The Alitary Blog

Latest case

2012-02-17T21:47:00.000-05:00

Ladies and gentlemen, I present.....

The Mysterious Case of the Last Minute Criminal

Welcome to the latest installment of "My Life as Trial Counsel". Let me fill you in on my latest case. I was assigned as assistant trial counsel in a case of US v. Senior Airman B, who was charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine with the intent to distribute.

The facts were pretty simple. B gets pulled over in Philly for having dice in the mirror (go ahead, sing the Fresh Prince theme song now) which apparently is a crime in Philly. Brutal. B hands over his military ID to the cop. Smart move - I do the same thing to get out of tickets. It's cool to be a Soldier. The cop assumed that every military person carries a weapon (don't we??) and asks if B has a weapon in the car. Of course, he does, and he gestures down to the floor where the cop spies the handle of a pistol. That's loaded. And rolling around in the car. Exactly how I keep my handgun when I travel. Cop, a tad concerned for his safety, gets B out of the car, does a quick pat down and reaches in to retrieve the weapon (this is all lawful under several United States Supreme Court cases, like Terry v. Ohio and Michigan v. Long and it allowed me to actually use my crim pro from law school to argue). While he's retrieving the weapon..what's that weird smell? Why, that's MARIJUANA! Cop opens up the center console (also legal for various reasons I won't bore you with, but I totally won this motion) and lookey here, there's marijuana and 15 little bags of cocaine in the car. You guessed it - under arrest.

Then it gets interesting. B tells the the cop that he loaned his car to someone he couldn't name for $250 and that guy left the drugs in there. (That poor mystery guy is out $250 AND all those drugs?). Later, he tells his Air Force leadership that the cops found the drugs in a gym bag in his car along with his friend's ID and his friend confessed. Philly doesn't care about this crime because this is pretty standard for this part of Philly (sad, but true) so they give the Air Force jurisdiction. Well, guess who takes this seriously? Uncle Fucking Sam!

So, we prosecute. Now, the week before and of trial is pretty exhausting. Last minute witness interviews, getting the defense's motions to suppress everything their client did, trying to write intelligible responses to the motions - it's insane. The night before trial, I was at work until nearly midnight. Had I stayed ONE MINUTE later, I would have seen, you guessed it, ANOTHER MOTION from the defense counsel roll in my inbox at 12:00 on the dot. Just like civilian court, we have timelines in which to turn things in, and although a defendant always gets the benefit for having bad counsel who can't turn in motions on time, it's still pretty poor lawyering to throw motions at the other side that late in the game.

But believe it or not, that's not the most interesting thing that happened the night before trial. Lo and behold, one of B's friends in Philly contacts the Air Force Investigators and says to them over the phone "Oh hey, those were my drugs that I left in the car." What, what, WHAT?! This is what we call a Law and Order moment - so ridiculous it never happens. Except it totally did. So, we let the defense know, assuming they are going to ask for a continuance (delay) because hey, their guy looks innocent. Well, turns out the defense already knew about this, but for some reason were choosing not to call this new guy as a witness. I still don't know why. But, because the defense was woefully unprepared for trial, they ask for a continuance anyway.

The day of trial, the judge decides to rule on other motions first before dealing with this last minute criminal. We argue about getting the drugs in (win for Ali!) and get them in. We argue about getting in statements made to the cops (win for Ali!) and we get them in. I got to interview one of the Philly cops on the stand, a big young hilarious cop that likes to talk A LOT. He told me to give him "the look" when he was talking to much and after he was done, made me rate him on a scale from 1-10. Luckily he was an 8.7 that day. And during one of our late afternoon breaks, my boss comes into the courtroom to inform me and my co-counsel that last minute criminal not only told the Air Force he committed this crime (we can't do anything to civilians so it wasn't very credible information), he's now walked into the Philly police department and turned himself in and is currently being booked. Holy crap.

Can you say "acquittal"? I sure can. Now, we can continue to prosecute B. If he knew the drugs were in there, he's guilty of possession. And we know he knew they were in there. It just becomes harder to convince a jury that he knew when someone else has already confessed. Of course, THAT guy is being released in Philly because, again, Philly doesn't care about this minor little drug possession. We delay trial for a day, argue more motions (more wins for the government) and have to sit through a very awkward chastising on the record of the defense counsel by the judge for turning in motions late. It was pretty embarrassing. For defense. Not for me.

We then agree to all delay trial for a month. Over the next week, we find out some pretty interesting things, but the powers that be decide to withdraw charges, so the trial is over. I got to get some great experience, interview a witness on the stand, argued motions, wrote responses to motions, and really felt like a team with my co-counsel.

An exhausting experience, but never a dull moment!

Catch-Up

2012-02-14T20:59:00.000-05:00

Oh folks, it's been a whirlwind of a winter thus far, with lots of bad mixed in with good. To catch everyone up on what's been going on (and hopefully it will be clear why I haven't been blogging much), I've compiled this handy list:

GOOD: Pregnancy is moving right along! Ultrasound #2 is tomorrow (because at ultrasound #1, I was not "as pregnant" as they thought - meaning not as far along).
ROUGH: Had my first fully litigated general court-martial (aka a big fucking deal) last week only to have it delayed because on the day of trial, the defendant's friend turns himself in for the same crime.
GOOD: Jon and I booked our tickets to the Virgin Islands, where we will be headed in March. Want to be jealous-er? Check out http://www.peterisland.com where we'll be staying part of the time.
ROUGH: Remember the first bullet in the list? Well, I hate being pregnant, and this baby is worse than Avery. More morning sickness, more exhaustion, and showing much sooner. That means - maternity uniforms which could not look more hideous.
GOOD: I finished the last quarter of 2011 with stellar statistics at my job.
ROUGH: I started the first quarter of 2012 with horrible statistics at my job.
GOOD: I finally hung up some curtains.
ROUGH: Jon wants to move again.
GOOD: We finally got a dinner/movie night thanks to my friend who offered to babysit.
ROUGH: Our waiter was so slow, we missed the movie, had to come home and rent Moneyball and watch it around Avery.
GOOD: Avery is being adorable! He knows where his tongue, ears, nose, and toes are. He puts his arms up when you tell him, he loves to carry things back and forth from mommy to daddy, and his favorite saying is "Uh-Oh What?"
ROUGH: He also loves the remote control and I'm worried that we've incidentally purchased many OnDemand movies.
GOOD: The winter weather has been AMAZING in DC! Mild, no snow, just how I like it!!
ROUGH: My passport is covered with mold
GOOD: I found a mall with the Asian massage chairs in it. And an IKEA.
ROUGH: I haven't been blogging
GOOD: I've been reading everyone else's blogs and am continuously inspired!!
BETTER: I've switched jobs and I think I'll have more time to blog now.

So, lots of good/rough to report, but hopefully you all are caught up now!

Avery Madness!!!

2012-01-12T19:40:00.000-05:00

Avery's Christmas

2011-12-26T22:36:00.002-05:00

He's got the unwrapping thing down!

No really, I finished a project

2011-12-11T16:16:00.000-05:00

I love crafts, I love DIY projects. The trouble is finishing them. I kinda suck at that. BUT, here's a project that I actually finished, and mostly in one day!

I had seen this really awesome fabric wreath on Fresh Home and thought that it would be a fun project to work on while watching TV. So, I bought the very last metal wreath frame at Michael's and then a couple of weeks late managed to get to our local Wal-Mart which has a fabric section to pick out fabric. I wanted white fabric with some silver thrown in. Of course, THAT didn't exist. So, I picked out white fabric with some red and green fabric to blend in here and there AND got some fabric to make curtains. I was on a fabric-craft-making roll. I stood at the fabric cutting counter for 15 minutes, couldn't get anyone to help me, determined it was fate and went home, fabric-less. Ho hum.

On an unrelated note, I got my hair cut (too short!) at Hair Cuttery last weekend and decided I needed to do something with this wreath frame that was just sitting around the house. I mean, it was the LAST one at Michael's, so I can't really gloat about it unless I use it for something. If it just sits around my house, I'm just the bitch who took the last one for no reason. I don't want to be that bitch. So, I stopped by the party store and picked up a cheap garland, and when me and my shorn head got home, I went to work:

A little wrappity wrap of the garland

FOUND! Cheap decorations circa last Christmas' Dollar Tree Adventures

Said decorations stylishly placed

FOUND! Wooden "B" from unfinished (shocker) craft project

FOUND! In the basement: gold paint for the B. Against, stylishly placed.

And FINISHED.

I just didn't agree with you

2011-12-06T21:14:00.001-05:00

Every JAG gets their first court. Will it be a sex case? Child porn? Drugs? Mine was none of these, but was the first in a string of copper thieves. And, since I like to give my cases Nancy Drew names, I called this one:

Lieutenant Colonel Vivians and the Case of the Missing Copper

See? Doesn't that make it more fun? Anyway, there were four stupid Airmen all stealing copper wire from a warehouse, when they were supposed to be moving it. I guess technically they moved it...to their house. They'd strip off the wire then go off-base to sell the copper for cash. Nice, huh? Wish I'd thought of it. Oh wait, no, that's illegal. It violates Article 81 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (conspiracy), 108 (larceny), 121 (wrongful sale of government property) and we threw in a little Article 92 actions (failure to obey an order) because none of them could keep their trap shut when the cops told them not to discuss the case.

So I went first with my guy...the ringleader. And, it was a guilty plea - he admitted to EVERYTHING! Already starting with a "win". I like it. Now, all I have to do is get the judge to grant a good solid sentence to set the tone for all the rest of the courts and to break the ice with my first case by getting some good justice done for the old U.S.A.

I got up in my argument, called the accused a conspirator and thief (it's ok - he IS a conspirator and thief), justified my recommended sentence, had a great theme, was clear and calm, but indignant that this Airman thought he could steal from MY Air Force. The judge seemed to love what I was saying. Someone started to softly hum Battle Hymn of the Republic (not really). The defense did a good job, and the accused's tears (and those of his pregnant wife) were a nice tough - obviously staged. I had this locked up, and the accused soon would be.

Have I mentioned overconfidence as one of my faults?

And then the judge gave out his sentence (enter screeching sounds of halting justice here.) A reprimand, some money taken away, reduction in rank, and....wait for it....hard labor without confinement for 45 days.

The eff? Now, my non-JAG friend, that may sound horrible. But it's not. It's extra chores. He doesn't get a punitive discharge, he doesn't even get CLOSE to the 6 months of confinement I urged the judge to impose (we had an agreement beforehand that he wouldn't ever serve more than three, so I have to aim high - Air Force pun intended). The last time this guy did chores, he FUCKING STOLE COPPER. But, who cares about that? The judge, in his feedback to me said things like:

Loved your argument
Don't change a thing
You said XYZ - that was great.
You said ABC - I was thinking the same thing
"I just didn't agree with you"

Hard to work on your advocacy skills when obviously I am the greatest attorney ever....to not listen to.

The light sentence wasn't my fault - I did a great job. But, it's tough knowing that the ringleader of a copper-stealing conspiracy of idiots is getting off pretty light. Especially since it's my first case.

But, C'est La Vie. There will always be more cases for this Captain Nancy Drew to solve/prosecute. Hopefully the other attorneys on the rest of the conspiracy case give better arguments or have more prosecution-friendly judges!

16 sad little diabetic cupcakes.

2011-11-13T21:57:00.000-05:00

It all started last Thursday, picking Avery up from day care. A three-day weekend awaited, and I had to grab him, get home, get him fed, get him to bed, and pack for our 5am wake up call to get to the Baltimore airport. As I was collecting my child and his things, the lady who takes care of him in the afternoon said, "Avery sure had fun at the birthday party yesterday." I knew that Tristan, another little boy had turned 1 the day before. Avery was turning 1 in four days. "Um...birthday party?" Then, I did what I always do: talk to Avery in a sing-song voice while I was really trying to grill an adult. "Wow, Avery, a party! We'll have to bring in some treats for your birthday!" In my head, I was saying "Dear God, let this lady say that they supply all treats and birthday party crap so I don't have to do anything." Instead, she said "Yeah, that would be great, some homemade cupcakes or something." I started to laugh...then realized I was the only one. Every Avery was looking at me like I was a loon.

So, the plan was to go on our three day trip to Florida, come home, quickly grab my version of homemade cupcakes (a box of cupcake mix, a tub of icing, and sprinkles). Florida happened, we hit the grocery store on the way home from the airport and I picked up a yellow cake mix, vanilla icing, and decided I'd run to the party store later to get something cute to put on them. Maybe some "A"s or something.

You see, I really WANT to be one of those moms who puts her child's monogram or silhouette on a cupcake. I really do. I want to put Avery in an adorable "I'm One Today!" onesie and send him to school with gorgeous little treats. I want to have a themed birthday party with favors, hats, matching outfits of sorts, you know, a Martha Stewart one-year-old party.

Instead, the birthday party was a cake that Avery had to share with his cousin. I think it was orange and red icing, blue letters that said AVERY, a haphazard plus sign I wrote in orange icing, pink letters that said MIA (cousin), along with a giant "1" candle, a giant "7" candle, and just to make it busier, 8 OTHER candles. A hot mess of a cake.

The onesie? A quick trip to Target, which I KNEW KNEW KNEW carried birthday hats and shirts for babies found that children aren't allowed to have birthdays during the holiday season, which starts before Halloween. All birthday shirts were replaced with Christmas outfits, and a query of a worker got me a grunt and a "Nooooo" as though I murdered the baby Jesus by suggesting my son might also have a birthday around the corner. "No sweat," I thought as I dashed down to the party store where I was sure to pick up a cute birthday bib as well as what surely were dozens of cupcake toppers to choose from. And I'm sure they are in there. There are probably toppers that sing "Avery is one today!" but I wouldn't know because the fucking store is locked. I know it FEELS like it's later because of daylight savings time, but it's really only 6pm on a Sunday. WHY ARE YOU CLOSED? YOU'RE A PARTY STORE!. There's a reputation to keep up.

