One Year Ago Today

This is not my post office

Today, as I write this (well, actually before I wrote this.  Work comes before blogging, always usually), I'm working on registering my students for State Competition.  As usual, it has to be post marked today.  And, as usual, I'm probably going to find myself standing in line at the post office, hoping that I brought the address with me so I don't have to call one of the ladies from work and ask them to look up the address.  The joys of my job.  (See, teaching interior design is not as fun as it sounds.) 

And it reminded me of this exact time last year.  I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Olivia.  I went to the post office after work, trying to squeeze it in between work and my OB appointment.  I remembered the address!  The line wasn't long!  But as I was heading out to my car, my stiletto caught on the uneven pavement and suddenly I knew I was going down.  In a subconscious decision, I landed on my hands and knees protecting my stomach.  I can only imagine how I must have looked, but I try not to.  I would be horrified to see it, I'm sure. 

This is the sidewalk where I tripped.  I took a picture of it today knowing I would write this post.



As I got up, and tried not to cry because my hands were really smarting, I surveyed the damage.  One knee was a tiny bit scraped and the other knee was. . . worse.  I found an old napkin in my car to wipe the trickle of blood running down my leg and hoped that it would stop before I got to the dr.  I didn't have time to get a band-aid. 

I checked in with the front desk and then went back to the bathroom.  I cleaned up my leg and went back out.  I felt like everyone was looking at me like a battered woman.  When Linda called me back I asked her if she had a band-aid for my knee.  She looked back at me and freaked out.  Before I got to the exam room, she sat me down, and soon I had three nurses and my dr working on my boo boo.  Disinfecting, and bandaging (getting creative because its not what they typically deal with here) and asking me a million questions. 

I love attention.  I was in heaven.

Then when the dr was measuring my belly (every girl's dream come true!) he asked if I had any cramping.  I didn't but I'm not gonna lie, I thought about telling him I did.  He would induce labor and I suddenly saw my way out of parent teacher conference next week.  I told the truth and I was on my way home with a bandaged knee. 

At parent teachers the next week, a coworker asked what happened.  I told him this story.  His response: "If I was in a parking lot and saw a woman your size fall, I would get the heck out of there!  I'd be worried you would explode!"

Chivalry at its finest.

New Hat

Olivia's dad likes to buy her clothes almost more than I do!!  Okay, that is not true, but I try to control my spending, while he can't pass up a good deal.  This hat was on sale after Christmas, I think from Babies-R-Us.  When I was using Baby Bear (wait until I show you how big Daddy Bear is. . .) for a photo shoot with my new chevron pillow, I thought I might as well throw Olivia in there too.  And her new hat too, for fun. 

 Don't be fooled, this girl is not holding still.  Even this awkward pose took a lot of convincing.

 Oh yeah, Baby Bear?  You think you can be cute in this picture too?

I'll show you whose cutest in this place!!!!

And no, I did not put her hat on like that.  I'm lucky she got distracted before she pulled it all the way off!

What I hope for you, Olivia

VIA

Olivia,

I hope that someday I can be home with you all day.  

I hope that I can buy you one of these giant crayola boxes of crayons.  

I hope that you can take a moment to enjoy the smell of fresh crayons.  

I hope that no little brothers will eat them.  

I hope that no little brothers will break them.  

I hope that no little brother will ruin the point.  

I hope that you get to have a little brother, so you can teach him to color in the lines.

I hope that we can color pictures from your dreams, and not just from a book.  

I hope that you will laugh at silly colors like Mac and Cheese, or 

Burnt Sienna (who even knows what sienna is??). 

 I hope that you will not be fooled into using your crayon box 

sharpener.  Those points will never be the same.  

I hope you get to see that episode of Mr Rogers where they show how crayons 

are made.  That episode changed my life.

I hope you can love creativity as much as I do. 

I used to be pregnant

I used to be pregnant, and now I have a baby.  Well, almost a toddler, she'll be one in a month!  And yet, I still forget that I'm not pregnant anymore. 

Let me explain. 

I know I'm 50 pounds less than I was a year ago, and I know there isn't an alien in my tummy kicking, and moving and giving me heart burn.  I know I don't feel like throwing up every minute of every day. 

I know (and am grateful!) I no longer look like this:

VIA

BUT, I still expect to be treated special.  I still expect to get out of things.  I guess I used pregnancy as my "get my way all the time" card and my "I can be annoyed at you" card.  At dinner on Valentine's Day it was crowded, there were people sitting and waiting for a table.  There were two chairs available and a couple walked right past me and sat down.  I couldn't believe they didn't offer me a seat!!!  I mean, hello!!  I'm. . . not. . . anything special at all. . . oh yeah, I forgot. Stuff like this is always happening to me.  I guess I better get pregnant again soon, so I can start getting special treatment, or at the very least, being annoyed when I don't!!

