Good Friends

I'll start with a recap from the weekend - it was great!! Ashley, Larry, and Clara arrived around 3:30 on Friday and went to Mom's house to hang out until I could scoot out of work a bit early. I got there around 4 or so and Ashley was holding Stella and Clara was not sure what to do about that!! She was SO GOOD with the baby - she was not crazy jealous and she loved holding Stella herself (we would set them up and pretend like she was holding Stella) and "feeding" her with her baby bottles. Too cute. She'll be a great big sister someday.

Here they are on Friday night:


And on Saturday morning - Clara "feeding" Stella:


We all left Mom's and made the LOOOONG trek next door to my house. The boys immediately went to Toby's Doghouse (the garage) and started drinking beer and playing darts...and that is where they remained until only God-Knows-When because I was most certainly asleep by that time. We ordered pizza online (I love that!) and ate dinner.

After dinner, all the girls bundled up and headed around the corner to some little shops on Lakeside Avenue for a Christmas Open House they were having...it was nice and there were some very cute things I saw that I will be going back for... After the Open House, we just ended up driving around because the girls were asleep and we had the bright idea that if we kept driving and got them REAL good and asleep, all we'd have to do when we got home was plop them in their beds. HAHAHA! We're funny.

BOTH girls were wide awake when we got in the house so Clara and Ashley went upstairs to get Clara down...and Stella and I stayed downstairs and did our usual routine of pajamas and some snuggle time. After both girls were down, we went out to the Doghouse for a few. I smoked ONE cigarette and had about 6 sips of beer and all of a sudden felt like ASS. I had to come inside and gag in the bathroom for a minute. LOL! My how things have changed. Ashley and I used to party down! When she would visit Richmond, we were up in the clubs, dancing and drinking. Now I'm gagging in the bathroom after 1/4 a can of Miller Lite and a cig. But you know what? I totally love it this way.

Moving on.... The girls were all in bed by 11 at the latest. The boys? No clue. Toby slept on the couch and the Lanes ALL slept in the double bed in the guest room which made for a rough night for Ashley. I told her she should have come downstairs and got in the bed with me but she didn't think about it in the frustration of the moment. We had a portable crib for Clara but she was having no parts of it. New place, new house, new crib. No way!

On Saturday, we fixed a big breakfast and then the boys did their thing all day (rootin' in the jeep, eating at Bullets, going to some sports store...) and the girls did their thing (shopping at Babies R Us, Kohl's, Short Pump Towne Center) and eating (Cheesecake Factory. Ever had the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Cheesecake? That needs to be illegal.)

All shopped out!!


Clara liked her cheesecake!


We got home around 5:30 PM and it may as well have been 1AM. We were dog tired. And the boys were hung over. So, the ENTIRE house was in bed by 9:30pm. Wooo hoooo! PARTY PEOPLE!

On Sunday, the Lanes had to leave. :( They had a crappy drive home in the rain all day. Our yard was like a LAKE by noon. It continued to rain all day long...and my dear Toby let me take a nap that afternoon which was so nice. (It was a nice return of investments for all the hours he has spent in the Doghouse.) The rest of the afternoon was the usual: dishwasher, laundry, cleaning, picking up, computer time, etc... Getting myself ready to go back to the Real World.

Monday was a Monday. I did some presentation work which was cool...I always like working with Powerpoint. But that was about it for the excitement from 8:30 - 5pm. I live for 5 so I can get home to my girl. My Mom had her cousin and her boyfriend over for dinner so after we ate dinner at our house, I took Stella next door to meet everyone. She was a dollbaby there! Just smiling and laughing up a storm. I'm sure it had something to do with Grandpa Wayne playing with her. He wouldn't even put her down long enough to eat his Pumpkin Pie - now THAT is saying something!

We got home and Stella and I layed on the waterbed and watched some of my DVRed programs from the day. (DAMN! I just remembered I forgot to set it for today and Will Farrel is suppoed to be on Ellen. CRAP! Oh well....) Anyway, did anyone catch Oprah and the lady who has figured out a secret baby language?? It was AMAZING and from my experience, seemed to be true. Here's the link for The Secret Language of Babies. Check it out - esp you new parents and about-to-be new parents. Stella fell asleep watching these babies and slept until 7:30 am this morning. WOO HOO!

