Thursday, December 2, 2010

Oh, Nesting...

Well, as if I wasn't already constantly reminded that Poppy will be showing up any minute (I promise, it feels like her head is already partially sticking out), my nesting tendencies have been bordering on psychotic. Ok.... enthusiastic. My little house is certainly nothing magazine worthy, but Scott and I are both very much in love with it and pregnancy has kicked my homey urges into overdrive. I've cleaned out and organized various closets, including my bedroom closet - no small feat- and including the bathroom storage areas (oh, so many hair/skin/makeup products going to their graves....). The fabulous Mr. Lufkin surprised me with a new, large workbench area in the basement for all of my scrapbooking supplies. Poppy's room has probably been the biggest project, obviously, because previously that room was not fit for human life. It's coming along quite nicely, though I'm not quite ready to post pictures yet. I will post pics of my Christmas decorations that went up at the beginning of November (don't worry, I saved the tree for Thanksgiving night). And yes, my presents are wrapped. I'm insane.


















Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My baby girl!

My little baby Scott look alike. Don't worry, when she comes out she should be without lumps and gills.

Shout out to my baby daddy

He's my favorite.

Showered


How lucky am I that a week after my fab baby shower with my family (picture coming soon...), I got to have another one with my great girlfriends?
Seriously, lucky gal here. And Poppy is a lucky girl.
xo

Monday, November 8, 2010

My handsome husband, Poppy (30 weeks) and I enjoying hot chocolate in front of our fireplace. ;-)
http://www.adiasjourney.com/


Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Poppy in Cedar Point


Here's the whole fam (me, Poppy, daddy) on our annual Cedar Point trip. No, I don't have an oddly placed outie. That's the faux wasteband of my maternity pants sticking out.


Poppy, while sad she couldn't enjoy the rides herself, enjoyed watching from the sidelines, along with her Uncle Jerry.

Dear Fall,

I love you.


I'm not talking about just crushing on you...


This is the real deal.
Please stay around longer this year, I miss you too much once you're gone.
Love,
Amanda

Sunday, September 19, 2010

22 weeks

Well, when we found out at the ultrasound a few weeks ago that Poppy is a girl, I was honestly so ecstatic that I forgot to share it with the blogging world. For that, I apologize, although I'm sure many of you have heard about it since. It was true when I said I didn't care what the gender was, but I knew I'd at least like to have one girl, someday. Boys are wonderful but I want that bond like I have with my mom, the bestfriends bond that I'm not sure can happen with a boy-even though my brother and mom are very close.
I'd like to post some pregnancy/belly pictures on here for those of you who would like them. Really, truly I would. But they're ugly. I mean, really ugly. I'm ok with looking fat... just part of the package. But the haggard, badly postured appearance really gets to me. It's surprising how much your posture suffers when your organs are out of alignment and your lower back is developing an odd curve. Let's just say the effect in photographs isn't cute.
Poppy, however, is looking mighty adorable, as evidenced from her ultrasound pictures. While I've been able to email the pics, I have not yet been able to upload them to blogger. Hopefully I will stumble upon how to do this soon, because Poppy is a real looker. My favorite pics of her are the ones where she appears to be looking directly into the camera, teeth bared, and a slightly demonic expression on her (somewhat alien, but still adorable) face. Hilarious.
PS: You can see Poppy's organs, including her brain, and it looks big. Just FYI. I think she's already working out problems in there.
One point of sadness: I have not felt Poppy move yet. It's about that time to be feeling her. Granted, in the ultrasound, her movements were quite fluid and graceful, so it's no surprise I don't feel a lot of rough kicking and punching. But graceful as she is, I should still feel her bubbling away down there. At least, according to my super reliable Pregnancy for Dummies book. Well, I'll keep you updated on that front, I suppose.
I'll leave you with this: pretty Poppy is about 1 pound, the size of a spaghetti squash, and her pancreas is rapidly forming. She's also starting to appear more like a tiny newborn than a tiny alien. Although the alien Poppy is really cute too.
xo
A

Friday, September 3, 2010

20 weeks today! Halfway there, good work Poppy!

