Business as Usual

I finally got rid of the baby sex poll I had on the right. I put it up 13 months ago. Which means the Peanut being 13 months old. We still call him the Peanut or the baby a lot. The husband also likes to call him the Fuss, especially if he makes a fussy peep. El Jefe never caught on. I was thinking of calling him El Campeon on this blog (the Champion), which is what one of my relatives calls him every time she sees him.

We've been making and experimenting with pizzas a lot. Before El Campeon was born, we had one pizza recipe and never dared change it. Our pizzas used to be piled high with onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes, and artichoke hearts. But now we are going simpler. We are perfecting a basil pizza that simply has a tiny amount of Prego sauce, a can of crushed tomatoes (drained), and lots of basil. We keep forgetting to put garlic on the pizza, so that's our next experiment. And I recently discovered roasted, crushed canned tomatoes which added nice flavor to a pasta sauce recipe. The crust is usually Boboli or whatever premade (fresh or frozen) crust I can find. In the past we used to buy the Trader Joe's pizza dough you would roll out yourself, but nowadays, the extra 5 minutes and flour mess might not be worth it. But then again, most premade crusts are too thick for me so maybe over the weekend we can try a Trader Joe's pizza dough ball. Oh, and we always use the mozzarella balls, sliced, instead of the shredded mozzarella. There's a huge difference in flavor and texture.

As a teaser...we are thinking about a puppy... Stay tuned for more.

The Last Post of 2009

We had a great Christmas. El Jefe got loads of presents and while he didn't care much for opening them, but has really enjoyed playing with them.

I made prime rib for Christmas dinner and although it took a lot longer to cook than I anticipated and I wasn't happy with the rub nor the au jus, everyone else seemed quite pleased with the way it turned out. Oh, and El Jefe slept through the night on Christmas night. We were planning on repeating the gift opening the next day so he would sleep well again, but then I realized that I had actually had a couple of glasses of wine with Christmas dinner, and that was probably the reason he slept so well.

This year the husband and I gave each other an "experience" gift and we went out on a date! It was fun. We had a sushi lunch and saw Avatar in Imax 3D. The movie was good. I would definitely recommend it. It had some great themes and messages in it and it definitely made me think about the environment and our impact on it. I hope we manage to keep the earth habitable for at least my son's lifetime.

I had a great 2009 with it's ups and downs. But in the big picture, my ups were definitely a lot more plentiful than the downs, so I am blessed in that regard. I hope 2010 turns out just as great, or better!!

Pictures coming in 2010!

Musings

I haven't posted in forever. That seems to be the general theme of my blog. Whatever. Been busy. Life is pretty good. El Jefe still doesn't sleep through the night. We don't want to do a "cry it out" sleep training method, but everything else requires more time and patience, and it's hard to stick to a plan in the middle of the night, when you are up for the 4th time. It's much easier to stick him on the breast and fall asleep next to him. When we wean El Jefe from breastmilk to cow's milk, it will probably be easier, because he'll be waking up to a sippy cup instead of the breast.

At the same time, I kind of enjoy cuddling next to El Jefe. It's like our quiet, peaceful bonding time.

Someone asked me what was surprising about becoming a parent. My first response was the time it takes. Wow. I'm mourning the loss of most of my hobbies (have kind of been playing soccer), but I'll always have time for scrapbooking and cardmaking. My time with an infant at home is limited. And most of the mom's I meet who are scrapbooking are already grandma's or have children who sleep through the night or have family nearby to care for the little ones while they indulge in crafts.

The second most shocking thing about becoming a parent was the love you feel for your child. Amazing. And for us it wasn't an instant love, it took time. In the beginning, we were more in provider mode, meeting the baby's needs. Now, it's just amazing. I've had glimpses of these profound love...towards my husband, towards my parents in their unconditional love. But the love you have for your child is really beyond description.