So, I slither home, defeated. Avery has no birthday attire. Just a birth certificate I could always pin to his shirt. The only white kid will be bringing boring white cupcakes to school. White cupcakes with no sprinkles. Bonus points to me when Jon points out "Hey, did you know you bought sugar free everything?" Good lord, I bought the diabetic desserts. So, 16 sad little cupcakes that never overflow the cupcake liners like they do in the magazines sit in a tupperware box with icing all over the top and the liners. 16 sad little diabetic cupcakes.

So while his actual birthday won't be AMAZING, he did have a great time with family smashing a cake to smithereens. I think I'll show him this video when he's older and tell him THAT was his birthday :-)

Walk like a man!

2011-11-06T19:32:00.000-05:00

Move-a-Lots, Movin' On.

2011-11-03T21:00:00.000-05:00

A quasi-sad announcement, though mostly sad on my end. I'm stopping the Move-a-Lots blog.

The what? Exactly.

I've been blogging since 1997. Before there was blogger, before there were WYSIWYGs, back when Netscape Navigator was my favorite browser and I logged on to hear "You've Got Mail!" I had an itch to put things online, photos, thoughts, polls, anything to connect to the bigger better world around me.

Fast forward 14 years and here I am. Still blogging, and still trying to connect. I tried to take something I am passionate about (writing) and mixing it with something I wish I was better at (house-design stuff). Fourteen years I've been doing this, and in 2 months, my kid sister makes something flashier with better ideas, and that's already getting featured on other sites. It's not about her success, because I freakin' love her site. It's that I can't do that. I can't create a GREAT online blog about house design. I can maybe create a GOOD one, but I don't want to half-ass things. That's not how I roll. I don't have the time, money, or, frankly, the design-eye and talent to create something amazing. And if I can't be amazing, it's time to move on.

So it's back to the Alitary blog. If I finish a big house project or put up something neat on my walls, I'll definitely highlight it. But I can't force projects just so I can write about them. So you'll see more Avery, and hopefully more posts like I did back in olden days when I had non-baby things to write about.

I love writing, I just need the right forum to do so. And trying to do something I'm not that good at just to have something to write about it moronic. Maybe I'll stumble on the right forum to express myself through writing one day. I just know a design blog isn't it.

Thanks to everyone who read or reads any of my ramblings!

The Move-a-Lots: My New Fall Table!

2011-10-12T20:54:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: My New Fall Table!: I really wish this post could discuss how fun and awesome it was to do this project, but, I gotta be real. It's me, I'm going to mess it up...

Avery Update

2011-10-01T21:45:00.000-05:00

Ok, this kid is TEN MONTHS old now, and because I was gone all summer and I can't get his 8 and 9 month pictures off of Jon's camera, here's a big Avery update for everyone!

Ten months old!

Playing in the castle daddy made me

Bouncing wears me out

This is the outcome when I try to hold my own spoon

Old picture from July, but so freakin' cute!

Here I am doing a little dancing

So, here's what's going on in Avery's life:

Crawling all over the place! And this little guy is F-A-S-T! He can make it up the stairs (with us right on his tail, of course) and loves to crawl into the bathroom for his nightly baths.
Favorite thing to do is climb. We put cushions down on the floor and he crawls over them, crawls over and under our legs, crawls in his little castle that Jon built him. He loves going under and over everything.
Feeding himself. As you can see from the pic, he's getting the hang of it, but he mastered the sippy cup, and since this kid loves to eat, the spoon is just a matter of time.
Walking - nothing yet, but day care said he took a couple of steps. He did take a pretty wicked big face plant into the coffee table though in an attempt to walk. That wasn't very fun.
He spent a week at Nana's while Jon was in Wyoming and I was in Alabama and was quite the hit!
Loves to talk! He's saying "mamamamma" and "dadadadadada" a lot, but I'm pretty sure he is just making noise. Fun to hear, though!
He's still a big hit at day care, and everyone calls him Baby Blue Eyes (there aren't a lot of white kids there, so he's the only one with blue eyes!). He enjoys going, but is always happy to see me at the end of the day. Pretty soon he's moving from the baby room to the toddler room!
School pictures are coming up, so we are hoping to get a cute picture of Avery from the day care folks.
He loves to watch and laugh at the cats and dog in our house.
Moved on to Stage 3 jar food, apple juice, and sucks down Cheerios like they are going out of style.

Just two months until we have a one year old!

Unpretty in pink

2011-09-21T20:44:00.001-05:00

In the hospital ER. Good times.

Guess who's the first Beach to have pinkeye! I'll give you a hint, it's not the 10-month old who goes to day care every day. It's me, the mom! Yep, after itching led to redness, led to squinting, and many members (MANY MEMBERS) of my office saying things like:

"Um....it looks worse"
"OH MY GOD!"
"Whoa, what happened?!"
"Can you even SEE out of that eye?"

I decided it was time to go to the doctor. So, one quick call to the ophthalmology clinic on base got me to an answer of "Sorry, we're specialty - you need to talk to your doctor first." Fine. One quick web look up of my doctor's appointments showed me that she has no appointments for any reason at any time in the next two weeks. Fantastic. So, after many more comments and stares, I went to the emergency room where I got a hospital bracelet and everything. I felt bad - I really just needed eyedrops for pinkeye and some poor sap had to admit me and everything for a 30 minute visit.

So, Jon gave me the first drop tonight and nothing new to report. Except that my eye feels worse now. I'm so glad I learned to wink and that I wink with my left eye because I'm eternally winking right now. So that should be fun when my client tomorrow thinks I'm hitting on him the whole time.

Also, a little girl stared at me in Target today because I look so hideous. And I have to wear my glasses now. I was so bummed about my ugly eye and my ugly glasses that I came home and did what I promised myself I wouldn't do anymore: I cut myself bangs. So, add ugly bangs to that list. My impulsiveness and overconfidence in my ability to cut my own hair never ceases to amaze me......

The Move-a-Lots: Big ideas, little room

2011-09-20T21:05:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Big ideas, little room: Don't be scared, but the pictures of my dining room are pretty terrifying. You've been warned....

A Search for Style

2011-09-19T20:36:00.000-05:00

I meant to write this earlier, but I got so busy wrapping up JAG school and getting back to DC that I haven't had time. So, a quick and interesting look at perhaps the most important thing I learned at school, and maybe a thing that I knew all along.

I blogged already about the first court-martial that we did and how that went for me. We did another court-martial, this one fully litigated with jury selection, opening arguments, evidence presentation, etc. It turns out that I did really well in that, and was selected to argue in a competition (which I lost) but then I won the Lowry award for top graduate in the class, so that made up for losing the competition :-)

But, that's all neither here nor there. The most important thing that I discovered was my "style" for arguing. Every time we did mock arguments at school, the instructors always wanted us to find our style, our theme, our way of doing things. After we would argue, they would tell us all things to improve, so it was hard to really find a "style" when instructors seemed to always be telling us to do it more like they do it. One instructor was very conversational and relaxed. One was very intense and borderline rude to everyone. And they both worked, really.

So, in my life-long identity crisis, I found myself at a place where I had to find a style. I couldn't flit about from one personality to another, I had to really find my style of arguing, and in a great sense, find out who I was in order to do my best arguing.

And I did. As a constant over-preparer and overanalyst, I decided that I felt most comfortable when I was prepared, methodical, and calm. I wouldn't get fired up and excited about arguments, but would calmly explain my point of view so that there was no doubt that I was the most rational attorney in the room, even if my position wasn't always the best. During the competition, a wild and funny confrontational attorney competed before me, thrilling my classmates with his antics. I probably brought the whole room down when I came in very calm and earnest. Neither of us wrong, just different.

So I was excited to find a style that worked for me, and that seemed to work in the court. But then I stumbled on a letter written by my late Grandma Liffick. She wrote me letters all the time when I was in college and in the Army, until she passed on March 15, 2005. I have a ton of her letters saved in a wooden box in my guest room. One day last week, I randomly picked one out and this is what it said:

"I was up at Heart Center for my treatment and we were watching channel 10 when there you were on TV." (Note that she was watching my "hometown greetings" commercials that we filmed while I was in Iraq that the local news will air) So all my friends got to see the granddaughter I've been bragging about. They said you were a beautiful person. Harborside brought Harold (my grandfather and his nursing home) lunch in the lounge to eat so we could see you on channel 2. You made both local stations. How about that? You looked so good, spoke clearly and very calm - Grandpa and I sure are proud of you and love you lots and lots.

So there you have it. That calm, methodical style that I thought I found a month ago? My grandma just reminded me that I've had it all along. Thanks, grandma!

Great Balls of Fire!

2011-08-27T10:43:00.000-05:00

Avery rocks out on his latest toy!!

Court-Martial - take 1

2011-08-21T19:18:00.000-05:00

Last week, I had my first practice court-martial here at Air Force JAG school. The scenario was pretty simple, and the exercise wasn't too hard, but it provided some GREAT insight to my practice style and what I need to do to be a better trial counsel.

The facts were that an airman was pleading guilty to using, possessing, and distributing LSD. He got it in the mail, gave some to another airman, and they used together. He also sold to a civilian off-base. So, the judge takes him through all the elements of his crime, he admits to everything, the judge decides he is pleading guilty because he believes he's guilty, and that's that.

Mainly the point of today was to argue sentencing. After someone is found guilty or pleads guilty, they are sentenced. In our scenario, we had a deal with the accused to 18 months of confinement. If the military judge listens to are argument and decides the airman should receive more than 18 months, he only gets 18 months. If the judge decides the airman should receive less than 18 months, he receives whatever that lesser sentence is. (weird, I know)

Basically what we do in this situation is introduce document evidence and call a couple of witnesses who can provide extra information as to why this airman deserves what we're going to ask the judge to give him. These documents are his enlisted performance reports, negative counseling, etc. The witnesses are 1) the other airman he did drugs with, who is testifying under immunity, and 2) the investigator who headed up the case. After all of that is done, the airman gives a statement, and both sides make a final argument and the judge decides.

Here's my good points from today, things that the "judge" and "defense counsel" (they are both instructors) thought I did well.

Argument: I tried to throw in a little of my natural sarcasm. It's hard to develop a "tone" for argument. They tell you to be yourself, but I don't want to be too jokey/sarcastic. I said things like "He's provided letters of support that say he's an asset to the Air Force. As what? If the Air Force needs drugs dealers, then sure, he'd be a great asset!"
Pre Trial Conference. I ran a pre-trial meeting with everyone just laying out the situation for the "judge" and he appreciated my organization.
Introduction of Evidence: My instructor thought I correctly and thoroughly introduced the evidence that I had.
Answers to objections: I did a good job of answering the objections that I KNEW I was going go get (see below for the counter to this)

Here's some improvements I have to work on:

Volume: I'm actually not loud enough in the courtroom. I feel like I can hear myself, but the judge, and sometimes the jury (we call them "members") might be further away.
Answer to objections: I'm not great with answering objections that I DO NOT know I'm going to receive. What can I say? I hate improv, I love scripts. I made some objectionable statements today and when the other side objected and stated their reason, I was quick to just withdraw my statement instead of try to rephrase it or argue the objection.
Objections: Along the same lines, I need practice running through objections so I can better hear when the opposing makes objectionable comments. I don't think I objected once today where I wasn't expecting to before the trial.
Being Myself: I still don't feel like "me" in a courtroom, and I make it too much of a performance than a conversation, which I think is where I need to get.

So, all in all, not bad. Speak louder, get more comfortable with objections. Not a problem. I lucked out and had a great set of instructors acting as the judge and opposing counsel that really could point me in the right direction for help.

Court-martial #2 is coming up next week and it's a doozy - let's hope I learned something that will be useful!

The Move-a-Lots: Creative Canoe Storage

2011-08-09T19:09:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Creative Canoe Storage: "As some of you might recall, I'm spending my first summer in DC.....in Alabama. Where the military sends me, I shall go. However, I left s..."

The Move-a-Lots: Hey, that's my house!

2011-08-02T06:38:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Hey, that's my house!: "Yep, there it is! And you can see it yourself on HOTPADS where it is currently up for rent. There is something eerie about seeing a hous..."

Play ball!

2011-07-29T20:56:00.000-05:00

Air Force School

2011-07-17T20:30:00.000-05:00

Well, here I am at lovely, hot, rainy Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama with 48 of my newest and closest lawyer friends learning how to be an Air Force Lawyer.

As far as schools go, this is pretty great. As I mentioned on my other blog, I'm living in a 2-room hotel suite with a little kitchen and a walk-in closet, and a housecleaner who comes in every day. Completely spoiled.

There are 49 of us divided into 4 "flights" each headed by the highest ranking person. I'm in Alpha flight, which is led by a major. There are three majors in our class, 8 captains, and the rest are all lieutenants. Throughout the course we have competitions among the flights to see who wins the Commandant's Cup at the end. Just like Harry Potter.

My daily schedule generally like this:
7:30-12: Classes on lawyering. So far we've done all civil law, which means everything that's not criminal. We've covered wills (the #1 military issues), legal assistance, private organizations, administrative discharges, claims, torts, communication, consumer law, and a few other topics.
12-1: Lunch
1-5: More classes
And...that's all. We do have PT twice a week, usually at 6:30 which means we don't have to be in class until 9.

The best part of my first week was discovering that I kinda love volleyball. In high school, I hated it. The ball hurt my arms, I couldn't hit the ball well, and the other team would consistently hit it to me so I kept losing point after point for my team and couldn't get away from it. I was dreading our first "Commandant's Cup" event, which was a volleyball tournament. But, I sucked it up, and it turns out the ball doesn't hurt my arms anymore, I'm pretty good at returning, and I got really really into the match. We came in second, and there were times when I rotated out that I couldn't wait to get back in the game. Now I want to play pick up matches and everything!

Other than learning to be a lawyer, I have a couple of personal goals during this 9 weeks. I want to drop the last few pounds of baby weight and get this little tummy to disappear. So, I found a friend to hold me accountable and tomorrow we start our 5am running workouts, which will not only help me to improve my run time, but will hopefully take care of my jiggle. I'm eating very very healthy while I'm here, following the recipe guidelines that my husband Jon drilled into my head over the last few years, and not snacking a lot.

I also am enrolled in Squadron Officer School which is a correspondence course for captains the Air Force has set up. I'm trying to find time to do these tests to try to knock out this course while I'm down here to impress my boss. They just cover random leadership stuff, so hopefully I can guess my way through most of the questions.

