2010 ends ... 2011 begins

lets recap the major "milestones" of my 2010 first:

• saige started kindergarten
• saige started to wear glasses
•  took my first trip to disney world (and first trip on an airplane for that matter) for saige's 5th birthday in august (are you seeing a pattern here? haha)
• major shift in things at work
• drifted apart from a few friends, formed new friendships with people i unexpectedly call close friends now

It was a pretty decent year honestly.  There's definitely some things I would change or do over, but when do  you ever not feel that way about something that happened within an entire year?  I'm hoping for a better 2011.  I don't necessarily mean better.  Perhaps hoping for a "different" 2011 is a better choice of words.  I want to better myself this year.  I WILL lose weight, I will NOT be this heavy at the end of 2011 ... or ever again.  I WILL find a new profession.  I want something I can call a career.  Something I can actually make a life for myself with.  Something that allows me to provide for myself and my child without assistance from others.  It's my fault that I've lived this way for this long, but this year will be different.  2011 is going to be used to better my life, thats my resolution.  I'm sure there's a whole long list of things I could write about that I want to change, but I'd rather leave it at bettering myself.  Things seem a lot more reachable that way.  I hope everyone had a safe new years eve, and that everyone has a fantastic new year!  

totally random post...

I look forward to these "chart topper" remixes every year this time of year haha.  I enjoy this one a lot this year, so I thought I'd share.  enjoy :)

on a serious note...

I had my first run in with "bullying" today with Saige.  She wasn't the bullier or the one being bullied, but she was a bystander who did nothing.  With all of the crazy suicides and things happening with bullying lately that you see on the news, this was kind of a big deal for me.

When we were driving home tonight she said that a girl threatened to beat her up.  I immediately was concerned, obviously.  I asked why and she said that the little girl who threatened her was being picked on by another girl (who i personally know from working at the daycare and don't particularly care for this little girl to begin with) and that the girl who was being picked on thought saige was involved and retaliated by threatening her.  Oh course saige swears she wasn't involved, and said that i can ask her teacher tomorrow (which i'm going to do, and she knows darn right well i'm going to so i'm sure she's not lying ...usually when i use that threat she fesses up the truth ha).  I explained to her though that by standing there and not helping the little girl who was getting picked on (not by directly involving herself physically, but even by just telling a teacher) that she in turn was hurting the little girl as well.  i also explained to her that if i find out she's ever involved in picking on a child that she'll have severe consequences that she's never even experienced yet in life.  This is a situation that i will not tolerate now, or ever.

I'm always concerned that Saige is going to get picked on, especially now that she has her glasses, because I'm her mother and all mothers worry about that kind of stuff i'm sure.  However, a thought crossed my mind when i was dealing with all of this tonight.  Why do we never worry that are kids are going to be the BULLY instead of worrying that they're going to be picked on?  After today, I now kind of question this myself, but i hope that I handled the situation well enough that she won't turn into that kind of mean girl we all dreaded in school.  Saige is a sweet girl and generally enjoys helping her friends so I'm sure she'll be a good girl (i'm her mom, i'm allowed to think positively haha).  Why is this an issue in kindergarten?!  When did kids get so mean?  Why do we allow are kids to act this way?  I don't believe that kids are naturally mean spirited, it's obviously learned behavior.  Is it tv?  bad parenting?  lack of rules?  what causes this?  All i know is that it is an issue I will be consistently re-visiting with her to continue to instill in her the proper ways to treat someone, because i'll be darned if i'm going to raise a bully, or an enabler for that matter.  I'll be speaking to her teachers tomorrow, and hopefully together this can be handled properly.  While saige wasn't directly involved in the situation, I feel that it's an issue that needs to be addressed to the entire student class.  perhaps i'm over-reacting, but this kind of stuff just cannot go on, especially when they're 5 years old.  what a crazy world we live in.

bats & other updates

So I once again have slacked on updating this, big surprise right?  yeah i know.  i'd say i've been busy, but, I really haven't.  Oh well, here's my attempt at an update!