Valentine's Day

Source: dottieangel.blogspot.com via Kimberly on Pinterest

Yesterday was Valentine's Day.  I'm telling you this in case I'm the only blog that you read.  Because every blog did something to celebrate I think, except mine.  Sorry!  (But my design blog did have a little decor idea, in case you didn't get enough red and hearts)

Valentine's Day was. . . weird.  To say the least.  School/work (I never know what to call it!) was fine, just fine.  I got home and I was playing with my girl in the office when I heard a loud bang.  "What was that?" I asked Adam.  "Car accident, I bet."  I tried to look out the window, but the intersection is just barely out of view from there.  And so we went out to check, and he was right.  It was cold and Olivia had no pants on (squirmy girl + diaper change = I'm cool as long as she has a diaper on, pants may not happen every time) so we went back, but Adam is a good guy and he went to help.  He was one of two people to arrive first on the scene.  Another was a woman driving past who also stopped to help.  He stayed out there, helping calm everyone down, helping clean out cars that would be going away and never coming back (they were both totalled) for about an hour and a half. 

Olivia started getting fussy, so I gave her dinner a little early at 5, instead of 5:30.  Half way through her banana I realized she was swallowing her chunks of banana with out chewing!!  Ha!  I just laughed and laughed.  Hopefully this doesn't mess up her digestive system.  But fussiness did not abate, so I got her jammied and gave her a bottle at 6 instead of 6:30.  She fell asleep before finishing her bottle. 

We had reservations at a supa nice restaurant.  We didn't go there.  We had plans to eat at a supa fun restaurant.  Too long of a wait, we didn't go there.  I was kinda in the mood for In N Out.  We didn't go there.  I finally decided on Pei Wei.  It was really crowded and they were making people wait for seats before ordering.  When we got to the front of the line to order, I looked at a couple sitting on chairs, waiting for take out.  Hmmm. . . something about that guy looked familiar.  Eeek!!!  So did the girl!  Too familiar! 

Adam's girlfriend of three years, the girl that waited for him on his mission (not very successfully) chose the SAME restaurant, at the SAME time, on VALENTINE'S DAY.  She came up to say hello, that was very nice of her. 

See what I mean.  Weird.

The Nutcracker

I know, I know, Christmas is over.  But this isn't really a Christmas story, it just happened at Christmastime.  And I was telling it to my class, and I wanted to write it.  So I did.

When I was 8 my grandma invited me to stay at her house for a week.  I was really excited.  We planned to go to see The Nutcracker and also she was going to teach me how to knit!

She picked me up at my house, about a hour and a half from her house.  We drove back to Orange County a few days before the show so that we had time to shop for new clothes to wear that night.  I loved my dress.  It was a soft jersey tank with a full skirt attatched, with hot pink and purple flowers.  And the best part of the dress was the jacket that matched the skirt.  To this day, I still love a good bolero jacket.  I also got a hot pink scrunchie for my hair.  This was the end of the 80's.  Scrunchies were HOT. 

But the best part of this outfit, the reason I'm writting this story, was the shoes.  There is a big difference between little girl shoes and grown up shoes, and I was obsessed with grown up shoes.  I wanted high heels so badly.  My grandma didn't buy me high heels.  But she did buy me some cute little black flats with a strap that could be removed.  They looked so mature to me.  So grown up.  Even though they were a little big, and prone to falling off, I wore them with out the strap.  I never felt more beautiful.

Me in my dress and shoes with the straps still on.  Man, my bangs went on for days, didn't they!

And so the night of the show I got dressed in my new dress, my grandma did my hair in a bun (my favorite at the time, go figure) with my hot pink scrunchie, and I put on my shiny black strapless flats.  We drove to the performing arts center and I remember my grandma looking for the signs on the freeway to tells us where to get off.  I asked her if the signs said Nutcracker.  She said they didn't.  They only said the name of the arts center. 

When we were standing in line to enter the theatre I took a step forward and my shoe slipped off.  I turned around to pick it up, but before I could get to it, the very handsome man behind me bent down and picked it up and slipped it back on my foot.  I was very shy back then, I don't remember if I even said thank you.  My grandma told me I was Cinderella.  It was a magical night.

Time Travel

 This is my middle school, for reals.

Today I was driving to work, minding my own business, when WHAM!  I time traveled back to 7th grade.  I was sitting on the bus with my friend Laine and we were sitting backwards in our seats eating gummy worms so the bus driver couldn't see us! 

Just kidding.  Sort of.

Really it was just TLC Waterfalls on the radio.  But nothing can take you back to a certain place or time like music can.  What songs bring you back?