One week down, Eight to go!

The Move-a-Lots: Sweet Hotel Living

2011-07-12T08:36:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Sweet Hotel Living: "Greetings from the Dirty South: Alabama! I'm here for NINE WEEKS for an Air Force School, and while the temperatures outside might be enoug..."

The Move-a-Lots: I have a love and I call him Mulch.

2011-07-10T06:35:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: I have a love and I call him Mulch.: "I can't believe I once didn't know mulch existed. It's delicious smelling, gorgeous, and probably good for plants, but did I mention how pr..."

I got this crawling thing DOWN

2011-07-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Scary or Cute? I say Cute!

2011-07-07T20:22:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Scary or Cute? I say Cute!: "I've been vulturing around wall decals for a while, and frankly, I find most of them cheesy. I am sure they look fabulous in all of your ho..."

Is this not the messiest crawl you've ever seen?

2011-07-05T18:16:00.002-05:00

We've got a crawler.....kind of. He crawls like a mutant bug of sorts.

7 Months!

2011-06-19T09:46:00.000-05:00

Here's my little 7-month old!

Big move! We made the big move from Boston to DC, so that was an exciting time for him.
He rarely falls over when he sits now
He loves to talk, and has learned to move his fingers in front of his lips to make even funnier noises.
We've officially moved from sleeping in the carseat all night to sleeping in the crib all night. Now we can actually use that nursery we worked so hard to put together!
Now we just put hi in the stroller instead of putting him in the carseat that attaches to the stroller.
He's got a sweet little high chair he can sit in now.
Avery started day care, and although on some days he's tired and cries a bit, he seems to like it there!
His head is still a little left-tilted, so we just stretch him as much as we can.
He's really grabby now, trying to get a hold of everything from leave on trees to Dash's tail (Dash doesn't love this)
Avery loves toys that jingle, and still carries out his Sophie squeaky toy
If you put your hands out, he knows he can grab them and try to stand. He REALLY wants to stand by himself, but doesn't have the balance yet.
He flips easily from back to front, but once on his front, he tries to scooch around and gets frustrated.
Loves to blow raspberries.
Drools and drools, but no teeth yet!
Still finds Dash hysterical.

Don't get choked up. For reals.

2011-06-18T17:22:00.000-05:00

You know you’re going to have scary moments as a parent, but that still doesn’t REALLY prepare you for when they happen.

The other day, I was cleaning the bathroom and put Avery on the floor outside of the bathroom so I could watch him and he could watch me. I’d been at work all day, and I wanted to kill two birds with one stone: spend some time with him and clean my tragic bathroom. Everything was going fine, I tossed some clothes over near him and he started pawing through them with his little hands.

Then, all of a sudden, he made a weird gurgling sound. I looked over and saw he was struggling to breathe. Then, he wasn’t breathing. Then, he started turning red. I ran over, hauled him up, threw him over my arm and started pounding. I yelled for Jon and headed downstairs as fast as I could, pounding all the way. I said “I think he’s choking. Is he breathing?!” and Jon took him, checked, and said “No, he’s not” so HE started pounding. A few seconds later, Avery started to cry so I knew he was breathing. But that wasn’t enough for me, I wanted him to take deep breaths. Poor kid was terrified, I was terrified. Ugh.

So, the rest of the night, we watched him, and he just seemed loopy and sad. He just kinda sat around looking like he had a cold and felt doped up. I’m not sure if he actually grabbed something and swallowed it. A million things go through your mind: was there something in the clothes that he was playing with? Did I pick up that coin from the floor? Can he pull up pieces of carpet and swallow them?

We think that he just got choked up on some phlegm. He seemed to be stuffed up the rest of the night, snoring, and his right eye was red as though it was itching and bothering him. BUT, even if he didn’t choke on something we left laying around, it was a really good wakeup call as to the fact that now he grabs and swallows, so even putting him on the carpet without a blanket under him is a bad idea.

The next morning, he was back to being a breathing, adorable baby. WHEW!

I know there will be more terrifying moments, but wow, this one was rough.

On the good side, he’s 7 months old now. I’ll be writing his 7 months entry soon – stay tuned!!

Avery laughs...then cries...and it's awesome

2011-06-09T06:42:00.001-05:00

Avery is afraid of Jon's loud laugh, but it was really hard to get Jon to naturally laugh on camera and get the transition from happy to terrified! Jon had Avery laughing really good, so we whipped out the camera, but by the time we started taping, he'd laughed so much he got the hiccups. So, Jon kept trying to get him to laugh and ended up laughing himself which, of course, freaked Avery out!

Ridiculously Cute

2011-06-08T15:20:00.002-05:00

Air Force Life

2011-06-08T06:51:00.000-05:00

So, after 32 years of life, 3 years of law school, 2 months of bar study, and 11 months of being a stay at home mom, I'm finally a lawyer in the Air Force! We've moved to DC, found a place, settled in (somewhat) and we've each started our jobs.

Getting used to the uniform again wasn't too bad, as it's nearly identical to my last Army uniform. I am happy to rid myself of the Army beret and put on the "baseball cap" again. Much cooler and provides shade for my eyes! PT is only twice a week, which is a lot for the Air Force, and while the first day of "let's run a 5K" was a big much for my post-baby body, it's a nice changeup from the 6-7 miles I was running daily in the Army. I love the building that our offices are in. No more peeling linoleum or cracked tiles on the floors. It's nice carpet, everyone is friendly and says "hi" in the hallways, and it's just a pretty building.

What is interesting is the new family dynamic that having a fulltime job creates. I think Jon is still getting used to the fact that the wifey has a career again. Example: his shipment of good is being delivered today, and he assumed I'd be able to stay at home to accept them because HE has a class to go to. Turns out, I am able to stay home, but he decided this without checking to see if I was going to be able to be at home. Avery has to get up much earlier in the morning to eat, get changed, and get packed up for day care. And I've got to get used to that alarm going of at 5:45 every day being for me.

Speaking of day care, we've had three days of it and it's going great! Many of you know that this day care we are at was an emergency decision with the Air Force day care fell through. BUT, I really like it and think I want to stay there even if a spot opens up on base. Avery is one of 4 babies, everyone loves him, and the people genuinely seem interested in our lives and the little man.

So far so good. Granted, I haven't had to do any real lawyering yet (clients of the world, rejoice!) but hopefully I can get into that soon and get my feet wet with what I've trained to do.

Now...just waiting for that first paycheck!!!

The Move-a-Lots: Moving Right Along

2011-06-03T08:49:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: Moving Right Along: Check out this blog entry on my other blog to find out how our move to DC went!

The Move-a-Lots: What looks worse than a dirty door?

2011-05-24T18:25:00.000-05:00

The Move-a-Lots: What looks worse than a dirty door?: "How about a dirty door that you paint bright white but don't properly prime so the paint peels off in giant sheets? Yeah, renters don't l..."

Six Months!

2011-05-21T22:14:00.000-05:00

My little dude is half a year old! Time to start planning the 1-year birthday bash!

Big deals right now:

Sitting! Avery LOVES LOVES LOVES to sit up and always looks at everyone with a big smile on his face as if he's uber-proud of himself. And why shouldn't he be? Sitting is cool!
Swimming - he had his first swim in DC (video posted earlier) and was apprehensive, but didn't seem to HATE it.
Raspberries and other assorted noises. Remember when we were excited that he was saying "coo!"? Well, now he's blowing raspberries, yelling, and making all kinds of racket. It's hard at the moment to say what's crying and what's not!
More visits! We got to meet almost all of the rest of Jon's family in St. Louis as well as spend more time with Nana and Grandpa Hanger. Excited to meet our new Hanger cousin, though!
The Exersaucer. He was not so sure about this contraption the first time we stuck him in, but now he jumps so hard I'm worried it's going to break apart!
Lots of food choices now. He loves his spoon food, and when he sees the spoon and jar, he starts shaking, panting, and opening his mouth like a little baby bird having a seizure. He's even eating broken down little food puffs. I won't let Jon feed him big pieces because I don't know baby Heimlich.
Still hates Jon's laugh, which scares him to death. Will post a video soon showing this - hysterical!
I'm not much for percentiles, but his head is in the 94% range while the rest of him is 50 or below. So, Jon has named him "The Nugget"
Much more fond of baths now, because he gets to grab the faucet, and he loves to grab and move things from one hand to the other.
Drooling like..well...like a monster who drools a lot. Probably expecting some teeth pretty soon.
Still sleeping through the night in the car seat, but that's our fault. The crib is all packed up for our move. He has been taking long naps flat on his back if he's wedged in between some pillows. Progress!
He'll be starting day care pretty soon in Maryland, so that'll be fun for him to play with other babies. He's probably getting tired of that baby in the mirror.

Even with all of the work we are doing on our house, Avery is very patient and entertains himself with his toys and DVDs while we get stuff done. What a great kid!

Lead it Be

2011-05-18T22:22:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted much here lately because we have been completely swamped with moving. I keep wishing that we only had to pack and clean before moving, but we have to DE-LEAD the house. Massachusetts, as it would turn out, has the strictest lead paint laws in all of the lands. What this means for us is that we can't rent our house out to anyone with kids under the age of 6 when we leave. Sounds simple? A-HA! Here's the catch: it's against the law to refuse to rent to someone because they have kids. It's even against the law to put "Lead paint exists in house" when you advertise, because what you're really saying is "If you have kids under 6, you can't rent from us."

Like any normal couple, we waited until we had no time to de-lead the house to de-lead the house.

Here's the process:

get an expensive lead inspection from a smelly man who takes 3 days to do it and keeps walking past you muttering "this house has a lot of lead"

find out your house is a death trap and your wallet is $400 thinner

discover that you can either spend lots of money and do work yourself or spend even more money and hire someone to do all of this for you

decide foolishly to do most of it yourself

kiss your husband goodbye because all of your free time is now spent to "the house"

take classes (expensive classes)

take tests

mail crap in to the Commonwealth and get permission to destroy your house

destroy house

go to Home Depot so many times, all of the cashiers know you, spending your infant's college fund

buy special paint for $60 a gallon. Buy many gallons
slowly put house back together again by replacing beautiful old door and window casings with new ones that don't quite match, painting three layers of encapsulant over most of your trim, tearing out windows, filling/sanding holes in the trim

go ahead and find someone to finish the work you'll never get done

interview all of those people

temporarily move your child and your three pets out of your house so you can do high-level lead removal. Who wants a dog, two cats, an infant, and a frazzled mom staying with them? Takers??
consider burning the house down for the insurance money or selling it "as is" or inventing a time machine so we could either not buy the house or start this earlier

spend your last days in a city you love buried under housework.

So, be ready to rumble if you buy a pre-1978 house in Massachusetts. I'm trying to be zen about the whole thing and just get as much as I can done without complaining (too much) and relish in the fact we will not be homeowners in DC for a while!

The Other Blog

2011-04-30T21:27:00.003-05:00

I've had some relatively good traffic in my first week or so on my more design-centric blog, so be sure to stop by and check it out. Follow it and write lots of comments!

The Move-a-Lots

Poor Avery

2011-04-30T12:20:00.000-05:00

I love dressing this kid up

Easter outfit!

Watching the Royal Wedding with mom and Aunt Andrea!

Avery laughing at dad

2011-04-24T13:52:00.000-05:00

Happy Easter!!

New Blog!

2011-04-18T17:25:00.000-05:00

Now that I'm doing a lot of home design stuff, I'm working on a new blog about trying to make our houses "homes" before moving on to the next house again and again, like we tend to do.

Bookmark the new site! The Move-a-Lots

I can do that!

2011-04-18T07:55:00.000-05:00

I recently choreographed and costumed a show directed by a dear friend of mine. At the cast party, he went around the room and spoke about each person involved in the show (it was a small cast) and what they brought to the table, how they got involved, and what a big help they were.

He spoke about me last and told everyone that I came to the show with a "I can do that!" attitude. This is something I had never thought about. He talked about how I came to him and said "I can do choreography!" and I did. How, when he was looking for a costumer, I said "I can do that!" and I did. He even mentioned that last year when he directed another show and was looking for a replacement actress, I told him "I can do that!" and I did.

I put a lot of pressure on myself. I start huge projects that sometimes don't get finished. I overwhelm myself with tasks so much that they often seem impossible to complete. I make big statements like "I WANT TO BE A RUNNER" and throw myself into that mission for...a day or two. Then, life gets in the way, I get bored, or I realize I don't live up to my own expectations.

But why not approach things with a very casual "I can do that!" attitude? NOTE: When you say "I can do that" you have to say it with a half shrug of your shoulders as though you are telling someone you can tie your shoes or stand on one foot, like it's no big deal. When I hear "I can do that!" it sounds almost flip, sort of nonchalant. I like it! Instead of saying "I will do this" "I have to do this" I'm going to start trying to approach tasks and ideas and goals with an "I can do that!" attitude. Of course I can do it - I don't set impossible goals for myself. So why not give it a go? Try it out? Jump on in? No need to plan things so seriously or put all this pressure on myself.

Make a bunch of appetizers this week for my party? Instead of frantically planning, worrying, trying to become Martha Stewart, I just say "I can do that." Take 10 minutes out of my day to work on my pushups? Instead of writing down all the workouts and posting this somewhere, trying to do the workouts at the same time every day, and beating myself up when I forget, I just say "I can do that." Because I can do that, but the world doesn't end if I don't get it right or don't finish. With an "I can do that" shrug, I downplay the importance of the task, and just simply go out and DO IT, instead of obsessing over a task I haven't started yet.

A new philosophy? I can do that.

House Rental Mode

2011-04-15T11:00:00.000-05:00

Since we are leaving in just over a month and have to get our house rental ready, and my theater show just ended, I am in mega-house-fixing mode. Here's this week's achievements:

Monday: Taped, washed, scrubbed, and primed the dining room walls. That's two coats of stinky, awful oil-based primer, which is the best when you're painting over wallpaper.

The last bit of wallpaper showing

Tuesday: Bought caulk to go around the trim of the dining room so the wallpaper won't be tempted to pop up. Bought two shades of green, and went back and forth, getting advice from folks. Caulked all around the trim, chair rail, door and window casings.