So about a week ago we had an interesting thing happen.  We had a bat in our house.  Yes you read correctly, a bat in the middle of december.  The story that goes along with it is even more bizarre then that!  Around 6:30 at night I went into the powder room to go to the bathroom.  As I was sitting there in the bathroom, I looked at my foot and saw this black furry thing.  Nsow, our neighbor just moved so we've been getting the occasional mouse in the house as she's disturbing her things (we live in a twin house).  The bottom of this "mouse" looked flat and wet and wasn't moving, so I assumed that my cat had gotten a hold of it and chewed on it and left it for dead, as he always does.  I turned away and finished my business and got up and walked out of the bathroom.  When I went out into the dining room I told my mom there was a dead mouse on the floor.  We argued about who was going to pick it up.  As i stood there arguing the "mouse" slowly turned it's head back towards us.  I freaked out and started yelling "it's not dead!!!!!!" and we pulled the door shut and argued about how we were going to get it out.  After a few minutes we decided on a course of action and opened the door to get it.  Much to my surprise, the undead "mouse" was nowhere to be found.  We looked around the room and didn't see it anywhere, so we set a mouse trap with some cheese in it behind the toilet and called it a day.  I went off to do some christmas shopping and no one heard or saw the thing.  Fast forward to about 11:00 that same night.  My sister starts screaming from her bedroom in the basement that there's a bat in her room.  She saw it creepily crawl across the floor and go under the baseboard heater.  have you ever seen a bat crawl?  it's gross.  Anyway, I was still saying that it wasn't a bat, that it was a mouse.  Well, after a lot of googling i determined that she was right, it was a bat.  What was worse was that since it was crawling across the ground instead of flying, all signs pointed to it being sick/rabid.  Great news right?  So after an hour of the thing not being found anywhere my sister turns her light off to get ready for bed.  When she does that she starts screaming because it came out and tried to fly, but it failed.  I went downstairs to help her get it, but the thing was wedged under the heater.  My sister looked at me and said "maybe you should call dad" and I just hung my head.  I knew he wasn't going to be thrilled because this is the third time in my life I've had to call him to come get a bat out of my house.  The first time involved me calling him collect from a pay phone because I left my cell in the house, but thats a whole other story haha.  Anyway, I called my dad and he was like "you've gotta be f&^^%& kidding me! how many times in your life do you think you plan on calling me for this reason!" haha.  He comes over and after 20 minutes, and him being macgyver, he caught the bat using only a plastic cup, a piece of cardboard, and a broom handle.  On his way outside with it he told me the thing was probably going to die because of how cold it was out.  I said "awww should i put a blanket out there for it?" and he response was "why are you so stupid?" LOL.  he threw it outside and that was the last we saw of the bat, but what a crazy story right?  It sounds better/funnier when you actually HEAR the story but you get the idea.  I just keep thinking about being in the bathroom with that thing.  what the heck would I have done if that thing came at me while I was sitting on the toilet?! I don't even know! haha, bats are attracted to me for some reason.  My sister finds the mice, and I always get the bats.  I think I'd prefer mice, but I guess I don't get to choose haha.  Oh well, hopefully thats the last one i see for a very long time.  Gross things.

it's always something...

Last week at saige's yearly physical, the doctor determined that Saige's vision was 20/40.  Now, I had definitely never noticed her having any problem seeing, but they requested that I take her to an eye doctor so I made an appointment.  Today was that appointment.  Much to my surprise, the doctor determined that has an astigmatism in each of her eyes causing her not to be able to see better then 20/40 regardless of what lense he put in front of her eye.  He said this has most likely been a condition she's had since birth and that she hasn't complained about it because she had no idea she was supposed to be able to see better then she does.  I feel AWFUL that I wasn't aware she was having a problem.  I feel a little comforted in the fact that she is excelling in school regardless of her vision problem, and that none of her teachers have noticed her struggling because of it either.  How did i miss that though?  Geez.  Anyway, needless to say she needs glasses.  She picked out a cute little pink pair and she'll have them within the week.  The doctor wants to see her every 4 weeks for the next 6 months to keep tabs on her progress and adjust her lenses accordingly.  He feels that with aggressive treatment, such as what we're doing, that he hopes to have it cleared up within the year.  I felt confident in his decision and diagnosis because he told me that his daughter had the same exact problem when she was Saige's age and he got it to clear up for her.  We'll see.  I'm nervous for her though.  I'm nervous because he said kids have a hard time keeping the glasses on for the first few weeks because they see so differently and they don't like it.  I'm also afraid she's going to get made fun of (i know, glasses are no big deal these days, but kindergardners are pretty mean these days).  We'll see how it goes, I'm hoping she surprises me and it's just fine the day she comes in, but something is telling me to feel otherwise.  Oh well, only time will tell.

it's christmas time again...

As christmas rapidy approaches, I'm spending a lot of time going over my shopping list.  I still need to do SO MUCH shopping.  Well, I'm sure I'm just overreacting, I know I have more then I seem to let myself believe.  Of course my biggest shopping challenge is making sure Saige gets the things that I know she REALLY wants, as opposed to things she sees on TV commercials and immediately wants to add them to the already long Christmas list.  I know she could never be disappointed on Christmas morning no matter what I buy her, she's definitely not one of those kids who cries over what she doesn't get, but I want to make sure she really has a great morning.  She's not going to be this little forever, right?  That being said, her "big ticket items" this year are a leapster explorer (which I already purchased before thanksgiving because I knew it was going to sell out quickly after black friday), new sketchers, a bike (which my dad bought for her) and a barbie glitterizer play set.  She also wants a lot of other little things like barbies, clothes, and other girly stuff.

I'm finding it hard to tell my parents what to get me this year.  Is 28 too old to be making a christmas list? :)  I always ask for DVDs and then never watch them.  I want to ask for something that I know for sure i'll get a lot of use out of ... but have no idea what that is.  Oh well.

Decorating is going slow as well.  Trish was kind enough to help me slap together the tree as quickly as we could the other weekend so that we could have Saige's Christmas picture photo shoot in front of it, but I haven't finished it yet.  The living room looks like a bomb went off because there are lights and things everywhere.  I need to finish that soon.

