Jesse finished his novel! He still has a few scenes he wants to add and a couple of edits, but his novel - Sinblade - is finished. For those of you who haven’t heard by now, Jesse was competing in the NaNoWriMo challenge. Basically, he had to write 50,000 words in the month of November without any editing and he did it. I’m so excited for him!
And here’s a couple of family photos that were taken recently:
Ian’s first Halloween is almost here and he has already gone trick or treating! Yes I have dressed Ian up this year. He’s going to wait one more year before going trick or treating with his father around the neighborhood, but we just had to go to the grandparents. We have to say thank you to Aunt Trish for making his adorable costume. Ian went as Pippin from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
Ian wasn’t alone in this getup either. Ian and Chris were in it together as hobbits. They were so adorable in their costumes. Trish even made the eleven capes. The whole ensemble came out beautifully and I can’t believe that my little man actually looks good in a tunic. Ian will be able to wear it one more time when we go to Jesse’s work Halloween party.
These are the original outfits for Ian and CJ’s costume:
I have to make some decisions. I really can’t put them off any longer. One of them is something I’ve been attempting to do for years with no real success and that needs to change. The other was going to happen eventually, it’s just occurring sooner than I had planned. Regardless of how these came about, I need to stick by the decisions I’m going to make and that’s going to be really hard.
I need to lose weight. It’s not an option any more. I’m tired of being big and clunky. I’m ready to go shopping and be able to put something on and not think “not in this lifetime”. I’ve made some half-assed attempts in the past, but I really need to do it this time. I want to be where I was going into college. That means I have to lose close to 50lbs and that is not going to be easy. I’ve wanted to try Weight Watchers, and if it was cheaper or we had the money, I would be signing up tonight. Unfortunately, that isn’t an option right now, but I’m hoping to try it sometime this fall. For now, I’ll start with the basics. No more pasta. No more pop. No more sweets (except ice cream). It’s going to be hard. Especially the pasta. It’s an easy and easy meal and we always have it in the apartment. That’s going to change. Besides, pasta makes me tired anyway and it takes away any drive I have going that day. I’ve given up pop before and I can do it again. Sweets is going to be a little harder since Jesse has such a sweet tooth (especially at the moment). I’m not giving up ice cream because I’ll need something sweet and I can get that fat-free and it’ll still taste somewhat good. Plus, I love my Popsicles, as does Ian. Exercising is going to be hard. I have a couple of the Billy Blanks Bootcamp DVDs here and I should do them, but I always feel like an idiot doing aerobics by myself. I would walk, but I’m not comfortable doing that around here. At least not by myself with Ian. We have the Clinton River Trail running behind the complex and there is another one going through the nature reserve we’re next to, but neither are in a well-lit area or a well-traveled area. It creeps me out too much. So this decision has been made….I’m going on a diet and I’m sticking with it. It’s going to take a lot of will power that I don’t have, but I’m hoping that everyone will be supportive and help me keep at it.
Most mothers who breastfeed generally go into their infant bites them. I always thought that meant with teeth, but I’m beginning to realize that isn’t true. Ian doesn’t have any teeth yet, but he has some tough gums. It’s a natural reaction considering he’s on solid foods now, but he’s starting to bite more and my supply is going down anyway. I think it’s time to end the nursing. I wasn’t ready to stop just yet, but I’ve talked with the Ped’s office and they said that most mothers go about 6 months. I was hoping to go closer to 8-9 months, but what can I do. Plus, I’m fertile again and neither of us are ready for another kid. I think we would both lose it if I ended up pregnant. We want time to enjoy watching Ian grow without having to worry about another kid. The only way to ensure we don’t get pregnant is for me to go back on the pill and I can’t do that while I’m nursing. This is a tough decision, but Jesse and I have been talking about it and I think we’re ready to wean Ian off of it. I think the biggest problem we’re going to have is his night awakenings. Truthfully, he should be sleeping through the night, but when I can’t get him to calm down at 3am, nursing helps. Also, whenever I’ve tried giving him a bottle during the day, he doesn’t like it. He wants mama instead. He doesn’t fight the bottle at night. He knows he gets that one, but the ones during the days are different. I think Jesse will agree with this, but we’ll go until our anniversary. Then Ian is getting off of the breast milk and will be sticking to the Gerber foods and formula.
I want to go back to work. Not full time or anything big, but just something that’ll get me out of the house for a couple of hours a week. I’m thinking of getting a job at a retail shop during the weekends for the holiday season. I love being home with Ian, but I want to get out (plus the additional money would be nice). The biggest obstacle to this is day care. We can’t afford it, so we’re going to have to get it so Jesse can take care of Ian for eight hours straight. It takes a lot of patience and realizing that what you want to do isn’t a priority when watching Ian; and Jesse hasn’t accepted that yet. He’s been able to watch Ian for short spans of time, but if watching him gets in the way of him doing something he wants, he starts to lose patience. He’s always had me to fall back on and he won’t if I’m at work. We’re going to try an experiment where Jesse gets Ian for eight hours and I’ll be in the office the entire time just in case. Hopefully Jesse will be able to do it, but I have my doubts (especially considering we’ll have to find time to do it and I know Jesse has things he wants to do). He may surprise me, but I know him. He hasn’t had to get Ian to take a nap or try to figure out what is wrong or any of the small things. There have been a couple of times where I was able to rock Ian to sleep, but it wasn’t a quick 2 minute job. It took a good 10 minutes or longer and it required a lot of patience. Either way, this is a decision I can’t make on my own and I’m not expecting it to go the way I want. We’ll see what happens though.
