Happy St. PatEasterBirthday!

Needless to say, all three were awesome. St. Pats was filled with corned beef and popcorn at founding fathers, my birthday was filled with lots of quality time with my family and friends and a nasty lovely waitress, and Easter was filled with ham. Lots and lots of ham. All in all, it was a salty dream. Here are the highlights...


3/17/08


































3/22/08



























3/23/08

sweet baby maeve

i'm still reeling after my 14 day stint with BufBloPoFo, but i needed to post this picture because it just makes me laugh every time i think about it. my little maeve has stopped my heart a couple times in the past few days with various spills, tumbles, and ingestion of non- edibles, but thank the heavens above, she is one resilient little girl.

and when you put her down for a nap, you should be mindful of how close she is to an underwear drawer.

i can't stop singing the "we did it!" song from Dora...

HOLY COW. i have just over 100 posts on this blog, spanning almost three years. 14 of those posts have been in the past two weeks. i know there's an impressive percentage in there somewhere.

exactly one year ago, i was asking people to sign up for the bone marrow registry. ironically, this week my mom may have saved a woman's life by becoming a donor. for five days she received shots that would boost her body's production of stem cells, and then on monday and tuesday, she was hooked up to a machine that took the blood out of one arm, spun it down, and returned it through the other arm. and then her cells were rushed to rochester and infused into a 45 year old woman in an attempt to save her life. how cool is that? how awesome is it that my mom is the closest match to that lady out of the ENTIRE registry (which according to the NMDP is over 10 million), and how freakin' amazing that she may have just SAVED. HER. LIFE. regardless of the outcome, the bottom line is that that 45 year old woman, who probably has a husband and kids and friends and a dog, has no other option. if my mom hadn't joined the registry, she would have no chance of beating her disease. zero. zilch. but now, she has a shot. and that's the coolest thing in the world.

tomorrow i go back to work, and i can't wait to tell everyone that my mom may have saved a life this week. and i can tell my patients, with some certainty now, that there is hope of finding a match.
____________________________

that was a little heavier than i was intending for my last bufblopofo post! thanks, mike, for asking me to post so often... it's been a lot of fun. i'm looking forward to tomorrow, though, when we can spend the evening looking at something other than our respective computer screens... like a movie, maybe? hey, i dvr'd top chef chicago! it's a date!

TV tag

anyone play that when you were a youngster? good times.

so, television. i love television. and i will freely admit i think a lot of reality television is VERY entertaining. none of this game show nonsense, but the good stuff, like people with 47 children. how could you NOT think this is fascinating?! mostly, my reality TV is found on Bravo(top chef, project runway, etc.) and TLC (baby story, bringing home baby, wedding story, jon and kate plus 8). i will also admit to american idol (but i'll only watch it on DVR so i can fast forward through all the background nonsense and whatever paula has to say) and this season of the biggest loser.

as for the non-reality stuff, i'm mostly looking forward to chuck. it's a great show, and if you haven't gotten into it, watch it on nbc.com. the office, of course, is a favorite as well. i also like how i met your mother, my name is earl, ER and grey's.

ONE POST TO GO!

moi

first of all, the picture-taking went well, thanks for asking. about 10 minutes after we got there, maeve took a header into a rocking chair and came up with a welt the size of texas on her forehead. good times... despite her tumble, though, we got a few pretty damn good pictures, so i'm happy.

now, some things about me that are of very little consequence:
- i like ice cream melty. the perfect consistency is when you first get it home from the store.
- i don't really like dogs. or cats. or any animals, really.
- i only like wearing small earrings.
- i LOVE baked potatoes.
- i met mandy patinkin and got his autograph and framed it and kept it on my dresser all through college. and i still have a little crush on him.
- i was absolutely INFATUATED with the x-files from about 1998 - 2001.
- i only applied to one college.
- i am not pregnant. ALEX.

blahg blahg blahg

i really like the james lipton questions, but i don't have time to answer them at this moment. in exactly 12 hours, i will be taking the monkeys to have their picture's taken. this is no small feat, and in fact, it will take an act of God for me to get them there dressed, with hair combed and faces clean. i have faith. but now i have to iron two dresses, make sure the tights don't have holes in them, and cover their hands with mittens so they don't scratch themselves (or each other) before we get there.

wish me luck!