Today is Tuesday and I'm at work now. I look like dog shit. For real. My outfit is HORRIBLE. My hair is disgusting. I'm wearing glasses because my contacts were killing me yesterday. My clothes are ill-fitting on top of being too casual for work. I just feel YUCK. I need an intervention.

EVERYTHING in my life has fallen into place and it's all wonderful. My marriage. My Family. My child. My house. My job. My car. Our finances (well not as wonderful as I would like but better!)

But I need to gain control over my weight and my health again. This one aspect is really dragging me down mentally and it's not fair to the other aspects of my life that deserve my full, undivided, and positive attention! Lately, I can't think about the good stuff without the thought being interrupted with how tight my pants are. Absurd!

Suggestions/Support welcome! I've got to get it together. I've done it before! I can do it again! I'm just having a horrible time getting started.........

And with that - here's a new picture of Miss Stella O'Dell perfecting the art of rolling over back to front.

Friday Schmiday - Ready to go HOME!

I SO do not want to be at work today. I am bored to tears. Boss is out of town - but I think he's coming back around 3:30. GREAT. Just when I wanted to leave early.

Ashley, Larry, and Clara are coming to visit for the weekend!!! They should be on the road by now so they should be here around 4 or so... I might have to tell them to just go next door to Mom's until I can come home. Blah. I would pay somebody to let me go home today and just do things around the house and be with Stella.

We got Dish Network installed yesterday. And DVR!!! I set it up to record Ellen and Dr. Phil today - we'll see if I did it right.

My contacts are killing me. I need to order more today because these are my last pair and I think I've been wearing them for 2 months (they are supposed to be for 2 weeks.) SMART.

I just called Toby and asked him to make an appt for Stella to get her 3 month pictures taken...now that she is almost 4 months old. Whoops. His friend Ian has a friend that works at the portrait studio at JC Penney's. She has told Ian to tell Toby to get Stella in there ASAP and she'll give us a deal. So that's why I am having him make the appt. We'll see if it actually gets done today as I am his personal secretary who takes care of all things resembling administrative in our lives.

Tonight we are just going to order pizza for dinner. We may stroll a few blocks to Lakeside Avenue to some of the cute little shops...One of the shops, Feathernesters, is hosting a Christmas Open House with hot cider, coffee, cookies, candles, etc.... And you can stroll between all the shops. I thought it would be nice and get me in the holiday spirit - not so sure of that now that it is damn 80 degrees!! I have yet to go to Feathernesters...but it's a cute little coffee/gift shop that serves breakfast and dinner on Fridays - you have to sign up for those. Mom and Dad have had breakfast there once. The owners were there and talked to them.... Dad said he felt like he was in the movie "Birdcage" if you know what I mean.... I can't wait to go check it out because "Birdcage" is one of my favorite movies of all time!! :)

Tomorrow, the GIRLS (Me, Ashley, Stella, and Clara) are just going to piddle around, do some shopping, have lunch, stroll Short Pump, etc.... Not sure what the boys will be doing but I'm sure it will take place in Toby's DogHouse (the pimped out garage) and will involve beer.

They will leave Sunday morning and I know I'll be sad to see them go. I want Ashley to live here!!! I don't have many friends here...I have a lot of work friends who I ADORE but I don't really do "outside" things with them. I guess that it my fault - I should make more of an effort. Esp those who have kids because we could take them places like Maymont, etc. I guess that will be more fun when Stella can actually realize where she is!! And the friends I do have I love to pieces, but I don't think they want to be around a baby all the time so I don't get to see them much. That's another blog for another day.... But, anyways....

It's 11:07. I can go get lunch at 11:30... I think I'll go out somewhere to kill some time. It's nice to be paid for days when I really don't have anything to do - but I'd much rather just be able to go home.

Have a WONDERFUL Weekend, kids!

A Poop Story

It's been awhile since I talked about poop.

