not much to say

Hi all. I don't have a whole lot to say on this cold January Friday. The week has been not our best, but not our worst either. Jeff is about 98% mended, and Em is about 80% there. Her appetite has come back with a vengeance, which I interpret as a good sign. I'm still holding my own and am quite hopeful...well, I'm just not going to finish that thought, but you get the idea.

I do want to tell you that I have the BEST husband ever...Emerson woke at 5:30 yesterday morning and was up for good. I dragged my sorry self out of bed and tried to get her back to sleep, but I was grouchy, tired, and dreading the next 7 hours before nap time. Jeff came in, and sensing that I was at my breaking point, took over and told me to lock the door and go back to sleep. Mind you, he'd been sick himself for 2 days and had a LOAD of work waiting for him at the office. But he let me sleep until 7 {which is like noon in Mama time}, kept Emerson entertained, and went in a bit late to work.

Sigh. Now THAT'S hot.

Have a great weekend. We're supposed to get a heat wave...gonna be in the mid-thirties here!

I'm holding my own

So far, so good for me. Em is still making quite a mess from her nether-regions, and Jeff is upright and even ate some dinner. Things are progressing as expected. But, THIS HAS BEEN THE LONGEST WEEK IN HUMANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I need a break.

make mine a double

now BOTH of my kiddos (read as: the BIG kid who lives in my room and the little kid who is my offspring) now have the plague. my day has been awesome.

sickie

we have a sick kiddo (as in SICK!), so my time to play is limited. i've done 4 loads of laundry in the last 24 hours and have a feeling that i may not be done. she's getting better, but i gave her milk at bedtime so i'm not holding my breath. think tranquil gastro-intestional thoughts for us, K?

here's my project 365 picture today...it's a non-graphic way to show what the day was like, don't you think?

toot toot!

Hear that? That's the sound of me tooting my own horn. I, all by myself, revamped a darling Christmas dress that Emerson got from Grandma into a darling Valentine's dress that she can keep wearing for a bit longer. Yay me!

I am generally a person who aspires to be crafty but does not believe that I actually am crafty. I do a fair amount of scrapbooking, but I CASE {Copy And Steal Everything} most of my designs from magazines and websites. And I did make and sew felt designs on onesies for the kids in our playgroup for Christmas, but I based my designs from Clipart. So this {albeit simple} transformation tickles me a bit.

BEFORE

AFTER

Ok, now I know you're saying "all you did was rip out the reindeer, cut out some BASIC hearts, and sew them on." And you're right. But the difference is the follow through. I actually DID it. Instead of letting the dress get packed away, I've kept it in the rotation. {If it were up to Jeff, she'd still be wearing it with the reindeer, so at least give me credit for disallowing THAT!}

There may still be hope for me in the Halloween-costume-sewing-department after all. For now, I'll take small victories where I can get them.

do you know jack?

Do you know these guys? It's Jack, Mary, and Mel from Jack's Big Music Show on Noggin. Emerson has fallen in love with this show and asks for it by name. (Even at 2 in the morning when she should be sleeping!) And I've fallen in love with it too. Not just for the great variety of music that it introduces kids to (zydeco, samba, Irish folk, yodeling, and much more!!), but also for the references to one of my favorite comics of all time, Jack Benny. In fact, the creators are huge Jack Benny fans and even named the main characters after Jack Benny, Mary Livingstone, and Mel Blanc. If you're a Benny fan, you'll love the references to the old show (picture it: the doorbell rings, the crew says "come iiii-n, and who should appear but the Schwartzman Quartet! Mmmmmmmmm!!) If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you'll still love JBMS. So check it out on Noggin...8 and 8:30am daily (CST). You can also find in On Demand (at least thru Comcast in Chicago anyways) under kids shows, and then Noggin.

In fact, I love the show so much that I wanted to drop a quick email to the creators to thank them for such a creative and educational show. After going through many hoops, I finally found the website for their production company, Spiffy Productions. The email link didn't work for me, so I decided to call them and leave a voicemail. I was surprised to see that they're a Chicago-based company. When I called, man answered, and after stammering that I wanted to leave a general message for the JBMS crew, he said that he would be happy to answer my questions. Then I explained that I didn't have any questions...just wanted to tell them what a great show they have and how much I appreciate the Jack Benny ties. Well, THAT really got him going. He said "YOU know Jack Benny? So you GET all the jokes?!" (he was suprised to hear that since I'm only 31.) He asked how I got invovled in Old Time Radio, and we found out that we both listen to the same show on Saturday afternoons called "Those Were The Days" with Chuck Shaden. We even commented that the annual "Jack Benny Month" in honor of Jack's b-day is coming up soon!

I finally asked who I was speaking with and found out that it's none other than David Rudman, aka JACK from JBMS! What a thrill. Now, if you think this is all crazy, let me put it to you this way. David Rudman was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayl of COOKIE MONSTER on Sesame Street! He was on that show for over 20 years! He's also done work with the Muppets (he was the Swedish Chef among others), and was even the "finger" in the Ziplock bag commercials!

We went on for about 15 minutes. I honestly think he as appreciative of my call as I was with his show. So you can imagine my horror when I found out that the show is no longer in production. BOOOOOO!! Noggin only ordered 2 seasons, and as of now, they're not planning on making more episodes. But David implied that he'd love to keep going. He told me that it's all up to Nick (Noggin's parent company). So people, I know you're out there. Watch JBMS. See what it's all about. Then email Nickelodeon and tell them that you want more!!!!

Phew. Ok, enough with my infomercial. If you watch JBMS, I'd love to hear your thoughts. And if you try it out after reading this, let me know what you think!

Make it a great night~
a.

4:03 am

That's what time Herself decided to awaken this morning. 4:03 am. WTF!?!?!?!?!? And she would not, could not go back to sleep. AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! Needless to say, I DID NOT get my run in today. Better luck tomorrow, I guess.

All kidding aside, I literally prayed for strength as I gave up on getting her back to bed and began to go about our day at 5:30. I knew that we would both be tired, cranky, and impatient. It was setting up to be one of those days. But as I look back, we had a pretty good day. She was great at playgroup and had fun playing with Lily's toys. She had patience with me when I was cooking her lunch and dinner. We went to Grammy & Grandpa's house to pass those late afternoon hours when we both get squirrely. And she loved every bit of her Moroccan roasted veggie & couscous dinner. She was generally a sweet pea today. How did I get so lucky? Now, here's to a GREAT NIGHT'S SLEEP tonite and a great day tomorrow.

Before I go, I got some pictures from the 1/ 2marathon and wanted to share them with you. This one was taken as the first wave of runners took off. There are runners in the starting chute as far as the eye can see. I think there were nearly 40,000 of us running that morning!

This is the picture that I have had in my head for nearly a year. That's me with my cousin (and super good sport!!), Amy.

You know those Visa commercials...new pair of running shoes: $125, airfare to Orlando: $300, running through the Castle in the Magic Kingdom: Priceless

Here's me rockin' out to Bon Jovi in Epcot during mile 12. The guy in front of us looks horrified!

We were SO HAPPY to be finished! I feel compelled to point out that our actual chip time was 2:21:46. The clock is 11 minutes slower because we were in the second wave.

Happy Inauguration Day. Here's our Project 365 photo of the day~