Annnnnd we're back!

It has been over two years since my last post.  Ho-Ly Cow.

As one might expect, a whole bunch has happened since October 2012.


Here's an update on [them]...

[Jack] 

Jack is now in third grade and will be turning 9 next week.  While I am proud that the things that come out of his mouth are more intelligent these days, it has caused a serious lack of JACKtionary material.

[Reese]

Reese just turned 5 and will be starting kindergarten in the fall.  She definitely marches to her own beat, which I think is fabulous.  We will see how that plays out once school starts...

Also, while things that come out of her mouth are hilarious...they are also hilariously-innocently-obliviously-inappropriate...which make them questionable to post on the interwebs.  But since I don't really care what strangers think, you may see some REESEtionary pop up from time-to-time.  

[Cooper]

Wait.  What?  Who's Cooper, you ask?

Oh yeah, we had a baby.

Cooper was born in June.  He wears a helmet (hopefully for not too much longer), and is the sweetest, most laid back baby on earth.  He's my ham sandwich and my Cooper-Pig and I sometimes want to eat his face (in the most loving, un-cannibalistic way imaginable) - which is totally normal, you know.     

.... And here's an update on [us]...

We started to outgrow our townhouse, so we put it up for sale in January 2013.  The listing expired with no legit offers, so we had to re-list in June (or was it July?) of the same year. 

Finally in September 2013, we sold our house!  But, hold on...the government temporarily shutdown our buyer's special mortgage program...

Then late October 2013, we were back in business. And oh, the buyer wants to close in three days.  THREE DAYS. ::insert panic here:: So we packed like maniacs, put everything we owned in a U-Haul and made it to closing (albeit 5 minutes late...).  Did I mention I was in my first trimester with Cooper during all this?  Hell, I tell you.  Pure hell.

But we moved into a single-family home with a yard and more bedrooms and a basement that needs finishing.  Calvin has even slimmed down tremendously from the almost-daily chasing of the neighbor's dogs along our fence line for the last year, and his spanx are fitting him nicely these days.

The Husband, with the help of an amazing group of family members who lent expertise, labor and tools and who worked for beer, put a deck on our house over the summer.  It took a couple months to finish, but I look forward to being able to enjoy it more once the snow melts this year.

The latter half of 2014 was spent adjusting to life with the newest member of our family, celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary in October, and enjoying the holidays. 

Happy New Year!

Silent reverie.

Sometimes a visit from an old friend can really help put your life into perspective. Over the weekend I served as host for a comrade I hadn’t seen in the upwards of about 14 years (mas o menos).

The whole visit was incredibly surreal.

Her free spirit has taken her places I could only dream of going, and I am in awe of all she has accomplished. I felt a bit - for lack of a better word, boring - describing where my life has taken me over the years. Now, I don’t necessarily have any regrets, but I do wish I had more to say (and more time in which to say it). I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her stories and reminiscing over the past while looking at our 6th grade yearbook (while drinking a semi-awful bottle of cheap wine). The following morning we said goodbye…and I am slightly embarrassed to admit the wave of emotion that overcame me as she drove away in Clark (a van that looks to have just as many stories as she…).

At the beginning of 2012 I had two goals for the year:

1. Graduate in September, and;
2. Apply for grad school

After she left, I had time to reflect on the last few years of my life. I am proud of who I am and where I am in life, but I decided that because almost everything I do is to give my family the life they deserve - I need to do something for me. On that note, I made the executive decision to add two out-of-character goals that I hope to accomplish before the end of the year…

1. Get a tattoo. Somewhere inconspicuous because I am a coward.
2. Fly (yes, I said fly. Let’s all gasp collectively ::gasp!:: Are we done? Moving on…) to NY as a graduation gift to myself…or an anniversary trip for JP so he can soak up the land of his beloved Yankees. (yarf).


Thank you for coming to visit, HF. I can’t wait to get together again soon; hopefully before another 14 years goes by.

…I hear my voice
And it’s been here
Silent all these years
I’ve been here
Silent all these years…

a global citizen.

As some of you know, I grew a wild hair and enrolled myself back in school earlier this month to obtain yet another degree. Although I graduated from the same school in September, I am still considered to be a "new" student. A new requirement for all "new" students is to take a course on Global Citizenship to learn what is means to be, and what we need to do to become more of a, you guessed it, global citizen.

In week two I learned that one of the requirements that I need to meet in order to pass the course is to donate my time to volunteer; which would be all fine and dandy...if I had TIME. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE volunteering. But between work, other classes, kids, etc etc etc... I had NO idea where I was going to pull "time" from.

Last night I attended an optional meeting about the global citizenship project, and I will be forever grateful that I did. I learned that volunteering doesn't mean giving up hours of your time each week for a cause. There are many organizations that are seeking "virtual volunteers" for assistance on projects that can take as little as 15 minutes to complete right in your own home. There are even projects that I can have Jack help with. Winner, winner chicken dinner!

Volunteermatch.org is a site that was recommended to me, and now I am recommending it back to you! You can search for in-person and virtual volunteer opportunities in your area and it's a great way to give some good back to your local community without having to dedicate a lot of your time. What can you do today to make someone else's life better?

I suck at updates.

Bah.

So I made three resolutions for the new year.

1. To keep a travel-sized bottle of contact solution in my purse so I don't have to make the walk of shame into the eye clinic next door to my workplace asking to borrow theirs when my contact falls out of my eye for the seventybillionth time.

check.

2. To spend less and save more so we can get out of the townhome that grew too small too fast.

It's only the 19th day of the year...but so far, so check.

3. To update this blog more often with more than just JACKtionary posts.

Crap

Oh well, two outta three ain't bad, right Meatloaf?

tap tap...is this thing on?

Ok, enough of the lameness. I am running on little to no sleep after being awoken every hour on the hour by JP because god-forbid he be sick in silence. Men are such babies when they are sick...Love you JP! Not to mention the sprinkle of awakenings by Reese who decided to randomly talk in her sleep at two different ungodly hours...and by talk I mean a very loud string of jibberish that sounded like MAmaDADADADAplbbbbbshhh. When I flew out of bed to check on her she was sound asleep. Go figure.

Anywho...

Tomorrow I have the day off of work to accompany Jack and the rest of his preschool class to see Sesame Street Live. While I am looking forward to going, I am looking forward to Saturday even more. Grandpa bought Jack his first snowmobile and I am super excited (and a little motherly-worried) to see him ride. More to come next week on how it goes!