I would like to share an e-mail I received from my Mother soon after arriving at work:

My Dearest Steph,

Be glad you're at work today. Be very glad. I just had a horrific
experience with a massive amount of poop. Stella was sitting in the
bumbo seat & got a little fussy, so I picked her up to see what was
the matter. (Sounds a bit like the "Night Before Christmas", but in
reality it was the "Nightmare Before Christmas"). I smelled
something. When I got to the bed & started to pull her pants off,
there was $#!@ everywhere! It had squeezed out the side of the
diaper, down her leg, all over the onesie. I thought I was going to
cry because I didn't know how to handle this poop situation alone! I
kept asking Stella, "What are we going to do?" She just kept waving
her arms & legs which was no help at all in this situation. Whew!
My room smells like West Point. Anyway, we made it & she's all
cleaned up. I have a load of poopy laundry. I am so glad I wasn't
out somewhere because I would have wailed! The precious baby is
content now -- wonder why......

Have a good day!

Your loving mother!
xxoo

I can't even describe how hard I laughed at this. And then I realized I would rather be at home dealing with Stella's shit (literal) than shit (figurative) at work.

I need to go now and do some actual work since it is 2:40 pm and so far I have:

**Called Cavalier to cancel our Broadband TV because it BLOWS.
**Called Cavalier to get them to check our phone which has not had a dial tone in 2 days.
**Called our insurance agent to change our car insurance.
**Called Dish Network and ordered their stuff - I joined the modern world and got a DVR!
**Went to Target for a new curling iron and came out with a new curling iron, socks for Stella, ziploc bags, magazines, some lotion, a couple hair accessories, and some F&^%*&&^ Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds of which I ate the whole bag and now my stomach hurts.

Pictures Galore!

I've always been a fan of food. That is no secret. I've also been overweight my entire life. Well, maybe I wasn't overweight up until age 4 or so....but I saw some kindergarten pictures of me the other day and I was already chubbier than the other kids. It caused me great strife for most of my life....I guess I can say that I was upset by it until Toby. He taught me to love myself - we never had sit-down discussions about it....just through his love and his actions, he taught me that it wasn't life's "end all/be all." And he's right.

However.

I do still think about dieting and getting in shape. Or rather my LACK of dieting and getting in shape. I was pretty dedicated to a healthy lifestyle before I got pregnant. But when you get pregnant, you CAN'T diet. I ate pretty healthy but I also didn't WORRY about it...... and that was so FREE-ING.

So I'm not pregnant anymore and the food issues are coming back. But I'm not doing anything about it. My mind is so not THERE. In order to succeed in this weight loss game, your mind has to be in the right place....and mine is not. I don't want to count points or calories or fat grams. I don't want to write anything down. I don't necessarily want to go out and eat 3 pints of Ben and Jerry's...but I also don't want to WORRY about it.

The point of my ramblings is this.... I'd like to lose some pounds so I can fit into my old clothes. And those clothes were NOT small, people. I only need to lose about 20 lbs to get to pre-preg weight. Not that big of a deal....

But the damn SWEETS keep haunting me. It used to be that carbs were my thing - give me a bag of chips and some dip and watch it disappear. Nowadays, I can't get enough cookies. Infact, what made me blog about any of this is that I just went to the cafeteria and bought lunch:

A Turkey Burger on a Wheat Bun with tomatoes

A bag of Baked Lays

Water

...and 3 cookies in a little cellophane bag.

Why? When my mind was completely in Weight Watcher or Body for Life zone, I NEVER would have caved. Lately? Who gives a shit. And that's not good.

AND, in addition to the 3 cookies in the little cellophane bag, there is also a cinnamon bun the size of my head sitting on my desk. Leftover from a meeting. And I'm probably going to eat it.

So, I guess the point of this rant about food and sweets is that

1. My mind is not THERE yet.

2. I'm not going to beat myself up over it.

3. I will get there eventually.

4. Cookies are good.

5. Giant cinnamon buns are good too. And I'm going to eat it. After I eat my cookies.


So, on to other important topics......

I finally finished mailing those SHITS I blogged about in the last entry. What a rip. I realized the other day that work makes me say "I hate people" a lot.