Wednesday: Cold and rainy, and I did NOT feel like dragging Avery outside, so I decided to put the dining room on hold and strip wallpaper in the hallway and stairwell. There are lots of layers, but it's ok to leave some of them on and paint over them as long as they are securely fastened. Which means pulling off the not-very-well-fastened top layer. Pretty easy job, though. I dread using the stinky oil-based primer here. The whole house is going to smell. I did, however, go up to the nursery and peel off the plastic stars the previous owners so GRACIOUSLY left up on the ceiling. Luckily, they weren't on very well, so it was easy to do. Went to Home Depot in the evening to buy paint for the dining room and some primer for a kitchen project.

Thursday: Two coats of "Soft Sage" on the dining room walls. I'm so tired of painting this week that I don't even appreciate it yet.

Just a peek at our new dining room color

Friday: Got a leftover tile out of the basement to practice painting it. The practice tile is from the bathroom, but our kitchen has a "lovely" pink tile border. Vomit. Seriously, I want to punch whoever designed the interior of this house. Too much pink, too many flowers. TOO MUCH! I also put the dining room back together again.

Granny's flowers and pink tile

Note: I could NOT have done this project without use of the internet and amazing tutorials such as this one and this one. All hail the internet! In Jon's words "I was surprised it turned out so well!" O ye of little faith!

5 months!

2011-04-14T19:26:00.000-05:00

Ugh, this kid is way too adorable - 5 months old today, and here's his highlights:

- He loves veggies and fruit. Doesn't matter what it is, just put it on a spoon and get in my belly!
- Hair gets crazier every day, and it's the first thing everyone comments on.
- He's getting much more vocal every day. For the longest time, he just cooed, then Jon and I would stop everything if he made a new sound. Now he goes to town babbling and yelling at the baby in the mirror
- He's survived a stroller ride, train ride, 2 subways, a shuttle bus, a plane, another shuttle bus, and a rental car all in one day!
- Finally enjoying his time in the pack and play, which he hated for a while. Of course, that's where the baby in the mirror lives, so he's always interested.
- He seems to really like music and loves to sit in his bouncer in the kitchen while momma cooks and sings him showtunes
- Tummy time is fun and he likes it...especially the part where he vomits.
- He loves being held upright so he can look out and see what's going on
- He found his toes, his hair, his ears, and his penis. We're trying to get him to not death grip that last one.
- Loves loves loves the Star videos that his Aunt Heather's company made. And his momma loves loves loves that he'll watch them 3 times in a row in complete fascination so she can get some work done!

Avery videos!!

2011-04-06T20:14:00.000-05:00

The Mysterious Beeping Noise

2011-04-06T08:20:00.000-05:00

A few nights ago, I heard a little "beep" in the middle of the night, most likely a smoke alarm running out of battery. I decided to ignore it for a while, and it stopped. It happened again a few nights later when I was vomiting all night during a rough bout of flu/food poisoning.

Then last night, even in a Nyquil induced coma, I heard it again and it woke me up. Apparently, it also irritates the dog because I heard the beep, then heard a commotion in Dash's room, then heard Dash slowly sneaking up the stairs. I've always said that I'm never worried about intruders because our stairs are so creaky, you can't sneak up on us, but it was a little scary because Dash was creeping very slowly. I woke Jon up, and I went to put Dash away while Jon stood in the hall listening for the beep.

Dash gets put back in his room, and I go upstairs to help Jon listen for the beep. We hear it again, then hear a commotion in Dash's room, then hear Dash's paw land outside of his room and he runs up the stairs. The beep must really irritate him to the point he gets on top of his cage, jumps over his railing and lands on the outside of his room. We spent another 10 minutes or so getting closer and closer to the beep, and locking Dash into his actual cage, before finding it and taking the battery out. Of course, it still beeps one more time, like some possessed beeping demon. Then, it gives up.

Here's a video I found applicable to this situation:
Phoebe and the Smoke Alarm

Grabby little guy

2011-03-29T15:28:00.001-05:00

Not the most exciting post, but it's fun to watch him learn to grab things!

Just for a laugh

2011-03-22T22:08:00.000-05:00

Four Months Old!

2011-03-15T09:59:00.001-05:00

Avery turned four months old on the 14th! He's getting so big! We don't think about it day to day, but when we see his early pictures or how his legs extend on his swing so much further than they used to, it blows our minds! He weighed 13 lbs, 14 oz yesterday at the doc and was 25 inches long.

Milestones:
- Laughing! As the video shows, it's a funny laugh, and lots of things trigger it. I can put my finger in my cheek and make a big "POP" sound which he likes. Jon can play pattycake with him. I can bounce him around. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
- Rolling over! He stopped doing this, but the video doesn't lie, so I know he can!
- Rice cereal. The doc okayed starting him on rice cereal, so we gave it a whirl. Video to come - pretty funny and messy.
- He's still sleeping through the night, but still in his car seat. We need to start weaning him over to the crib. He also likes to stay up until midnight and sleep until 10. He gets that from his mom.
- Crazy hair. I love it. The crazier, the better. He also gets that from his mom.

Weekly Finds!

2011-03-09T11:48:00.001-05:00

Ok, I'm a little behind the times on the weekly finds, but check out these great finds!

This is a cute milk glass jar I picked up for $2 at Salvation Army. I know, I'm giving things away, so I'm supposed to be getting rid of stuff, but it's too cute!!

Moo.

And these are really great heels from Target. I bought them with a baby gift card. And I don't feel bad about it. I saw them at one Target and thought they were comfy and cute, but $30 seemed like a lot that day. Then, I thought I would look at them online again and saw they were wicked out of stock. Worried I'd never seem them again, I went to another Target to find them out of my size. This put me in panic mode, so I went back to the first Target where they were sitting there saying "Ok, will you buy me now?" I obliged. I know they look too high and uncomfortable, and while they are a little higher than I'm used to at the moment (come on, I was pregnant. I couldn't even SEE my feet for a while) they are actually very very comfy. I promise. I carried Avery down the stairs in them.

The reflection makes them look more special

Bouncing!

2011-03-09T09:36:00.003-05:00

Beginner BabySteps

2011-03-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

Someone anonymously posted on my wall about me trying to do the little things, like make my bed, etc. They posted this link: THIS LINK which is supposed to slowly get you to do little things to eventually take control of your house (and hopefully your life).

So, I'm going to give it a try, anonymous person! I'll post an update weekly on how I'm doing.

Wish me luck - I'm off to shine my sink!!

My secret desire

2011-03-04T17:11:00.001-05:00

No, it isn't to be on Broadway or to even have a leading role in community theater. Or to have a blog that people actually read. Or bigger breasts and a smaller nose. Or get carded again at the liquor store. I said "secret", not desperately apparent.

I want to be a runner. I love love love the idea of running. I hate to run. But, I want to do it. I want to run longer and faster than my husband so I can be better at something than he is. Besides spelling. I also want to lose my last 11 pounds of baby weight, run in races for fun, and did I mention lose that baby weight? I want a hobby that makes me feel good, look good, and one I can do anywhere.

So what's stopping me? Um, I hate to run. My shoes are pretty crap, but I won't pay a bunch of money to buy new ones when I could buy a great pair of heels. It's cold in Boston and the only thing worse than running is, you guessed it, freezing my ass of while doing so. Hold on, I have more excuses. It's bad for the knees. I look funny when I run because my knees are slightly crooked and my lower leg kicks out a bit. The only time I can do it is at 5am (that's true). I can't take the dog because he stops every 10 feet to spray something, but I can't leave him at home because it's wasted dog-walking time. I'm in the Air Force now, and it's not like I HAVE to run fast. I just plan on trying to get pregnant again at the end of the year, so why get in good running shape? I don't like the songs on my iPod shuffle and my iPod mini only has 30 minutes of battery. I don't have a jogging stroller. I hate being sweaty. I hate being sore. I hate being tired. I don't believe in endorphins.

But I also have an odd motivation. Someone I really dislike is a runner, and I hate the fact that someone I dislike is doing the hobby that I want to do and I am not.

So, in the saddest of traditions, pure old-fashioned jealousy is motivating me to get up and start moving again. If I can keep it up, I'll post about it. If you never hear anything about running on the blog again, you'll know I've failed and we'll never talk about it again.

Hidden Jewel

2011-03-02T09:45:00.001-05:00

During all this demo my husband has been doing, he discovered some gorgeous wallpaper underneath God-knows-how-many layers of other crap in our stairwell. Can't really use it, but it would be so pretty in a small bathroom. It's a lovely sage green with pretty pictures of flowers, birds, trees and ladies on it.

Ho Hum

2011-03-01T21:52:00.001-05:00

It's that time of year again - local community theaters are announcing their seasons for next year. Nerds like me check out the webpages of all the theaters to get an idea of what we want to audition for, see what rights for new shows came out, and gossip about whether this theater should do that show. I love it.

But it's bittersweet for me this time around because I won't be here next season. And to make it worse, I'm moving to a city that simply does not have a lot of community theater opportunities that I can find. True, I plan to spend the next few years working full time, popping out a few more kids, etc, but it will be tough to not do theater for a while.

Community theater has given me something really amazing since we've moved to Boston. A few things, actually. It's given me confidence in my ability to make people laugh, my ability to sing (somewhat), and my ability to plan and execute as a member of a production team. It's introduced me to some of the funnest, silliest, most dramatic, most entertaining, most talented, and most wonderful people there can possibly be. It's given me the ability to be creative when the right side of my brain was stifled by all of the legal crap that was leaking over from the left side of my brain thanks to law school. It's also introduced me to some amazing stories from shows I've never heard of. Theater is one of those hobbies for me that I really wish I could spend all day working on, and now I understand why famous actors discuss why they love their jobs so much. Of course, I'm not good enough to pursue theater full time, so a hobby it will stay. Can't waste that law degree, after all.

So, I'm pretty bummed that I can't audition for Proof at Marblehead or Mattress at Wakefield or extend my choreography to new theaters or rejoin my favorite groups and act on stage with my friends again, or even try my hand at directing. I'm hoping that I'll be so busy with everything I have going on that I won't miss it. Maybe after DC, we'll move back to Boston or somewhere that has a theater or two nearby. And I hope I can find some time to keep singing so that when it's finally time for me to hit the boards again, I'll be ready for some great roles!

Avery laughs....kind of

2011-02-26T08:58:00.002-05:00

Jon's been trying to get Avery to laugh for a week. He finally kind of laughed. It sounds more like a wounded animal caught in a barbed wire fence, but it still made us laugh!

The Finished Bathroom

2011-02-25T22:32:00.002-05:00

Hey all, here's the story behind the bathroom which is featured currently on Fresh Home Blog


BEFORE PICTURE

AFTER PICTURE

COLOR SCHEME:
On the suggestion of many, I picked out a shower curtain that complemented the brown tile. I actually did not take down the shower doors because, since we are going to be renting this house out pretty soon, we wanted to keep the doors in to help renters keep the water inside the tub. The curtain stays on the outside for aesthetic purposes. This became my focal point and determined the colors I used in the rest of the bathroom. Redoing all of the tile, either by ripping it out or painting it was just too expensive and/or time consuming, so I decided to embrace the brownness. This shower curtain was purchased at Target and had three main colors in it, including a great brown that matched the tiles.
Based on the colors in the curtain, I chose a light green (Cypress Grass by Glidden) for the walls. I also painted the frame around the mirror white (it was previously cream colored) to make it pop out a bit and match the white shower curtain. I also replaced the white blind which had faded and was dirty with a fresh clean one from Home Depot.
I left the yellow tub. I could have bought the stuff to repaint it, or at least the outside of it, but the yellow pop didn’t bother me so much once the colors all came together. To include this yellow elsewhere in the bathroom, I added it to the shelf unit that goes over the toilet.

BIG PROJECT:
At first my husband said we couldn’t replace the vanity because of the complication with the really old pipes in this 110-year old house, but on further inspection, the floor needed some work (a leak had softened up the subfloor) and he spend most of Christmas removing the vanity so he could tear up the floor. Since the vanity was already out, we got to replace it (yay!) Opting to keep the cost down, we bought vinyl flooring at Home Depot for $120 and installed it ourselves. We also got this inexpensive vanity for $40 at Home Depot.

STORAGE:
Next to the vanity, I got stackable white cubes from Target and baskets to put inside them to store toilet paper and bathroom stuff. Over the toilet, I put up a white shelving system that we already had. The plain white shelves were pretty boring, so I secured some bright yellow scrapbook paper to the inside of the doors so it could be seen through the frosted glass and echoes that awesome yellow tub.

ACCESSORIES:
On top of the white cubes, I put a brown placemat from Target and a little plastic plant from Michael’s because my mom informed me you always need some greenery in the bathroom. These accessories toned down the bright white a bit and made the stackable cubes look a bit more expensive than they are. I also bought a silver clock at Walmart, as well as the brown long rug. On the white shelves above the toilet, I bought a round green canister at Salvation Army to hold cotton balls and Q-tips. I also purchased a book about birds at Salvation Army, cut out some pictures of yellow and brown larks and put them on yellow cardstock for an interesting accessory. I blogged about this recently as a fun weekly project.

ART PROJECT:
I wanted to make something myself, so I made the frames on the wall. The frames were purchased for $1 each at the Dollar Store, painted brown, and then I hot-glued craft twigs/sticks from Michael’s. Simple and something cute to break up the big open space. I blogged about this project earlier as a fun weekly project.

WHAT IT COST
Paint: $30
Flooring: $120
Shower Curtain: $15
Stackable cubes: $16
Baskets: $20
Accessories on cubes: $6
Wall Art: $8
Towels: $14
Rug: $19.
Vanity: $40
Clock: $4
New blind for the window: $7
Accessories on toilet shelves: $2
Total: $301

Avery roll!

2011-02-24T08:45:00.000-05:00

Project - Boring Shelves

2011-02-23T08:42:00.001-05:00

Today I finally, FINALLY, finished the re-do of our bathroom. It's been a long time coming, but with a newborn, extra time has been a bit scarce. During naptimes, I managed to finally get it done and will post the full redo before and after pictures later tonight.