Being sane when you have a baby can be hard. I'll blame mommy-brain on the fact that all week I thought the freezing temperature was 42 degrees F, not 32. The husband and I sometimes have trouble seeing the big picture and we get caught up in the little things over which we disagree. But over the weekend, the husband said something profound to keep things in perspective: we have our health and a beautiful son, let's not get caught up in the little things and be grateful for what we have; hings could be a lot worse and this will probably be the easiest we'll have it.

Maybe from now on I'll stop commenting on how I never post and just blog when I can. And hopefully you guys will just keep coming back when you can.

Dear Loyal Followers,

I am alive. Just busy. But know that I think of you guys every day. Well, not each one of you individually, but all of you, as a collection.

Anyway, just busy with work and being a mom. So you want to know what my typical day is like?

5:30 am - Husband goes to work and I typically am half awake (I'm a sensitive sleeper).

7 am - typical wake up time for El Jefe; if we're lucky, like we have been the last week, he'll either sleep through the night or only wake up 1 or 2 times.

7 - 8 am - keep him in bed with me as long as possible (usually 5-15 minutes), but this usually happens if he wakes up around 6 am, breastfeeds, and then goes back to sleep in bed with me; diaper change; clothing change (?); play with kitties; chase the El Jefe around the living room; MAYBE try to get a load of laundry going; or make the bed (a significant achievement, trust me).

8:30 am - feed the kitties, El Jefe, and me.

8:50 am - do a second attempt at feeding El Jefe, if he didn't finish his food the first time around.

9 am - shower; put El Jefe in the bassinet or in his exersaucer; get ready for work.

9:30 am - breastfeed El Jefe; sometimes he'll fall asleep.

10 am - nanny arrives, tell her what's going on; last few minutes of cuddle time if El Jefe is awake.

10:30 am - 6:30 pm - relax, eat, pump, relax, pump; OR work; actually, work has been quite hectic lately so it hasn't been relaxing.

7 - 10 pm - arrive home; breastfeed El Jefe; (make?) eat dinner; wash pump dishes; play with El Jefe; breastfeed El Jefe, bathe him, feed him, he sacks, maybe watch a little bit of a movie or try to do some stuff on the computer; go to sleep.

On days I'm lucky or work is slow, then I go home around 6 pm and get a little bit more time to do other stuff, like meet up with a friend, go for a walk, go to the store with El Jefe. But generally, that's it. That's life right now. And we are loving it.

Thank God

For the past 6 month, my brother has been in jail on DUI charges. At 1:11 am this morning, I got the call from him that he was out. The Peanut and I are about to fly south to see him. I can't wait.

Yes, I am Alive

Yup, I’m still alive. I’ve just been busy. In the past month we went to Orange County, Boston, and started looking for a nanny.

Both trips were fun. We saw loads of family and friends and the Peanut had a wonderful time meeting lots of people. Highlights include:

Splashing in a kiddie pool; hanging out with big kids (the Peanut’s highlight), eating lots of ice cream at Cabot’s in Newton, seeing lots of friends (thank you to those who traveled long distances to see us), going to the Boston aquarium, getting lost trying to drive through the Boston suburbs (fortunately the Peanut slept right through it).

At his 6 month birth anniversary we decided we could no longer call our son Peanut. He was too old. Not only did he no longer look like a Peanut (big head, poufy diaper), but we didn’t want the name to stick. So we’ve been trying out other names that include Calabazita (pumpkin) and El Jefe (the boss). Unfortunately we still tend to call him Peanut or the Fuss.

The nanny interviewing process has been going pretty well. We were happy with our pool of nannies until we realized that we don’t really know any of these people. And how well can you really get to know anyone in less than 1 month? So we are kind of stressed out right now, trying to figure all this out. Before the Peanut was born, I figured I would have no trouble sending him to daycare. And I think the husband felt exactly the same way, until he stayed at home with the Peanut for 10 weeks. My husband fears the nanny will be careless or abandon our child and my fear is that the nanny will kidnap him. We’ve decided to offset our work schedules so that the Peanut is only with a nanny for 6 hours a day, 4 days a week. Most likely nothing will happen, and the nanny will become an integral part of our family and the Peanut’s life. What more could we ask for than a nanny that the Peanut is happy to see? Wish us luck!

