Jamie's McBlog

Because waiting for babies is boring...

2009-12-30T12:36:00.003-05:00

I've decided to move my blog. I've been okay/semi-happy/whatever w/ blogger, but decided I needed to do some cleaning house anyway and why not get a shiny new wordpress blog? So I did. And I'm 38 1/2 weeks pregnant, so I know no one will get upset w/ me for it.

So, from now on, if you want to read new and exciting things from me, go to:

http://jamiemcq.wordpress.com/

Bookmark it, update your feed reader, comment often. I think this blog will stay here, but I also imported all the posts I've made to the new blog... so it's the same but different.

A good book and a bad book.

2009-12-23T17:00:00.003-05:00

This week, I decided to step out of my typical genre and try some recommended books, both of which are kind of action/adventure/non-realistic. The first was Dan Brown's newest book, The Lost Symbol. I'm kind of so-so on Dan in general. I like the overarching themes of his books, that they get me thinking about stuff and I like that they're quick and snappy reads that keep the pages turning, but usually walk away thinking it was just okay, not like a life-altering experience. It is sort of funny though that some (er...most) chapters are like 2 pages long. So I can read 50 pages and be like, "OMG, I just read 30 chapters!" Like a 3rd grader.

So, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this book was my favorite of the 3 Robert Langdon Dan Brown books. I really enjoyed the fact that it talked about American history and the Masons and took place in Washington. It was interesting, and honestly, made me appreciate the Masons a little more. I thought I'd come away thinking they were a weird secret society, but I feel like it was a pro-Masonic point of view. I mean, still a little odd, but you know, not like sacrificing virgins creepy or anything like that. Observation: the bad guy in this was WAAAY worse and WAAAY more creepy than the bad guy in the other books. Of course, like w/ all the Dan Brown books I've read it was very plot driven which is annoying at times, and the characters say the cheeeesiest lines sometimes, but it got the job done. 2 days, flew by. :)

The next book I picked up was One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. I give this one a thumbs down with a farting sound. I mean, I *guess* I can see how some ppl get sucked in to the series (there are a bunch of them now), but I just wasn't drawn in at all by the characters or writing. The writing was very mediocre, it felt like I could have done this (not saying I'm "that good" but saying the writing was "that not good"). And Stephanie Plum, the "heroine" was a giant moron who I had no positive feelings about. So, I finished it today and shrugged, oh well. In the process, I realized that Scott knows a song that uses the line One for the Money and I do not. This might be the first time that has ever happened... Weird.

And next I have a new book (well, new from paperbackswap) called The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. I hope I don't become a vegetarian after this...that would be inconvenient.

And I've now switched to Goodreads.com, instead of shelfari, for my online book reviewing and cataloging needs. It's an important decision every nerd mus make for herself, but I find this site to be way more kickass than shelfari. :)

2009 in Review

2009-12-19T11:01:00.013-05:00

I know it's not technically over yet (heck, we could even have a baby picture this year...), but I just love looking back over the pictures of the year so here are a few favorite memory-inducing pictures. It's kind of fun because it's our last childless year... next year all of our memories will involve Quiglet.

In January, I met Bill Clinton! IDK why it's not showing my edited and cleaned up pic, but you get the drift. He was *thisclose*. And I have a pic of me and him but it's not digital therefore doesn't exist on the blog bc I'm too lazy to figure out the scanner.

This is a funny one to me, we had a snow day for the Inauguration in NC. It was a great day of lounging around and watching history on our crappy old TV. And this picture will surely show how technology has changed in the years to come.
And then later that Spring...we became homeowners! (And later that year Scott took a chainsaw to the ivy on that tree... and then a mower to the ivy on the ground. lol!)

And then a month or so later, I did this! The Philly 10 miler

And then the next day, I did this.

Then Scott got his PhD a week later and I was a terrible, unsupportive wife and have NO pictures of him in his cap and gown or otherwise indicating his accomplishment pictorally. We do have a diploma on the wall, and he does make a point of having a fit when we receive mail that is NOT addressed to Dr. Scott. "Who's "MISTER" McQ????" So, consider this rambling paragraph my acknowledgement that he did it and it was a big deal.

Let's see... then Ashley and Rob got hitched! I was soooo wasted at their wedding (lol).

