It's a new year...

With a ton of new adventures! I've been in full nesting mode and have lots of new things to share but for now I'll leave you with this cookie dough deliciousness. It's been a Martha Stewart sort of day. Cheers!

Before and After: Deck!

You know I love before and after photos...especially from a project that has been on our list for a very long time. T and his friends spent a Saturday a few weeks ago, tearing up the old decking and replacing the cracked wood with shiny new boards. That don't have splinters. And that are not green. It's fabulous.

The before

 And the after..

 They even replaced my bench. I love this bench and all of the seating that it offers. When we bought the house, I had visions of enjoying a cup of coffee outside. Now I actually can. Bliss.

 My very own Ty Pennington! The man who was nervous about operating a power saw is now in the market to buy one. He is deciding what else he can build. I love it and I love him. and I love the deck he built. :)

Back

I've been around but haven't felt like writing. I have had a growing list of things I wanted to write about but just didn't have the motivation. The last few months have been stuffed full of travel, friends, and new experiences but I just haven't felt like sharing. I guess I've become a bit more introspective lately, preferring to process things on my own instead of getting them out here. The downside of that for me is that I can get lost in my own head.

I started this blog for T and I, so we could look back someday on our wild and crazy days and remember everything that had made us who we are. I've definitely dropped the ball on that and I'm going to change that. This blog has been a way to keep in touch with long distance family and friends, and a Doogie Howser style journal for me and I'm bringing it back. I need it.

My first post back will be tomorrow with our new deck! T and I have been branching out a lot in terms of our comfort level with new projects. He is very thoughtful, preferring to plan it out ahead of time and know exactly how it needs to go. I am more adventurous. All I need is a material list and a rough idea and I'm off and running. Together, we make the perfect carpenter. And we're no longer afraid of power tools.

As I type this, there are three men outside, ripping off the old warped boards and trying to figure out how to save my beloved wooden bench. I can't wait to see the finished project. This is a big item that will come off our TO-DO list and I'm thrilled.

Weather Thursday: We went from this...

...to this

...within a few minutes. The strangest part of this storm was watching it roll in while hearing absolutely nothing. It was eerily quiet right before it roared over us like a freight train. The fun part was watching the neighbor's lights flicker a second before our power went out. Luckily we have plenty of candles on hand from the outage last year. :)

My new to-do list

It's been a tough year for me, one full of ups and big downs. In the last few weeks, I've finally been able to shine the light into the deep recesses of the old mind. It turns out that I've packed a lot in there over the last year or so and kept it out of sight so I could pretend that I was feeling fine. But I haven't.

I've made a new list for myself, a To-Do List that is not at all about completing projects. This one is about healing and rediscovering my life.  

Live in the moment not the what if's.

Don't put my life on hold.

Don't be afraid to make plans.

Live healthy.

Clear the mind chatter.

Improve family connections.

Be nice to me.

I've been busy..

...training for my first half marathon! 10 weeks down of training down and only 2 left before the race. Wish me luck!

Our homage

The Great Wall of Fame is done.

 Actually, I lied. It's not completely done. We're waiting on one more photo from Snapfish. Although we do think the orange flowers in the brown frame below go rather nicely with the room.

We are loving the way this basement is turning out..It's clean and simple and calming. And completely us. So much of out 11 years together has been surrounded by sports that these aren't just photos and ticket stubs. They're memories. It's the Clay Buckholz no hitter that we saw in  2007 from the roofdeck of Fenway. The baseball signed by the 1989 Giants that my dad won in a silent auction, and made me the happiest girl in the neighborhood that Christmas morning. The time we stood outside a bar in Manhattan on a frigid January day to see the Giants WS trophy. It's T's favorite Boston Globe cover that he chose from the 6 bags of 2004 newspapers that he kept from that amazing season. And it's the collection of baseball cards from my favorite player of all time that went missing in CA. My dad replaced them this year by scouring the Bay Area sports stores so Will Clark could take his place on the Wall.

