Autumn in New England

One of my favourite episodes of my favourite show, MASH, sees the 4077th writing letters to school children in Maine. As usual Charles Emerson Winchester is all uppity about it, until a girl sends him a leaf because it is Fall and she doesn't know if they have Fall in Korea. Charles holds it up, bursting with emotion, and says simply "Autumn in New England." It has always been one of my favourite moments in the show. Even more so now that I live in New England and know the emotions that accompany this season.

As I stepped out of my car at work this morning ready to face another day, I breathed in deeply. Mostly because morning sickness does not treat me well in the car, and yes I am in week 19 and still suffering, this kid is a punk. When I breathed in I got a breath that can only be gotten on a day like today. After a stormy night, the pine needles were saturated and oh so aromatic. It made my day happier.

Have a wonderful Fall day.

Miscellany

My brain is still reeling from a two week visit with my parents and a hard clank black to reality this morning, so for the first time in a long time I'm linking up with Carissa for Miscellany Monday.

ONE We stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home from Boston last night, we indulge on these long drives. The Starbucks there had just made a fresh batch of double chocolate chip cookies so of course I had to indulge. It was everything I hoped it would be and everything my pregnant taste buds wanted it to be. I love it when that happens.

TWO I managed to get one and a half things done on my to-do list.

THREE Now that my mum is not here to inspire me with her togetherness and all round general wonder woman style way of doing EVERYTHING I despair for my to-do list. While she's around everything seems possible, I know I can be the mum.wife/woman/me I want to be and still have time for that top up perm. When she's gone I become just plain me again and I vegetate instead of blossoming. It's not that bad but the come down is still alarming.

FOUR It's our eight year wedding anniversary tomorrow. We plan on doing one of the many things we did pre-children while Auntie Rachelle watches Toby. A movie, except there aren't any I really want to see, or chess and cider at Starbucks in the Old Port.

FIVE I will be finishing a Birthday book and several GeekMom posts tonight, I will have a big Do Not Disturb sign hanging from Toby's ceiling so that he stays in his toddler bed, and many cups of tea (decaffeinated of course). I will, I will, I will!

SEVEN I'm currently reading Everything Beautiful Began After instead of reading Pillars of the Earth with Husby. He's almost finished with it and I've read three pages so I moved on to the book that the library wants back next week. If I could only read in bed instead of passing out then I'd be able to catch up with him in no time at all. I will read more before I am back to cloth books with only pictures, I really will.

EIGHT It's decided. We'll destroy our credit card if we have to, but I will be taking three months maternity leave this time around. I'll only have about two weeks of that paid, that will cover three months mortgage right?

Toby and Grandad

 Shishkabugs is an animated short directed by Friz Freleng for Warner Bros, and starring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam. Shishkabugs is the shortest Bugs Bunny short ever made and is the only cartoon in which Sam as depicted as the bullied instead of the bully.

It features the line "Bring me my HarsenFeffer," a line immortalised in our family by this picture.

 And there is your cartoon trivia of the day.

Random things on Tuesday

My parents are here from England for two weeks, I find it hard to post anything while they are around because my time is otherwise frivolously engaged. I have managed to keep up my blogging over at GeekMom, I'm a bit more diligent about doing that since I became a core contributor and they started paying me to blog. Yes that's right, at long last I can say I am a paid writer, I've had things in print before but it was just a check here and there. This may still be a check here and there but it's a regular writing gig and I'm loving the chance to stretch my creative muscles. Recent posts include a debate over the decoration of our new nursery and the role of TV in my toddler's life. So much fun.

Nanny and Grandad have been having a wonderful time playing with Toby, I have managed a few scrapbook pages, Husby bought a tablesaw and is halfway through making a fancy new chicken coop to keep the ladies warm this winter. Incidentally the ladies were neglected last night and we forgot to shut their door, luckily both were still alive this morning.

We find out the sex of Baby # 2 on Friday and everyone is excited. Toby will be moving into his new room in just a few short weeks. Mum has finished making new flannel curtains for him, covered in cars of course, and today she is filling in the grey on a road I drew around his bedroom walls last night. We have car stickers for him. It's all rather fun. The carpet is being delivered next week, the wardrobe is being picked up tomorrow and then he can move in.

Now.. Penny or .... HELP! We have no boys names picked out this time!!!

Today I have a Two Year Old

Today I have a two year old.

 

This time two years ago I was on my way back to the hospital for the third day in a row, absolutely dying with over 48 hours of contractions (minutes apart for about 30 hours) and no dilation. Praying that I would be more than 2 cm dilated upon my arrival. Labor was easy, it was the three days prior that sucked!

 

But, then Toby came into my life, and aside from a mild flirtation with PPD, all was well in this Maine home. My beautiful little baby slept well, ate well, cried only for four specific reasons and filled my life with love while depriving me of sleep.

 

Today we will go to the zoo and follow him around as he continues to discover the world around him.

 

Happy Birthday Toblio

 

My Happy Place - part one

It's a misleading title for a blog post. My happy place is wherever I am with Husby, but Labor Day weekend my happy place relocated to Boston.

Ever since we got married, 8 years ago, I have wanted to surprise Husby with Redsox tickets for his birthday. Very early on I decided that this would have to be for a special birthday. 21 had long since passed so 30 it was.