We don't have a ton of exciting pictures from later that year (mainly bc we just hung around), but we did make 2 trips to PA in the fall - the first was for Sophie's 1st birthday party! She's super cute these days, and they're all coming to visit in January!!!! Hooray! But that's 2010, which is not the focus of this post.
In October, we celebrated our 3 year anniversary :) We always take a pic of ourselves on our anny, so here it is!
Then, before we knew it, it was Christmas! And we got a REAL tree this year for the first time ever, which was so fun. I know the popular thing these days is going fake, but I've never had a real tree since I've been an independent grown-up so it was so fun to have the house smell like pine and vaccum every day. ;)

We'll see what else this year brings... we're hoping for calm and mild days of Jamie & Scott time! Though there's always the possibility of Monkey coming early, I'd love to have a 2010 baby. It just makes her age easier to calculate, you know?

Aimless/Update/Random

2009-12-12T10:19:00.003-05:00

So, the semester's over! I'm officially done until August, when I have to take 1 class. And I'll finish up the following spring w/ my final project class and be the Master. I'm excited, it's a good arrangement that allows me lots of time to be w/ Monkey in the first year and a half and also keep my brain alive and functioning. :)

And I'm 36 weeks. I should get this out there right now, I'm not good at waiting. And there's also this trend in my family and among my friends where babies seems to take their good ole time (comfortable uteruses must run in the family), so I've been basically assuming that I'll also go late. I figure if I set the bar up there maybe it won't be as hard? IDK. But it's also difficult to look at the calendar this month and be like "Yes, any of those days could be her birth-day. Or none of those days." I don't do well w/ this uncertainty. Oh, the other thing that doesn't help is people telling me their "early labor" stories. Like "oh, I had my baby at 35 weeks!!!" Good for you.

My plan WAS to read all the Harry Potter series in my waiting month. I read the first two so far, and it's fine. I Loved them the first time, but you know, I didn't know what happened at the end. It's slightly less enthralling this time. I'll still get to the others, but it's not like I'm devouring them at the rate and intensity I'd hoped I would. I was hoping it'd be the magic bullet that kind of made December fly by and all the sudden - I'm in labor!? Oh, I was so naive when I thought up this plan.

So now I'm pretty aimless actually. I don't have a ton of energy to go out and do social things and things I *should* do (read: clean the bathroom) but don't really have a lot of fun things to fill the time and make not doing the above things okay. I need a good book. Oh, and I realize I should be enjoying this, and some days I am, I'm just kind of bored.

I don't have an updated belly pic... I don't really think much has changed since the last one. I am looking pregnant now, but I'm still amazed at how not-giant I am. It's a good thing, the past few weeks have been very uncomf and I can only imagine what ppl who look like I do now when they're like 6 months feel at the end. I'm even kind of hoping I don't get any bigger. We'll see about that (*cough* Christmas Cookies *cough*)

Happy December!

2009-12-01T19:28:00.006-05:00

How is it December already!? Yikes!! And at the same time... mmmmmm Christmas cookies.

Well, we've been busy busy. Here's my latest belly pic:
I'm now 34 1/2 weeks... and showin' like a mother. (haha, I'm glad I make myself laugh.) Little Quiglet's kicks have gotten WAY more intense over the past week or so. I still can say I don't *mind*... I generally like it because it's comforting to know she's in there and moving/growing/doing what she's supposed to be doing. Scott got to SEE movement this week, which is hilarious. It's like my body has been possessed. Which it kind of has... but anyway.

I've been finishing up my semester and nesting like crazy. I've washed all of her clothes and put the little darling things in the big dresser. I've organized a lot, though the crib still is kind of full of random stuff... we figure it won't be full of baby for a few more months.

Here's what the nursery looks like at the moment! We've rearranged it, bought a glider and generally filled it up a lot more since I last posted pictures of it.

Oh, and did I mention her bookshelf? Thank you, showers! I love all of the special books we have to start out with, and that each one has a close friend/family member's note to Quiglet. Though surely when she's like 4, she'll be like "Who's this Quiglet character?"

Her Fearful Symmetry

2009-11-30T19:00:00.006-05:00

The new Audrey Niffeneger book! It was so exciting, I totally love Time Traveler's Wife and was understandably excited to read here newest. And she took for-ever to write it so my hopes were a little on the high side

So, how would I describe it? I think I'll go w/ my sister's words on this... It was "effed up". It just WAS though. Not meaning it was necessarily awful or too weird, but it was just very different. And I'd say maybe a step further to the science fiction world than TTW was. But I still gave it 4 stars on Shelfari. I'm generous w/ stars though.

The plot follows these weird twins who are "mirror twins", meaning their insides and appearances were not identical but like reversed from each other. Apparently that's a real thing (though very rare.) They're kind of creepy. And their mom is a twin as well, and the beginning of the book is the mother's twin dying. Then the mother's twin, Elspeth, offers the younger twins, Julia and Valentina, her flat in London to come live for a year. Cool, free apartment, right? Except, oh yeah, she's haunting it. But apparently the creepy twins are cool with it.