Last week, the entire HR department was off-site for Wed, Thurs, and Fri. On Wednesday we had an all-day meeting at the Downtown Convention Center. A month ago, we were all asked to complete the Clifton's StrengthFinder test (kind of like a Myers Briggs type thing...) and we spent the day learning about the different strengths and about our individual strengths and how it affects our work lives and personal lives... and all this was pretty interesting and insightful. BUT (and here comes the pessimist in me) when are we ever going to do something like this and have it STICK. When are we actually going to USE these insights back in the office? Never! For a day, we are all touchy feely and we think things like "Oh, I have this quality so that is why I work this way - and that person has THAT quality so that's why they are the way they are..." Whatever! All of this stuff flies out the window as soon as the day is over. If any of the management actually cared, they would request that everyone e-mail their strengths to them so they could see what all of their people are. That's what I would do if I was a manager and I wanted to learn more about my people and to keep this "StrengthFinder" stuff going...But, I doubt anyone has done that. Sad, but true.

On Thursday, we all went to Camp Baker for "Community Day." 200+ of us took over the camp and did whatever needed to be done to fix it up. Paint picnic tables (that was me!), paint outside, paint inside, rake, plant trees, powerwash, clean up, organize the offices, rebuild things, etc... We truly are powerful when all of us chip in some man-power to get things done.

On Friday, we were back at the convention center for another presenter to speak to us about "Innovation." MAN, WAS HE CUTE!! :) Seriously, he was not bad to look at and that was refreshing - but he was also a great speaker and an amazing artist. He did a couple paintings there...and his topics around innovation were eye-opening to me. Especially what he had to say about children and how their minds are so free until we SQUASH them with our rigid rules. For real. It made me think.

Check him out! ERIC WAHL

The meeting ended at 12:30 on Friday which was WONDERFUL. I picked Stella up early and we just hung around the house. She's having spells of crying lately and I really think it's her teeth. She's a trooper and doesn't make a fuss for too long. I give her some Baby Oragel and that usually helps. So we just layed on the waterbed and watched Baby Stories all Friday afternoon.

She's starting to flip over as soon as you lay her flat on the floor. She just can't flip BACK over yet - and that is funny to watch (and listen to - she grunts!)



She's "talking" a lot and she's starting to belly laugh. She's also starting to manipulate things - if you hand her something, she'll hold onto it and move it around and look at it. For example, here she is with a death grip on Daddy's beard.



It's so interesting to watch her grow. It's nothing I'm doing!!! It's amazing to watch nature happen.

On Saturday, Stella and I went to the Fan and visited with Denny for a bit! She made sure to do a big ol poop at his house which was nice. Then we went to Target and strolled around for a couple hours. I loved it. We were in no rush. No place we had to be. Stella napped on and off in the cart and I spent too much money. PERFECT.

We came home and we all just piddled around the house. Stella had a lot of "Daddy Time" on Saturday afternoon because it was officially "HIS NIGHT TO WATCH THE BABY SO I COULD DO WHAT I WANT IN PEACE." I don't get many times like that these days...which is 100% a-ok with me - but some peaceful cleaning time and peaceful computer time was nice.

During "Daddy Time," he figured out a way for Stella to get 2 of her favorite things at once: To sit in the Bumbo and Rock at the same time. He's a GENIUS!


On Sunday, Dee and Sarah Ellett came to Mom and Dad's house for lunch and met Stella for the first time. Stella fell in love with Dee - all babies do. Shoot, all adults do. And all animals. She is just the kindest human being I have ever known....



On Sunday night, Sunah, Nancy, Mimi, and Jacob came by to get Sunah's b-day present and to check out our new living room furniture:


Mimi was holding Stella and I realized how dang big she has gotten. Check out the comparison:

In August:


In November:


It's going by too fast, kids. WAY too fast. And that's what is important. Life. My daughter. Family. Enjoying every moment. NOT worrying about 3 cookies and a cinnamon roll (Although they were damn good. :)

That was some expensive beer.

It's days like today that make me wonder why the hell I went to college.

Maybe it was for the parties? The beer? Granted, I certainly wouldn't trade my LMC friends for the world. But my time at school certainly wasn't for any career advancement.