i don't do well without an assigned topic

so mike told me to write about when we met. well, we met the first week of our freshman year of college. my best friend annie and i were the loser commuters at canisius, but we had befriended these crazy (in a good way) twins who lived in the dorms. one night, annie picked me up in the red VW fox and we headed over to Bosch tower. it was the twin's birthday, so i made cupcakes and brought over my copy of les miserables on VHS. i know. wild, right?

well, the twinnies had left a note on the door of two swingin' guys they had met that week. and when those guys found out there were cupcakes, they came a'runnin. and one of those guys was mike garvey.

and that's really it! i would love to say there were roses and butterflies and that time stood still and our eyes locked and a "that's amore" was piped through the sound system, but really it was more like this:

mike: hey guys
twins: hey mike! guys, this is mike.
me: hi
mike: so... there's cupcakes?
me: yeah, help yourself.
mike: sweet, thanks. who made these?
me: i did. i'm lisa.


how wo- mantic.

six years later, in the magical place called cooperstown, amidst the baseball hall of fame and stolen pumpkins, the man of my dreams took me as his date to a wedding.

the end!

i can't believe katie knew where this was

alright, i am not sure if this will work, but i'm attempting to post the original broadcast of MLAJK, the radio show i talked about here.

if you're able to hear this, a couple quick things you should know:
-i was about 8 years old, making katie 6 or so. and yes, that's a burp.
-it's about 5 minutes long
-i lost my breath when i listened to this today because i was laughing so hard. it might not be half as funny to you, but i hope it makes you chuckle.
-i was apparently VERY full of myself at age 8. i refer to myself as "brains battaglia."
-tell me what you think. i think i may have missed my calling.

**third time's the charm... maybe. if this doesn't work, check back tonight. dora is about to end so i can't play with it anymore :)

shuffle off to Buffalo

hi! it's 11pm! this is cutting it awfully close, but hey, we lost an hour today. and also? this guy hasn't blogged yet, but he had a very busy day so i'll cut him some slack. some of my favorite buffalo things:
elmwood - particularly the awesome shops that you can always be sure to find a kick-ass gift in, like spoiled rotten or everything elmwood. also, pavlovs togs is pretty great. plus, it's just a great walk. nothin' like bustin' out the double stroller for a leisurely stroll down elmwood.
hertel - much for the same reason i like elmwood. in particular gino's bakery is a great little place that's been there for.ev.er and is sure to have some great italian sweets. romeo and juliets is always delicious, there are a bunch of great antique shops and an awesome book store that i can't remember the name of, but that doesn't detract from it's awesomeness.
the elmwood arts festival - all the fun of allentown, none of the crafty crap.
the italian festival - it's lost much of it's luster over the years, but it's still an annual tradition.
the erie county fair - this has just become something we have to do every year - pizza, livestock, ice cream and "i got it." ball number one...
the hatch - more specifically, the little ice cream hut next to the hatch. i love going down there on a summer night, getting a big-ass cone and walking along the rocks. does anyone know how they got those GIANT staples in there?!
shea's - it's a gorgeous theatre. and i like theatre.
kleinhans and the BPO - no explanation needed. they're awesome.
summer concerts on Bidwell Parkway - they're free! and really fun!
the Bidwell farmer's market - the saturday mornings during the summer that we go to the market are just perfect. it's just the right amount of crunchy, with a pinch of pretension, and i love it.

that's a good starting point. i know i could go on for days and days because there's not much about the city i don't like. in fact, this may land me a divorce, but i even like some of the radio stations.

Yes, Jess, Hairspray is a musical

the buffblo guru wants to know what music i'm listening to lately. well, he already knows, and chances are so do you, but here's the skinny.

my car has a pretty standard rotation lately:

hairspray, the musical - lately i've been listening to the movie version, but the broadway version is great, as well. i dig the movie version because of queen latifah, mostly, and because there are a couple neat songs that didn't appear in the stage version.

legally blond, the musical - i know i know... sue me (pun intended). say what you will, but it is honestly really good. now if you don't like musicals to begin with, chances are you would hate it. but if you appreciate the musicals that are purely for fun, you will love it.