So, all of that being said, what are YOU asking for this holiday season?  What are your family/children asking for?  How are you celebrating?  How are you decorating?   Do share, I'd love to hear! :)

birthday weekend...

I have to say, my birthday really was fantastic this year! Everyone was great, and I had an awesome time. I also have to say that this was the busiest weekend I've had in a long time haha. I'm exhausted! I can't wait to go to sleep tonight! :) so here's a recap:

my actual birthday was thursday (nov 18th). it just so happened that day at work was our thanksgiving feast, so I stuffed my face with turkey and stuffing and green bean casserole (yum!). my co-worker also was nice and made me a cake, which was delicious. i had a few parents/children give me birthday cards, which was very sweet. Also a few work friends gave me cards/gifts. It was a nice day. Thursday night I went to dinner at the Olive Garden with my mom, sister, sister's boyfriend, Saige, and Hinkle. Also delicious. After dinner I went home and my mom/sister gave me my gift ...love them!!

after that I went to Harry Potter at midnight with Trish, Angel, and Rob.  Angel left halfway through because she was tired haha, but the rest of us made it through.  It was a good movie, missing a few things from the book that I thought should be in there, but otherwise good.  By the time I got home and settled and relaxed I finally fell asleep around 4 am ... and was back up by 5:45 to get ready for work haha.  

Friday I worked until 4 and then I went out for dinner and drinks with one of the parents of a little girl from work.  We always talked about hanging out but never got around to doing it, so it was nice that we could.  We went to Iron Hill for dinner and drinks (more then a few drinks, that is hah) and just talked and laughed and had a really awesome time.  Around 11:30 we left Iron Hill and went to the grid iron for a few hours to meet up with Hinkle and his friend.  Went home around 3ish, fell asleep around 3:30, was up by 7 with saige on saturday.

Saturday i dropped Saige off at her grandparents house around 10:30 (she had an early date with seeing santa) and then I came home and took a much needed 2 hour nap.  After some technical difficulties, we ended up at the Fox & Hound in King of Prussia around 7:30.  My friend had been there for an hour and told us we had an hour wait.  Well, by 8:30 we still had no table, the hostess was crazy rude, and my friend asked for a manager and reamed him out.  Hinkle also sat down with two men who decided to steal a table that was supposed to be for us and got them to move haha.  It was an interesting night, but ended on a good note after a rough start haha.  After dinner some of us went back to hinkle's house and played games and hung out.  Those of us that stayed at his house called it a night at 3:30. 

Today I was up at 9:30, went to breakfast at irish joe's with hinkle, cait, and dan, and then hung around until I came home.  and then I came home and did nothing haha.  I've got zero energy.  I did buy saige her first christmas present for the year (leapster explorer, wanted to get it before black friday came around and they all sold out forever).  now i'm just counting down til bedtime.  OH, and saige lost her first tooth today! so the tooth fairy has to come visit tonight.  

All in all I had a great birthday, I got some amazing gifts from some awesome and generous friends and I couldn't ask for better friends, thanks for everything guys!  I'll post pictures of the gifts I got, because I think it's more fun that way :)

I can't find the right color pic but mine is black and white 

shutterfly holiday cards...

It's christmas time again ... and I don't know about you guys, but I really stress myself out over the perfect christmas card to send out. last year i sent out my first "real" grown up christmas card. I had my friend take some awesome pictures of myself and my daughter, as I had decided to make a photo card. I didn't know much about making these cards, and I had a friend that made some of her holiday cards through walmart, so I ordered mine through there as well. I thought the cards came out OKAY, but not great. They served their purpose, but I definitely felt like they could be better. I'm not sure why I dwell so much over the RIGHT card, but I always do. So I began my search for this years card because my same fantastic friend is going to take pictures soon for me for this years card. My mom swears by shutterfly and is always ordering things off of there, so I decided to check it out. I'm happy to say that this is DEFINITELY where I'm buying my cards this year! They have SO MANY that i just love! I'm not sure how I'm possibly going to decide on just one to make, but I'm very excited to have a lot of good options, instead of just settling for a mediocre card. My favorite kind of card is something colorful and cheery. I try to find something that doesn't speak to one religion, but to everyone. I like a nice, well thought out quote that is meaningful. The color scheme should go with the picture. I like it all to blend together in a nice little package. Here's a few that I really love:

first card this one is very simple, but I think it's very pretty. I think with a great picture, this could definitely be a really nice card.

second card this is ADORABLE. i think it would be great with a fun picture of my daughter on it, it's just cheerful and looks very sweet.

third card this one might be my favorite. I think it's sophisticated and pretty, and I like that it has room for you two write a few lines. i also love the colors, this might be the winner.