Today, I had to do someone else's job because apparently she thinks she's too good to do it...and when asked to do it, she simply says "no." Must be nice. So, I stuffed boxes. I stuffed each box with 6 different little booklets. Each booklet was about a different facet of Organizational Development. And then I had to unwrap individual mailing boxes that fit the OD boxes. Then I had to put the mailing box together, put the OD box inside, place a letter on top, put a mailing label on the outside and send to the mailroom. Repeat 50 times. I know that 50 is not that big of a number - but it took me all day long.

I am damn glad I pay $140.29 a month in student loans. And will continue to do so until I am 55. (I am not exaggerating.)

So, in 2 minutes I will wipe clean any thought of this place and I will go home and dress up my little bumble bee and hand out candy.

My pants never fit right either.

The weekend didn't go quite as planned with all the parties. We WENT to all of them; but I didn't really plan on Stella being a big grump, causing us to leave early WITHOUT any cake. Out of 4 dang parties, I got no cake! (Actually, my aunt Nancy sent some home with Mom for me so I guess I can't complain. But I didn't get any cake IN THE MOMENT of the party and that makes it less fun.)

Heath and Julie came over on Friday night which was nice - it was our first time hosting friends. Heath and Toby hung out in the garage and drank beer. I guess the garage is the new front porch. Julie and I chatted in the house. I tried for hours to put Stella down to sleep but she was not having it - she didn't want to miss anything. We had company!

On Saturday, Toby's mom, her boyfriend Eric, Toby's sister Kim, and her daughter Kendall came to visit and see the place. They loved it. I put on some Beastie Boys and Kendall danced in the living room. She is such a ham.

I went to Wal-Mart that night to get the weekly grocery trip over with... Wal-Mart on Brook Road is always a "treat" - for those of you who live here, you know what I mean.

On Sunday, we went to our first party at 12:30. It was nice to see Dad's side of the family and it was like Christmas all over again for Jacob and Cayden (they aren't twins - they are actually cousins born 2 days apart...) They were drowning in gifts.

We left there and headed home for the neighborhood parties. We made it to the first one and were there for about 3 minutes when Stella started wailing. I thought she was hungry so we bailed on the neighborhood parties and booked it home to eat. I made her a bottle but she wasn't interested. She just fussed and fussed.... Just being a grump.

Dad and I loaded up AGAIN and hit the road for Jacob's birthday party. A house full of 7 year old boys (and a few girls) makes for a hectic time!! It was nice to chat with the aunts and friends....but Stella just wasn't herself again. We were there for a little over an hour when we had to bail on this event too. She was just NOT happy. She got worse on the car ride home and worked herself up into a screaming, snubbing, boogery mess. Dad was with me and helped me get her in the house and out of the car seat and I fixed her a bottle (thinking she was hungry again since she didn't eat the first bottle...) and she just kept screaming and screaming so I laid her on the floor on her blanket and said "Maybe it's her pants" (knowing for sure it wasn't) so I grabbed the bottom of her pants and yanked them off and...........

Happy Baby. She instantly started smiling and cooing and laughing and rolling around. It was like a new child.

What a little turd. :)

She was wearing some army green khaki pants. Nothing crazy. But I guess they were too confining. And come to think of it, she did this once before a couple months ago when I took her to visit work and she fussed the whole time and I had to skip out on lunch...I got her home and took off her denim skirt and she stopped fussing.

From now on it's "Hanes Her Way" sweatpants for her - esp if we have events to attend that I don't want to leave early!!

For all of you new parents and parents-to-be: When in doubt, take off the pants.

Weekend Warriors

I am so happy that in 11 minutes I get to go home for the weekend. I'm SO ready!!

Tonight, our old neighbors, Heath and Julie, are coming over to see the house and to hang out.

Tomorrow, I plan to hang around the house, maybe run a few errands. We need a coffee table and a coat rack to hang on the wall. I wish we lived near Ikea.

Sunday is PACKED. My friend Cyndy and her husband Aaron will be delivering our living room furniture in the morning!!!! (We bought it from them - it's nearly brand new, Lay-Z-Boy reclining couch and chair.) Then at 12:30 is Jacob and Cayden's 5 year birthday party all the way out in Studley. We need to be back at the house by 2pm because there are TWO neighborhood halloween/pumpkin carving parties that I want to stroll Stella to and I want to meet new neighbors. Then we have to be back out to the Innsbrook area for my other cousin Jacob's 7 year birthday party. Shoo!!