But here was my last challenge of the bathroom. We repurposed this white shelving system to put behind our toilet. Clean, crisp, and YAWN. How to lighten it up?

Before - boring!

First, I took some bright yellow scrapbook paper and put in in the windows so the color peeks through the frosted glass. You'll see later that the tub is a bright yellow like this, and I didn't want to change the tub, so this provided me a way to bring the color in elsewhere in the bathroom.

A trip to Salvation Army helped me with the rest of this challenge. For $1, I picked up a green canister to hold cotton balls and Q-tips. A simple wash and it was ready to go. I also found this book on Southwestern birds that had great drawings and information on various birds. I picked out a couple of larks, cut them out, and spray glued them onto yellow cardstock. They are just sitting propped up ready for anyone to read about. Cute!

And, in just one trip to Salvation Army and about an hour of work, I have a cute and colorful shelf!

Giveaway

2011-02-19T09:00:00.005-05:00

Here's the rules:

The first person to leave a comment claiming something gets it. But let me know who you are so I don't give something to the wrong person!
You can have what you claim, but only if there is a free way to get it to you. Basically, this means if you live in the Boston area and it's likely I'm going to see you in the next few months. Until we can meet up, I'll hold it aside for you. We are having a big farewell party before you move, so if you can come to that, I'll hold it until then. Or, if it's really lightweight, I might mail it to you. I'll put "will mail" next to the things that I'll mail.
Umm...that's pretty much all the rules.

Today's Giveaways:

iRobot vacuum Roomba thingy. It works, we love it, we just don't use it very much. It comes with a little lighthouse contraption that acts as a laser wall so the robot doesn't go where it's not supposed to.
Dark wood mail holder with a little drawer. It even comes with little numbers on the slots if you pay your bills via mail old-timey like.
Cake decorating stuff. New from IKEA, never used, as I never got into my cake decorating phase other than to wish I knew how to do it and buy something to decorate cakes with. There's a bunch of cutouts for fondant (I think) and a kit that has a few texture tools, an icing bag, etc. (will mail)
Law school books. WAIT! Before you stop reading because these are stupid to give away, they would be excellent props for a theater. Just rip out all the pages (and my years of hard work) and glue the bindings. Excellent if you are doing a show with a trial in it like To Kill a Mockingbird or Parade. Or if you just want to impress your lady friends.
LEFTOVERS: 5-foot tall artificial Christmas tree, Sex and the City season 2 (will mail), Various ~~Nancy Drew computer games (will mail)~~, awesome rollerblades, 3 margarita glasses, ~~two little wooden jewelry boxes~~, wedding scrapbook set (will mail). All still up for grabs!

Just a few of the many law books I have. Don't they look important?

Cake kits

Gotta pay my automo-bills!


We named her Rosie, after the Jetsons' housekeeper.

Seriously fun!

One for you, two for your alcoholic friend

You could wear these while chasing around the Roomba

Weekly Finds!

2011-02-18T13:50:00.001-05:00

Didn't get out too much this week, but I did go hunting for new mascara. I bought some Cover Girl mascara (in an orange tube) but the brush was too fat and I t hitting myself in my face with it. I had a great mascara from Bare Escentuals a couple of years with a nice long, narrow wand and was looking for something like that. I do love Cover Girl, so I bought this new mascara that is supposed to have magic faerie dust in it that somehow enhances different colors of eyes. So, I bought the one for blue eyes and put it on...no difference. BUT, I like the wand shape, and I needed mascara, so it's a win in my book.

Like a lead weight

2011-02-17T15:09:00.000-05:00

It's no joke, houses are money pits. Sadly, I'm in love with my house, so Jon and I will do whatever it takes to get it in the right condition. Our place is a 1900 Victorian house that we absolutely adore. Beautiful floors, high ceilings, and structure-wise, it's in great shape. But, since we are moving to DC soon and we are going to rent it out, we have a lot of work to do to get it in the right shape.

The main thing we are working on at the moment is the lead paint issue. In Massachusetts, any house built before 1978 is assumed to have lead paint, and a $400 inspection told us exactly where the lead paint is in the house and what we have to do to fix it. And since you can't rent to anyone who has a kid under the age of 6 if there is lead paint i your house and it's against the law to not rent to families because they have kids under 6, we have to get this fixed. Also, Jon won't let me peel wallpaper and paint walls until this is fixed, so it's my top priority.

So, we each did some online training, took a test, mailed it in, and got authorization to do minor things to the house, such as cap baseboards that kids can gnaw on, encapsulate surfaces, and remove doors and shelves. Jon is going to a day-long course that will authorize him to do even more. My hope is to get things encapsulated by the end of February so I can start with my other "fun" projects like wall color in March.

Here's being hopeful!!

Giveaway!

2011-02-15T18:18:00.002-05:00

A reminder of the rules:

The first person to leave a comment claiming something gets it. Please include your full name in case I don't know which "Brian" or "Jennifer" you are!!
You can have what you claim, but only if there is a free way to get it to you. Basically, this means if you live in the Boston area and it's likely I'm going to see you in the next few months. Until we can meet up, I'll hold it aside for you. We are having a big farewell party before you move, so if you can come to that, I'll hold it until then. Or, if it's really lightweight, I might mail it to you. I'll put "will mail" next to the things that I'll mail.
Umm...that's pretty much all the rules.

Today's Giveaways:

Rollerblades. Size 8, and fit me well. I'm a 7 1/2 normal shoe size. These are GREAT rollerblades that I've only worn a few times in Germany. I wish I had time/a place to rollerblade, but I'm being realistic to say I probably will never go rollerblading again.
Margarita glasses. Three of them. Why not a set of four? I broke one.
~~Nancy Drew Computer Games. Ok, I'm 31, but these are really fun games! I love the Nancy Drew games, and they are actually pretty challenging. I often have to cheat. (will mail).~~
Wedding scrapbook set. Lots of pieces for those scrapbook maniacs! (will mail).
Two little wooden boxes. Jon gave me a couple of watches that came in these. Nice display case for your jewelry if you sell it or just want to give someone a watch in a nice box. Or other stuff.
LEFTOVERS: Still leftover from the last giveaway is a 5-foot artificial Christmas tree and Season 2 of Sex in the City!

3 months!

2011-02-15T08:34:00.000-05:00

Avery turned 3 months old on Valentines Day! Here's what he's up to:

- sleeping through the night! Usually a blissful 10 hours, sometimes an odd 12 hours or 7 hours. He did this for the first time right after he turned 2 months, but he will ONLY sleep all night in his car seat. So we leave him in it. I put him in his crib for naps during the day, and at some point, we'll start moving him to the crib at night. But it's so nice getting lots of sleep!
- smiling. A lot! He loves seeing either me or Jon
- tongue action. He really loves it when people stick their tongues out at him and he tries to do it back
- general baby cooing. This usually follows the tongue action.
- laughing. Ok, well not yet, but he's SOOO close!
- pooping. Yeah, everyone poops, I read the book too. But after his two month birthday, Avery decided to start setting records. He went from pooping once every day or every other day to needing about 5 diaper changes based on poop a day. Makes for bad smells and diaper rash. He generally likes to wait until we've changed him to poop again.

We've been dealing with a few issues. Diaper rash comes and goes, and it's a pain in the ass not only for him literally, but for us. We usually give him "air time" by laying him on his belly and opening his diaper so his little naked butt can air out. He also turns his head to the right so much that his grandma pediatrician said we need to correct it. So, we are continuing our "necksercises" but more intensely by making sure he lays with his head to the left when he gets his "air time". He hates it, but after two days, he started to lean to the left dramatically. Yay! He also had a bad case of "cradle cap" which is really just dried skin and junk on the top of his head. Some baby oil, dandruff shampoo, and a little scraping with a baby comb helped out here.

What I find interesting are the phases we go through as parents. We had the swaddle phase where we kept him bundled up 100% of the time and couldn't get enough little blankets. Now we hardly use those blankets for anything and we are on to using washcloths like crazy in an effort to soap-and-water his tush every time he poops. We are moved from the "jedi shirt" phase, which meant he wore a little white wrap shirt with mittens every day and we are now in the "mitten" phase. He outgrew the jedi shirts and now we put him in mittens. Even after filing and cutting his nails, he still manages to scratch himself up.

Hopefully next month I can announce he's laughing, is toilet trained, and has a job!

Weekly Finds!

2011-02-11T08:30:00.000-05:00

Not much this week that I purchased, but I regularly check out the blog My Frugal Adventures which always has neat deals one everything, and they posted a code this week for a free (well, you pay shipping) 18' by 54' banner. I'm wanting to throw a big party when we leave Boston, so I bought a "Goodbye Boston!" banner for $6.95! Here's what it will look like:

Giveaway!

2011-02-08T13:14:00.003-05:00

I'm doing a major houseclean before we move to Washington, DC, and let's face it, we all have a ton of stuff we don't need. So, I plan to lower the amount of my stuff and add to yours by giving away various things. Everything is in good condition, unless otherwise stated, it's just stuff that we no longer need/want or don't want to haul to DC. If nobody wants it, it goes to Goodwill/Salvation Army, but I enjoy knowing that my stuff goes to a good home. I'm just putting up a few items to see if these even works. If it does, there will be more giveaways!

Here's the rules:

The first person to leave a comment claiming something gets it.
You can have what you claim, but only if there is a free way to get it to you. Basically, this means if you live in the Boston area and it's likely I'm going to see you in the next few months. Until we can meet up, I'll hold it aside for you. We are having a big farewell party before you move, so if you can come to that, I'll hold it until then. Or, if it's really lightweight, I might mail it to you. I'll put "will mail" next to the things that I'll mail.
Umm...that's pretty much all the rules.

Today's Giveaway Items:

~~Sex and the City complete series on DVD.~~ I also have an extra Season 2, so that's up for grabs also.
5-foot artificial Christmas tree. We used this for 2 years. It's a cute extra tree. This year we put it on a coffee table behind our couch so it looked like a 6 foot tree instead.
~~Bookend: the letter "H" (it used to be my maiden name initial, but now I'm married and it doesn't make sense!) Perfect for the "H" in your life~~.
~~Wicker basket. It holds things~~.
Bright yellow Isaac Mizrahi purse from Target. Has a tiny little smudge on it, but it's super cute. I think I used it once and just don't want it anymore. The Today show just said that bright colors are "in" for spring, so maybe this will put you in a springy mood. (will mail)

Please note the smudge.

Project - Frames

2011-02-05T15:00:00.001-05:00

This is just a small taste to the bathroom remodel, but here is a cute and easy art project I did.

My bathroom has a big blank green wall, and with a shower curtain providing the main art of the room in the form of a leaf and nature-like patter, I wanted some kind of branch art to put on the wall. Why buy something when you can make it yourself? My mom and I headed to Michael's and purchase a big bunch of grapevine-like craft sticks. My original idea was to bunch sticks together and hang these bunches up, but this didn't work. Then, I remembered I had picked up some $1 frames at the Dollar Store for use in a future art project. So, I took these and painted them brown.

I then used our garden cutters and trimmed pieces of the sticks off and haphazardly attached them to the frame with a glue gun.

The finished frame looks like this.

I wanted to go to The Paper Store and get a neat postcard or card or something to put in the middle of the frame, but I couldn't find ANYTHING that I liked, so I just decided to hang them up solo. I love how they break up the green wall and carry on the motif.

Man Down!

2011-02-04T08:39:00.000-05:00

Avery got his first injury last night when someone (cough, cough, Jon) was clipping his fingernails and got a little too close to the bone. I don't know which was worse, Avery's crying or the look on Jon's face that he'd made Avery bleed a little bit! But, no worries, he's fine, and with a quick call to pediatrician (and grandma) we bandaged him up. Hard to do on such a little finger, but he's ok!

Weekly Finds!

2011-02-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

To prepare for the 400th snow of this New England winter, I stopped by Target to buy some extra formula in case we couldn't get out of the house. The purses were right at the entrance at the Target, and I was drawn in like a moth to the flaming "30% clearance" sign. AND, because bags ALWAYS fit, no matter if you have baby weight to lose or not, I picked up these gorgeous three purses, one in brown suede, one in green croc print, and one in a purple, and not one of them over $12. Cost for all three: $29

Weekly Finds!

2011-01-28T05:17:00.001-05:00

Here's what I bought this week:

No, it's not an odd piece of art. It's a heater. Because ours broke. In the coldest week of this Massachusetts winter. Fantastic. Isn't she a beaut? Cost: ouch.

I also bought flowers for my new nephew, Iain Mason Beach! (pronounced like "Ian" in case you were confused. This is what they were supposed to look like, and hopefully they came out similar (you never know when you buy flowers long distance!).

The First Thing I'd Plug

2011-01-26T12:43:00.000-05:00

Celebrities plug crap all the time. And get paid tons to do it. But I always wonder if they actually USE the product. I mean, the company is obviously the one who contacts the celebrity. No celebrity is thinking "this mascara is so great, I'm going to see if Cover Girl will let me tell the world!"

But, if I was a celebrity, I would contact Schick and ask if I could plug their Intuition razors and blades. These things are AMAZING. I hate shaving so much, but this makes it almost enjoyable. You don't even feel the razor hit your skin, but all your hair is gone. I've only nicked myself perhaps twice in the years I've been using these. Seriously, spend the money, try it out, love it. I love it so much, I'd plug them for free! I will never ever shave with anything else, and today was thinking of buying tons of them in case the company every goes under.

Weekly Project - Stationery

2011-01-22T17:29:00.001-05:00

I like to do stuff around the house, crafty stuff, etc. So, in an effort to stay busy (like a newborn and choreography/costume duties for Clue: The Musical aren't enough!) I'm trying to do at least one fun project a week, and hopefully write about them.

This week, I found a DIY stationary idea on ShelterPop via Fresh Home that looked really fun and easy. I love sending and receiving mail, and I've been meaning to send out some cards to some folks, so why not make them myself?

I took some scrapbooking paper as the base of the card and measured it off to make sure it would fit in one of the many random envelopes that I had lying around.

Then, I made a paper template of what I wanted the front of the card to say, in this case "congratulations"

I taped the template down to a bulletin board and slid the card under it so it was snug enough to hold steady. You have to make sure you have the template and the card turned correctly so you are punching through the card so the front of the card has the raised bumps.