Other highlights from the past month include:

First food – rice cereal with breastmilk! We didn’t get any of the funny faces. On the contrary, the Peanut really seemed to enjoy the food. We have gotten some classic faces with pureed carrots, but we don’t have any pictures of that.


We got a backpack carrier which the Peanut really seems to love.


We checked out some horses!


We used the potty (but I’ll only show the Peanut’s picture). Ok, so we are not one of those families that is crazy about one parenting theory over another. For a while there, the Peanut tended to leak his diaper every morning. So instead of waiting for a leak, or trying to do a change midway through the deed, we decided to sit him on the potty. And it worked! Was that too much info? We’ve actually only tried this once. But it was a cute picture!


The Peanut got his first drug rug!


And these baseball hat pictures are adorable!




And of course, priceless.


Since I haven’t posted in a long time, I’m going to make this a long one.

My birthday was last week! This was actually a pretty bad birthday of all the birthday’s I’ve had. It got better as the day neared an end. In the past I have always loved my birthday and I was really looking forward to this birthday. But this birthday all I really wanted to do was go home and sit on the couch and stare at the wall. However, I was stuck at work, with a lot of stressful things going on, until much later than I wanted to. When I finally left work, my parents helped me organize the garage. That actually made me happy. Am I old or just domesticated? We finally ended up going downtown, to partake in the once a month summer festivities (band, farmer’s market, etc.), and had dinner at The Tied House, our local brewpub. Thanks to Will and Christine who joined us. But then, as we were heading home, I felt really sick. It must have been something I ate? Who knows. Fortunately the ill feelings passed quickly.

Oh, 3 weekends ago I went to a soccer camp put on the by the local women’s professional team. It was my first time playing soccer in about 1 year and it was fun. I did roll my ankle but it only took a couple of minutes to get over the pain and back onto the field. There were about 18 women at the camp coached by Tiffeny Millbret and Christine Sinclair. I was probably the most skilled player on the field. But it was a great way for me to get back into the soccer mood. I’ve signed up for a women’s league starting in 1 month. I can’t wait.

Speaking of rolling my ankle...I’ve always been worried about what would happen if we tripped as we were carrying the Peanut. Would we throw the Peanut in the air so that we could free our hands to break our fall? Would we do a move defying the laws of physics and somehow end up under the Peanut to break his fall? Well, the other day I was carrying the Peanut when my foot found a hole in the ground and I rolled my ankle. I heard lots of popping noises. And it hurt. But the Peanut barely moved in my arms. And I watched the husband do a similar thing. He was sitting on the ground and tried to stand up while holding the Peanut, lost his balance, but somehow managed to land back on the ground, in a completely different position, but the Peanut barely moved in space. I guess when you are holding such precious cargo, your body is aware of that and it reacts accordingly.

Well, I had planned on making this post A LOT longer, but to get it finished and published, I'll stop here. At least I got the pics up and that's all anyone cares about anyway.

Some Insights

I finally have made time to read. And now it's my second favorite thing to do. I have read a couple of books already, a couple of mystery thrillers: Coffin Dancer by Jefferey Deaver and Fatal Voyage by Kathy Reichs. They were both great books and I often stayed up too late to read a few more pages. Now I'm reading a Skeleton Crew by Steven King. I've read The Mist - great story but I didn't like the ending. But as the husband said, there's no better way to end that story. Now I am reading The Monkey, and I'm surprised I haven't had nightmares. Stories about children's toys gone bad really scare me. Always have.

I installed Quicken on my laptop and have started to track our finances beginning in June. I am super excited about this it's almost scary. Maybe I should have been an accountant. I want to track every single penny we spend. Hopefully I won't drive my husband crazy. On the plus side, this will help us decide whether we're financially stable enough to have one of us become a stay-at-home parent.