the last five years - you guessed it. but this one was off broadway. unlike the previous two, the draw to this one is actually a really incredible story, in addition to a wonderful score. the entire show is sung by two people, a man and a women. they are in a relationship (for 5 years), and the man is telling the story from the beginning, while the woman is telling it from the end. they meet briefly in the middle, but for the most part don't even share the stage. it's a very cool concept, in my opinion.

sara bareilles - look! not a musical! i first got hooked on her single "love song," and the rest of the CD turned out to be pretty great.

wicked - this one is actually not in my car, but in the kitchen. again, it's just. good. the actual show is quite a specticle, and the story is great. the music is outstanding on it's own, but it's hard to top the broadway cast. both female leads are broadway regulars, and each have a few solo CD's. Idina Menzel was in Rent - another member of my car's rotation - and i first heard Kristin Chenoweth in a little off-broadway musical callend A New Brain (which, incidentally, i had forgotten about, but will make it's way back to my car because it's great).

since this has just turned into a broadway post, some of my less-listened-to favorites include Side Show, Guys and Dolls, Godspell, Into the Woods and Songs for a New World.

don't think i love ALL musicals. i'll be the first to admit there are some pretty shitty musicals out there: Titanic, 1776 (sorry Louie), Brooklyn... hell, i don't even like Jesus Christ Superstar. and Phantom? i fell asleep. the best musicals, in my mind, have a great score - first and foremost. if the score is good, i'm willing to forgive any shortcomings in the script (and c'mon... of course there are shortcomings... the break into song every 3 minutes). nevertheless, they're just so me.

germ-away

contained in my purse is the biggest package of "wet-ones" that you have ever seen. and, i'm embarassed to say, i use them all the freakin' time. when i began working at a hospital, i became a bit of a nut about germs. people who know me well know that i keep a container of anti-bacterial wipes by the front door in case of sick visitors. it's nuts, i know. add two kids into the mix who are, by definition, germ magnets, and you've got yourself a recipe for germ-a-phobe psychosis.

what else... the thing i probably use the least is the stack of tiny little coupons that i keep in my wallet from one of the entertainment books. i never remember they're there, until i have inevitably visited the place that the coupon is good for. ah well, good thing i'm made of money. germy, germy money.

toys

i am having a really hard time thinking about what i liked to play with when i was little. all i can think of is this random smattering of things that really are a little...well, bizarre. but hey, it's bufblopofo, yo. full disclosure.

1. my cabbage patch kid, felice marlene. the resemblance was uncanny.
2. a box of old clothes, costumes, hats, glasses, etc. this one really doesn't sound that strange, but i wish i had a picture to share. in fact, hold that thought. i'll find one and post it soon.
3. some kind of little pocket knife. i was really into this little knife for a little while, and i distinctly remember taking fallen branches out onto the front porch to, in my words, "whiddle." what. the. hell.
4. a she-ra princess of power action figure. i don't really remember even liking she-ra, but i think someone gave it to me as a birthday present. i remember she had a hole in her hand meant for a sword, but i would tie a string across the room and use the hole to create a little zip line for she-ra. that one's really not weird... in fact, i think it was pretty clever.
5. a tape recorder with microphone. this. was. awesome. at least, i thought it was. my friends and i would spend HOURS meticulously taping our radio show, "MLAJK" (Michele, Lisa, Amy, Jeff, Katie). yep. we even let katie in on the fun of this one. i distinctly remember that much of our material came from the subscriptions of Redbook and Ladies Home Journal that my mom subscribed too. i also remember interviewing my friend Jeff about his love for Spuds Mackenzie, and thinking he was beyond awesome. and also? katie's "on-air" personality was "kooky katie." this is not nearly as funny as it would be if you could have heard her say it, trust me.
6. the flinstones. nothing goofy, i just liked the flinstones.
7. my bike. my bike's name was dusty rose (it came with that, i didn't name it myself). she was white with beautiful mauve trim, dusty rose, if you will. i remember i would wash it like you would wash a car, and then marvel in how good it looked. i distinctly remember going up to my neighbors fence and saying "how old do you think this bike is?!" they must have been on to me because they would inevitably say, "oh, it must be brand new!" and then i would grin and say, "nope! it's over two years old!" i was such a card.

am i forgetting anything, katie? mom?

so did these things shape me into the adult i've become? well... i guess. looking at this list, it appears my interests were pretty diverse. i'm trying to come up with some witty correlations, but really i think i was just a weird kid. a wonderfully weird, creative and goofy kid.