Then, I took a thumbtack and punched away along the lines of my template, causing the card to have little bumps on the front.

There you have it! A cute, fun card that's truly homemade!

The best thing I like about it is that it's still in your own handwriting, just elevated to a new level! Who knows - maybe this one was for YOU!

Wedding Song

2011-01-22T14:25:00.001-05:00

This came up on my iPod today, and it reminded me of our fake wedding day. Jon and I picked this song the morning of our wedding to be our wedding song. Last minute choice, but oh so good. What was YOUR song?

Nightmares

2011-01-22T10:28:00.000-05:00

Do you ever have the same dream or nightmare over and over? I have the exact same nightmare (with a few changes here and there) and it's driving me crazy. I have it at least once every two months. The dream goes a-like so:

I'm in college or law school and it's the end of the semester AND the end of my time there, so I'm about to graduate. I took ONLY the number of credits I needed to graduate (this was true in law school) so I have to pass all of my classes. The first week of the semester, I went to my geology class (I can see the book with pictures of rock and crystals in it) and I thought it was horrible, but instead of dropping it, I just stopped going. The dream usually starts at the end of the semester during finals and I have a huge geology exam I have to take because I didn't drop the class. I have to do well on it because I didn't attend class and take quizzes or turn in assignments the entire semester, and I have no time to study and no idea what to study. In the dream, I'm furious at myself for not dropping the class. I usually wake up completely panicked and have to remind myself that I'm not in school anymore.

Last night the dream was a little different in that I was ok cramming for the exam, but I couldn't remember when the test was. I was somewhere on a Monday running around trying to remember if my test was Monday or Tuesday, assuring myself it was Tuesday, but being afraid that I missed the exam altogether.

Any ideas as to what this means? The dream dictionaries online say that to dream you are taking an exam signifies insecurities and fear of failure. Well, who isn't afraid to fail? And the only thing I'm insecure about at the moment is this 15 or so pounds of baby weight I'm hauling around.

Also, just a fun fact - the most common dream I have is that I'm losing a tooth, and one site said that "tooth" is the MOST common search word in their dream dictionary. Interesting...

Does anyone else have the same recurring nightmare??

Two months old

2011-01-22T01:06:00.001-05:00

In his swing with his head to the right, of course.

Avery is two months old now - wow, how time flies! At his two month checkup, he weighed 11 pounds and 1 ounce and got two shots which he took like a champ (mostly).

Highlights of this month include him learning to smile! I posted a video earlier of his newest trick, and it's so fun to get him to smile? I can usually get him to smile by jiggling his chin, but every once in a while I'll just peek down at him and he'll be smiling at me. The same day he started smiling, he also cried his first tear. Newborns cry a lot, but they don't actually have tears fall, so even though he was upset, we were happy to see a new milestone. However, our FAVORITE thing is that Avery is sleeping through the night! It freaked me out at first in a "Holy shit, it's been 7 hours since he was awake!" kind of way, but he was just fine. And it literally happened one night, then the next he reverted back to waking up in the middle of the night, and the night after that he slept all through the night again and hasn't looked back. I'll admit that I'm a paranoid mom, and while I didn't love getting up in the middle of the night with him, it did provide me with some reassurance that he was ok. Waiting until morning is tough. The interesting thing is that he'll only sleep through the night sleeping in his car seat. It's fine for him to sleep in there, but he has such a nice big crib and mattress that I wish he'd use them! I'm trying to get him to nap in his crib and get used to it more.

He has this weird thing where he loves to look to the right all the time, but not so much to the left. In fact, he's starting to get a flat spot on the back of his head from keeping it the same way. He can swivel his head really really far to the right, Exorcist style, but he doesn't like his left side. My mother-in-law is a pediatrician and she recommended we do exercises (I call them necksercises) to turn his head to the left more and when he's sleeping in his car seat, we prop a sock or a rolled up T-shirt on the right side of his head to get him to look to the left or at least stay straight.

Still doing typical baby stuff: Eat, cry, poop. He enjoys his swing and likes looking at a painting we have hanging up behind a chair as well as at Jon and I when we hold him. It's fun to see him do new things all the time!

Weekly Finds!

2011-01-21T15:30:00.002-05:00

Not having a job is quite dangerous because it leads to surfing the internet which leads to online shopping. I rarely get out of the house anymore, so I don't do a ton of regular shopping, thanks to baby and New England weather. But sometimes I find things that I like so much, I just can't resist, so I'm thinking of sharing my good finds on my blog once a week.

1 - Wednesday's Woot was a 48 pack of one-time-use toothbrushes. Easy to throw in a purse, and you don't even need water to activate them! Cost: $10

2 - Wednesday's LivingSocial was a $20 Amazon.com voucher for $10. Easy math problem there.

3 - Baby art cards. I read that babies see best in black and white, and these looked adorable. Now Avery will be the SMARTEST BABY ALIVE!! Cost: $19 http://www.weegallery.com/artcards.html

4 - Ordered double photos of all the pictures I took of Avery during his second month. I try to do this every month to keep up with the photo collecting. I am going to put them all in one album. My mom recently gave my sisters and me each an album filled with photos of us as kids, and it was great having them all. Cost: $18

I WANTED to buy this awesome jacket from kohls.com that I saw in my Instyle magazine ($4 - another purchase this week) but everyone who read the magazine had the same idea because they are sold out of the jacket unless you are a size extra-small, which I am not, even PRE-baby. So, I bookmarked the site and I'm stalking it daily waiting for the restock.

Avery smiles!

2011-01-20T14:36:00.002-05:00

The Church Search

2011-01-18T09:33:00.000-05:00

I wish I was Catholic sometimes. Not enough to put in the effort of converting, but almost every Catholic church is the same, so when you move and try out a new Catholic church, you know what you're getting into. You already know when to sit, stand, and kneel, that the songs are going to be lame and won't rhyme and that there will be chanting of sorts. Not so with Protestant churches, which is what Jon and I are looking for. You never know if you're going to be the only white people in a church (NOT a racist comment, just saying it's hard to blend into a congregation if you're the only white person), if you won't know how to speak in tongues like everyone else, if you'll be disappointed because this church as 3 hour services or a praise band (hate them).

Jon and I are on the Great Church Search. We started out last week going to a church in Swampscott that was pretty good. Non-demonational, very pretty, with very nice people eager to look at Avery and ask about him. Sparse population, but maybe because it was the holiday weekend. There was some singing, some reading, and a sermon by a female British pastor. I thought it was a 7 out of 10. Jon thought it was a 5. Although, Jon admits that he thinks a "seven is about as good as a church can be without them giving me money." Yep, he's going to hell.

Week number two, and I think we found what works for us. I thought it would take longer, but we went to a Unitarian Universalist Church in Salem and really liked it. My friend's response was "was there any mention of religion at all during the service?" Ha ha. This church, first, is in this amazing historic building, so I really love the whole vibe I get just from entering the church. It's also right next to the "Witch House" in Salem. Second, it's very much a "we don't care what you believe in" church that still teaches to love God and love each other. It's nice because I've always been a big proponent in the idea that really every religion is the same, most just choose to call God different names and that we shouldn't judge others so much on their religion. I also like this church because they read not only from the Scripture, but also from poems and literature that deals with the topic of the day and can show religious context in other writings than the Bible. The church also has programs like a weekly luncheon meeting where people get together and discuss Islam and what it is and what it means. Or a weekly series on "ias" and "isms" where they discuss how to stop bias and discrimination. Everyone is welcome at the church, and we feel very welcome.

We've gone twice there, and we like it, especially since the 10:30 service fits in well to our schedules :-) I'll update more if we change our mind, but I think, in our remaining time in Boston, we'll be attending this church.

Nursery Rhyme Horrors

2011-01-06T23:09:00.001-05:00

In a futile effort to calm Avery down one night, I pulled Mother Goose's Nursery Rhymes off the shelf to recite to him. Even if he had calmed down at the sound of me reading, if he had been able to comprehend the words I was saying, he surely would have started sobbing in complete horror. How did I not know how vicious and horrible nursery rhymes are?

Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home
Your house is on fire and your children are gone
All except one and that's little Ann
And she has crept under the warming pan

Is this a sick joke someone is playing on Ladybird? First off, your house is on fire, so all of your possessions are destroyed. Next, your children have disappeared, we can only hope to safety. BUT, little Ann has taken refuge under the warming pan, surely to be burned to a crisp alive if she doesn't mercifully die from smoke inhalation first.

Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone
Oh where, oh where can he be?
With his ears cut short and his tail cut long
Oh where, oh where can he be?

I'll tell you where your freaking dog is, narrator. He's run the fuck away from you because you mutilate his ears and his tail. Probably one of those horrible show dog owners who clip their dog's vocal cords so they don't bark. It happens, people. Horrible.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
She had so many children, she didn't know what to do
She gave them broth without any bread
She whipped them all soundly and put them to bed

You don't know what to do, old woman? How about having your tubes tied or buying condoms? That'll stop the child flow. That's much easier than your standard fare of starving them by giving them no carbs or beating them until they fall asleep.

Tom, tom, the piper's son stole a pig and away he run
The pig was eat, and Tom was beat
And Tom went howling down the street.

I actually don't mind this one too much. Sure, it's about beating kids, but you can't have your kids running around stealing livestock. Tom deserved that beating.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater had a wife and couldn't keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well

First, this Peter fellow is known as one who eats pumpkins. So, that's weird. And he couldn't "keep" his wife, which probably means that she did weird things like have opinions or want to vote. What do you do with a crazy woman like that? Stuff her in some produce. But don't worry, she's kept very well. That'll show her.

And there are a plethora of others also involving animal mutilation. Three blind mice get their tails cut off with a carving knife. As if being legally blind isn't hard enough for a mouse, the poor things probably run all sideways now because their tail helps them with balance. And the last stanza of Little Bo Peep involves her finding her sheep, but they've left their tails behind them, making her heart bleed. Seriously, it says her heart bleeds. So, she's got a bunch of tail-less sheep running around, which has to be kinda messy. She'll never be able to sell those suckers.

So, I'll be reading these to Avery until he understands words and then this book is going to be chucked out of the window. I'd almost like him to listen to Glenn Beck than this crap. Almost.

It's the Little Things

2011-01-02T18:53:00.001-05:00

I love the idea of New Year's Resolutions. The things you've been wanting to do for a while and the goals you've set for yourself but haven't accomplished become more solid in the dawn of a New Year.

Unfortunately, I suck at resolutions. I make extremely lofty goals, or too many goals, and then I don't get them done and feel bad. For example, I can't say "I resolve to work out every day" because I won't work out every day, I'll feel like a failure, and I'll give up on the idea of working out altogether.

So my new plan is little baby resolutions. Things that I should be doing or habits that I want to form that don't take too much effort or planning. Then, if I do them, yay for me!

My first resolution is to make my bed every day. "What, you don't make your bed every day?!" Snort. Making my bed every day will take no time at all and it will make me feel better I walk past my bedroom. Because SOMETHING in the bedroom will be in order. And if I accomplish making my bed every day, I will add another resolution of similar very small sacrifice and then celebrate as though I am splitting the atom.

I Hate this Feeling

2010-12-24T20:53:00.000-05:00

A while back, I wrote about being jealous of my unborn child because he has all the stories in the world to read for the first time, and I've already read so many great stories. Well, I found, and exhausted another great story, and now I'm completely depressed there's no more to it.

My sister recently came for a visit and suggested I watch Firefly, a short-lived science fiction show circa 2002 (I think.) She suggested it because it starred Nathan Fillion, and we were watching him play Captain Hammer in Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog. Since I'm just kinda hanging out at home with the little one, I decided to watch it since it was on Netflix streaming.

Holy awesomeness. I loved this show. Sadly, it only went for 14 episodes, and then was granted a follow-on movie, all of which I watched in 2 days. The basic premise is that it takes place in the year 2500-something, everyone has left Earth and all the humans occupy other planets, there was a big war between the government (Alliance) and those not liking the government which the Alliance won, and now people are just living. The main character is a guy named Malcolm who fought against the Alliance in the war and now owns a ship called Serenity (that looks like a firefly) and he and his crew bounce around smuggling things, looking for transport jobs, etc.

Some great things about this show: It's Joss Whedon, so there is some really great subtle (and not so subtle) humor that comes out of it. The captain is serious at times, but completely sarcastic and funny at other times. Basically, I want to marry him. Another great thing is that swearing would be great in this show, but it ran on Fox. So, in the plot, the US and China joined forces or something and everyone swears in Chinese. Third, there are no aliens in this show, which I really find interesting about a show that takes place in space. I haven't done a ton of research as to why there are no aliens, but as someone who loves the idea of space travel but doesn't believe in aliens, I dig it. Finally, the show is kind of a western. Everyone has a western-ness about them, despite the fact it takes place in the future. There are ray guns, but the captain and his crew prefer to shoot with traditional weapons.

After I walked out of Avatar, I was bummed that such a world didn't exist, and after watching Firefly and the movie Serenity, I'm bummed that I can't be a member of the crew - it's that entertaining. I hope you all get a chance to check it out - for free if you have a Wii and Netflix!

I can read!

2010-12-20T15:49:00.000-05:00

So, for the last several years, I've really read very little besides horribly boring law casebooks, and I'm a HUGE reader, so it was pretty depressing. Well, now that the bar exam is over, my job is nowhere close to starting, and I spend a good amount of time sitting on my butt with a baby in my arms or breastpump bottles on my...well, breasts....I've started balancing my kindle (thanks, Craig!) in one hand while babying/pumping in the other. So I need suggestions on books!

I read Matched, which is supposed to be the new Hunger Games, but isn't nearly as captivating. I would have liked it more if I had read it first. Then I re-read Breaking Dawn, because I just felt like it. I just finished The Help, which was truly an amazing book. I've for $25 on my Amazon account waiting to be spent, so what should I read next???

It's free on the Kindle to read classics, so I'm thinking about reading some classic novels, but when you're feeding at 2am, you want something really captivating and I'm afraid I'll get bored. Please make some suggestions if you have any!!

A month goes by so fast!