I'm on Facebook, but not on Twitter. I checked out the twitter page today for the first time, and it really stressed me out. It took me a while to get on Facebook, and now I love it. I'm always thinking of new people to look up. However, I don't think I can handle another online social network application/website/whatever you call it.

The Peanut has woken up only once during the night for 4 of the last 5 nights. Wow! We are excited. I, on the other hand, wake up a lot more, for various reasons. We finally stopped bedsharing and put him back in the bassinet in our room and the first night, much to our surprise, he only woke up once. I woke up 3 times, because I was used to it and I really needed to nurse. But I waited it out and only had to feed once. Monkey was really annoying last night, scratching at the door, and whining to come into our room. We've been kicking the cats out of our room because Monkey and Fattie keep jumping into the Peanut's crib. Monkey is bi-polar and she could easily scratch the Peanut and Fattie is, well, he's almost 30 lbs. So if my body is not waking me up, it's the kitties. But at least it's not the Peanut and that's a good thing.

The husband survived his first day back at work. He's quite bummed that his paternity leave is over. He did an awesome job taking care of the Peanut and I'm so glad that he got to stay at home. I think all daddies should stay at home for a few weeks. And if you live in CA, you can even get paid for some of the leave. I had my concerns when I first went back to work and left the boys alone. I was mostly worried about the Peanut missing me and the husband not knowing how to soothe him. The Peanut did miss me but the husband found his own way to soothe the Peanut and everything worked out. Now I see my husband going through the same emotions that I did when I went back to work.

Another Week

Tomorrow is Friday. I am glad. But at the same time it means another week has gone by and I am one week closer to having to go back to work. I think I will add an extra couple of weeks to my 12 week leave. In CA you get a total of 18 weeks, 12 of those paid (at 55% of your salary). When I go back the husband will take 6-12 weeks off. He gets a total of 12 but only 6 of those are paid. Towards the end of the summer I will probably take another month off. Despite the long, intense days and nights the Peanut and I have together, I can't believe I am going to have to give that all up. But I guess that's life.

As I write this, the Peanut is sleeping on the husband's chest. It's a cute sight. I should be sleeping but I need the break to do something different.

So, when I feed the baby, I sometimes watch DVD's. I've been watching Showtime's The Tudors, which is basically a porno with great costumes (when they wear clothes). I got into the Henry VIII saga when I read The Other Boleyn Girl and watched the movie (book is better). I also watched Goal! The Dream Begins, which is a soccer movie about an illegal Mexican from LA making it big with Newcastle. It's a good movie for a sports movie. That movie actually required more concentration than The Tudors (because of all the soccer moves), so I ended up watching half the movie while the baby slept. Nursing does take some concentration so I need to watch something that I can sometimes tune out without missing anything that major. I was thinking of Lost or Grey's Anatomy, but both of those seem like they will require concentration. Any recommendations? Anyone seen Coupling?

5 Day Weekend!!

I am about to leave work to start my 5 day weekend. Yay!! The husband is very lucky because he actually doesn't go back to work until January 5.

Here's the plan for my extended weekend: my parents will be visiting for Christmas, I'm baking lots of cookies and maybe even some biscotti, I will do lots of crafty stuff like scrapbooking and card making, and I'll play around with our new camera. Oh, and my new laptop arrives tomorrow so I'll have fun with that.

Happy Holidays!!

War, What Is It Good For?

I recently had to do inventory at work on a bunch of body armor belonging to non-surviving soldiers from Iraq. Here are my observations.

The equipment arrived in a large wooden crate, with sets of armor in large plastic bags. There was sand everywhere. Most sets of armor had front, back, and 2 side plates. The plates are small, maybe about 10 inches x 15 inches, and weigh about 6-10 lbs. On some of the plates you can see bullet holes.

The helmets were a little harder to deal with. A couple of the helmets had bullet entry and exit holes. I noticed one helmet was quite muddy, and then realized it was dried blood. A few of the helmets were no longer the shape they started off.

