Me? Complain? Never

My downstairs neighbors really piss me off.

We live in a 3-flat that the tenants are pretty much responsible for the up-keep. The landlord/management company take care of the big stuff but when it comes to everyday stuff like snow removal, we're on our own. We have a pretty good relationship with the guys in the basement unit. We don't see them much but they're really nice. They even bought us a baby gift when I was pregnant with Ava. The guys in the basement take care of shoveling the gangway and we do the steps and the sidewalk. We've never really talked about this arrangement, we just do it and it works out pretty well.

The weird people on the first floor? Don't. Do. Anything. They will walk through snow instead of shoveling it. They left a phone book sitting on the porch until Fredo threw it out. They walked by it for an entire week and didn't do a thing with it.

I got mad today. Fredo is out of town this week and it snowed last night. I had to take the stroller out today so the porch steps and sidewalk needed to be shovelled. Did the neighbors do anything? No, of course not. But it had to be done and I had to be the one to do it. I put Ava in her snowsuit and stuck her in the Baby Bjorn and swept the stairs and shoveled the patch of sidewalk in front of our house ONE HANDED. I only swept our side of the stairs though. Let them continue to walk through snow.

I'm considering leaving a note for them. Something to the effect of if they need a snow shovel, we have an extra they can borrow. You know, something passive aggressive like that. The only thing about that is they never check their mail. Seriously, never. The mailman won't deliver mail if you don't have a name on your mailbox. Seven months later, I don't think they've ever received mail. They don't have a mail slot so I don't know how I would get them the note.

I really hope they move in June or whenever their lease is up. Not only are they bad neighbors, but the dude's bedroom must be right under ours. When it's really quiet in our apartment late at night, I can hear him snoring...in our apartment. Yes, really. It's so annoying. The worst part is once you realize what that noise is, that's all you can hear.

I'm off to bed now. Hopefully I'll fall asleep before he starts sawing logs. And I'm praying we don't get anymore snow tonight because I am not shovelling tomorrow.

Ava in her snow suit. She's like a real life Maggie Simpson. Anyone? No? Just me? Ok.

House Rules

If you are ever lucky enough to play a round of Tiger Woods Wii golf with Fredo and I, there are some house rules you must abide by.

If you get a birdie, then you must flap your arms like you're doing the chicken dance.

If you are so fortunate as to get an eagle, then you must flap your arms like an eagle (hold your arms out to your sides and put them down quickly and repeatedly) while saying, "It's the eagle, it's the eagle".

If you get an double eagle, or "falcon" as we have dubbed it, which would most likely be a hole in one, you have to run around the apartment with your arms out to the sides, like an airplane.

Yes, we are strange and no, we weren't drinking when we came up with this.

Flashback

One year ago today I took a test that changed my life forever. It was a year ago that I had a beer that tasted weird to me and made me think that maybe, just maybe I was pregnant. I peed on a stick and 2 lines appeared almost immediately one year ago.

Fast forward to now. Ava is almost 4 months old and is absolutely amazing.

It was the best test result ever.

Eureka!

We've had a busy night tonight. We've been ski jumping, slalom skiing, tightrope walking and heading soccer balls. I found a Wii Fit today and it's been hours of entertainment since.

I went to Target to pick up Ava's portraits that we had done last week. We went and picked out a frame first, then to the baby section and then I decided to check out the video games before picking up the portraits and heading out. I walked into the Wii aisle and noticed they had a bunch of Wii's, way more than were there when I left on Sunday. I ventured further down the aisle and saw a big box that looked like it could be a Wii Fit. It wasn't locked up in the cabinets or anything so I picked it up, looked at it a few times to make sure it was, in fact, what I was looking for and proceeded to the register. I was slightly nervous that since I just helped myself someone was going to yell at me for taking their Wii Fit or something. I was even kind of hiding it behind my cart for fear that someone would try to tackle me and wrestle it out of my hands. Nothing of the sort happened and I paid for it and went on my merry way.

It's so cool! I can't wait to use it to work out tomorrow. The Shred has been out for a few days. My back has been killing me and it's too uncomfortable to do jumping jacks or anything so I've been taking it easy. I love that in the Wii Fit work-out mode, it compares your "scores" against any other Mii's that are saved. Since Fredo and I are pretty competitive with each other this should keep us motivated.

Fredo's been playing for awhile and Wii just told him to take a break! Ha, love it.

I've got my work cut out for me though. I took the fit test earlier and my Wii age is 40 (I'm 26)!

Wii-kend Wrap Up

Fredo is off today for Martin Luther King Day, which is very nice. We're going to have lunch with my former co-workers soon.

We ended up buying a Wii this weekend. We had a shower curtain catastrophe (I washed our cotton shower curtain and it shrunk...it was only catastrophic for me) so I decided I would beat the Sunday crowds at Target and go right when they opened, at 8 am. Fredo knew I was partially going that early to see if there were any Wii's in stock. He knows me so well.

I got there bright and early and was only one of 3 or 4 people waiting to buy Wii's. I got one no problem, but they didn't get any Wii Fits. I'll have to keep looking for those and have told a few friends that if they see one to get it and I'll pay them back.