2010-12-15T18:24:00.000-05:00

YIKES! Sorry for the delay in posting. A new baby can bring havoc, and I just haven't been in the writing mood. There are lots of things going on to discuss, though!

My family (mother, father, and aunt) came for an 8-day visit recently to help out and give lots of love to Avery. It was a complete Godsend having them here. I took naps, didn't have to worry about breastpumping and giving Avery a bottle and letting the dog out at the same time (of course I'm doing that now that they are gone) and it was great for Avery to get so much love!

I'm getting ready to choreograph another musical. It's Clue: The Musical, which has very little choreo in it, but should be fun. I'm surprised more people don't do this show.

Finally, Avery is one month old! His likes so far include being held, his activity mat, and my voice. His dislikes are being naked, baths, and diaper changes. In this month, his penis healed up from the circumcision, his umbilical cord fell off, he started focusing his eyes more on things, he's gained lots of weight, is eating more and more, and refocuses himself when he hears my voice. He's sleeping about 4 hours at a time during the night, which works pretty well with the shift schedule that Jon and I worked out for ourselves. He's sat through several rounds of Christmas photography and being dressed like and elf and like Santa. His whole body has changed so much since we brought him home. His face is rounder, his body longer, and he actually looks like a little boy now!

Getting some much needed help

2010-11-24T14:53:00.000-05:00

So I've become obsessed with home design recently, and started reading the Fresh Home Blog at http://freshhomeblog.com I had an idea that maybe the readers of this blog could help me with my hideous brown-tiled bathroom, so I emailed the editors and they said it was a great idea!

Check out the posting at http://freshhomeblog.com/2010/11/ugly-room-sos-alisons-brown-bathroom/ and feel free to add your comments!!

Avery's Story

2010-11-19T15:34:00.001-05:00

I'm going to try to tell the story of Avery's birth, because lots of people are curious how that all came to be. I promise not to be too graphic, because, to be honest, there aren't a lot of graphic details to tell (thank you Jesus!)

Jon and I went to see the 3rd performance of Willy Wonka (still playing - get your tickets at www.footlight.org!) on Friday night and came right home after that. Just before 4am, I got up to go to the bathroom for the bazillionth time (because I was nine months pregnant) and came back to bed, but couldn't sleep. I thought something weird was going on, so I went back to the bathroom only to decide that my water had broken. I went into the bedroom and said "Jon, my water broke" and he popped up immediately and said "OK!" like he'd been alert the whole time. We called the doctor who, at first, told me that the baby can move, causing me to release urine, so it might be that, but I'm pretty sure I know the difference between a bit of urine and a lot of amniotic fluid, so he told me to come on into the hospital.

We walked the dog, took some trash out, double checked our bags and headed to Beverly Hospital about 5am. We got checked in, the nurse confirmed that my water had broken, and Dr. Laz came in to see how dilated I was (this test is not a fun one) and said I was about 1 centimeter dilated (you have to get up to 10).

Over the next 12 hours, I had some mild contractions, but nothing bad at all, nothing even close to menstrual cramps that I used to have. Jon and I walked all around the hospital again and again, made arrangements for the dog, chatted on the phone to a bunch of folks, including our family, and just kinda hung out. I even took a couple of sleeping pills and napped for a couple of hours.

After 12 hours, it was 4pm, and the doctor decided to put me on Pitocin, which is what most women get to induce labor, or to speed the process along. The contractions started to gradually increase in strength, and about 3 hours later, I was in a ton of pain. The contractions were short, but only about 90 seconds apart, so I didn't have a lot of time to recover. It was definitely the worst pain I've been in. The nurse assured me I could get an epidural whenever, but I had some idea in my head that I had to hold out as long as possible. Finally, after the contractions made me throw up and were just way too much, I agreed to the epidural. The nurse checked to see how dilated I was. I was sure I was like 5 centimeters. Nope, 2-3 centimeters, she said. When she left the room, I burst into tears about not being further along, but ordered the epidural anyway. I'm grateful to have a doctor who will dish out the drugs whenever I want.

It seemed to be forever until the epidural doctor came in, and the process of getting one was way strange. The numbing shot was extremely painful, and whatever else he was doing to inject my spine or something was the strangest (and not pleasant) feeling, but I kept assuring myself that it couldn't be worse than the contractions I was feeling, and I was right. Almost immediately, the next contraction felt only half as strong. My legs started to numb up, not that I couldn't move them, but only very very slowly. Everything from right below my ribcage to my knees was completely numb.

I was so numb that when the nurse checked to see how dilated I was 30 minutes later, I couldn't even feel her check, which is a VERY uncomfortable test. She said "Oh wow, you're 6-7 - I should call the doctor" so in my case the epidural actually sped the process along. Thirty minutes after that, I was fully dilated and ready to push.

Now it's hard to push when you can't feel your muscles, so you aren't 100% sure you're REALLY pushing. But, I just assumed the position they told me to, and pretended like I could feel something. Avery's heartbeat was up and down, so they put me on an oxygen mask and had me push from a couple of different positions (on my back and on my side) to help him out a bit. On each contraction (which I couldn't feel but the nurse told me was coming) I pushed 3-4 times and finally the doctor said "Ok, on the next contraction, we should have a baby" and sure enough, we did!

They put a warm blanket on my chest and put this little wet bundle on there. He was much cleaner than I thought he would be, so he wasn't too covered in grossness. While I was cuddling him, the doc was busy down below putting in a few stitches (couldn't feel them) and dealing with the placenta. Then, he basically said "great job" and disappeared!

The nurse gave Jon and I some time to enjoy the baby before coming in a weighing him. They then put me in a wheelchair (hard to do because my right leg had a really strong dose of drugs and was completely numb) and took us upstairs to recovery. Avery went to the nursery for tests and a bath while Jon and I got a few hours of sleep. When we got to the room, I looked at the clock and it was just after 4pm, so within 24 hours my water had broken and I'd had a baby!

We spent a few days in the hospital getting adjusted, trying to learn to feed, and spending some great time with Avery before taking him home where our adjustment still proceeds. Thanks to everyone for all their love and support through the whole process!!

Last pregnancy post?

2010-11-08T09:53:00.001-05:00

This could be the last post about being pregnant with Avery! YAY!

So, it's week 39 for me, and a normal pregnancy is 40 weeks, so it's really any-time-now to have the baby. For most of my pregnancy, I would think of things or events that had to happen BEFORE the baby was born. Like, I have to take the bar exam before the baby is born, I have to get my results, I have to fly to California for Gabi's wedding, I have to go to the opening of Willy Wonka, etc, etc. Well, I'm out of events!

I'm seeing the doctor once a week, who assures me that Avery's doing great. I'm wicked uncomfortable, which I'm told is a good sign, albeit horrible for sleeping. We either received from others or picked up all the things we feel like we need immediately for Avery, the house is (fairly) clean, bags are packed, lists are made, we've got someone to watch Dash. Now it's just a waiting game! Today, I have to finish one little nursery project, and then the rest of my day consists of sitting around and watching TV, just because I have nothing else to do. Pretty awesome.

I had a contraction on the way to Willy Wonka the other day, so I had to have a little talk with Avery about staying in through opening night (he did!). Yesterday morning I had stomach cramps which turned out to NOT be pregnancy related, but made me go through a moment of panic "Is this it? Is this it?". So the waiting game kinda sucks, but as anxious as I am, I'm starting to get a bit nervous (epidural on standby, please!)

Hopefully the next baby post will include pictures of our little guy!!

I did it!

2010-10-29T14:02:00.000-05:00

Harley helps me study this summer

I passed the Massachusetts bar exam!

Rumors were flying that results had been mailed yesterday, so I was watching the mailbox like a hawk. My mail comes in sometimes between 10am and 6pm, so I never know when my mail will actually get to me. Well, a little before noon, I saw mail sticking out of my mailbox, so I knew it had arrived. I thought I would be calm and cool opening the letter, but I was a ripping, flying maniac. I barely skimmed the "Congratulations!" before yelling "Ohmygod, Ohmygod, I passed!" and running back into the living room to grab my phone and call Jon.

Now I can get rid of all of my bar review materials (sending most to my best friend who is taking the bar for the first time in February), not have to worry about studying with an infant, and hopefully get my assignment from the Air Force.

Tonight, Jon said we can celebrate however I want, so the rest of the day is devoted to figuring out what I want to do! Unfortunately, I can't go out and drink like I'd like to, and there aren't any movies I'm super-interested in. It might just be a low-key night, but a happy happy happy one!

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire

2010-10-25T12:51:00.001-05:00

We've been anxiously awaiting several things: bar exam results, our next assignment, and that pesky baby. Well, we got Jon's next assignment: the Pentagon.

Ok, civilians, take a sec and get the "Oooo, the Pentagon!" sentiment out of the way. It's not as cool as it sounds.

Now, here's the frustrating list of things about all of this: We specifically asked NOT to go to the Pentagon because JAG had told us that DC was not a good place for me to go. Granted, there are a lot of lawyers in DC, but most of the military ones are older lawyers, not fresh new JAGs like myself. We didn't list DC anywhere on Jon's assignment preference sheet, and when we talked to his assignments folks, they assured us that they were working diligently with JAG to find a place where it was likely we could both get stationed (like Florida, Colorado, or the other MILLION places we listed for them).

When I told JAG, they laughed, told me to put down Ft. Meade, MD and Andrews AFB in DC, because those are my only two options, and hopefully I passed the bar and they can get me Andrews. Jon is also putting in calls to his assignment people to find out what the hell the thought process POSSIBLY could have been here.

Granted, we've been lucky in our assignments and have always gotten what we wanted. But going from getting your first choice to getting an assignment you didn't even consider, and one that might not put us together is very frustrating.

Will keep everyone updated!

Month 9!

2010-10-23T15:51:00.001-05:00

I'm 36 weeks pregnant now, and here's the last picture I'm posting. From here on out, I'll only get bigger and more miserable, and no one wants to see that. I'll probably cover all the mirrors in my house.

Only one more week until I'm locking in the baby pool, so make your best bets here: Beach Baby Pool

My weekly indulgence

2010-10-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

36 weeks pregnant now, not sleeping well, waddling around like an Oompa Loompa, legs hurt, back hurts, ugh, I could go on, but I don't want to discourage others from what I'm sure is the miracle of birth. So one day I opted, while at the mall, to get a quick 20 minute back massage at the Chinese (?) store in Saugus. There's a store upstairs and a kiosk down below, but, not wanting to get a massage in front of every mall passer-by, I opted for the store.

Heaven. I've been back three times! Each time I go, there's a different group of folks working in there, so I get the experience of three different massages. The first lady was uber-strong, and ended with a really nice face massage. The second time I went, I got a guy who focused a lot on my legs and arms, which was awesome. Today, I had a younger girl, who worked on my joints (knees/wrists) and came around to work on my pecs (awesome!).

I've always been a massage junkie - I've had regular therapeutic massage, Thai massage, Ayurvedic massage, Aromatherapy massage, Champi, Shiatsu, you name it. I actually watch massage instructional videos to help me get to sleep at night. Once I'm not pregnant, I'd like to try the Ashiatsu massage, where people use bars on the ceiling to hold their body weight while they walk on your back. Unfortunately, massages are an expensive habit. I get free prenatal massages at my doctor's office, but the woman giving them was not very good. It was more painful than necessary, and she wouldn't do the same thing on both sides of my body, which did not suit my OCD.

Mall massages are the best because they are inexpensive. For $20, you get a good 20 minutes, which relaxes and refreshes. It's pretty quiet where I get them done, and everyone is super nice. The massage chairs are really comfortable and they go out of their way to adjust them for my expanding belly. Plus, they have a card that I get stamped every 10 minutes and will soon get a free 10 minutes.

Jon does Israeli martial arts every week that runs about the same price as a weekly massage, so I figure it's a fair deal. While I get massages, I hear another massage person standing outside the store offering to give massages to people, and they always say "No thanks" or "I wish I had time" and I'm telling you, this is worth making time for! The next time you walk by one of these places, do your body a favor and indulge - totally worth it!!

So You Want to Go to Law School

2010-10-20T08:20:00.001-05:00

Hmm....a parenting conundrum

2010-10-13T05:41:00.000-05:00

I'm choreographing a musical (get tickets at www.footlight.org) this fall which opens in four weeks. The show is Willy Wonka, so there are lots of kids in the cast. The little girl playing Veruca Salt has been an understudy on Broadway, is really cute and easy to work with, and a great performer. It turns out that after she auditioned and was cast in our show she continued to audition for a regional theater show (Annie), a professional production starring Wanda Sykes as Ms. Hannigan.

I'll wait a sec to let you all shudder at the idea of Wanda Sykes as Ms. Hannigan (WTF??)

Anyway, the little girl didn't hear that she got the part of Annie until this past weekend, four weeks before our show opens. So...what to do? The choice is simple: you either stay in our community theater show, or you bail and join the professional regional production.

It led me to think: what would I make Avery do? The girl is only 10, so well within the "do what your parent says" arena. On one hand, I greatly appreciate that this little girl has some talent and this is a good career move, not to mention paid, for her, if she's really out to be a professional actress with her life. On the other hand, she made a commitment to our show and this put us in a huge bind scrambling to recast and reteach, and I can't help but wonder what lesson this teaches the girl. In theater, there is a "grace period" for leaving a show when you get a part. You can usually go to the readthrough and maybe a rehearsal or two before you drop out if something better comes along. It's annoying, but not uncommon. However, with only 8 weeks of rehearsals, dropping out halfway through them is really not cool. We had to recast a girl who has to learn the lines, several songs, and at least 4 choreographed dances. Easier said than done when we've built no time into our rehearsal schedule for this kind of make up.

It's hard to say what I would do in that situation. I think the "right" thing to do is to tell the girl that life isn't fair sometimes and that it's better to honor a commitment to our show. With so many people depending on her this late in the game, staying is the honorable thing.

Or, maybe "life isn't fair" is the lesson that we, the production crew of Willy Wonka, are learning throughout all of this....

Saving the Cash

2010-10-08T07:23:00.000-05:00

So with a house payment, car payment, student loans around the corner, regular expenses, and, oh yeah, a money-sucking baby on the way, I'm trying to think of ways to save money. Here's what I've come up with thus far:

- Beauty treatments: As much as I enjoy a professional pedicure, and as hard as it is to reach my feet these days, because I prefer light colored polish that just looks kinda shiny, I can do this myself. Messups aren't as obvious with light polish, so this is an easy fix.