As I sorted through the equipment I managed to keep my emotions out of it. It took me a lot longer than my boss expected to go through the inventory. I think I was just handling each piece with the utmost care, out of respect for the dead. Later in the day, when I recounted the experience to my husband, I felt a little more emotional about it.

We are going to try to figure out how the armor failed to make improvements to the armor. I am happy that we are doing something to help, but unhappy that we have to make protective equipment for war.

Weekend News

We had a good weekend. It was mostly relaxing but I got a lot of stuff done. I finally got back into working on my scrapbooks and I made decent progress over the weekend.

On Sunday my girls played. We tied, 1-1. It was a tough tie since we were winning most of the game and they came back and tied us in the last 5 minutes. We had no subs (again) and everyone was just exhausted. Plus, the other team was playing extremely physical – lots of shoving our players off the ball and slide tackling – but I couldn’t get my girls to step up their physical play. The team was from a less nicer city in the area (if we were from Southern Cali, the other team would be from LA and we would be from Laguna Beach), but still, we should have stepped it up. Regardless, the girls played well and I am glad that they managed to survive the whole 90 minute game. Oh, and my other excuse was that the field was quite dense (the grass hadn’t been cut in weeks) and the ball would often just die in the middle of a pass.

I guess that’s all we did this weekend. Oh, I did go to a party with my friend. It was a kickball/BBQ party with a keg at 2nd base. I missed the kickball game so by the time I got there the keg had been floated and everyone was drunk. The food was really, really good – traditional BBQ with some Phillipino lumpia. Yumm!

I just realized I had a dream where I drank half a beer and tried to justify it by saying that most people say it’s ok to drink a little wine while your pregnant (a glass with dinner on special occasions). But everyone was chastising me because I had drunk beer (miller lite, of all beers) instead of wine.

Another interesting happening this weekend was that I bought my first baby gift. I got a little after-bath blanket (it has a little triangular cap in one corner) made of organic, sustainable, yadda, yadda, yadda, cotton at Whole Foods. It’s a creamy gray color with little animals on it. It’s really cute! I almost put it back because I started wondering if it was bad luck to buy baby gifts before the baby is born. And I almost cried when I told the cashier it was for my baby.

Oh, the lowlight of the weekend was the Patriots game. I only got to see the 1st quarter because of the soccer game. That sucks for the Patriots.

Big News, Big News!

So the husband and I have a secret that we're finally revealing...I'm pregnant!!! I am in week 13 so we decided it was safe to share the news. We've already seen a couple of ultra sounds of the baby and we've both seen and heard the heart beat. I've gained a couple of pounds and I've moved into maternity pants (they are so comfy!). So slowly but surely it's starting to feel more real.

I plan on relating the pregnancy adventure on my blog, leaving out the gory details, of course. I'll present more of a G-rated version and let you find out the other details for yourself (if you don't already know) when you or someone close to you gets pregnant.

So what are a few things I've discovered about pregnancy so far:

First and foremost, fatigue. It's like nothing I've ever experienced. Sure, I've been tired before and had to push myself to get through the day. But this is different. It's not really a feeling of sleepiness, just exhaustion, both physically and mentally. For the first time in my life I actually started taking naps during the day. I usually didn't sleep for very long, but being able to put my head down for at least a few minutes was very refreshing. It's been very weird. Even the husband was taken aback by my constant desire to sit on the couch and do nothing. Fortunately, that has mostly passed. I seriously woke up at week 12 and felt normal again. While I've had a few days where I still feel tired and need to rest in the middle of the day, I mostly have my energy back.

The need to eat when hunger strikes. I used to have days at work where I would be too busy to have breakfast and would have my first meal around lunch time. That happens no more. Now I usually eat a good sized snack every couple of hours (sometimes more often depending on the protein quality of the snack or mini-meal). If hunger strikes (my stomach growls), I have about 5-10 minutes to eat something, otherwise I start to loose it. Now I always carry around snacks and water with me, much to my husband's amusement.

