Avisa sings the ABC's

(PS: she can sing it correctly now) :)

where has my mojo gone?

soooo i have a bunch of half-written stuff from september and october but i can't for the life of me get enough motivation to finish any of them. it's what happens when i start writing about something when i'm excited about it, get interrupted for whatever reason, and then come back only to read what i've written and get exhausted at the sheer amount of detail. so maybe it's a good thing i haven't posted them, because detail usually = boring.

but here's a quick summary of all kinds of highlights since early september.

#1 niek turned 4 on october 12th. he's the sweetest most lovable snugglebug ever. he has his moments (quite a few of them actually) throughout the day where i want to rip my hair out, but he's so damn cute that it's easy to forget about it. he's animated, hyper, talkative and descriptive (so basically talking to him is like talking to a real-life stream of consciousness), and pretty damn funny. and over the past few weeks, i've seen a few lightbulbs flicker as i'm trying to teach him stuff. for example, he no longer wants to eat his toes when i'm showing him numbers. also? each night i get "a hug, a regular kiss, a kitty cat kiss, and a butterfly kiss." love him.

#2 might as well update on the other kids. artin has all of a sudden picked up some kind of smartass gene. i told him last week to write me a paragraph of our day and what we did, and to make it 100 words. he goes "okay." and then the fucker comes back with "blah blah blah blah" x 100. also kicking ass in karate and overall being the good example to the younger two. heehee
avisa. oh my, how do i word this without making it seem like i want to shove her back into my uterus? fuck it. i DO want to shove her back into my uterus, so i guess there will be no misleading here. bad points: she's mean. she bullies the boys, takes their toys, bites, pinches, screams, and is overall a pain in their ass. she enjoys tormenting them and often likes to instigate shit just to get a reaction out of them. keep in mind, she's not even 2. and when you ask her to say sorry? "i sowwy" with all the works--sad face, lips pouted, head tilted to the side. but you know what's right beneath that little pout? a fucking smile. her sorries are not genuine. sometimes i wonder if she will be a sociopath. the good: she's picking up phrases left and right, using more words which has sort of led to less tantrums. and best. hugs. everrrrrrrrr.

#3 okay enough of the shits. i went to 2 u2 concerts, one with GA admission, one with seats. GA experience kicked the seats experience's ass. so when u2 comes back next summer, i'm doing GA and only GA. shows on my itinerary so far: anaheim, denver, miami, and oakland...and maybe philly, and okay fine i want to go to ny too. i doubt i'll make all of them but i'll be damned if i don't try.

#4 went to cali for a few days, saw the fam, met aida's kyle and his family and realized that there is a fine line between "fun with the family" and "too much time with family omg they're driving me crazy"...this time it was all fun. my trip last year where i stayed for about 2 months? too much. so i need to keep my visits somewhere between 4 days and 2 months. :)

#5 i got a dog, then gave the dog back. my little mutt from the spca. apparently when you're the only person in the house that wants a dog, you shouldn't get a dog. i cried for two days when i gave her back and was super bummed...then we all got the flu and i'll be honest, as i was lying in the fetal position wishing i would just die because i had never felt so bad in my life, i was relieved i didn't have yet another little helpless thing to take care of. because i would rather have had someone stab in my eyeballs with a sickle than think about taking the dog out for a walk. anyway, it sucked ass but on the brightside the kids got their mommy back. on the downside, the dog was the only one that would jump on avisa and be able to pin her down and now she's back as king of the pin. so, you know...you win some, you lose some.

let's see...what else what else...that's about it. oh, and we're finally narrowing down where we'll live, so it's good to finally have a small glimpse of the future. and i will now publish this post before it sits and festers.

artin gets a lesson in anatomy

so artin is some kind of camel, because he can hold his pee for hours--and does, unless i remind him to go to the bathroom. he told me he hadn't used the bathroom at his school yet, so i started to tell him that that it wasn't good for his bladder or kidneys.

he asked:
"is my bladder that thing under the penis that has the balls-like-things in it?"

he now knows what a "scrotum" is. woohoo!

denver.

of all the potential places we could live, i think i would love denver the most. we visited for just two days, didn't even do any of the colorado stuff--like hiking and skiing--except for shop at REI, and i still managed to fall in love with it. we stayed with one of ario's friends from residency and his wife (scott and megan). they have a kickass apartment in a highrise in the center of downtown, easy walk to everything...so that had a lot to do with why i loved it so much there. it made me wonder if i wanted a house with a yard in the suburbs, or less space close to everything (and as much as i love target, it doesn't count as a store i want to be able to walk to...) anyway, it definitely made me question how i want our eventual living situation to be.