- Entertainment: I think I will cancel my Netflix. It's not a lot every month, but I'm not watching the DVDs that come in the mail, and I rarely turn on the instant streaming, opting instead for the DVR. I think I'll suspend the account for a few months and see how it goes. Also, Jon and I should head to Revere when we want to see a movie instead of the slightly closer Peabody because Revere gives a great military discount.

- House: Jon and I have been pretty good about inexpensive ways to do what we want with the house. We paint ourselves, I painted my own animal pictures for the nursery, I take my own photos and blow them up cheap for decoration, and I pick up little things at Family Dollar instead of Target.

Does anyone else have some good money-saving tips??

House Design - part 3

2010-10-07T15:44:00.000-05:00

Well it's more NURSERY design than keeping with our Beachy house theme, but I'm excited to finally show off what I've been working on! Avery's room has a jungle theme, and I wanted to create something that was personal from me to him. Scouring the internet for ideas for his room, I found these posters on allposters.com by Yuko Lau. They are super cute. I love the peekaboo animals, but the price was kinda much. Here is the actual giraffe poster, and you can find the other animals here: Other Animal Posters

The posters are gorgeous, but a fairly simple concept, and I used to be great in high school art, so I thought I would give painting the same picture myself a whirl and see how they turned out. For $20 I got 5 canvasses, picked out 5 of the animals, and used some of Jon's old acrylic paint from when he was doing some art projects in Germany and got to work.

It started with a pencil sketch:

And then I added in all the color, one color at a time:

Until all the colors were filled in:

Next, each painting got some outlining to make everything pop, and voila, I was done!

They aren't perfect, but they are cute and created by me. I've got the giraffe and the tiger done (OOPS I just noticed I forgot to put the whiskers on the tiger!!), but have to finish outlining the rest. And the best thing is that they were very inexpensive, gave me something fun to do, and they are super portable so Avery can use them until he decides he's too grownup for a jungle animal room!

Childbirth Class and Corn Maze

2010-10-02T20:50:00.002-05:00

I'll let you guess which was one was more fun.

So, Jon and I paid a lot of money to go to this 2-day childbirth class at Beverly Hospital where I'll be popping out baby Avery in a few weeks. I was most looking forward to learning infant CPR. Instead, the entire day was focused on "look what's happening to your body" and how to breathe during stages of labor. Enh...not completely unhelpful, but watching a woman who is not pregnant pretend to have contractions and squeeze out a baby was weird. Also watching her make the baby chase her boob around almost made Jon and I completely lose it. And I was the only pregnant lady drinking coffee. Tee hee. Anyway, we have to go back tomorrow, and we get to watch the childbirth video. Although I won't be watching a baby actually come out of a person. I saw it in junior high, and it was gross, and I bet it's still gross.

But, we quickly moved on to Connor Farms which was nearby. I found this place when I googled "apple picking". They don't have apple picking anymore, cause they are out of season now, but they advertised this bitchin' corn maze. That's right, it's Clint Eastwood!

And no worries if you get lost during the maze. This is 2010 after all:

But, never fear, we made it out.

We also managed to pick some raspberries and bought some monkey bread which will serve as a sweet breakfast for tomorrow. Something to look forward to vomiting up while I watch some 1970s childbirth video. Yippee!!

Month 8

2010-09-25T18:09:00.001-05:00

House Design, Part 2

2010-09-23T15:02:00.007-05:00

House projects have been slow, but we've finally got the guest room 99% done and I wanted to show it off!

Here's the before picture: Wood faux paneled walls, brown trim on ceiling and the walls, no fan pulls, no furniture.

And here's a couple of after pictures! We painted the walls Artic Stone from Glidden (around $100), added sheer white curtain panels ($5 each from Walmart), bought a full sized bed from Mattress Giant ($320), a small rug from the Dollar Store ($5), a few pillows ($20), painted all of the brown trim white, and blew up a black and white photo that I took on the beach ($20). We also moved a side table and a smal frosted white lamp, both from IKEA, in from another room. The final step was to add a couple of nice silver fan pulls, courtesy of Wal-mart ($10). Still to do: I have a few more photos to hang.

I'm really really happy with the results, and totaling up the cost, it came in at just under $500. The most frustrating part was definitely the painting. It took two coats of primer and one coat of paint to get the faux paneling covered. It also took three coats of white on all of the trim to cover the brown. Now we have a lovely and breezy room for our guests to stay - any takers??

Beaches 1, Honda 0

2010-09-14T20:07:00.004-05:00

Well, we bought a Honda Accord, so I can't really say that Honda didn't get anything out of the deal, but a 6-hour ordeal at the dealership today was pretty interesting.

Now, Jon and I use USAA bank, which is an all-military, uber-convenient, love-them-more-than-members-of-my-family bank. We do everything through them: bank, insurance, mortgage, investment. I hope they never go under, cause then....we'll be effed. Anyway, after months of discussion, we decide this is the week to get a new (to us) car for me to use. Something big enough to cart a kid or two around in. Jon set off on a research/test drive mission and came back to report that he thinks we should get this Honda. I was so relieved to not go shopping. I hate car shopping, mainly because I hate salesmen.

So, this morning, I called USAA and wrapped up some last minute finance and insurance details and Jon took the afternoon off so we could wrap it all up. We got to the dealership around noon, I drove the car to a mechanic, and he checked it out for an hour or so, giving it the all clear. We drove it back to the dealership, haggled for about 30 seconds, and decided on a price. We're happy, they're happy cause they are selling a car, and then....their internet goes down.

Now, I'm not sure how the internet going down affected us sitting in the financial manager's office, but we ended up there pretty quick, and he asked us what rate we were getting for our loan. Biting back the "none of your business, dude" that was on the tip of my tongue, we told him, and he assured us that he could "beat that all day long." (Really? Necessary to use that phrase?) So, we asked what he could give us. He quoted a much lower price, but alas, their internet was down, so he couldn't verify that. We tossed some numbers back and forth, and while financing with them would be less expensive in the long run, the convenience and ease of continuing to be USAA customers was worth some extra cost to us, and we told him so.

At least, I think that's what we told him. We might have told him that we drowned some baby kittens in his kitchen sink, because that's the face reaction we got from him. Complete depression. He walked out of the office to get some paperwork, and I expressed my concern to Jon that he might be fashioning a noose out of decorative car-dealership balloons. He comes back. The internet is still down, so there's really not a lot we can do to buy the car outright today. We're cool with that, because we're not in a rush. He's cool with that, because in the next hour...or two...he can talk us into financing with him. Seriously relentless. He seemed comforted by the fact that their internet was down, and as long as it was down, we were still considering financing with them. (We weren't). I guess we gave him too much hope by telling him that if his rate went down even farther, it might be up for discussion, but we weren't hardballing him, we were just being honest. And he ignored that anyway, and for some reason decided that if he could just fill out all the financing paperwork with his rate, we would sign it. (We wouldn't.)

We told him he was welcome to run credit checks on us and tell us what their bottom line rate was, but assured him, and the other guy he called it to good-cop us, that the rate they were quoting, albeit lower, was not enough to change our minds. He heard the exact opposite. He assured us that by going with USAA, despite what USAA told us earlier, there was no way we could get the car today, that it might stretch through the weekend before we got the car. Lots of trailing off ensued. Sorry buddy, still not incentive enough.

Then, while he was restarting his computer, praying that would restart the internet, Jon stepped out to make a phone call. I thought it was for work. It wasn't, it comes into play later.

So while I'm stuck in toolbag's office, he tells me that even though the internet is down so he can't tell us their bottom line rate, he's definitely going to print out the Honda finance paperwork as though we are going with Honda for the rate we had already rejected. "Go ahead," says I. Kill a few trees senselessly, if it makes you feel better. I kinda felt bad for him, and probably gave him hope. I sure as hell wasn't going to sign anything he put in front of me. So he's clicky-clacking away, Jon returns, he prints out paperwork, and another 40 minutes or so goes by (it all kinda meshed together) when my phone rings.

So, I step outside to take a call from my best friend, Justin, relaying the story to him, and listening to his story about his new brother-in-law's wife. It's a good story. I'm on the phone for about 20 minutes or so. I come back in to see Jon looking kinda smug, car guy looking a combination of pissed/depressed, and the USAA paperwork in progress. When he turned his back to us, I mouthed "What did you do?!" to Jon, who only smirked and winked. With the internet down, he assured us the paperwork would be finished the next day, that we could pick the car up on Thursday, and a couple of handshakes and we were outta there.

So, what happened while I was gone? Apparently, Jon's phone call was to USAA to see if they would lower their rate more. They did. Jon, being a decent guy, went back in and was hoping that the internet would be down, we'd leave, and then call the guy later once we got their bottom line, let him know via phone that USAA was giving us a rate we wanted, and that we were staying with USAA. This saving paperwork and a bit of face because we weren't turning him down sitting in his office. BUT, no such luck! While I was on the phone, he kept pushing, filling out his own finance paperwork with a rate we had already rejected, so Jon pretended his phone was buzzing and stepped into the hallway, clearly visible from the guy's office. Jon then proceeded to have an imaginary phone call with USAA about the lower rate they were offering. He hung up, went back inside and told the guy "USAA called, they lowered their rate, and we are going with them." The guy started manually ripping up the paperwork he had prepared before Jon had even finished the sentence, he was so pissed.

A few lessons here: I guess we really weren't getting our point across that the rate they were offering was not going to cut it. They hinted around at a rate even lower, which might have actually been attractive to us, but when it came time to do paperwork, went back to their original rate. It was a great rate, but we had already rejected it a couple of times, so pushing and pushing wasn't going to make us change our minds. Perhaps we should have been clearer, although it would have bordered on rudeness had we been much clearer. A lesson for them: As Kenny Rogers said, you gotta know when to fold 'em. I'm sure you'll get the next guy.

Now, please make sure the car is cleaned and gassed up for us on Thursday afternoon.

Month 7 photo

2010-09-10T03:39:00.002-05:00

Getting bigger by the day!

I know, I know

2010-09-09T18:53:00.003-05:00

I haven't blogged in a while. Well, frankly, I don't want to depress anyone. I'm so bored. There are a few house projects to do, but I'm here, carless, all day long. I'm getting wicked huge, and I'm uncomfortable, so I don't like to walk anywhere.

I did have a great Labor Day week, with ELEVEN people in and out of the house at some point. Thanks to everyone who came out. We had great food, watched some Sox at Fenway (both Red and White), took a Duck Tour, went to Salem, saw a movie, and survived the horror that was Hurricane Earl.

Willy Wonka rehearsals are starting soon, so that'll be 5 days a week of my life. So relieved because I am BORED BORED BORED.

Place your bets!

2010-08-24T21:55:00.003-05:00

Get it? It's a baby pool.

Anyway...

I started a baby pool! Place your best guesses as to gender (hint: it's a boy), height, weight, date, time and the winner gets a prize. The prize might be a baby. Or a cat.

Enter here!! Ali and Jon's Baby Pool!

Politics

2010-08-24T09:34:00.004-05:00

So, this morning I was a bored housewife hopped up on caffeine and got into a "political debate" of sorts on Facebook. I can't really call it a debate because there were no issues discussed, no exchange of ideas. More of a "I'm right, you're wrong, neener neener" kind of thing.

I'm a Republican. GASP! I know, shocking. But, I'm a liberal Republican. GASP LOUDER! I just never got around to changing my political party, and I don't feel like "Democrat" or "Republican" should define me. Although it's really more "Liberal" or "Conservative" that people have issues with now, I suppose.

A couple of interesting events that have happened to me to make me wonder why people are so fanatic about labels. First, a relative told me "Now that you got out of the military, you turned liberal." As though military service defines your political ideas. Guess what, I was always kind of liberal. And this morning, a very conservative friend posted the following on Facebook: "Going out to vote. All conservatives, of course. Have to get those left-wing nuts out of there." Now, I don't care if my friend votes all conservative, it really doesn't phase me. But just for fun, I wrote "But us left-wing nuts are so cute and adorable!" And THEN, some person I do not even know writes "Only when standing quietly. Once they open there [sic] mouths they need to be thrown away." What the hell? Nobody asked for my thoughts on any issues, but instead jumped to the conclusion that anything that comes out of my mouth is garbage? Well of course, I couldn't let that stand, so I replied with "You're right, I don't deserve an opinion of any sort" to which random girl said "Oh no, you can have an opinion." So which is it? I can speak up, but nothing I say is worthwhile, and definitely not worth even paying attention to? Hey, guess what, we might agree on an issue, but you would never know because you don't listen. OR, I should stand there quietly? So, I replied with "As long as I keep it to myself though. Because once I open my mouth, I need to be thrown away. Just trying to clarify at what level I get First Amendment rights." I mean, really that's what she was saying, right? And then it all got crazy when the original friends busts out with a "Liberals hate the military!" and my head about popped off. I hate it when ANYONE makes such blatent generic comments. Why not say "Hispanics are illegal immigrants!" "Women are bad drivers!"?

Anyway, I'm not sure if there's much of a point to this blog post, but to vent some frustration over the idea that people don't want to hear your political opinions. They instead want to put you in a category of people that agree with you and are allowed to speak their mind or people that disagree with you and therefore should just stand there quietly. No one wants to hear what you think on an issue. They just want to know if you're conservative or liberal and decide for themselves what that means.

I don't understand the political debate. I thought we were all trying to make this country better. Instead, it seems that whatever party does NOT hold the presidency spends 4-8 years trying to sabotage the administration just so they can say "I told you so" and then when they get into power, the other party does the same thing. At some point, can't we say "Ok, we have a Republican in the White House, so let's keep our Democratic ideals while still trying to make this administration as successful as possible." Or vice versa.

If that can't happen, I vote for secession. Maybe South Carolina had it right after all.

The Alitary Blog

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Court-Martial - take 1

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Is this not the messiest crawl you've ever seen?

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Lead it Be

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Avery laughs....kind of

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Like a lead weight

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Giveaway!

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