I’m getting ready to start a new project. It has been in the works for about four years now, but I finally have a scanner so I can get started. The project is scanning in 20+ years of family pictures so that both parents can have a copy of them as well as for basic archival purposes.
You really don’t see photo albums any more, at least not like you used to. I do a lot of scrapbooking, but I’m not really adamant about it since I have all of my pictures online. It’s easier to share them online than in albums and it doesn’t take as long. Granted, I tend to do a better job showcasing them when I put them in albums, but it takes longer. Of course, I take a lot more pictures now that I have a digital camera. That is probably the biggest impact digital cameras have had - they can hold more pictures than a roll of film. You can buy memory cards that will store up to hundreds of pictures on one stick where before you would have had to use multiple rolls of film. And even though you’re taking all of the pictures, you can see what they are all ahead of time, there are no more surprise at the photo lab. No more shots of your feet or the sky. You know if your shot came out or not.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. So I’m going to be scanning a ton of pictures and thank god we just updated the server. Otherwise I have no idea where I would put them. I have a feeling this project is going to take me some time since Ian isn’t exactly a fan of sitting next to me in his high chair for long periods of time. Granted, I’ll have nap time and after he goes to bed for the night, but seriously, this isn’t all I’m going to be doing. I’ll be lucky if I have it done by the end of the year. Plus, this is only the first stage of the project. The second stage is converting all of the VHS home videos to DVDs. This I should get done a lot quicker and sooner than the photos. I generally have the TV on for background noise, so I can be coping the tapes while Ian and I play. Plus there are a lot less tapes than there are photos. The only thing with the DVDs is I’m going to be doing an exact copy. At the moment, I don’t have any software/programs that I can use to chapterize and modify the tapes. It would be nice to get rid of the footage that is pointless (aka walking with the camera lens pointed at the street). If anyone can recommend a program, I would appreciate it. Remember, I run Linux at home, so not all programs will work on my machine. We’ll deal with that hurtle when I need to though.
Other news - the Ren Fest trip is this weekend. There is 9 of us going. Plus I think PJ said she had a few people joining us as well. This weekends them is Highland Fling, so there are going to be a lot of kilts there. I know for a fact that PJ said Chris will be wearing his. It should definitely interesting, especially considering we’ll have Ian (6 months) and Zsolt (18 months) there to liven things up. I haven’t been to this one in a couple of years, so it should be fun.
Ian has started a new trend lately. I’m not sure how I feel about it either. Usually I would nurse Ian when he was tired and that would get him fall asleep for his naps. Lately, however, nursing hasn’t been working. What has been working is rocking him to sleep, but you have to start it at the right moment. It also means he is fussy longer because the rocking doesn’t keep his mouth as busy. This is good because I don’t have to nurse him to get him to sleep, yet it’s not so good because it takes him longer to fall asleep. Although, this is the last hurdle to getting him to fall asleep on his own. He’s already figured out that he gets a bath, pajamas, and a bottle at night and once the bottle is done, I can generally put him in his crib (still awake, but drowsy) and he’ll fall asleep within 10 minutes. He still makes some noise, but he’s not crying, just making noises. We just need to work on the whole rocking = nap time routine.
Some sad news….we’re definitely getting rid of Chaos. We’ve been having some problems with her over the last couple of months and originally we were going to try and find a shelter for her or another home. However, I’m at the point where I just want her gone. We’ve made up our minds, so I don’t want to drag it out. If we wait to find her a home or a shelter who will take her, we may end up changing our minds again and who knows what will happen because of that. I’ve already contacted a few shelters and they are full due to the influx of kittens (it is kitten season). I really don’t want to take her to the Humane Society, but we may not have any choice about it. I told Jesse that if we’re getting rid of her, I want her gone by the end of the month. Jesse is having some obvious mixed feelings about it. He really loved Chaos - she was social, he could play with her, and she was starting to sit in his lap while he was on the laptop. It’s just been since Ian came home that she’s been having problems and she’s made it that we have to choose between her and Ian - and we all know that isn’t really a choice at all.
I do have good news - my sister is getting married! She’s been with Jayson for two/three years now and have been living together for the past year. He proposed to her two weeks ago and they are getting married at the end of September. Yeah, it’s kind of soon, but the wedding that they are having, there is no need to wait and plan. They are going to be married in a hot air balloon. That is how they met, while crewing for Tim and Missy (or through, not sure which one) and they are constantly at all the balloon rallies in the area (that they can get to). It was only fitting that they get married in a balloon. They are going to throw a reception, but not until November. The balloon ride is hard to pinpoint since there are so many factors to go into it. But now I have two months to do a bridal shower and of course she adds another wedding this year (she’s #6 for me this year). This is going to be a busy fall.
Alright, enough rambling on.
Check out Trish and my men….ain’t they cute?