This year  Husby turned 30 and for five months I kept the tickets a secret. I am not a secret keeper. If it is confidential information or the confidence of a friend then I will take it to the grave, but something that will make Husby happy? Something that I would ordinarily tell him first? That I can't keep within me, the excitement pushes it to the surface.

I had it all planned out, the sitter, the fake birthday plans with his family, everything. It went off so well in fact, that even when he opened the card over breakfast that morning and saw the tickets, he thought it was for another day! He couldn't finish his breakfast he was so excited. We spent the first hour of the drive talking about the funny "lies" I had told to keep it hushed up.

This was our actual view, it was hilarious. He could see the pitcher but not the batter, I could see the batter not the pitcher!

If we adjusted a little, as we did during the horrendous sixth inning, this was the view we got enjoy.

15 weeks pregnant, rally cap on and a $20 fan with spritzer to keep me cool

This picture of us cracks me up. It's so hard to get a good picture with the park in the background.

But the Red Sox game wasn't my happy place that weekend, oh no, my happy place came after, in a mother-in-law prompted extension of the birthday celebrations....

What a Shock!

This weekend was Husby's 30th birthday. As a surprise I got him Red Sox tickets, and his parents booked us into a nice Boston hotel, more on that later.

 

It was our first overnight since Toby was born and he had a blast at Grandma's house. However, when we got back the next day we were shown a child sleeping in a toddler bed, not the pack n play we had left behind.

 

For a few months now, he has been climbing out of a friends pack n play consistently, this week he started climbing out of the pack n play at daycare. Naptime at Grandma's, he climbed out of our pack n play and was halfway over the gate (three inches higher at their house than our house) before they found him. So out came the toddler bed, that luckily had been purchased by Pepere the week before. Grandma curled up on the couch next to him and he napped. He slept in it that night, he napped in it the next day.

 

Given his affinity for climbing there was no way we would risk him back in the crib. We've known for a while that he had the ability to get out, he has now figured it out too and that drop is far more than from a pack n play. So Pepere drove home with us, we dismantled the crib and in went the toddler bed.

 

He turns two next week. I really hadn't expected this for a little while, he's really not ready for it, he's too active and is too much of a punk. Yet he has surprised me. Tuesday was my first night solo with him in the toddler bed. The second I left the room he was up and turning the light on, which we only found out he could do this week. I turned it off, sent him back to bed and there he stayed till 5.30 the next morning. It can't be that easy right?

Fall Festival and Pumpkin Waffles

It's September once more, which means Husby's birthday, Toby's birthday, our wedding anniversary and, most importantly, Fall Festival over at Nest of Posies.

I love that Kellie does this every year. It's still early in the day over here in New England and I already have 43 other bloggers to check out. Fall is my favourite time of year and so I love getting inspiration from so many creative women.

Since Nanny bought Toby a Waffle Iron this year I thought, what better way to kick off the season than with Pumpkin Waffles (though I did make pie this weekend too!). I couldn't find any recipes at my usual food blog haunts so I expanded my search and found this recipe over at Disney's Family Fun.

I was a little concerned that it only called for 1/2 cup of pumpkin, I like my pumpkin flavor to be strong. They were juicy and moist, but I definitely need more flavors of the season in this, and I even added nutmeg and cloves per my favourite pumpkin pie recipe.

Toby had no objections and ate two and a half of them.

Does anyone have a Pumpkin Waffle recipe with enough Pumpkin in it to knock your socks off?

Pull up a Chair

Hi. My name is Sarah. I am 30 years old, married, with a 2 year old (almost) and one on the way. I have been a practicing Christian since I was 16 years old, I'm still practicing!


This morning there are many things that I could be doing, there are dishes to be done, birthday pies to be made, floors to be scrubbed and a big mess to be tidied. But instead I sat down with my cup of tea and my Bible. I read the words of Moses and Paul, and the good people who write study guides for NIV, and I contemplate what it is I am doing on this walk with God. I'm a worrier so of course I worry that I'm doing it wrong and not often enough. I'm never in God's presence, by choice, as often as my heart tells me I would/should like to be. I keep a prayer journal haphazardly. Half of me thinks that prayer journals are frivolous, and the other half rejoices every time I look back and see a prayer that has been answered. I use this blog to talk about life and the things I love but rarely mention God. That's fine, this isn't a self help blog or a religious blog or anything like that. But people who know me, know my faith, some know my vulnerabilities because of it, some know my strengths. I recently opened up a discussion on intelligent design over on GeekMom, I got one angry comment but much intelligent discussion from both sides of the board. My faith is a dynamic, living thing, whether I would prefer for it be docile and silent or not!


"My choice to accept Christ as Savior was a single decision I made the day I gave my life to God. But my decision to follow Christ as Lord is made up of hundreds of smaller choices I make every day" - quoted from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.


So as I make Pumpkin Pie for Husby's 30th birthday tomorrow and as I wait for Toby to wake up for a day of pure mummy entertainment, I invite you to think about the woman behind these words, I am a varied and peculiar creature.


Thank you for indulging my ramblings on this glorious Labor Day weekend.

Beach Book giveaway

My friend Lori (on the left) is slowly working her way into the blogging world after years of being a blog surfer. Head over to Artfully Ornamental and give her some support, she's hosting a really cool giveaway this week too.

Lori is the reason I blog, she's the reason I read Pioneer Woman, she's the reason I'm now getting paid to write for GeekMom.com - EESHK - Lori rocks! Beach rocks in fact!