Well, thats my thoughts on holiday cards this year, what are your thoughts? if you're interested in getting cards, you might be interested in this great promotion from shutterfly. free cards, whats better then that?! check it out! :) Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… learn more: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Funny story ... my eye was really hurting and I told saige and she looks at me very seriously and says "hmm ... i think you have a fish in your eye." what! the mind of a 5 year old haha.

this weekend i'm just relaxing, which is nice as always. i had bronchitis last week so i'm still recovering but doing much better then I was tuesday and wednesday. saige is home with me too this weekend, so thats always nice. we're just laying around watching harry potter movies. earlier we had lunch with an old high school friend.

next week i turn 28, on thursday to be exact. i have mixed feelings about it, but there's not really much you can do about aging right? haha. we're having our thanksgiving feast at work that day, so thats nice. that night we're going to the midnight opening of the new harry potter movie, so i'm definitely excited for that.

christmas is coming up, i bought my first present last week and it got delivered during the week. i'm getting anxiety over christmas this year, i'm not really sure why.

I wanted to post another recipe while I was thinking about it. I made these banana muffins last night, because I had some over riped bananas sitting around and needed something to do with them. I found this online at www.catcancook.com and then came out DELICIOUS. let me know if anyone tries them!



Banana Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

3 or 4 Large bananas, mashed (the more bananas the moister, so I use 4)

1/2 cup white sugar (original recipe calls for 1 cup, but I don’t like them too sweet)

1 slightly beaten egg

1/3 cup melted margarine or butter

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups flour

Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg and margarine together. Set aside. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together! Pour into greased muffin tins, and bake in 350 degrees F oven for approximately 20 minutes. Enjoy!

*These are much more flavourful the next day, and they freeze very nicely too!

i'm going to start posting more. so, i've decided i'm going to start posting recipes that I really enjoy making, as well as eating, just so I have something to post about! :)

I'll start out with one of my favorite things to cook ... five cheese ziti al forno. now, this is an olive garden recipe, and it's DELICIOUS, and it's easy to make which is always a plus. it's always a big hit whenever i make it!

Ziti Al Forno

Ziti Sauce:

4 cups tomato sauce
2 cups alfredo sauce
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
3 tablespoons fontina cheese
1 teaspoon garlic pepper seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Ziti Topping:

3 cups mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup italian breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons grated romano cheese
3 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon freshly chopped garlic
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons chopped parsley

Remaining Ingredients:

1 lb dry ziti pasta
1 cup mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. PREPARE THE ZITI SAUCE:.
2. Combining all ingredients for the Ziti Sauce in a large bowl; cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
3. PREPARE THE ZITI TOPPING:.
4. In a medium-size bowl, whisk together the first four ingredients for the Ziti Topping.
5. Add the garlic, oil, and parsley and mix until thoroughly blended. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.
6 WHEN READY TO PREPARE THE WHOLE DISH:.
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a 13-by-9-inch baking dish or large casserole with non-stick spray.
8. Prepare the pasta according to package directions.
9. Pour 1/2 cup of prepared ziti sauce into the prepared dish, and spread it evenly over the bottom using a spoon.
10. When pasta has finished cooking, drain the water and pour the hot pasta into the bowl of remaining sauce. Mix thoroughly; pour into the baking dish.
11. Spread 1 cup of shredded mozzarella over the pasta and sauce mixture.
12. Top the mozzarella with the prepared Ziti Topping, spreading evenly.
13. Place pan on center oven rack and bake until top is golden brown and cheese is bubbling, about 30 to 40 minutes.
14. Remove and serve immediately.


I promise this won't disappoint! enjoy!

update about a lot of nothing...

so I logged onto blogger and realized it says my last post was September 26. Given the fact that it's the middle of October, I figured it was time I update, even if I don't feel like I have too much to update about.

I'll recap the weekend first. Friday I worked til about 4:30 and then went grocery shopping with Saige and Trish for our dinner we were having at hinkle's house. The dinner turned out delicious and it was nice to spend time with good friends, especially Trish since I don't see nearly enough of her these days. Around 8 we all parted ways and I went home to put Saige to bed and catch up on some TV. Saturday Saige had a tball game at 10:15 (in the crazy wind, ugh, talk about cold) and then we went to kmart (where we ran into jamie, kenzie, and autumn). After kmart we headed up to the Charlestown Sale for a little bit. I need to go back there at some point this week, shopping with Saige at a flea market type thing is never an easy task. After the sale we went home. Saige's uncle unexpectedly called me and asked if they could have her for the night so she could play with her cousin, so he picked her up around 6:30. Stacie visited for a little bit and then headed off to a beef and beer. I didn't feel like doing much so I literally layed around in bed all night, which was nice. Around 1:30 I got a phonecall begging for frozen pizza so I dealt with that (ha) and then came back and fell back asleep around 3:30. Today (sunday) I woke up around 10, went to get breakfast with hinkle at mcdonalds and then came back to my house to eat. He left, I himmed and hawwed over my fantasy team for a while and just kind of sat around the rest of the day. Pat stopped over and now saige and I are just relaxing. Back to work in the morning ... yay.

This is probably my 100th post about this but tomorrow i'm getting back on the weight wagon, AGAIN. Did you ever feel like your life is just kind of out of control and you need to grasp a part of it? Well, thats kind of how I feel, so this is my way of gaining control of something. keep your fingers crossed that I actually stick with it this time.