I'm back

This year has started out pretty hectic and I love it. It's been 6 weeks of training, family, travels, and friends. T and I jetted off to see my family in CA and we had a blast hanging out with everyone...especially the kiddos. I love this boy.

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 This kiddo has become a toddler since I last saw her. She is sweet and happy and dances with excitement when it's time to go out. Which we did a lot of! The photo below was our visit to the park.

 T and I took our nephew out on the town for a special day'o' fun. We went to the Academy of Sciences in SF and had a blast touching starfish at the tidepool.

 Watching the giant fish swim overhead.

 Watching the sea lions at Pier 39. I'm amazed that he is 7 years old and is becoming a boy right in front of our eyes. He tells time, he reads, he plays games on the computer and he loves to karate chop everything. But he also isn't afraid to cuddle up on the couch and give out butterfly kisses. He and his uncle bonded a lot on this trip. It was a lot of fun to watch them together and I'm even more convinced that T is going to be an amazing father. We can't wait for our next visit in June. :)

 And back on the homestead, we re-homed our spare couch to the basement.

 Half marathon training slowed down after I threw out my back and caught a cold after coming back from CA. Hoping to lace these bad boys up again soon and get back on track.

 We have the final piece of our sports wall of fame! My all time favorite baseball player is Will Clark and I had hoped to find my collection of his baseball cards while we were in CA. They were unfortunately nowehere to be found so my dad went to several card shops and found new cards for me. Here they are framed and ready for a place of honor downstairs.

Looking forward to the weekend!!

We're plotting...

Our spring trips!

        Our sports memorabilia in the basement..

                        

           And this? This is the shadowbox that will hold my finisher's medal and race number after I run my first ever half marathon at the end of March!

It's shaping up to be an exciting few months. 

Hitting the ground running

I started painting the basement back in November and the holidays dragged the project out much longer than we anticipated. After my morning cup of coffee, we trooped downstairs to get going. The agenda on this beautiful January morning (55 degrees!) was to finish patching the holes in the ceiling that the previous owners so thoughtfully left behind for us, paint the ceiling, finish cleaning out the odds and ends and steam clean the suspicious smelling carpet. I hate painting ceilings. Almost as much as I hate drywall. So you can imagine how excited I was to scratch these two items off the To Do List.  :)

 We developed a system to ceiling paint after I threatened to run away during the bedroom ceiling painting event. I was tired, cranky, had a stiff neck from looking up and had paint dripped in my eye a few times. Thanks to the system, nobody has to run away. I use the edger along all of the corners and Tim rolls in the rest. He bought the paint months ago and when we opened is and saw it was bright pink, we did a double take. It's a pretty great invention, it rolls on pink so you can see what you've completed and it dries to a nice bright white.

 We took off the awful, scratched accordian doors that covered the laundry room.

 Tim handled the laundry while I used our little blue beast to clean the carpets. 7 gallons of black water later and we're feeling really good about our progress! Next weekend we'll work on filling up some of that empty wall space. And start the couch hunt. I'm too tired to think about anything else right now. :)

 With our work done downstairs, we headed upstairs to put away the last piece of Christmas. We are counting our blessings in this new year and loved seeing all of our little friends every time we walked by our card display.



Reset

I knew that when the clock struck midnight on December 31st, I would be thrilled. I couldn't wait to get rid of 2011 and all the emotional baggage that came with it. I spent a low key night with a dear friend in New Jersey while T went to bed nice and early (he had to work at 5am the next day)

We had a wonderful dinner, watched movies, laughed and talked about what our hopes and dreams were for 2012. At midnight, we walked down to the shores of the Hudson River with a glass of wine and watched the fireworks over Manhattan. Lost in my own thoughts, I watched each explosion and marveled at the year that seemed like it would never end. And yet, here I was. I made it. As the sparks from the last firework rained down over Central Park, I felt relief. Relief that 2011 is over and I made it through in one piece. As awful as the events of last year were, I know that they have made me a stonger person. They have made T and I a stronger team. We made it through together and I am so grateful that he is my partner in life.