There's way too much to overview much else ... and I know I'm making it sound lame. But it really was interesting and different from a normal genre I'd read. I love her writing, however weird the plot was. The characters were fully realized and the story moved along pretty well. I'd recommend it for sure, with the caveat that it's "effed up."

Can I still do book reviews on this thing?

2009-11-18T18:39:00.003-05:00

*Testing*

Ahem. So, I just finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. It was a very up and down book - it started out AWESOME, and I was getting all ahead of myself, with "this is my favorite book" type thoughts. Then there was this long drawn out mid-section that just kept putting me to sleep (well, that or the baby... it's a toss up) and the ending was very good though!

Though, I have to say, a large part of my enjoyment of this book was the fact that it was drawn from the story of Hamlet, which I knew going into it. I haven't read Hamlet in a good 10 years (yikes, really? Senior year was 10 years ago?) so I could not have told you the story prior to reading this. But random themes and events did come back to me and with the help of wikipedia I recalled ;). You know, madness, ghosts, poison. And it was kind of a good distance to have from it. I'm not a Shakespeare enthusiast, but I do enjoy those plays more than most. I could easily see that Claude was Claudius, and Trudy was Gertrude. Wow, I'm like a brainiac. Sign me up for mensa.

So, the summary would be this: The Sawtelles have this dog breeding business where they aim to breed dogs that aren't purebred or anything, but good companion dogs. I think that's kind of neat... and that part of the story was really interesting. The dogs were so central to the story (in fact, I'm pretty sure Almondine was Ophelia?), and were almost given a voice. The Sawtelles had one son, Edgar, who was mute, though he could still hear. That was another interesting angle. Edgar's dad, Gar, dies inexplicably and Gar's ghost appears to Edgar saying it was Claude (Gar's brother) who did it. Is your HS Shakespeare reading coming back to you at all? Drama and tragedy ensue.

The writing was awesome, the characters were really interesting. I liked that in this book we get some explanation into Trudy's thought process. I remember in Hamlet being totally let down by how lame the female characters were... all 2 of them.

I recommend it... I kind of wished I'd been holed up somewhere during that middle portion with nothing else to do so I could have just motored through. So if you find yourself holed up somewhere for a few days (snowstorm? IDK) this would be a good time!

It's Fall in our 'hood

2009-11-10T15:43:00.004-05:00

So, the leaves of our "mature landscaping" are coming down in earnest now. We knew it would suck... but it has eclipsed our wildest dreams :)

Scott spent all weekend outside doing manly things like raking, picking up pinecones (he counted 511 in our backyard) and blowing leaves with a wussy electric leaf blower (contrasted to the super manly gas-powered kind.) And now, it's raining... woohoo. That brings down more leaves. Not sure if this pic (out the window of our house) does it justice, but we have like a fortress of leaves along the curb. As does the entire neighborhood. There's a big leaf-sucker truck that comes twice in the next 2 months to remove them, I'm pretty excited to see that. Maybe I'm a 10-year old boy?

Yup, looks like we've done nothing. Awesome.

Also this weekend, Scott put up a clothesline for me! I feel so dorky and domestic getting SO excited about this, but it truly will save us on our power bill and will make our clothes & sheets smell lovely. I even figured out where to find clothespins... (at Target, by the Laundry drying racks & the like.) Bonus - $1.54 for 50! Oh, and since I mentioned it's raining, and probably will be for most of the week due to Ida, I don't think I'll get to test it out for a while.

See it, out there in the corner? It actually gets some sunlight too, so maybe I can bleach out stains. :)

30 Weeks and Workout Update

2009-10-30T08:51:00.006-04:00

Welp, Happy 30 weeks to me. The Big 3-0! Whoa.

Oh, and BOO! :)

I totally love swimming - I must say that it is by far the superior exercise for preggos. I am no longer running - I did my last run around 25/26 weeks. I'm quite happy I made it so far. Why did I stop? I just felt like it was too hard. *shrug* All along I told myself I'd do it as long as it was fun and I felt like I was getting something positive out of it. The most difficult part was that every time I'd run I would HAVE to take a nap that day... logistically that is just a little inconvenient, right? Plus, I realized the pace I was going was no faster than a brisk walk and, well, walking is cool too! I do miss it a lot though, and am really excited to get my groove back in the spring :)

So swimming twice a week is my new favorite workout. The most beautiful thing about it is that I jump in and stretch out a little and honestly *forget I'm pregnant*! It's quite nice, actually, seeing how it feels like it's encroaching more and more on day to day life. Things like, you know, putting shoes on and picking something up off the floor... But in the pool not very much has changed. I can still swim at a pretty respectable clip and get my heartrate up to a good zone. And smoke people swimming in the lanes beside me (chumps.)