megan's friend from college and her husband (lisa and chris) were visiting too, along with their adorable australian shepherd, digger. i pretended that the dog was mine and got my doggie fix for the weekend too.

we got in friday night around 9:30...megan and lisa picked us up and we went to the apartment and hung out. i passed out around midnight, which was really 2 am my time! the next morning i woke up around 6 and decided to go for a short run around their neighborhood. long story short, i got lost somewhere and the short run ended up taking an hour and a half. but when i got back around 7:30, everyone except ario was still asleep. i was very careful not to make too much noise at first, quietly took a quick shower, put off using the coffee grinder to make coffee...then by around 8:15 i was getting bored so i started banging things around in the kitchen and dammit i used the coffee grinder. by 8:30, everyone was awake...SUCCESS! :)

we went to a cafe for breakfast and we took the dog with us. inside the restaurant. how? oh, the dog has a "service dog in training" vest. everyone smiled, made way, and didn't even question anything. don't ask me how legit the vest is, because the dog is awesome and did exactly what he was supposed to do--that is, walk directly next to me, go under the table, put his head down, and wait for us to finish. so as far as anyone knows, he IS really in training. besides, lisa uses him as a therapy dog for children, so anyway, my point is it was all very legit. kinda. and also when i get a dog i am totally getting a service dog vest so i can take him everywhere.

after breakfast we walked around, went to the awesome REI store, i bought a pair of flip flops and ario and i mused on how awesome it would be to live in denver. then we went to the park where i learned how to play (and became slightly obsessed to) bocce ball. so much so that we bought a set when we came home. actually two sets, one standard, and one with smaller, lighter balls so the kids can play.

dinner that night was on a rooftop deck (seems like i tend to like rooftop decks...) at a mexican restaurant. awesome food, even better conversation with genuinely lovable people. we walked to and from the restaurant and i was wearing my new most favorite pair of shoes ever. high heels that are comfortable?? bring 'em on. after dinner we stopped at a little pub and everyone had drinks. i put my head down on the table and i actually fell asleep for a little while. i remember people's voices in and out of my head, but don't recall much of what they said. i woke up to laughter--at me, for sleeping in a bar. is it that unheard of?

the next morning we walked around the neighborhood some more, bought some stuff for the kids, (looked at a couple of houses, holy shit expensive)...and headed to the airport. at the airport security line, i was informed that my license had expired in july. uhh...oops. the chick asked for another form of ID and all i had was my costco card. this could've potentially been disasterous, but she accepted that and we were on our merry way. not the worst thing in the world, to be stuck in denver...too bad i missed the kids.

so. pics.

this was my breakfast saturday morning. carbs rule. i shared a little, but mostly i ate it all by myself.


me and digger the australian shepherd, aka the service dog, aka the coolest dog in the world:

denver also rocks because they have a printed version of "the onion"


heading to the park (they're carrying the bocce ball case...it's heavy!)


at dinner:

my models:

at the pub, about 5 minutes before i fell asleep:

maybe i was hypnotized by the green.

and here a couple of wanna-be artsy pictures the morning before we left.
there's a chick painting in that window, if you squint you can kind of see her.

i'm already trying to plan our next trip back. sometime in february maybe? i don't know...but i wanna. :)

surprise 30th

do you remember my friend that was nice enough to humor me and sign up for the half marathon this past may? the one that walked 13.1 miles with me after i convinced what a great workout start that would be? well, her husband and i planned a surprise 30th for her. we threw around a lot of ideas, from a luau to a rooftop party on top of the observatory here in cincinnati. unfortunately, we didn't know where to have a luau, and they don't rent the observatory for private parties. so we decided that you can't ever fail with a short bus and lots of drinking. also, i learned that there are actual cool places in cincinnati (and even north kentucky...gasp!) that you can go to if you don't normally spend your friday nights at home :)

we met at a restaurant for the surprise--she had NO clue--and then hopped on the Petermann bus, which is used to transport mentally handicapped children and adults, and partied. i decorated the bus and the cake, so i got my crafty urges taken care of too :) also? lots of jello shots. i tapped into my former 21-year old self for this one. everyone had a blast, the birthday girl was genuinely surprised...party was a success :)

at Pirate's Cove at the marina, where the initial surprise took place...i say initial because the second surprise was the short bus.


the birthday cake:

(it was windy...)


On the bus:

(you can see some of the decorations. trust me, it looked good. as good as a bus for retarded people can look anyway.)

