Great Weekend!!

Emmett's birthday went great!
I'm so happy that things went smoothly.
We got up early (like always) last Friday morning. I got Thomas ready and took him to Olgas for the day, then I came back and we hung out for a while and read the paper. When we were done with that, Emmett went for a mountain bike ride in the Marin headlands and I went to finish up the shopping and preparations for his birthday. First I went to Nordstrom Rack and bought him three gorgeous ties for work - they were all really nice, pretty high end ties and I got such a great deal on them! (one of them I actually got for 93% off the retail price, if you can believe that!)

After that I ran to Walgreens to get some wrapping paper and then the video store to rent a movie and then to this really awesome, high end bakery nearby to get some INCREDIBLE dessert items for later in the evening.

By the time I got home, Emmett was back. We got deli sandwiches from the coffee shop downstairs and then hung out for a couple of hours at home, watching a movie and being together, just adult time, able to completely relax. It was heaven.

After that, we walked down to the BART station and took the subway downtown to see a movie AT THE THEATER!! Can you believe it? So rare...

We saw the movie "Edward R. Murrow: The McCarthy Years". It was REALLY good - I really enjoyed it. Very political and very timely. From there we hopped on the cable car - my first time riding the cable car! (and I've lived here almost 7 years!) - which dropped us off about 5 blocks or so from the Matterhorn restaurant where we went for dinner. It was really good food - we had a cheese fondue that was awesome, along with a nice white wine. It's just so nice to be out by ourselves sometimes. It feels so wonderful and indulgent.

We were, in fact, enjoying ourselves so much that we ended up being late to pick up Thomas. Ooops! It was hard to get a cab that wasn't full going down Van Ness at 9:30pm - so that took a while and then we were too cheap to pay for the cab to take us all the way home, so we had it drop us off at the train station and we took the MUNI train home. MUNI trains are the slowest mode of public transportation. It drives me crazy! And then at the end we had to walk another 7 or 8 loonnnggg blocks, so we didnt' get there to pick up Thomas until about 10:20pm. He had good time with Olga and Ana, so he didn't seem to mind too much. :-)

I faked Emmett out this year. First I told him that I couldn't afford to buy his "main" present for him until this week when I get paid, so he wouldn't have it for his actual birthday. This was actually true at the time, but then I decided to heck with it and ended up loaning myself the money from my savings. Then I was having a hard time getting his present because it was sold out everywhere - he wanted a black iPod nano. But I happened to be there shortly after they got the shipment in at the Apple store, so I managed to score it a couple of days before his birthday and hide it from him. That way why I got him the ties, so that I would be able to give him something during the day that would look like his "substitute" present. I get such childish delight out of trying to surprise people at birthdays and Christmas, "that's really silly", as Thomas would say. Anyway, as we were walking home from Olga's with Thomas, I said, "Thomas, do you want to give Daddy a present for his birthday?" Of course he did, so I said, well, let's stop at Mommy's car and see if there's something in there for Daddy. I got out the bag from the Apple store and gave it to Thomas who then gave it to Emmett who didn't even look at the bag and realize what it was. Well, when we got upstairs and he looked at he was sooooo happy and surprised!!! YAY!!! So much fun....

The weekend was also good - we took Thomas to tumbling class and Dylan was there so he enjoyed it a lot more. I'm so amazed at how totally attached he is to Dylan. He seems awfully young to me to be so invested in friendship. After class we went shopping at the record store in the Haight so Emmett could spend some of his birthday money. From the record store we walked to Crepes on Cole, which is a really good (albeit expensive) brunch spot for crepes. Yummy! After that it was back home and hanging out for a while for Thomas's and my nap and then Emmett made pork chops for dinner.