Oh, and also - go phillies! :)

Last trip to PA: Baby Shower Time!

2009-10-30T08:41:00.003-04:00

This past weekend we made our FINAL journey to Elizabethtown until APRIL! Wow, does that sound far away! Though this trip was hard (mainly, on me and my back), we know the next one might just be harder. :)

The main event this weekend was Quiglet's Baby Shower. It was a blast, my friends and family did a fabulous job making it a special and fun event. I can't figure out how to rip the pics off of Kodak, but here's the gallery.

We did a "Green" Shower, which I was really excited about because though I do love opening presents, the overwhelmingness of opening so many at a shower (I know, what a whiner) and the wastefulness of it made the idea of a shower w/ no wrapping paper really appealing. And it was fun, to me it was no less special!

Another awesome thing the shower planners did was ask everyone to bring a book in place of a card. Scott and I had such a fun time looking through all of the books we got to start Quiglet's library. :) It's special because of course we have our own favorite books but it was neat to see others' favorites. And who knows what baby girl will like!

This is her closet, Pre-Shower:

With the combination of ridiculous Old Navy sales and consignment sales, my mom and I have outfitted this kid for the first year. Though, I will say, most of this stuff is "cute" stuff rather than "functional" stuff... at the shower we got a bunch of sleeping items and loungewear (lol), which we definitely needed!

The Baby Hats

2009-10-20T13:51:00.003-04:00

Things are going really well with my little wannabe baby hat making business :) I'm updating the flickr album w/ all the ones I've made and sent out (well, unless someone ordered one that was *just like* another one I've made). It's a great thing for me. Because, seriously, no hate to the Phillies (bc I'd lose half of my Facebook friends an like all of my family probably) but baseball is actually more boring than football. I didn't always think that, but now I do. I want them to keep winning, I really do, but deep down I know that every win means they'll keep playing more. *Sigh*

So, though this isn't a commercial blog or anything, I'm still loving making the hats and if you want one, let me know.

I thought I'd share some pics of hats I've made for little Quiglet. I'm planning on taking a bunch to the hospital so we can figure out what looks good on her. I mean, the pink is gorgeous, and more than likely she'll look great in it, but it's not for everyone. (This is one of the perks of having a GIRL! I'm embracing accessories)

A list of all the stuff we found in the bonus room

2009-10-18T11:21:00.005-04:00

...mainly in the stuff Scott's parents brought for us to go through. Though we do have an entire chest left to go through... another time. I know for a fact there's a Kids Sports Illustrated w/ Andre Agassi on the cover in there.

3 Starting Lineup figures in the box. 2 Cal Ripkens (worth some serious money, but apparently he's pulling a 40-year old virgin and wants to keep them.) and a Scottie Pippen. Worth $20. Will sell that one...but that's chump change compared to Ripken.
A buttload of trophies. Including a Third Place plaque for "Computer Problem Solving". It's going beside my Third Place trophy for age 26-30 women in the Myrtle Beach 5k. Booya, nobody beats us! Except for 1st and 2nd.
Scott's elementary school writings. I particularly liked "Eagles vs Colts", which was dedicated to his uncle for "getting the tickets." It was a suspenseful, true story of the Eagles losing to the Colts. "We were so mad," Scott says. "And then they drove home and slept on the way." Another great one was "Dodgers vs Yankees", which was dedicated to the Dodgers. The dedications were the best part, another one was dedicated to "Kelly and Seven." Yes, Seven. (Sorry Steve, we figured you were just a baby so you probably didn't realize anyway.)
Right after we found a dead silverfish, we found a wrapped up bundle of sheep's wool in a "PA Agriculture Education" folder. Awesome.
An itemized list of all the baseball cards he owned and their value. I guess he thought a good place to store such valuable items was beside some gross sheep's wool? The other cool thing about the list was that it was printed on that old computer paper that stayed connected. It did have the holes ripped off though :)
A magic trick involving a disappearing coin. Very magical!
Jamie had a suitcase containing the following items: Wedding dress, photos, and teddy bears... Surprise!
We have a glow in the dark baseball (in a case) that is signed by.... some Harrisburg Senator. Yeah.... I snuck that one into the trash.
A kush ball! Smarty was confused about this one... she kept playing with it but then got annoyed because one of the nodes was always poking her in the eye. It was quite humorous.
Lisa Frank stickers. *hangs head*