Monday, August 16, 2010

Pregnancy brain... It's reaI. I thought (hoped) it was a myth... Nope.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Thoughts on Pregnancy.

Disclosure: I'd like to preface this post by saying that, in my head, I realize that I know next to nothing about being pregnant, having only been pregnant for 15 weeks out of my entire life. So, readers who have been pregnant for six months or substantially longer than me, I apologize. I realize I'm speaking on a topic on which I'm a novice, and you are far more experienced. However, the rant is still going to happen.

Thoughts on Pregnancy
Now that the first (heinous, miserable) three months of my pregnancy are over, I feel ready to move past the torture and actually blog about my experiences. For the past three months, I have done almost nothing except: 1) Sleep. All the time. As in, all day. From when I got home from work until I went to work the next day. 2) Vomit. Sorry. 3) Occassionally eat. Eating was rarer than my doctor would have liked, and usually only included tater tots, pickles, cheerios, and my fave, apples.
During this interesting time of my life, I did very little that I normally do, such as working out, maintaining friendships, and leaving the house. I. Felt. Like. Death. I knew when we were trying to get pregnant that I would feel nauseous. Duh. But I thought to myself, I'll be ok with being sick, because I'll know it's due to the wonderful little baby inside me! Whenever I'm sick, I'll just be grateful for my little one and for this miracle!
This was not the case.
What I was not prepared for was not the severity of the sickness- that I expected- but the overwhelming feeling of malaise and total exhaustion.
Don't get me wrong: I was, am, and will continue to be grateful for the little one inside of me. But let's just say that wasn't on my mind a whole lot between the sleeping and puking.
Most of my family and friends did not have this horrific experience. My best friend, who just gave birth, threw up one time. Luckily, two of my cousins had experiences similar to mine and assured me it went away after the first trimester.
I'll admit, while hopeful about this "first trimester" talk, I was not convinced. When you feel like you're going to die, it's hard to imagine that going away suddenly. I thought surely I would not be lucky enough for it to magically dissipate after three months.
Then.... one day in July.... I realized I hadn't been sick in four days. Then it turned into a week. Then two weeks! Now it's been almost three! Sweet relief, they weren't joking!! Your body must torture you to make you're serious about this decision, I guess! I'm back to the world of solid food! Being able to do activities after work besides sleeping! Working out! Talking to friends and meeting up for coffee (hot tea for me, coffee turns my stomach, those of you close to me know how wack that is)!
Now that I can look at the past and to the future with an unclouded (un-nauseated) mind, I can actually reflect on this experience with some clarity.
Do I care if it's a boy or girl? Nope, because soon it's going to be out of my body, which I am quite excited about. I want her (using the feminine here) out. I want her here where I can hold her and admire her cuteness, instead of inside dancing on my bladder. Sorry, I know it's magical and all that. Some people are really into it. I, on the other hand, want it out. I cannot believe she'll be in there until January. Unfathomable.
The baby's in utero nickname is Poppyseed. This is because when I first found out I was pregnant, we read that she was the size of a little poppyseed. The name stuck. Poppy for short. Hence the use of the feminine pronoun, since Poppy sounds feminine to me.
We are going to find out the gender of the baby this month in an ultrasound (if she'll show us-I know of some whose babies were too bashful to reveal their... parts). Why do people not want to find this out? "But I want to be surprised." Give me a freaking break. Tell me what the thing is so I know what's in there and can have an easier time buying clothes. Geesh. I'll be surprised at the ultrasound.
I have way more thoughts on this topic, but for right now I'm tired (shocker) and am going to go to bed. I do want to add one more thought, which is regarding my husband. Holy cow, he is the best. During my three months of moaning, whining, puking, crying, and shaking my fist in the air and screaming "why??", he has been incredibly patient and supportive. Running to the store to buy cheerios. Never pointing out how annoying and what lame company I am. Acting like I look good when in reality I look like a zombie with no makeup, sleep, or mirrors. Everyone should be given a partner like this, so that when they're at their worst, the partner can be at their best. Someone should be acting like a decent human being, after all. I was pretty lucky to find this one, that's for sure.
More to come, I'm sure there will be all kinds of additional things I feel like bitching about in the near future.
XOXO, A
& Poppy