Sunday we got up early and met up with Dylan's parents and Dylan at Ocean beach so that we could caravan down to Half Moon Bay for the pumpkin festival. We had a really wonderful time - I made a candle and Thomas did some Spinning art - the parents took turns watching the kids and getting a few minutes to themselves. We tried to convince Thomas to get his face painted, but he wasn't having any part of it. After the festival we headed down to the pumpkin patch and picked out some pumpkins, had a Burger King picnic (haha) and then did the corn maze 3 or 4 times (that's my favorite part every year!!!). By that time it was time for the boys to nap so we all headed home. I made a hamburger potato and cheese casserole and we had chocolate cake for dessert. This was in celebration of starting my diet on Monday.

Yup, I'm going to give a try yet AGAIN. I've just got to get this weight off, it's driving me nuts.
I've decided I'm going to do the low carb thing for 2 weeks and then do 6 weeks of calorie counting and just rotate through those until I get this under control. So far, so good!!

Jeez, I've got to get to bed. I'm going to be tired tomorrow.

Hope everyone is well.

Love,
Melissa

P.S. Got some family drama to report a bit on, but no details yet.

(cont.) Emmett's BDay and Halloween are Coming

I am so tired this morning. Another frustration with the business yesterday morning and I ended up being up until I think it was like 1pm. I had bought a Lilly Pulitzer shirt that had a small spot on it banking on the idea that I would be able to get the spot off with bleach stick. And the stain DID come out so I was very happy and I listed it. But then I looked at it more closely and realized the bleach stick had left its own stain - yellow spots on the white shirt. Ugh. So, rather than being proactive, I decided to just put it aside for a while, since I had only listed it in the store and, generally speaking, I only sell a few items out of the store every week or so. Of course, this top ended up getting sold. So now I had to figure out how to get the bleach spots off. Sh-t. I tried all kinds of things, ran to the laundromat to wash and dry it and STILL there were bleach spots. Finally I decided to go online and see if I could find a remedy for this. I found this forum for stain removal techniques (awesome resource!) and someone said that you should put cream of tartar in a pan with boiling water and that soaking the garment from 1/2 to 2 hours in this mixture would remove the stain. Thankfully, I had an almost-full container of cream of tartar and so I mixed it up and soaked the shirt and I *think* it worked. I had completely run out of energy by that time and so I ran to the post office to mail off the other packages and then headed home and fell into bed, leaving the shirt soaking.

I think the phone rang 6-7 times while I was sleeping. The answering machine filled up and once it's full it won't answer anymore and some moron rang the phone like 10 times before hanging up. I wanted to scream! I guess I could have turned the phone off, but I like to be available if something happens with Thomas. Emmett and Thomas got home about 6pm and at that point I gave up on sleep and got up. Emmett made fajitas for dinner (yummy!) and then I gave Thomas a bath and put him to bed while Emmett did the dishes. Ho hum. Not a very interesting story, but such is the less-than-exciting life of our little family. I ended up getting to sleep early and getting about an hour nap before work, which saved me from being completely exhausted. However, I am having an allergic reaction to our bath soap, so I've been having an itching, tingling rash all night at work. Ugh ugh and double ugh! haha - oh well, what can you do.

So last time I was talking about our upcoming plans. Last night we decided we are probably going to see Capote or Serenity on Friday for Em's birthday. I haven't decided on a restaurant yet, but I better do that today so that I can make a reservation. We're going to spend the day together and then the evening. This weekend I think we're going to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins.

Next up will be Halloween - we are planning to go trick or treating and also to Boo at the Zoo. This is the first Halloween where Thomas is starting to be into it. He has decided that, in his words, "I want to be a scarecrow, I want you to be a witch and Daddy to be a great big jack o'latern." I can't stop laughing about Emmett being a great big anything, but especially a great big jack o'latern. Too funny!! I'm going to go back to the Goodwill and get a witch costume for myself and then I'm going to make Thomas's scarecrow costume. It should be easy enough that even a complete sewing idiot such as myself won't screw it up haha. I've got some overalls and I'll sew some patches on them and add some straw, flannel shirt, hat, and a little bit of make up and I think we'll be all set. He'll be so cute!