this is an easy one

pedestrians: a green arrow is NOT your signal to cross the street.

really, that's it.

casting call

first of all, that mike, he's a charmer. maggie gyllenhaal?!! i am HOT. for my movie fantasy, if we're not basing the picks on look-alikes, i would have to say mike and i would be played by gillian anderson and mike would be david duchovney. i mean honestly, is there a more romantic TV couple out there?! if looks are an issue, though i have to say mike would be russell crowe. i mean, c'mon. it's obvious.

right?!

a good day in the making

what went right today? well, for starters, little miss adelaide decided to sleep from 11pm when we put her down to 5am this morning! and THEN, mike got up to feed the little nugget, allowing me to sleep in until 8am when she was ready to eat again. 8am! people! do you know what that means! i haven't stayed in bed until 8 more than 5 times in the past two years, and today was one.

then, maeve ate her WHOLE breakfast. for a little person who has adopted a much more discerning palate over the past few weeks, this is big news. (it could have something to do with the chunks she blew last night, leaving her belly completely empty. whatever. i'll take it.).

after her bottle, addie fell asleep in her swing, allowing me to: 1. read 23 blogs, and 2. cuddle with maeve for an episode of little einsteins (which we decided, by the way, is possibly the most pretentious cartoon on television, and I LOVE IT).

also? the sun is shining as i write this, and when i stepped out on the porch, it was WARM! so i think a nice walk is in our future.

and last but not least, the sinus/cough/chest congestion thing i've got goin' on has left me with my sexy raspy voice. yay!

warning: this post contains graphic material

yay, bufblopofo! my husband has created a monster! SO! MANY! BLOGS! TO! READ!

so, today, i am to write about the best gift i've ever received. i've been writing this post all day in my head. it was going to be wonderfully sentimental, something i'm not really known for, but i was really looking forward to sharing this. in my mind, a great gift has two components: it has to be thoughtful, and it has to be unexpected. in other words, i think the best gifts are total surprises that are thoughtfully picked. while i've received many gifts that meet these standards, one really stood out.

i know what you're thinking. "obviously, lisa, you must be thinking about your engagement ring." well, yes, i was. i was, that is, before this evening. this evening when my precious daughter gave me the most unexpected gift a daughter can give her mother. vomit. yes, cascading fountains of emesis, raining down over both of us. the volume was more than i could have dreamed her GI tract could contain.

so thank you. thank you, mike, for the perfect gift that i've been thinking about all day, crafting the perfect "thank you" to you. that post will come at another time. today, i thank maeve, for bringing it all full circle.

it's the BUFBLOPOFO, mo fo

and i haven't forgotten! so mike asked, "why did you start this blog?" well, dear readers, it was for a couple reasons. one is that before having a blog, i was merely a blog stalker. i would keep up on everyone's comings and goings through their blogs, but never share anything myself. by starting a blog - whether i wrote on it or not - i was somehhow more entitled to read the blogs of others.

secondly, my fiance at the time (yes, the same fiance that i married) LOVED to blog, and i think he'll be the first to tell you i was WICKED jealous of his blog. "don't blog! look at me! tell me i'm pretty!" i really didn't think i could get into it, but every time i told him a story he would say "you need a blog." so, one day i sucked it up and started one.

now, why haven't i been very successful at it, you may ask? i've come up with a few reasons.

#1. i don't like to write. in case you don't know this, blogging = writing.

#2. if i have a good story, i want to tell it to you using my voice. and very often, my stories need to be acted out, and that does not translate to the blog format very well. if i want to tell you the story about the lady in TJ Maxx whose three girls had the middle names Cocoa, Cinnamon, and Caramel, you bet your bippy i need to tell you that in person.

#3. once maeve came into this world, forget it. ever since, this has become nothing but a "look-at-my-girls-arent-they-so-cute-oh-and-look-at-what-funny-thing-they-did-today-and-have-you-seen-addie-smile-and-how-funny-is-it-that-maeve-likes-to-use-the-swiffer" blog. which is fine, but even i get bored with it.

so, with the commencement of buffblopofo, i am hoping to give this blog some spunk. i'm sure mike has come up with some great topics for me to ponder, but hey, if all else fails, you'll just get more of this: