so far, within the 5 weeks I’ve been on the program, I’ve lost barely 2.5 lbs. Ok, maybe part of the reason is my fault. Maybe I’m fooling myself into believing that the king sized Snickers bar I had after dinner was really only 2 points, but shouldn’t this be a little bit easier? Shouldn’t my body be stoked to lose the fat that’s mooching off of it like a lazy, unemployed roommate? Am I wrong to believe that my body should do all of the work for me without any pain, sacrifice or suffering? Am I alone here? Anyone? Bueller?

Ok, well, blogging makes my brain hurt so I’m going to peace out. I’ll make sure to have the hubby take plenty of pics of our weekend getaway and I’ll post them in my next entry. When that will be I can’t tell you, but it will eventually happen. Eventually.