My car is getting inspected and fixed thursday, so I'm having a mini panic attack over that because I dont have a lot of money for costly repairs and that car is falling apart. I wish I wasn't so poor, ha. Keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't turn out as awful as I think it will please, ha.

Well, thats enough for now I guess. Hope everyone had a nice weekend!

insert title here

I've opened this a hundred times since my last post, but I've closed it each time not knowing what to say. I hate when i get "blocked" like this. However, I've been nudged to blog so I'm going to do it :)

Where to start ... lets see. It's now Sunday night at 10:30 and I just ate my first "meal" since friday evening. When I say meal, i really just mean I had a cheese stick and some pretzels. What a weekend it's been. Friday night I went out to dinner at Lonestar with Stacie and Saige (as a belated birthday present for Stacie's birthday, which was Monday). After dinner all was well until around 11:00. I was laying in bed reading a book and my stomach started feeling very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable quickly changed to crampy, which quickly changed to feeling beyond sick. I spent the next 10 hours in the bathroom getting sick. When i say sick, I mean I just couldn't stop. It got so bad that I was dry heaving because I had nothing left to throw up but my body still felt like it needed to take that action. It was a terrible night. I was chalking it up to being sick from the steak I ate at dinner, but then a parent from work commented on my facebook telling me that her daughter started throwing up around 9:00 that same night. That same little girl insisted on giving me "goodbye kisses" before i left work that night (she's 2, love her), so thats obviously where it came from, because her mom ended up with the same thing the next day. Apparently Stacie ended up sick at 5:30 am saturday with the same thing, so we're figuring she got it from the little girl she carries around a lot at work who had it on thursday, because her father is sick today (co-worker). I felt a little better knowing it wasn't food poisoning of ecoli, but I was just praying for it to be over. I finally stopped getting sick around 9 am, but I was freaking out because saige had to be at tball by 9:45. Normally I would have just had her skip it, but of course it had to be picture day AND I was snack mom, so there was no way i couldn't go. I was practically in tears trying to figure out how I was going to make it through the next hour and a half outside, when my mother saved the day by telling me she'd heard me up during the night and had cancelled her plans to take saige to t-ball for me. Talk about a life saver. After tball was over my mom drove her to her other grandparents house for the night, who thankfully were already planning on taking her for the night, so I just laid in bed for the next 10 hours. After I stopped getting sick, the tail end of the bug kicked in which apparently is awful body aches and a fever. So i dealt with that until around 9:00 that night and I finally felt better. Around 7 I had attempted my first "food" of the day, which was a handful of dry plain cheerios. Those stayed down but didn't feel that great so I didn't push it any further with more food. Around 10 I decided since i felt better that I needed to get out of the house and get some air, so I met hinkle at the sly fox. Probably not my best idea, but it was alright. I sat there less then 2 hours, sipping on water (because I couldn't even handle my diet coke that I usually drink 10 of while i'm there) and then called it a night.

Thankfully today, sunday, I woke up feeling much better. I took it pretty easy for the first half of today. I finished my book ("safe haven" by nicholas sparks, good book) and watched some jersey shore reruns (grenade grundle chodes, bahahah, it just never gets old) and then I did some shopping (kmart and the dollar store) and came back to tackle this DISASTER of a bedroom. When I say disaster, I don't necessarily mean there's trash everywhere and stuff, it's just clothes clothes and more CLOTHES. and most of them are saige's, so thats even more frustrating haha. I decided last week that I'm having a yard sale this coming saturday so I started sorting and pricing everything. It doesn't look like I did much, but I really did accomplish a lot for once. In between all of that, Saige and I did her homework project (she had to make a number book, she used an ocean theme, it was cute) and then she watched the new tinkerbell movie.

Saige herself had a good weekend. She went to the grandparents house and then her father actually decided to spend the day/night with her. They went to a fall festival at her grandmother's school and then they cooked out for dinner and then saige, her cousin, and her father "camped" out in a tent in the backyard for the night. He said her cousin went inside around midnight because she woke up and wanted to go inside, and then Saige made it until 2:30 until she decided she was over it and woke up and wanted a real bed haha. Today they went to one of those home depot kid workshops where she build a wooden sailboat and got a cute apron and stuff. She came home around 5. I'm glad she had a good weekend, she definitely deserves it after last weekend. I'd like to think that he'll keep this up, but I'm not holding my breath. I guess we'll see what happens.