Monday, May 17, 2010

Dear Other Girls,

Hello, my name is Amanda, and I am what I refer to as a 'starer.' You may have noticed me staring at you on ocassion in the hallways at work. Or the mall. Or at the library. I apologize, and please don't be weirded out. The fact is: I am more than likely staring at your outfit. Yep, I'm a clothes junkie. You have given me inspiration to tie a scarf to my purse or wear teal flats. You've given me the motivation I needed to try bangs. Or white eyeliner. If I'm squinting and seemingly concentrating on you, you may have on some fab (but slightly too small to see from this distance!) earrings that I can't take my eyes off of. On more than one ocassion I've almost run into a display trying to get a better look at a cardigan.
So again, I apologize, but know that in my heart and I am grateful for your sense of style and will be copying you tomorrow.
Love, Amanda

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Let hilarity ensue

When our boss asked Kristi and I to do a presentation at the conference our office hosted this past week, surely they knew of the hilarity that would ensue...? For example, notice this slide, which is supposed to be titled "Garrity v. New Jersey." See any typos?

PS: This was not intentional, which made it all the more hilarious.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Day 2 of Spring Cleaning

Ok, is the title of this post inaccurate when, technically, yesterday I didn't do any spring cleaning? Do my intentions count-since I fully intended to use these two days off work to spring clean?

Today's spring cleaning has been spent drinking coffee and reading Cynthia Kaplan's Why I'm Like This. What a great book. I wish I could write a book like this. I wouldn't even care if it got published, it would just be great to memorialize my life in such a funny, quirky, brutally honest sort of way, and know that I accomplished that. It's very similar to Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life-also a great book, but I like the longer, essay format a little better than the shorter encyclopedia type entries. I never used to like non-fiction, but I've noticed that as I get older I like them more and more. I think it's because everyone has some (maybe not yet manifested) desire to put their story down in print. I don't know.

Any thoughts on these enlightening topics are welcome. Also, does anyone know how to create some sort of book list type thing on blogger? I think it would be great to post books and have people post book recommendations for me too. Although, I went a little crazy yesterday and put about 50 books on hold at the library. Hey, at least my vice is free.

Monday, May 3, 2010





Um.... My niece playing bocce may just be the cutest thing I have ever seen.
She adores Scott... I think she was really excited for this chance to bond with him. And she was good at bocce! A natural... I think she may be part Italian.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Oh, nature

Aw, look at the mama duck that has nested outside the State Library (where our office is)!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100427/NEWS08/4250378/Kid-who-doesn-t-exist-looks-to-future

This is a really cool article from the Indy Star today; I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

A word on blogging....

When I first had the idea to begin a blog, it was actually a big relief to me-I was always nervous about facebook, about all of the information that is just out there; even though my profile is private, it makes one weary of what information is getting out (not that I'm under the false impression that I'm particularly interesting or scandalous in any way, but still). With a blog, I can control who views it without the guilt of not accepting my high school classmate as a "friend."

Now that I have this (modest, and frankly, boring) blog started, I'm having writer's block. My goal was to make a forum to share with my family and close friends, and now that it's started, I'm thinking: What on earth is exciting enough for me to put on here? Is even beginning this blog some sort of narcissistic tendency making itself known? There are also my more basic questions-How do I get this font on this picture instead of above it? How do I get rid of these unseemly polka dots? (Any HTML knowledge you can pass along is greatly appreciated, FYI...)

My hope is that all beginning bloggers have these doubts. While I'm not a huge technology lover, I do love how modern technology has made it so easy to keep up with, and feel close to, people we care about who are far away or whom we don't get to see often. So that is my only goal with this blog, and I'll try to remember that when I feel particularly lame and deficient. Please be sure to leave me plenty of comments and whatnot telling me what is going on with your life, since that's the whole point!

I apologize for my ramblings, but I think that's going to happen a lot on here....

A

Friday night was my sister-in-law's bachelorette party at Jillian's downtown... I think she had a good time, what do you think??

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Mobile capabilities fail...
Testing mobile capabilities with a pic of a ridiculously handsome man...