We went to another Target later in the afternoon (two Targets in one day... sounds like my idea of a perfect Sunday) and bought a few games and an extra controller. I also got Sham-Wows at Target! I was almost more excited about that then I was for the new games. I wanted to go home and fill a pie plate with water to see how much my Sham-Wow could absorb. I didn't...yet.

We played a few rounds of Tiger Woods golf yesterday and we're both sore. I'll have to keep up the Shred as training for Wii.

I Hate You Jillian Michaels

I've done the 30 day Shred everyday this week and I am so sore. I can't even pick up Ava without my arms hurting. I've resolved to do the damn thing everyday for 30 days
(26 days to go) since the description says you can lose up to 20 lbs. in 30 days and I'm 20 pounds or so away from fitting into all of my pre-pregnancy jeans. On a side note, I do fit into the pair of pre-preggo jeans that I really wanted to be able to wear again and I'll be sporting them tomorrow when we have friends over for dinner, muffin top be damned.

Since we're having friends over tomorrow for dinner, I should clean the apartment today. Cleaning is my least favorite activity in the world. When I actually do clean the place top to bottom, I brag about it for days and expect heaps of praise from my husband. I need to get on that. But it's -5 degrees out right now and we're under a wind chill advisory so what else am I going to do today?

Hello

Hello internets. I have missed you.

I feel like things have been pretty boring lately. Just living the life of the stay at home mom. But let me update you on what I've been up to.

I found a stay at home mom's group on meetup.com so we went to our first play date/lunch last week. It was at a restaurant in the neighborhood so I got to have lunch and chat with some other moms. It's a weekly thing so as long as the blizzard doesn't hit, I'll be going again this Thursday.

Oh yes, the blizzard. It started as a blizzard watch yesterday morning, which prompted me to walk around the house all morning saying "Blizzard watch" like Paul Rudd says "Panda watch" in Anchorman. It was upgraded to a warning sometime yesterday afternoon and then the storm fizzled out sometime over night. There's another blizzard watch for tomorrow. I'm sick of the snow already. Good thing it's the middle of January and this snow thing is just getting started.

I'm attempting to take Ava to the Target photo studio today for portraits. I want to get portraits done at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, 1 year and then every year after. I may change my mind, depending on how today goes. I guess I should attempt putting on some makeup in case I end up in any of these pictures.

I've started the Jillian Michaels 30-day shred again yesterday. I'm going to try to do it for 30 days and see what happens.

Fredo asked me the other night if I wanted a Wii Fit now that I'm in shape up mode. Of course I do but that would mean we would also have to get a Wii. He shouldn't have said anything because I'm thinking about buying a Wii. I hope Target doesn't have them.

And last but not least, I will leave you with something that had me giggling this morning. The local news had the weather for the next day or two scrolling across the bottom. Whoever typed it must have been typing really fast because instead of saying "80% chance of snow", it said "80% chance fo snow".

New Car Smell

I've had my license for 10 years but just got my first car!

Our old car, lovingly called "Big Red", was just too small for our growing family. I damn near broke my back every time I had to wrangle the car seat into the backseat. To fit the car seat in, both the driver and passenger seats had to be moved up about as far as they could go. Even with the seats moved up, I still had to fold my legs in, using my hands, to fit in the back seat. I'm 5'9" with long legs. To put it mildly, it has been slightly uncomfortable riding in the car since Ava was born.

We knew we would be getting a small SUV sometime after the first of the year. Fredo was off from work on Thursday and Friday and we began our new car shopping Friday morning. We visited a few dealerships and got some ideas of cars that would work and car salesmen that we would never buy a car from ever. We looked at Saturn, a Toyota dealership where we were told that this is Toyota, '07 RAV4's fly out of here and a Subaru dealership in the city. Fredo did always seem to have his heart set on the Vue and since we were able to find a 2008 with extremely low miles we jumped at it.

Saturday morning, we went back out to the Saturn dealership and got our new Vue. It's sweet and Fredo and I were very happy. We even went grocery shopping on Sunday just to drive the new car... oh yeah, and to stock our pretty much empty refrigerator. Last night, I even caught Fredo looking out the window at the car.

Cut to this morning when I got a call from Fredo who had left early to go visit some customers. There is already a dent and scratch on the passenger side door. It had to have happened in the parking lot yesterday.

Is that some sort of record? Three days and the car already has to go to the body shop. I would say that this is what I get for living in the city but this happened in a big parking lot. I'm bummed. I wanted my new car to stay new for awhile but it's already scarred.

Happy New Year!

I'm not one for resolutions. I don't usually make them and if I have, I probably haven't stuck with them. My only resolution for this year is to not do anything. I got engaged at the end of 2006, got married in 2007, got pregnant and had a baby in 2008. My resolution for 2009 is to just hang out. I think I can stick with that one.

My goal, however, is similar to that of many--lose the weight. I set a goal about a month and a half ago to lose 10 lbs. by the new year. I'm sad to say that I failed, but only by less than a lb. so I think I will consider it (mostly) a success. That leaves me a little less than 3 months (by the time Ava turns 6 months old) to lose the rest. My commitment to healthy eating was derailed over the past month or so by my commitment to holiday eating but I'll be eating back on the healthy eating, exercise wagon tomorrow.

Anyway, happy New Year to all!