We spent a good chunk of the weekend in there... yesterday I had a major cold issue. I hesitate to say it was anything serious or contagious just because I've been sick (sinusy... super fun stuff) for a few weeks off and on which is probably pregnancy related. But, nonetheless, it was unpleasant and put me out of commission for most of the day. And today Scott wasn't feeling so hot so I was on bonus room duty. Somehow, we finished most of it, just a few more things he has to do - like move some big/heavy things up or down and pound some nails into the wall. I'm not "authorized" to do that.

Personal achievement: I managed to consolidate all of my books to ONE bookshelf. I think I'm truly transitioning from a book owner/hoarder to a community book user. I now love the Wake County Library system and combined with the NC State lib I'm able to get much of what I want when I want it. I have about 2 dozen books to list on paperbackswap in the next few days so hopefully I'll get them out of here and get some fun new books. PBS is like library-lite. I really do love not wasting money purchasing books... when I was a big buyer I'd buy so many I ended up not really liking or wanting to even read in the first place. I'm really bad with impulse book buys... now if it's an impulse I just take it back in 2 weeks! What took me so long to get on board w/ this!?

Who is 28 weeks pregnant (already)?

2009-10-16T09:48:00.004-04:00

Me... omg.

Into the 3rd trimester - wow that sounds scary. We have exciting times ahead... going home next weekend! Time flies, anyone can tell you this. But when you find out you're pregnant the first week in May, January 8th sounds a world a way. And depending on my mood, sometimes it still does. Maybe because it's in 2010 it adds to the far-away-ness of it. But dude, it's 3ish months away. That is all. And they're starting to put Christmas stuff in stores and all I know is Christmas = almost there.

We're making progress though... we painted the nursery and Scott put the furniture together...

And this weekend, we're tackling the bonus room. This is the room that since we moved in 6 months ago has been the go-to... "oh, just throw it in the bonus room." It's shameful, we still have (shudder) unpacked boxes. I've been pretty awesome at acquiring random baby things from all of the fabulous consignment sales Raleigh has. Things like an Exersaucer for $10, and a Bumbo for $12 (thanks Heather!). Which is all fabulous, but they live in a big pile in the bonus room. And I haven't even had my showers yet. So that's the benchmark: let's clear that out before we get ANYTHING ELSE.

It'll probably be last in line for our home renovations, as it makes a fantastic playroom. It's one of those things - it has very excellent carpet that is just not old enough for us to get rid of. BUT... it's plaid. It's not terrible (not like the bathroom wallpaper terrible) so we think we can live with it for a few years. And maybe it's actually good bc then we can just say - Ok Kids, don't worry if you mess up the carpet. :) And someday when the kids are older we can make the bonus room into a sweet movie theater (Scott's dream...not mine. Oh well, he just painted a room pink, I'll let him have it for now.)

My GOD, I wish it still looked like that.

When You Are Engulfed In Flames

2009-10-09T08:00:00.004-04:00

Where to start... David Sedaris is just so amazingly awesome :) I feel like this book has been on my list for a long time now, and since I've pretty much cut out my book-buying habit (yay libraries!), I've had to wait my turn (booo libraries). But no worries, this one was worth the wait and, true to form, had me laughing out loud pretty often. I really enjoy his tone and style, one of those authors you feel like you could totally hang out with. It's also fun to read because it's basically a collection of loosely related short stories, so picking it up and putting it down randomly works. I like that freedom every now and then.

Up next is Emma, for the November Book Club book. I'm a tad intimidated... after Sedaris's witty and modern writing, how will I deal w/ Ms. Austen's formality? Also it looks long. If nothing else, I might actually get more school and housework done during the reading of this novel (which, let's be honest, wouldn't be a bad thing!)

gag Note to the Babe

2009-10-02T13:50:00.003-04:00

Dear Quiglet/Monkey/She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named,

Hey! I'm not one to do a big weekly or monthly note to a fetus (though I do hope to do a monthly letter to you once you're born!), but for some reason, today I was just struck by how EXCITED I am to be carrying you around, and how EXCITED I am to meet you in 3 months (or less.)