A lot going on....but it's all going to be fun. And I'm sure I'll have a ton of pictures to show for it.

My hand hurts

from signing my name 10 trillion times.

WE CLOSED!!

Procrastination

I just spent quite a few minutes editing this blog and adding fancy fonts and colors and pictures. (Blogger has added a lot of new features so hopefully I'll be able to include more pictures in my blogs and not have the issues I had before.) I have no business playing around online as I have plenty of real work to do. But I feel anxious and stressed today and I'd rather zone out on Blogger instead of working on Game Plan for my department. So, there.

We closed on our South Ridge house last night at 4pm. The ONLY reason that even happened was because my Mother-In-Law is a ball buster and she called our buyer's lender and threatened lives if someone didn't fix the mess immediately. (She's big in the mortgage industry and knows everyone...and it certainly worked in our favor.) If it was not for her, we might still be UN-closed this time next week! So, we hope to close on our new house today. But I still do not know what time because NO ONE BOTHERS TO CALL ME. Toby has a job that he can't just get up and go run an errand. But this HAS to be done today. The sellers (who are nice as can be) are getting frustrated because they need their money ASAP and I'm frustrated because I want this done and I'm sick of trying to smooth things over with the sellers and trying to explain to Toby that "yes, this is important that we get this done" and blah blah blah. It's just a mess and I will never move again. Do you hear me? Never. Again. (And if I try to start talking about moving again, someone hit me in the head with a baseball bat.)

Miss Stella is teething. This is not fun. Poor baby. Poor parents. She gets really upset at nighttime - usually between 6pm and 8pm. On Monday night, I thought her head would explode off her body from all of the screaming. The next day I bought some Baby Oragel - Nighttime Remedy with EXTRA pain reliever. So far, this stuff is worth more than gold.

Other than the teething, she is a happy, happy baby who smiles all the time and is starting to laugh outloud and coo and "talk" to us. The Granny Nanny (Sandie) and Grandpa (Wayne) have taught her to make raspberries/blow bubbles with her lips. She imitates me and Toby when we "air kiss" her. I'm convinced. She's a genius.

In OTHER baby news (as if there is such a thing - haha!)

My friends JJ and Erica are having a girl! Molly June. I adore that name and I adore them and I know they are going to be amazing parents and I wish they lived closer so I could play with them and Stella could play with Molly.

But it's ok. It will just make their Richmond Visits even more special.

Ok. Game Plan calls. And the Closing Lawyers have not - so I guess I need to harass them. Again. I love paying people to NOT do their jobs.

Rig-a-ma-roll -- Did anyone else's parents say that?

We're moved!

But we're not closed! And that is giving me anxiety.

The buyers of our South Ridge house must have picked the world's WORST lender because they were still trying to verify the girl's employment last week when we were supposed to close on Friday! Hello???? OUR lender had been finished with us for over 2 weeks. So anyway, LONG story short, we did not close on our house on Friday - which meant that we could not close on the new house on Friday because in order to close that, we need the proceeds from the first house and GOOD LORD I hate this real estate mess.

SO to make matters worse, the awesome interest rate that Toby and I got for our loan on the new house EXPIRES today at 5pm. Yep. So that means we lost it. And it costs us money. AND the sellers of our new house need their money ASAP because their new mortgage is due tomorrow and they are going to be late with it if we don't close............ So. I feel like a big jerk even though none of this is my fault. But you know me - I like to take on guilt unnecessarily.

Other than all this mess and people (real estate agents, lenders, etc) lying to me, I ADORE the new house. I just feel guilty living in it until we close. I guess I need to get over that, huh?

I will update with pictures soon. It is the cutest house ever.

Now that all this rig-a-ma-roll is over (I am so old. I just said "rig-a-ma-roll.") I will be able to blog more about LIFE and the exciting every-day happenings of the Creekmore family. Like Toby letting Stella lick the Cool Ranch Dorito powder from his fingers when I wasn't in the room...and the after-effects that lasted for 2 damn days.