block party

it's no surprise that i've been a little distracted lately with all this moving nonsense. the girls must realize this, and have been forced to entertain themselves a bit more than usual. yesterday, this spurred a rousing game of "where the blocks go, mama?"

C2

what, me backdate a post? never.

My freshman year of college I lived at home. My parents lived less than 1o min from campus, so it made a lot of sense. I soon realized, though, that all the cool kids were living on campus. I somehow convinced Mom and Dad to let me move, and thus C2 was born. Annie, The Veltz twins and I were the C2 girls, and although I have probably built up my memories in my head, it was beyond awesome. Our apartment was filled with cheesy posters (like the one of the shirtless man holding a baby... what was that?) and the sound of Broadway musicals. It was this dorky girls' DREAM. We loved having people over, and more than once had RA's hiding in our shower. Siete de Mayo? C'mon people - it doesn't get any better than that. I've called many places home, since then, and as we speak I'm packing again! Hopefully for the last time in a LOOONG time.

bloggity blog blog

it's 11:29 pm - time for some gratuitous pictures of the girls.



























nite nite

erin go brag

things i am really freakin' good at:

1. tying a bow tie
2. eating cereal
3. framing pictures
4. finding deals at Marshalls and TJmaxx
5. buying strollers
6. laughing
7. making puffy paint t-shirts
8. making rice
9. loading the dishwasher
10. staying current on the quality programming on TLC and Bravo
11. painting stripes on a wall
12. giving babies faux hawks
13. picking out paint (with the exception of my mint-ting-a-ling dining room)
14. making stuffed peppers
15. Raving Rabbids for Wii

more marrow

hey ya'll! mikey says today we have to teach something! if you have ever read this blog (i won't be offended if you haven't) you probably know that i am an oncology nurse. something i've blogged about it the past , and something i feel insanely strong about, is joining the bone marrow registry. if you've already joined, thank you! if you haven't, allow me to hop up on my little soap box and tell you how to do it.

1. Try to find a free donor drive. In most cities you can find a free drive every few months or so - to find a listing, go here and enter your zip.

2. If you can't find a free drive, you can join online anytime, but when you do it on your own it costs about 50 bucks. Yes. You have to PAY to agree to donate your bone marrow. I know it sounds ridiculous, but the truth is that a donor and recipient are matched on such an intricate level, that it actually costs quite a bit to process your sample. For that reason, please refer to #1, and try to find a drive that will actually cover the cost for you.

3. Pat yourself on the back. You deserve it. And then call me, and I will tell you how awesome you are.

A few FAQ's:

What's required of me to join?
You will have to fill out a short questionnaire about your medical background, and you will have to swab the inside of your cheek with a q-tip. That's it! No blood required.

What happens if I am a match?
One of two things: either you will be asked to donate some blood, and the stem cells from that blood will be transfused into the patient, or you will be asked to donate actual marrow. In that case, it's an outpatient procedure, but it would require a couple days of recovery at home. (Yes, if they need marrow, they will probably take it from your pelvis, using a long needle. I know, I KNOW. It sounds horrific and barbaric and why would anyone ever volunteer to do such a thing? Well, today an 11 year old boy went through it to save his 6 year old brother. So if he could do it, you sure has hell can do it.)

Why should I?
When I say you can save a life, I mean it in the most literal sense possible. I don't mean it as in "If you donate blood you can save a life" or "If you donate to such and such, you can save a life." I mean if you are a match, and the transplant is a success, YOU WILL HAVE 100% SAVED THE LIFE OF A PERSON THAT HAS RUN OUT OF OPTIONS.

In short, this is important to me. If you think it's something you can commit to, that's awesome. If it's not for you, I can respect that, too. Just give it some thought, and let me know if I can answer any questions. http://www.marrow.org/ has a ton of info as well. Thanks :)

Totally blogging.

HI MY NAME IS LISA AND I LOVE PEEPS. LOOK AT ME! BLAH BLAH BLAH.

Okay, this isn’t actually Lisa, it’s her husband, Garvey. But I totally had you fooled, didn’t I?

The thing is, she works ten hundred thousand hours every day and has passed out next to me. In her defense, she would have posted herself, but I’ve been hogging the laptop to write my nonsense. So I’m giving her a pass on writing today’s post.

(She will actually hit the submit button, I’ll wake her up by saying “Lisa! I have a peep for you!” and then make her publish this post so legally she has blogged for bufblopofo purposes.)

As penance, I’m going to make her pick a topic for Day 4.

i'm blogging!

i was all set to answer mike's question about my three big things, but then i read katie's blog and she mentioned it was pi day (3-14) and now that's all i can think about. sophomore year of high school at mt. st. mary academy, mrs. ellis, our math teacher, had given us an assignment for this day - it was pretty simple: give a presentation about pi. it could be anything - a poster, a paper, whatever. well, we had partners, and annie and i were working together. for whatever reason, we decided to write a song. and then perform it! complete with handouts for our class so they could follow along! annie, i hope you read this because i am really laughing to myself right now remembering this. this is what i remember:

(sung to the tune of "this is the song that never ends")

pi is the number that never ennnnnnds,
it just goes on and on my friendsssss.
it starts out - 3 point 14159 et-cet-era
and we'll continue singing this forever, just because
pi is the number that never ennnnnds...

HA! funny because it's pathetic. and funny because we probably got an A for something we made up in homeroom.

Dear Adelaide,
YOU WIN! I didn't post anything on Maeve's first birthday. Or on your Daddy's birthday. But you're the cutest.
Love, Mama

little somethin' on your face, there...

only bad mommies pre-date their blog posts

My little Maevey-Moo is two years old. And I know everyone else has already posted her picture, but who doesn't need one more? Ok, well maybe you don't need one more, but I do. Because I don't need to add "you didn't blog for my birthday" to the list of her future therapy topics. And because she just makes me smile so much my face hurts.

no words

please, if you have a few minutes to waste, watch these.* words escape me.

http://www.sundancechannel.com/greenporno

*probably not suitable for work... or little children... or me, frankly.

Addie, do you see this elephant right here?

well shux, thanks, AOL

I'd write a caption...

but my eyes are too teary to type!

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!