Heartburn! I shiver at the thought. Around week 7 I discovered heart burn. It sucks! It's basically due to a relaxation of the ligaments and muscles in the body (don't quote me on that) that will allow my hips to expand for delivery (too much detail??) but that has other consequences including heartburn (and loose joints). So no more marinara sauce and spicy foods (two staples in my diet). I discovered I hated heartburn more than I loved spicy foods. The good news is that I think the heartburn is passing a bit. I've started introducing spicy foods back into my diet and so far so good.

So there you have it. Stay tuned for more in the coming months.

A Tribute

I wanted to say how proud I am of my husband. Last week he rode his bike to and from work on 4 out of the 5 days. It's about 3.5 miles each way. I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but from experience when I was trying to ride my bike to work from our old house (all 1.5 miles each way), it's often easier said than done. It's mostly a motivational factor, versus time or effort. If the husband drops me off at work and then takes the car himself, it usually takes him longer than if he were to just let me take the car and ride in to work. Usually by the time he gets off work and heads him, the afternoon wind has picked up so he'll have an extremely strong headwind for about 1 mile. But by that time he's pretty excited to be going home and that gives him energy. So the hardest part is getting up in the morning and convincing yourself to ride your bike to work.

Great job, honey!

Update: The husband just corrected me on the mileage. It's actually 4.1 miles each way. And it takes him between 20 and 25 minutes each way. I'm even more proud!

Exciting Time of the Year

So I am a few days away from the big 3-0. I’m fairly excited. 30 sounds fun and promising. 35 sounds a little scary. 40 is way to far away to even imagine.

I love birthdays. Especially mine. When the husband and I first started dating, we would have competitions for each other’s birthdays, to see who could outdo each other. I typically won, but considering that it was his birthday I was planning, we were both winners. He got me a great tv and alarm clock for my birthday once. I still have and use both of them. The alarm clock was one of the best gifts ever because I can wake up to a burbling stream or the sounds of the ocean instead of an annoying beeping. One of my favorite gifts to the husband was a kitten footprint painting. I got a blank canvas, some paint, and I had the kittens Monkey and Major dip their paws in pain and walk all over the canvas. The husband became concerned when he found green stuff on Monkey’s paw. Fortunately the paint was non-toxic (children’s finger paint) and the husband forgot about it until he got the painting.

This year I’ve requested a dinner at Benihanna and an ice cream cake.

Domestic Bliss

Over the weekend, the husband and I went on a little shopping spree to fill some of our domestic needs. Our first major purchase was an LG washer/dryer set. We have a proper laundry room (doubles as the litter box room) in our new place but for the first two months we continued to go to the Laundromat to get our clothes washed. I considered user reviews online (like at Sear’s and Home Depot) along with professional reviews to settle on the LG brand. I then borrowed a friend’s Consumer Reports and was pleased to find out that LG was three of their top 10 washer models. The washer model we settled on was CR #8; it’s the lower end front-loader (WM2016C). I really wanted the higher-end front loader (CR #1) which was a steam washer but I couldn’t justify the ~$1300 extra it would have cost apart from using the "I really want it" argument (the husband used his veto power). We got the matching dryer, which was not ranked by CR, but getting it would allow us to stack the machines, giving us (and the kitties) more space in the laundry room. So far I’m quite pleased with the machines. The washer has a very long cycle but it uses little water and front loaders are gentler on clothes in general. Ask me in a month how I feel about the machines.

Another item we purchased over the weekend was a new vacuum. It is awesome. It’s the Kenmore Progressive Upright with Inteli-Clean System vacuum. I had always wanted a Dyson vacuum cleaner and swore that when my vacuumed died, I would get a Dyson. However, after reading the consumer reports, I opted for their #1 pick (Dyson was much lower on the list, but still top 15, I think). The bagless version was ranked #2 and about $60 more expensive. The vacuum does a great job with fur and dirt. It has a sensor that tells you how much dirt is left and adjusts sucking power accordingly. The vacuum came with a few really good attachments (although a couple of them do not have a home on the vacuum which is annoying), it has a power switch on the handle which is really convenient, and it’s really easy to roll. It’s a little on the heavy side but since I don’t have to haul up and down the stairs anymore, I don’t care. The vacuum is definitely a step up but so far I’m quite pleased.