There is something so hopeful about a new year. Like a big reset button, we have the chance to start over. We don't start completely over however, we pack up the lessons we've learned and bring them with us. We bring our joys and sorrows and loves and these things help us as we write the next chapter of our lives, colored by what we've learned. So thank you 2011, for teaching me to trust in a plan that I don't understand. To tell my people how much I love and appreciate them. To lean on my husband and let him kiss away my tears. And for my angel baby, who I'm certain is being well taken care by my father in law, my beloved Barbie and my grandmother.

I can't wait to see what 2012 holds for us.

Bittersweet

“How very quietly you tiptoed into our world, silently, only a moment you stayed. But what an imprint your footprints have left upon our hearts.’” -Unknown

The elves have been busy

The CD player has some new material..
My Martha Stewart craft from last year is finally being used...



Our ornament from 2011...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas..

Introducing Bob. T picked him out and he smells delicious.

A very Christmas filled weekend awaits!

Reflecting

We've been so busy that the holidays have completely snuck up on me. I can't believe that Thanksgiving is already next week! We have so much to be grateful for. For me, this year is not about decorations or turkeys, it's about love. About family. Friends.

This time of year always has me reflecting on the past year and this one has been a doozy. Around March, I didn't know how I would get by. I was lost and it was simply about putting one foot in front of the other. And I did that for a long time. But somewhere along that path, it became about living again, not simply surviving. T and I burned the candle at both ends this fall. We traveled, we ate, we spent time with friends. We split the Newburyport Half Marathon. Ate and drank our way through the NYC Food and Wine Festival Closing Party. Went back to Chicago. I spent a wonderfully healing weekend with a dear friend in NYC. Cuddled with my nephew and my new niece in CA. Spent a day at the Hall of Fame. In short, we lived.

When I look back at 2011, I'm not going to remember the bad times. They exist for me now only to remind me of how lucky I am. Our family and friends are the story of this year. I've always been aware of how wonderful my family is but it holds a whole different meaning to me now. I am completely overwhelmed with the love and support that we have received this year. I have never been more aware of how much love exists in our little world and how many amazing people we are blessed with. My heart is full this year and at Thanksgiving, I will be giving thanks for healthy parents, children who grow like weeds, friends who are always there to listen and tell you to buy those boots because you deserve them. :)

My heart is full.

Brooklyn Pour

Oh, did we have fun at The Brooklyn Pour yesterday. 55 breweries, 3 hours and over 100 types of beers. This is the official photobooth picture, taken on our way out the door. Photo by Victor Castro of It's Wet Paint. We mapped out our plan of attack...this included getting off at the wrong subway stop and not arriving until 3:45. This worked out great because we missed the mobscene at the entrance and were well behind the crowds. No lines at the tables for us!


The Pour took place a Skylight One Hanson, an amazingly beautiful event space.

T made some new friends at the Narragansett table. The guys grew up in the next town over from T and they had a great time chatting.

This was a great event and we have the hangovers today to show for it. We normally don't get out to Brooklyn so this was a great excuse to leave the island and sample a lot of fabulous beers on a lovely Saturday in October.

No news is good news.

Great news actually. T and I really threw ourselves into the plan of living our life and living it well. This has been my longest blog drought yet, but I have lots of stories and photos stored up of the last seven or so weeks. I was acutely dreading the month of September and the "shoulds and coulds" it would bring with it. My original due date was the 18th and I was hoping to pack our schedules so fully that it wouldn't hit me so hard. And it worked. My head is clear, my life is full of promise again and I have lots of fun experiences to share.

I'm back.

I had another miscarriage.

We didn't just deal with an earthquake and a hurricane last week. We got bad pregnancy news for the second time this year. I posted a few weeks ago about being so sure I was pregnant and devastated when my cycle carried on like normal. As it turns out, I was pregnant. And what I thought was my normal cycle, was my second miscarriage.