It seems like, for me at least, you go through life, and if something is awful or bringing you down, you think about it a lot, even take drugs for it. I find it completely unfair that when something is lifting you up and making you overjoyed, it's not equally celebrated and addressed. Well, Quiglet, today I'm saying it: you are making me THAT happy. Like I could be taking depressants because I'm so overjoyed most of the time and it feels so different from normal life. I'm totally annoying and irritating even to myself, as I lay reading on the couch and can't focus because I'm just smiling like a fool thinking about you. How crazy is that?

So, we're about to enter our final trimester... wow, did the first two fly or what? I've very much enjoyed the most recent one. You decided to I guess inhabit what (mostly) already existed of my stomach, making me wait to really look the part of the 6 months pregnant lady. I think I needed the lesson in patience anyway, and I'm sure you'll continue to teach me. But now you must have run out of corners of my belly to inhabit because - pop - now I'm showing. I even do that annoying pregnant lady thing when I'm out and about where I rub my stomach, just to eliminate any doubt strangers might have about my condition... And I was simultaneously shocked and not-shocked to find out you already weigh 2 pounds and are over a foot long. And I'm still loving your kicking and flipping and whatever the heck you're doing in there. I was thinking about it today while I was swimming - what ARE you doing? From the pictures it seems like you must not have much room, does that suck? I was thinking how miserable it'd be for 9 months to be so cramped to not do anything. But I guess you're doing a lot... you know, becoming human and getting ready to be self-sufficient. Don't worry, we'll help you out on the self-sufficiency thing. Might actually take a few years, but we're prepared for that.

Oh, and I hope you like hats. I made you one today, and true to form, was smiling like a fool the whole time thinking about you. *sigh* Do you like it?

Love,
Mama

Battle for America 2008 Review

2009-10-01T13:57:00.004-04:00

So, I just finished this book, and I LOVED it! Thanks Mom :) While it's a little like "why would I want to read a book that I know how it ends?", there were just so many interesting behind the scenes interviews and storylines, I couldn't put it down. If you were also obsessed with the campaign, you'd enjoy this book. You know who you are. I also think it was cool because it wasn't overly partisan. It had a little MORE to the democratic story, simply because with the whole primary-lasting-till-June thing, there was a lot more to tell.

Loved it! :)

Random Updates with pictures

2009-09-30T11:24:00.009-04:00

We were up in PA this past weekend for our niece Sophie's 1st birthday party and christening! She is too cute, and because of this overabundance of cuteness, we didn't take a picture of ANYTHING ELSE other than her. Oh well. you know kids. She's at such a cute age, so fun to be around. Though I will say, Scott and I came home exhausted. Note: all comments that read "Ohhhh, just wait" will be deleted. :) So, Happy Birthday (Tomorrow), Sophie Monster!

And this is me, mid 25 weeks. Fall has arrived in NC, and it's a freaking blast! It's almost noon and still not 70 degrees here. I'm LOVING it! So this morning I got all ambitious and decided to go for a little run, but remembered, oh yeah, it's cool out! What does one wear to run in 60 degree weather? And once I zipped up the jacket, I had to take a pic bc... my oh my, it was tight. Also, as soon as I went outside I ditched it and went with short sleeves and pants. And ran 1.5 miles. Cause I'm still a rock star.

Things are going well with the pregnancy, this past weekend was the first few days where I really *felt* pregnant... like I had a belly that was observable and I've started this thing where I can't get up out of a chair or sofa without saying "uuuuuuugh." It's adorable, really. Stuff like that. It just felt more real and different this weekend. (Again, comments saying "Just you wait, missy" will be deleted. I. Know.) :)

After a really long weekend, I was kind of irresponsible and put off a lot of schoolwork, which I'm catching up on this week. School is going pretty well, and surprisingly hard with only two classes this semester. I love what I'm studying though, I was just thinking this morning about what my *favorite* class has been within my program and I'm not really sure! I'd have to pick at least 4 or 5, and I've only taken 9. So yeah, good choice, good investment, good use of time.

I love this semester also because with two classes and no job, it does give me time to keep up with life... like keep the house generally cleaner than I've ever been able to do before, and read! I'm enjoying it while it lasts :) Cause, you know... juuuust wait. I just read The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb and, though it was long, I ended up LOVING it. Absolutely love and recommend it.

One more random thing - I am getting a seasonal flu shot on Friday and have already started dreaming/nightmaring about it. I'm such a shot wussy, I'm screwed.

Hats for Sale! Get your Baby Hats!

2009-09-18T14:22:00.001-04:00

So, as you all know, I'm getting really into the hats. I've made a few for various babies to hone my skillz and get the sizing thing down. That's the weirdest part! When kids are like... 15 or 16 months old their heads are almost normal sized! So odd, how did I not notice that before?