Well, this blog got crazy long! it's almost 11:00 so I should probably get ready for bed. Get to start another wonderful week at work tomorrow morning. keep your fingers crossed that the stomach bug doesn't come back and hit me a second time, it's flying around work (obviously) and I know a little girl who's had it twice in the past 3 days so apparently you can get it again. UGH, awful.

i don't even know ...

the last time saige saw her father was september 4th. he's never really been all that interested in her, and his parents have been more steady in her life then he ever has been. this past weekend everything came to a head. saturday afternoon around 3 he talked to saige on the phone and told her he was going to come get her in a while. well, he never showed up, so i was left with a crying heartbroken 5 year old. when i called him he never answered the phone. i finally called his mother to see if she'd heard anything and she hadn't talked to him all day, so he obviously never had any intentions of coming to begin with. now, he's done this before ... he's told me he's taking her or coming for her and never showed up, but he's never told HER. i've always been smart enough to not tell her he's coming until he's actually standing at the door because i never know for sure when he's actually going to come through and show up. the fact that he had the nerve to tell her he was coming and get her all excited and then just not show up or even call .. well thats not ok. i finally left a voicemail the other night telling him exactly what kind of parent i think he is ... which, i guess wasn't mature or the right thing to do but what can i say, i'm only human and i was really upset. now today is wednesday and he still hasn't called me or answered the phone when i've called. what am i supposed to do with this? i can't put saige through that anymore .. it's really not fair to her. the only thing i think i can do at this point is just ...stop calling him. if he doesn't want to be involved he doesn't have to be. i gave him that option from the second i found out i was pregnant with her, but he swore he wanted to be involved. yeah, that worked out well. i feel bad that i've given saige one of these fathers who has better things to do then spend time with their child. i think if i haven't heard from him by this weekend that i'm going to go talk to his parents about it all. i'd never cut them off from seeing her, she loves them too much and they've always been great with her ... but him ... i don't think he'll care much anyway. such a depressing situation.

what to do ...

...when you feel like your job is just going nowhere or going more downhill each day? what a slump. i wish i could find something else. i've been looking, but so far nothing's jumped out at me as something i should be doing. i wish i'd finished college, but i'll get there eventually. one thing at a time i suppose. my friends say i should write a book ... maybe i should haha. i don't really know what i'd write about, but it's fun to dream right? while we're already dreaming, lets dream about winning millions of dollars in the lottery ..that would be ideal right now. i hate stress.

miserable...

I've been feeling not so hot off and on throughout the past weekend. Nothing major, a little nauseous here and there so I took it kind of easy this weekend (not that I really do much anyway, ha). saturday i dropped saige off at her grandparents house, then went school shopping for her. had lunch with both of my parents (which was weird because we haven't done that in, oh, 11 years, since they've been separated since 1999) then came home and laid around. I went over to hinkle's house around 6, sat on the couch and passed out til about 7, took him to the fox then went back to my house and laid around some more. I picked him up around 10:30, dropped him at his house and went back to bed at my house. Still didn't feel that great but eventually fell asleep. Sunday i woke up feeling ok. I went to breakfast with jessica at irish joe's downtown and then we went to see Vampires Suck. Really enjoyed the movie, as a twilight diehard it was funny to see them making fun of it haha. After that I came home to a surprise visit from the comcast guy who was apparently scheduled to put in a house line that I had no idea about. At least he was pleasant and attractive to look at haha. After that Saige came home and we sat around for a few hours until we went to king of prussia to meet up with bryan and his mom at friday's for dinner. had a nice time there, it's always nice to see him, and I haven't seen his mom in a few years so that was nice. Came home, got saige to bed, watched true blood, got aggravated with a few things and went to bed. At bedtime my stomach was feeling a little weird again, but nothing major. 4:00 this morning I sit straight up out of a sound sleep and run to the bathroom. my stomach was hurting SO bad, and it's been a consistent hurt/cramp/sick feeling ever since. I guess whatever this bug was finally decided to totally show itself. So now i'm laying in bed praying it goes away soon because I HATE when my stomach hurts. Saige insisted on going to school because I'm way boring to stay home with I guess, so at least she's enjoying herself. I'd rather her not get this anyway so she's probably better off there for the day. Of course it's beautiful outside today too. what a waste of a nice monday.

saige through the years...

so as I've mentioned before, a ton of times, I can't wrap my head around the fact that Saige is now 5 years old and starting kindergarten in a week. I thought it would be fun to post a picture of saige for each year, including birth, and see how she changed .... so, thats what i'm going to do!

8-8-05 right after she was born


1st birthday


2


3


4


and finally, 5


time sure does fly ♥

a little bit of this and that ...

I don't really have much of substance to write about, I just really felt like writing a little bit, so bare with me here.

Is it friday yet? Geez what a week. Settling back into the usual routine back at home after vacation has proved to be harder then expected. Even Saige is having a hard time adjusting to being home, which is rare for her to have a hard time adjusting to anything at all. Work is crazy, but that's an every day thing. I keep thinking maybe it will become a little less stressful, even just for a day, but so far after 8 years that still haven't proved to be true. A girl can hope right?

Nothing has really happened at all this week besides going back to work. My car had issues, big surprise there. The battery kept randomly draining, but we unplugged my ipod docker and jumped it and so far it's held a charge fine since then. Hopefully it will stay ok, that battery isn't even a year old yet and I don't feel like buying another one.