Now on to the husband’s new toys…after much begging and pleading from my husband, I finally gave in and let him buy a projector to replace our current, non-digital tv. Our current TV is an old, 50”+ projection tv that works just fine, in my opinion. But now the husband says we’ll have a 110” HD image projected in our living room. I don’t know anything about the projector or surround sound speakers, computer, screen, and projector mount he bought (and I think I’m fine not knowing), but hopefully it will be a pretty sweet system. It will probably be another month or so before everything is up and running so I’ll give an update then and let you know whether I like the system or not.

Cool Wheels!

My commute to work this morning was 45 minutes. Typical California commute, you say? Time-wise, yes. Path-wise, no. I rode my bike along the Steven’s Creek Trail. I had about 3/4 of a mile on residential streets and then the rest of the time was along the hike/bike path that had bridges, streams, and lots of other cyclists and pedestrians. I think I can take at least 10 minutes off my commute since I went slow (I got passed by a little girl on her tricycle going to school), was unsure on a couple of the turns, and there were quite a few bugs. I hit a couple of gnat clouds, but the worse was actually the ones that were just pounding me like little pellets. Thank goodness for sunglasses. Maybe I’ll wear a welder mask took keep the bugs out of nose and mouth. But at least I got some protein.

Here are some pictures (click on the picture for nicer, larger views):

The first part of the trail has a great tree canopy and is really cool. There are lots of turnoffs in this area that lead to residential areas, schools, or parks.

I ride over two bridges, one along the streets where I catch the trail and this one which is a bike/pedestrian bridge. I hit the bridge about 10 minutes into my commute to work and can go over it no problem; but on the way home I'm usually quite tired and struggle a bit.

I ride alongside the freeway for about 50 feet. It's very noisy in this area and the sound of the cars wash out my iPod.

At one point in time the trail crosses a major street.

The second third of my ride is along this stream. There are barely any trees in this area and a lot of bugs. But I also get to see ducks and some cool landmarks.

The large oval shaped building (from the top) with the black top used to be a blimp hangar for either NASA Ames or Moffet Field (Naval air base). Old people tell us that the city used to lose power whenever they would open or close the doors of the hangar. The buildings at the far left of the picture is the husband's work (Lockheed).

Nice view.

Cool truck (eye-candy for the husband).

The last third of my commute is partially along a golf course. On the right is the clubhouse for the course.

Google is to the left and another high-tech company is to the right.

This is where I get off the trail, right next to Intuit (TurboTax and Quicken).

I am proud of my commute to work. So far I've only ridden once a week due to soccer and other stuff I've had to do. I am surprised it takes me so long, but I tend to go slow, especially downhill. I am afraid of going to fast and falling off my bike. As I ride more, I'll probably get my commute time down. When I first started running on the treadmill, I had to hold on to the bar to keep from falling off. Now I can watch tv while I run on the treadmill.

In other news, I found Monkey all the way down and across the street as I was coming home from dinner. She was probably about 8 houses down. She was thinking about crossing the street as I drove by but pulled back as she saw/heard my car. I drove home, parked my car, and walked back to get her. She seemed a little confused and hesitant to let me pick her up. I am not happy that she went so far and across the street but maybe this was a one-time thing (since she seemed confused and disoriented). Whenever we try to keep her in for more than a few days, she tends to make some clear statements (icky statements) and she drives us crazy with her constant howling at the door. We've been through this debate before in trying to figure out if we should let Monkey out or not. We've escaped the dog that terrorized our old neighborhood but now we have the fear of cars. But at least Monkey is pretty street savvy and she still freaks out when she hears a car drive by. Being a mommy is hard.