Chez Nora, a cool little jazz bar (IN KENTUCKY. HOLY SHIT.) with a rooftop deck:

(see the red wristband? that was so the bartender could keep track of who was on our tab. we're so helpfully clever!)

At some new bar, called The Righteous Room. It was...righteous. Uh...righteously crowded:

what am i saying to ario? i don't know--but i want to know!!

so. as it turns out, i enjoy throwing birthday parties for other people. it's fun planning, decorating, AND shopping for it...especially when someone else is (happily) paying for it all. if you would like my services of spending your money, call me! :)

artin's first day of elementary school

artin has officially started what ario called "the first day of a very long time of torture"...he never liked school, if you didn't catch that. i, on the other hand, was so excited for him! well, really just excited for me because i got to go school supply shopping!! it was awesome, even though i didn't like how artin had his own preferences and wouldn't get what i wanted him to get. damn kid, i'm paying for this shit, what's wrong with a thundercats lunchbox??? he chose a super mario galaxy backpack and a mariokart wii lunchbox. i also bought him a bento box because i thought it would be cute for him to have a little bit of everything without all the millions of plastic bags etc. i was also so happy he could take a lunch he would eat--his preschool and kindergarten school had a "no nuts" rule because of all the kids with allergies, so you can imagine what little choice that left for a kid whose entire diet consists of nuts or soy of some sort--peanut butter, almond butter, tofu, and the likes. you have no idea how excited i was to make him that almond butter and honey sandwich, cut it up and put it in his bento box with clementines, fruit snacks, and a little tiny snickers. lookie:


cute, right?? well the shit didn't eat any of it. not that i blame him. i guess i left some room for things to move around, so when he brought his lunchbag home, i saw the pretty little bento meal all conglomerated into one nasty-looking mix of a sandwich conglomerated with fruit snacks and snickers swimming in clementine juice. i didn't take a picture because it was a hot mess of a lunch and frankly it kinda depressed me.

anyway, the school is very close to us and it's been very...quaint and suburb-y walking with the kids in the morning. there is one little street to cross and the rest of the way artin can go by himself. which he pretty much does since he walks ahead of us (niek likes to stop and look at every little thing on the ground. and avisa, while fast, is inefficient sometimes as she runs in zigzags instead of straight lines.) i'm thinking second grade he can go by himself, if we're still here (a constantly changing thing for us, where we'll be).

anyway, here are some pics of the milestone day:

my half-assed marathon training

i can't for the life of me get into full-mode marathon training, and it's not for lack of trying. the last (and only other) marathon i trained for seemed so much easier. the marathon is in a little over 2 months, and by next month i should comfortably (well, not comfortably, but capably) be able to do a 20-mile run at about a minute/mile pace LESS than what i hope to do on marathon day. the most i've done so far is 11 miles and it was HELL. i picked a route with a lot of hills (to try and prepare for san francisco's hills) and i just about crawled the last mile. hills suck my ass*.

to make myself feel better and feel like less of a lazy ass who signed up for something she wasn't mentally prepared for, i made a list to compare my previous marathon training experience with my current one. as you can see, odds were definitely in my favor last time. basically, this little list makes me feel better about being a fatty mcfatty mofo.

last marathon experience will be in blue
this time around will be in red

why the colors you ask? because i don't know how to make a table in this thing.

anyway.

number of kids while training: 2 3

pregnant: yes no

# of days working: 2 3, sometimes 4 OMG,WTF!!!!!!!

raising money (ie feeling obligated to run since people were giving money): yes no

weather humid outside: no yes

ario had crazy call schedule: yes no


CLEARLY, other than the fact that i was pregnant last time for part of training and that ario was home much less, all other factors point to a less feasible lifestyle for attempts at maintaining a respectable training schedule. am i right or am i right??

but i'm trying. yesterday i decided to go for a run before work. niek wanted to ride his bike with me and i (stupidly) agreed to let him come along. it took me 50 minutes to run 3 miles. why? oh, because niek wanted to stop and smell every flower (mostly weeds actually)...finally i had to rush home and shower because i would end up late for work otherwise.

so today i woke up very early and went for a run before the kids woke up, got home right in time for ario to leave for work. i'm really going to try and get my shit together but damn, just thinking about possibly doing 12-14 miles this weekend makes me a little bit tired! oh well. i guess i'll just have to let my prize at the finish line be the goal--a tiffany necklace given by a firefighter in a tuxedo. woot woot!

like i said...i'm really, really trying!

*you know what's funny? hills literally DO suck ass, as hill-running is great for butt-shaping.