I've decided I want to expand my hobbies ... because I really don't have any. That probably sounds kind of lame, but I really don't. I watch tv and movies, I read ... and thats about it. I don't have like a HOBBY hobby. I think I want to get into photo editing but I'm not sure. I downloaded the new photoshop and have enjoyed messing around with it so far. I'm considering purchasing the whole thing once my trial is over, but we'll see. I need to get back to exercising but I feel like once I start and get a steady routine of it going, something happens that throws it all out of whack and I have to start from scratch. I should start walking at night or something. Any ideas?

Well, I think thats a random enough entry for now ... I've gotta get saige ready for bed (thats always a good time). Tomorrow is friday, yay!

our stay at the house of mouse...

I just got back yesterday from a week long vacation in disney world! well, we stayed at a house outside of disney, but it still counts haha. the house was nice ... except for the world's most uncomfortable mattress that we're sure was from the 1970's on the bed haha. the house was a little crowded but it was ok. Otherwise it was a blast! trish, saige and I had 5 day park hopper passes and we definitely used all 5 days. We saw lots of shows, and I got to go on space mountain (which i loved!). We were there for saige's 5th birthday on the 8th, so we got her all dolled up at the bibbidi bobbidi boutique (she dressed as belle) and then went to lunch at cinderella's round table in the castle for a lunch with the princesses. The food was DELICIOUS and the whole experience was really neat. She got to meet all of the princesses there and have her pictures taken with them all. Throughout the week she met a lot of characters and had them all sign her little autograph book. We went to a few of the parades throughout the week. The electrical parade was the coolest! And the fireworks over the castle were beautiful! that was definitely one of my favorite parts of disney. We went to all of the parks (epcot, mgm, animal kingdom, and magic kingdom) but the magic kingdom was our favorite. I enjoyed the countries at epcot .. got some gelato from "italy" that was to die for hah. we ate at the rainforest cafe outside of animal kindgom one night. that was fun, I had never been there before. saige was afraid of the animals when they started making noise though haha. it's pretty hard to sum up the entire week because we did so much, but it was a great vacation. I could never live there though, too humid and I couldn't deal with all of the random rainstorms all week haha. I'm thankful that trish, cait, and dan came with us, that defintely added to the fun. I'll leave you with a few pictures and I'm sure I'll add to this as I remember more, I just wanted to jot some stuff down quickly while I was thinking about doing it.

what a day....

did you ever have a day where you felt like no matter how much you tried, things wouldn't get better, but just continued getting worse?! Welcome to my day! We started off the day by waking up late (always frustrating, but got to work on time surprisingly). Work was TERRIBLE. It was just one of those days where you wanted to either be invisible, or just leave and forget it happened. Then I come home with Saige and she's MISERABLE. I mean crying, whining, giving me the stink eye miserable. I hate hate hate "no nap attitude". I'm stressed out over getting ready for vacation, especially since I found out I have to work friday night til 9 this afternoon. My flight's leaving at like 8:30 am Saturday. I somehow have to get all of the washing and packing and what not done by Friday night. And on top of it all...did you ever just feel like sometimes you're being used? Like, I'm sure thats not the case, and I'm sure I'm just emotional ... but, I just hate how I feel right now. Whatever, I'm going to crawl in bed and try to forget this day ever happened and hope for a better day tomorrow. Thats really all I can do right?

weekend recap

This weekend I didn't really do much, but I'm a big fan of low key weekends, especially after a stressful week at work. Friday night I got done work around 4, came home to a fixed car (thanks pat!), and hung around for a while with saige. After she went to bed I went to see Charlie St. Cloud with Angel and then went to the grocery store. Funny side story about being out Friday night. While waiting inside of the theater for Angel, I saw this man wearing an orange and white Flyers t-shirt tucked into a black and white checked kilt. Express yourself all you want, but thats a pretty random outfit if you ask me. So I take a pic of him with my cell phone (because whats the point of having a camera on your phone if you can't use it to take fun pictures right?) and I go about my business. After the movie I go back to my town (10 mins from the theater) and I go to the grocery store. Who do I find in Giant? The same guy in the kilt! Random, but made my night haha.

After grocery shopping I went home and went to bed. Exciting.

Saturday I woke up early with saige (6:30, that girl NEVER sleeps in) and I hung around with her until her dad picked her up for the night. He picked her up around 1:30. After that I went to get my hair cut:
and then I spent the day all over God's creation shopping for various things. I finally made it home around 7:00 pm. I crashed for a good hour, and then was up just hanging out catching up on books and tv. Went on a late night McDonalds run (great for my diet right?) around 1:00 am ... was home and back in bed by 2.

This morning I woke up at 9:30!!! Thats so sad that sleeping until only 9:30 is exciting for me, but when you've got a child who wakes up at the crack of dawn no matter what time you put her to bed, it's definitely an improvement! I'd like to say I've been pretty productive today, but to be honest it's 1:30 i the afternoon and I'm still in my pajamas haha. I do need to get some laundry done, get a few things at the store and hopefully start packing before Saige comes home tonight, but who knows how much of that will actually get done. Back to the grind tomorrow, ugh.

feeling overwhelmed..