I found this out last week after the blood tests confirmed that my beta levels were falling. This was a tough pill to swallow. On one hand, this miscarriage was easier to deal with because I only knew about it for five days. And I found out midcycle, which meant that it was already over by the time I got my positive test. It just took my body some time to catch up. But the other side is that this is my second one. One could have been a fluke, but two? Two is hard. Two could signal that there is something wrong. Two could mean that we may not be able to have the family that we want.

T and I talked a lot in the last few days about our next step and what we want. What I want and what I need right now is to step back. I am exhausted from trying to have a baby. I'm tired of my emotions being haywire and I'm tired of living and dying by the calendar. I'm just exhausted.

We decided to take the rest of the year off and focus on living our life. I feel like I've lost my old self this year and I miss her. She was fun and happy. She loved to laugh and spend time with friends. I want her back. This somber imposter who has moved in has got to go. I can't live under this cloud of stress and garbage anymore. I feel overwhelmingly relieved right now and hopeful for the first real time in a long time.

My mission for the rest of this year is to find my mojo. We are planning trips and home improvement projects and are looking forward to them. I am signing up for a photography class. I'm going to run that 10k in October. I will find my passion again and be the wife and partner that T deserves.

And we'll see what life brings us.

Our very small aftermath

We flooded. T came home from work on Sunday to our own not so little lake. He called from the other side, trapped by a body of water that flooded two basements and caused the neighbors to gather. Soon a folding table appeared and was covered with booze. More neighbors ventured out of their houses to see this craziness. And when someone ran out of beer, three people hopped into an inflatable boat and paddled for the store. T waited with some other stranded folks for someone with a boat so he could cross the divide. He finally got tired of waiting and drove two streets away, parked the car and set off on foot. He walked through the woods, hopped a fence and cut through backyards of people we don't know to get to the top of the hill where our house is.
We were very lucky in this storm. Other local counties are still without power. We only lost power for an hour or so on Sunday and the only lasting effect by Monday were the hangovers we all had.
I am feeling very lucky today. Last week was a bad one and I was looking forward to wallowing in my own self pity. Thankfully, S came to stay with us and she is an amazing friend. She rescued me from all of that ickiness and I put her on the train last night, feeling more like my old self that I have in months. Thank you S for spending the hurricane with us and saving me from myself.
XOXO

Irene

Complete with our favorite NJ storm refugee, we are preparing for oodles of rain and wind. It's my first hurricane. S and I headed out to Target for some last minute supplies. We're prepared with wine, beer, and our favorite cupcakes.

Hard days

It was a great weekend with my two BFF's. We were together back in NYC for the first time in over two years and I had been having really good feelings about our chances of getting the positive pregnancy test we've been waiting for. Until I woke up Sunday morning with the sinking realization that it wasn't happening this month. I threw up my hands, told myself "next month" and went out with the girls to visit a friend. A friend who told us she was six weeks pregnant. I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I actually had a moment where I couldn't breathe and tried desperately not to let the tears fall while everyone congratulated and hugged her. I managed to do the same but I was suddenly exhausted.

We tried for five months before I got pregnant. It's now been five months since we lost the bean and I'm approaching my original due date. I didn't think that would affect me so much, but it suddenly hit me that I should be getting close to going out on maternity leave. We should have had a shower and decided on a name and had the nursery ready. I should be getting ready to meet our little one and instead I'm sitting on my couch alone trying to figure out how I'm going to get through the month of September. I was so sure that I'd be pregnant again as soon as we were ready and I consoled myself that I would definitely would be pregnant by the time September 18th rolled around. I'm mad that I'm letting myself sink back down into the muck but I'm having a really hard time trying to pull myself back up. I've been treading water these last few months but my legs are tired and I'm tired. Tired of being sad, tired of the tears, tired of the what if's and the should haves. I'm tired of being angry and tired of wondering what the hell the plan is for me.

Why is this so hard?