This weekend will be pretty much devoted to Emmett's birthday. Next weekend we have one or two parties on Saturday and then Emmett is going to go to his stepmother's house for his birthday celebration on Sunday. She decided they would all have a kid-free day - her and Emmett and Emmett's sister Tash. So I'll be on Tommy duty. :-)


Well, I'm going to go now. Work is almost done and all in all this post just isn't all that interesting ahaha - I think after the way this year has been, that's definitely a good thing. Boring is nice. :-)

One last thing - Emmett and I have started playing backgammon in the evenings. The first night we played wasn't so much fun because I am a sore loser sometimes. The second night was better, in part because I won (hahahhaahahhahahahaha) and also in part because I wasn't so wound up already. Also I think the more we play the more I will get used to losing. It's hard in backgammon because if your opponent captures one of your pieces you can end up stuck forever and not being able to move anywhere while they are just going and going and the frustration of that just gets to me sometimes. Ah welll... I think the games will be fun and a good bonding experience.

Gotta run,
Love,
Melissa

Emmetts Birthday and Halloween are Coming!

We are busily making plans - there are lots of fun things coming up, the highlights of which (I hope!) will be Emmett's birthday and then Halloween.

For Emmett's b-day (36! - yikes, we are getting so OLD! haha) we are going to take the day off and spend most of it together while Thomas goes to Olga's during the day and then we are hoping to find a babysitter for him on Friday evening. Poor kid, I feel bad packing him off to childcare for all that time, but sometimes adults need some time to themselves. :-) Emmett's planning to go for a solo bike ride in the morning (I am actually hoping to get out and take a little ride myself, although at a lot more leisurely pace). Then we will meet up and have a big "football" breakfast, as Emmett and his Mom call it. (She used to cook him big breakfasts on Football Sunday, at least that's the way I remember the story.) After breakfast we will, um, hang out at home for a while and take a nap. Then it will probably be time to start getting ready for our evening - dinner and a movie.

Ugh - busy at work again, gotta run...more later...

Thomas the Heartbreaker

That boy sure knows how to get to me....
Busy times, busy times. We got up and moving early yesterday - I needed to get some things at Joanne fabrics to fix this costume that I sold on eBay and then discovered that it had some rips in the tulle underskirting. I don't have a sewing machine - heck, I don't know how to sew even if I did have one, so I'm going to hand sew some new tulle in and cut out the old tulle. Wish me luck!! I have decided that it will be more than worth my while to take some sewing lessons this fall. I have been forever wanting to do something enriching for myself - it seems with a little one around, a full time job and a business, there is never time for anything else. So - I'm going to take a few sewing classes and try to buy myself an old used sewing machine so that I can start at least repairing some things at home and hopefully start making small things like Halloween costumes.

Anyway, we went to Joanne fabrics and got the stuff I needed - then ran into Marshalls to see if they had any good stuff for resell and then lastly into Nordstrom Rack. I'm really excited because I got to talk to someone there about when they will be doing their next big markdowns - so I can be there when they open and get the first pick of the newly marked down items - YAY! They have some great stuff that I have my eye on - I think I'll get some big dollars for some of this stuff on EBay.