I'm leaving for my first REAL vacation on saturday morning. We're going to disney world for saige's birthday for the week. I'm so excited but I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I've never really had to pack before for a long trip so far away. I've also never been on an airplane. I know everything will be fine but I'm feeling a bit anxious. I feel a bit silly since I'm 27 years old and have never done anything in my life haha. My vacations always just involved going to the beach somewhere along the New Jersey coast. All that being said, I am SUPER excited to be getting away for a week and very excited to see saige's face as she experiences disney world. I'm excited for myself to experience disney world! I'm excited to be sharing it all with great family and friends. Anyone have any tips/advice for a trip to disney world?

channeling Siskel and Ebert for a moment...

I have GOT to stop reading books before I see the movies they're based on. Tonight I saw Charlie St Cloud. While the movie was really good, I can't help but feel cheated because the book was so much better then the film portrayal of the story. I thought the ending was corny and had nothing on the way they ended the book. Of course the book didn't have this though:

HELLLLLOOOOOOO ZAC EFRON'S ABS!!! seriously though, I'm not a "zefron" groupie, but he was delicious in this movie haha.

Anyway, I'm getting off track here, the point is that I feel like these movies are taking really great books and destroying them on film. Take twilight (I know, I know, another adult Twilight groupie, feel free to eye roll) for example. The books were great, but the first movie was TERRIBLE. thank god for Rpattz's good looks or that movie wouldn't have gone anywhere. New moon got a little better, and Eclipse has been the best so far but they still aren't great. And "The Lovely Bones" was a GREAT book, but a terrible movie! I could go on and on with examples of great butchered novels, but seriously, why does hollywood feel the need to butcher an already great story to make it "better"? Just once I'd like to find one movie that stays really close to the original plot and have it be successful. Is that too much to ask for?

With all of that being said, Charlie St Cloud really was a good movie and I did enjoy it, so all in all it was an enjoyable night at the movies. :) I'll stop my ranting now.

i promised i would send this video around ... so, i figured posting it here counted! enjoy some captain jack sparrow doing his own rendition of "david after dentist"

it's always something

so I drive around today and my car's fine. after work i decide to take saige to the mall to get her an early birthday gift (unicorn crocs) and get some dinner. on the way home my car starts bucking and shaking and not driving right. of course that threw me into a panic attack because i had saige with me so i immediately call pat. i get my sister to pick me up and leave my car in valley forge park. pat comes down and drives my car home (thankfully, there's no way i could have done it) and he thinks it's the coil (whatever that means?) and he's going to fix it tomorrow. thank goodness, he really does come in handy, no matter how much crap we give him. thankfully i'll be able to take my mom's car to work tomorrow, so at least i'll be able to get around. well, at least saige is really enjoying her new crocs! we bought her backpack and lunch box for when she starts kindergarten in a few weeks too ... i still can't believe it! :( I can't believe she grew up so fast! time needs to slow down a little bit. well, it's time to end my crazy day on a positive note ... jersey shore!! haha, i love my reality trash!

the never-ending case of the whines ..

Don't get me wrong, I love saige more than I could ever love anything .. but this week she's really trying my patients haha. She started bible camp two weeks ago which is during nap time. This means she no longer takes a nap during the day. I figured this was a good time to start breaking her of a nap because once she starts kindergarten she won't nap anymore anyway. Well, I think the combination of no nap and being outside/active most of the day is taking a huge toll on her. So far every day this week when we've come home from work she's been whining SO much, and she's actually fallen asleep twice on the couch at like 5:30 which never happens. I'm at a loss as to how to fix this. I could just take her out of bible camp and let her nap instead, but she really loves bible camp so that would upset her if she couldn't do that anymore. No idea what to do in this situation! I'm hoping Thursday and Friday go a bit better, I'm not sure how much more whining I can deal with!

fresh start

I've been in the livejournal world for so long that I've got virtually no friends left on there ... so, it was time to move to something more "adult"!

I don't generally blog about any topic in particular, just whatever is going on in that brain of mine at the time, so scattered and jumbled posts are generally my style.

I guess I should post a little about myself on here just to get the ball rolling. Lets see, I'm 27, I have a 4 year old daughter (who will be 5 in two weeks - where did the time go?) named Saige. I work in a daycare that I've been at for the past 8 years. I have great friends and great family. My hobbies .... lets see. I love to read ... pretty much anything I can get my hands on. If i'm not into it by the middle of the book, it goes back on the shelf never to be finished. One of my favorite places to be in the world is on a big comfy couch with a book in the middle of Barnes & Noble. I love love LOVE music. I can immediately relate a lyric to any given situation in life. I'm more of a homebody then a partier. I'd rather be at home with a book or a friend then out somewhere loud and crowded. I guess that makes me kind of an old soul, but I'm ok with that. Most of my time is spent with Saige (which is how it should be obviously). I'm not in a relationship and haven't been for a while ... and don't see myself being in one any time soon haha. I'm going on my first real vacation (at 27 years old, pathetic i know) to disney world in two weeks for Saige's birthday, so I'm super excited about that. My first plane ride ... yikes.

Well, that about wraps me up for now...hopefully I'll keep up with this! :)