New Year's Resolution, Day 1

I am very proud of myself for keeping my New Year's Resolution this long. How many people do you think made it past the first few hours of the new year?

I am still feeling a little ill. I am stuffy and my throat is extremely sore - it hurts to swallow. Yuck! I want to get better ASAP because we have a 9+ hour trip home. Damn Southwest and their hubs.

It snowed most of the afternoon today. It was quite a pretty sight. When I get m pictures uploaded, I will try to post an image. When the temperature is not too cold, snow flakes tend to clump and they appear bigger, than when it is colder.

I just took some NyQuil and Benadryl, so I am off to bed.

Me

It seems that most people who meet me can't figure out my ethnicity. Most people that know me, know that I am Mexican, born in the US. However, people have made all sorts of random assumptions about my heritage, including:

Filipino - this one is totally fine and an acceptable assumption.
African-American - it must be my cheekbones.
Native American - see above.
Turkish - really?
Indian - assumed by people from India!

When I shaved my hair and was wearing a head scarf, people assumed I was Muslim. The worse I've gotten was "the Vietnamese kid Angelina Jolie adopted." That was a comment made by my brother when I sent him a picture shortly after I shaved my head. Thanks.

Live from The OC

We are at my parents' house in Orange County. And we are suddenly all 5 inches taller, 30 lbs lighter, super tan, and the husband is bulging with muscles. That's what happens when you go to the OC. Even Major, who accompanied us on this trip, is 12 lbs. lighter.

The drive down last night was uneventful, but long. It took us 7.5 hours with a 45 min. stop for sushi in Pismo Beach. Major cried the whole way. He's getting pilled for the drive home. When we arrived he was loving all the attention. But he hasn't stopped whining since this morning.

All the cats are officially on a diet. Major has to eat special, pH balanced food (that is really expensive) and we no longer have the continous feed container on the floor. Now they usually get a little dry food in the morning, when we get home from work, and before bed. If we are feeling generous (or loving), then they get a little can of feast in the evening. When we took Major in to the vet for his blockage, he noted that Major was overweight, but very sweet. As soon as he said "diabetes", we committed to the diet. And we are also thinking of getting pet insurance for the kitties.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Weekend Wrap-up

It's Sunday morning. So far my weekend has been great.

Yesterday was my little soccer team's last season game. We tied. We didn't make playoffs. Four out of the 6 teams in the division are advancing to playoffs and we are not one of them. I feel like a total loser. Actually, not really. It will be nice to have my Mondays and Wednesdays back to do what I want (not much). I enjoyed practices, but with the time change, we had to compress our practice down to 1 hour and it's so hard to get more than 1 drill plus a scrimmage accomplished in that time. But putting all this aside, I think the girls had a pretty good game on Saturday. We played the team that was either in first or second and we tied them. The smallest girl on my team is a pretty good passer, but she seems terrified of going after 50-50 balls. When she played forward, she always seemed to be at the back door, but never was strong enough to win the ball and take a shot. The assistant coach and I had discussed this and we would always shout at her whenever she was near the ball. This seemed to encourage here but it was usually not enough. Yesterday she was once again at the back door, waiting for a cross. The goalie came out for the ball, but the little girl intercepted the ball and tapped it into the goal. It was great to see her score. We couldn't get the win, but this was a great way to end the season.

We went to a party yesterday. I didn't drink very much. I basically didn't want to be hungover in the morning. I think it's a sign that I am very old that I prefer not to drink so that I can have my peaceful Sunday mornings to go grocery shopping before everyone else does, to bake muffins and squeeze orange juice, or to blog! God, I'm old.

Our Scottish visitor has a new name for Major...Poncho! If you've met all 25 lbs of black blob and fur, you know that Poncho is a suitable name. Poor Major. He's in the hospital. He was blocked and couldn't pee. We've been through this drill before so we are not too worried. He's turning out to be the most expensive cat in the world. But I guess pound for pound he's a pretty good deal.