We grabbed some lunch on the way home and then ate lunch at home before Thomas took his nap - which he did for once without a huge fuss so I was able to catch up with my Mom and also get all the shrimp shelled, de-veined and de-fecesed. It was a lot of work, but I heard that the meal turned out great. Monday night I made pasta primavera which turned out fantastic - fettuccini noodles, fresh cream, freshly grated parmesan, 4 different types of fresh veggies (took FOREVER to chop them all up!), onions, and fresh basil. It was so good, I was so proud of myself. I'm getting a lot faster at the whole chopping, slicing, dicing thing. YEAH! SOOO - I had made that Monday night and there were tons of leftovers, so I decided to use some of the shrimp that we bought at the fish market and saute it in olive oil and garlic and toss it into the remaining pasta primavera. Yum yum! The problem was that by the time Thomas got up from his nap we had to run to the post office (10 packages to mail - yay!), the bank, the drug store, and the gas station and by the time all THAT was done, it was almost 5pm. We ran home and I took a quick shower and then chopped up the garlic, threw the shrimp, garlic and olive oil in the pan and ran off to work my 6pm - 2am shift. It's really hard - just when you get to the part of the day where you're ready to wind down and relax after running around and after a toddler all day, it's time for me to go to work. I walk in the door for that shift some days and just think, I am too exhausted. There is no way I'm going to be able to do this all day. But then I get into the flow and the energy in the Emergency dept. and the time goes by and pretty soon it's 2am and I go home and just fall into bed. I cannot complain so much, though. I know that I am so blessed. A lot of people have to do that every day just to make ends meet and I only do it every once in a while. Also - before anyone starts feeling too sorry for me (haha), Thomas goes to daycare today and I get to sleep in and then work on my auctions and relax a little bit today. So, as I said, I am so very blessed.

As I was running around like a chicken without a head yesterday before work, Thomas was busy getting himself into trouble, primarily by insisting on either getting on the computer or turning on the TV. I have to confess that since I have been working my business and ramping up my auctions, I had been really slipping about Thomas's "screen time limits". We used to watch a couple of shows in the morning and then get on with our day, but since I've been working in the mornings, I really let the time slide away and he was watching WAY more TV than what is healthy (in my humble opinion). Plus, as I think I've mentioned before, he's on the computer now playing computer games, so that adds to his screen time. I guess we were getting pretty out of control because Emmett started noticing a change in his behaviour. That made me really stop and think about how much he was watching/computing and I realized I was going to have to really set limits and stick to them, for myself, primarily. I read somewhere that 90 minutes of screen time per day is the most a child should have, so that's the limit I'm setting, with the idea that he'll get much less than that on the weekends and on the days when he is at Olga's (they limit to 30 minutes per day). Anyway, it has caused some angst in the household since Thomas had gotten used to really having free reign about how much and what shows and games he was going to play. (On a very positive note, I have to say that I feel really good about the steps to limit the screen time. Once he got over his initial fit, I was really encouraged that he pretty much right away went to his toys and books and started finding other things to do. That really told me that it is even more necessary for him to not watch tv and be able to have the creativity of playing with his train set, puzzles, lincoln logs and all the things that will help him develop mentally.)

So yesterday he had gotten himself into trouble with his Dad before I left for work and was sitting on his bed on a time out. I went in to say goodbye to him before work and give him a hug and a kiss and he said, "Momma, I'm really going to miss you a whole lot". My heart broke. He's just such a little doll.

Man, I love that kid so much.


Hope all is well out there.

With love,
Melissa

Mellow (but Good) Times

Love this pic of my boys, and wanted to share. I need to upload a bunch of pictures to the site, but The photo above, though, is one of my all time favorite photos of Tommy and Emmett. I took it (I'm so proud of myself! haha) during the evening last week. Our apartment is on the third floor and the bedroom window faces west, so we get some incredible sunset views in there. On this night we were all hanging out laying on the bed watching this amazing sunset over the ocean (it was clear enough that night to see the ocean from the bedroom window) and the light was just so beautiful. I asked Emmett to go and grab my camera so I could take some pictures. Normally, my low end point and shoot digital camera doesn't capture things the way I want it to, but this time it turned out just right. I took one of the sunset, but that one did not come out - the camera focused on the window screen. Ugh. Oh well, for me this is a better subject anyway. :-)

Here's another cool one:

This one was taken when we went to the zoo, Sept 18, Emmett, Thomas, Thomas's Nana, and myself. We had a really good time - Thomas always loves the zoo and I like to get my moneys worth out of the zoo membership I bought back in June. :-)

More later,

Love,

Melissa