Anyway, I want to throw this out there that I'm willing and able (and excited) to make hats for friends and family for a small fee... I do have to buy more yarn, you know? :) I prefer to stick to folks I know or folks I "know" (for the internet friends ;) ) at this time. Email me if you're interested in getting a winter hat (or a photograph-able hat) for your child, or a Christmas gift. I'm cheaper than etsy, promise!

Here's what I'm able to do:

Newsboy for a boy:

Equal opportunity... Newsboy for a girl: (Maybe I'll call this the Title 9)

And the beanie + flower (though it could be done minus flower for boys)

I use excellent quality yarn, none of that acrylic crap. I mean, it's going to be right next to a baby's head, right?

Here's the Flickr album I've created to showcase the current projects and their models. If it sounds slightly lame in some of the descriptions, it is actually part of an assignment for my Social Media class, so don't judge! I intend to keep up with it. Feel free to comment!

Baby update

2009-09-13T16:57:00.003-04:00

Here's two 23 week belly pics. I really think it shrinks for the pictures... like she has stage fright or something.

Here's me in my new dress, for Kyle & Laurie's wedding and Sophie's baptism. Oh, and maybe my shower. I feel obligated to wear it as often as possible... bc it's too cute.
And this is today... (Please ignore the laundry... I still haven't figure out how to get it to put *itself* away. Seriously, any one have any tips on that?)

So, we got our nursery furniture delivered yesterday - wow! We're just leaving it in the boxes though, until we can get the room painted, but that kind of makes it all feel a little more urgent. Even though we do still have a bunch of time... it's exciting. I keep seeing little babies out and moms are probably like "why is that slightly fat woman staring at me and smiling wistfully?"

Today we were watching the Eagles dominate the Panthers and Monkey was kicking up a storm... I think she's an Eagles fan. Scott said that better not mean she is going to be a cheerleader. (oh SNAP! there go all my cheerleader readers.) I think she is also very excited about usability, as she also tends to jump up and down in my Usability Studies class. So, a geeky football lover? Does that sound like anyone we know? (No paternity tests necessary.)

Babies in Hats

2009-09-09T12:21:00.004-04:00

My niece Sophie in the earflappy hat! She looks so cute in it!

My friend Heather's son Luke modeling the blue newsboy :)
I love how it makes him look like a little boy... so adorable!

This one might be for keeps... it's a newsboy + BIG flower.
I am starting to like big flowers on hats.

What's that you say?

2009-09-09T08:57:00.005-04:00

... the nursery fan HAS a dimmer???

OMG, I wish I was joking. Yesterday, when I was going to turn off the fan, I inadvertently held the button in too long. My jaw drops as the light, instead of going off, grows dimmer. Whhhhaaaa?

If you haven't visited our house, or have forgotten this teeny part of the one teeny room, here's what the super space-age light switch looks like:

We usually point it out when giving home tours... and I swear, each time we find a new function. The seemingly silly part is the up/down thinger you see is for the fan speed. And all the buttons along the left side are for the fan speed. Only by holding the big button in do you get the dimming function. It's the weirdest thing ever, and we've been living here for almost 5 months and just yesterday discovered this.

This is the mixed blessing of a new home that's actually quite old: we have a dimmer, woohoo. But it's a lame switch so is it even useful? If we accidentally turn the light on FULL BLAST and wake the baby, does that defeat the purpose? These are weighty questions... and I'm not allowed to have enough coffee to really think about them so early.

So What, I'm Still a Rock Star/I wanna start a fight

2009-09-06T10:46:00.004-04:00

Sometimes I feel like this is my theme song. When I'm running, though I'm sure Scott would refer you to the "Na-na-na-na I wanna start a fight" part. Since he told me "I know you're all pregnant or *whatever*". I'll get to that part :)

First off, this song by Pink always jazzes me up so much when I'm running. Especially now that I'm knocked up and running all slow and feeling like each run could be my last. It's empowering, bc it says "I'm still a rock star." That's just the sort of thing I want to hear when I'm running, motivational and simultaneously a tad cocky. And while I know it's not like a SUPER mega rock star, running 2 miles at 22 weeks is way more than I ever thought I could or would want to do. And whatever, if I want to be a little cocky about that, I will. Cause I'm a rock star. And I don't neeeed you...

So, oh yeah, the "I wanna start a fight" part. It's not a serious marital spat or anything, just a point of disagreement we had yesterday concerning the nursery fan. You might recall, there is a fan in EVERY ROOM of our house. Which is great, energy saving wise. I'm okay with the FAN part. I'm not saying blindly rip down all the fans (a la Trading Spaces, circa 2000). But, they annoy me because they have lights on them. And look like this:
I crouched down to where I estimate the crib mattress will be, so I'm doing an impression of a baby. And I'd just hate for our child's first words to be "Ooooh, my EYES! Turn off the damn light." Cause we have the same light over our own bed and those are my last word every night :). And I was trying to get my point across yesterday when I was told I was "all pregnant or *whatever*" and might have said it'd make the child blind. I mean, I'm no opthomologist, but that is some bright light action that can't be good for the newborn retina. Or cornea... whatever.

In all seriousness, my point is it's TOO BRIGHT and the way the light shines down is just not nice. At all. I originally wanted to just take off the light part and put a cap overtop, keeping the fan. Now I kind of want a new fan, one that has a light that looks like this:

(and for those of you who might live in PA where all the ceilings are gloriously smooth, this is what popcorn ceilings look like. You can contrast it to the smooth beauty underneath the scary ceiling fan.)

So, that's my point. And I'm not saying it's a NECESSITY, but a dimmer would also help a lot.

If anyone is so brave as to weigh in, I'd love some internet opinions. "We're all gonna get in a FIGHT!!!"

A Freewheelin' Time

2009-09-02T13:24:00.002-04:00

Appropriate words of wisdom from Jack Donaghy: Never follow a hippy to a second location.

So, this month's book club book was A Freewheelin' Time: A memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties by Suze Rotolo. I'll be honest, I was annoyed more often than not w/ the narrorator. She just seemed to have this air about her where she clearly thought she was awesome bc she used to date Bob Dylan. Which is cool, and I wouldn't necessarily write off someone w/ that description, she was just annoying. And also, he cheated on you, a lot. So don't get all high and mighty.

So, a synopsis. She was Bob's girlfriend then just good friend for much of the 60's, prior to his becoming famous and then when he got big. The book shares how he made it big and also some of the other stuff that was going on at the time. Also, did you know she invented bellbottoms? (rolls eyes) The most annoying thing was the name-dropping. I'm no 60's pop-culture scholar, ok? I pretty much know the names of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and .... mmmm, Elvis? So yeah, when you spend 5 pages talking about all the super awesome people you met at Gerde's night club, it means nothing to me and I'm not impressed. And I skip those pages.

But I didn't HATE the book. And at times I think she got caught up in telling the story of something big and THEN I really liked it. Like how she and some other badass college students thought the travel ban to Cuba was unconstitutional (our generation would call it "lame") so they decided to travel there anyway. That was pretty awesome. I've always thought the protesting and rebellion of the 60's was kind of interesting, and it was cool to hear it from one of the people who took part. Also, her parents were Communists, and that was an interesting perspective to hear on the whole McCarthyism stuff. It's perspectives like these that you don't get in your HS history class (if they even get to the lesson on the 60's before the end of the year... I know I never got a good education on some of this stuff!)

Belly Pic and some Baby Hats

2009-09-02T08:40:00.003-04:00

Ok, so here's me in my 21 1/2 week preggo-ness. In a bathing suit, nonetheless. (This will come up in some interesting searches, I'm sure...) If you'll notice, the bedroom has some nice, SMOOTH ceilings. Not sure why, but many homes in NC - both the town home that was built in 2000 and our current home, built in '67 - have popcorn ceilings. Which I detest. So we've begun the process of getting them scraped and painted for us, a few rooms at a time. Yesterday we did the master bedroom and the nursery.

And, the baby hat crocheting continues... I'm having so much fun and finding them surprisingly easy to make - even w/ the flowers. The only question mark left is "will they fit a newborn?" In looking at some online sizing charts, it seems they will. I might have to take them with me in case some stranger would let me try them on their baby. "Scuse me, can I borrow your baby's head for a sec?"

Lookie what I made

2009-08-31T17:48:00.004-04:00

Ummm... so I made a baby hat today. I used this pattern, and it turned out a little smaller than the measurements say, but it is very stretchy so I'm pretty sure it'll fit a newborn. And I can work w/ the yarn size and hook size. I'm so excited about it. I added a flower. (I put the hat on notebook paper to prove I also did homework today. Really, I did.)

And here's a pic of Scott in his birthday shirt from cool uncle Steve. Unfortch I don't know how to write all that in binary. For those blog readers who aren't tremendous geeks, it says DAD in zeros and ones. Which is Binary. Which is a computer thing. And Monkey's due date is 01-10 so I guess that means I'm giving birth to a big nerd (I mean, the DNA is in her favor there, right? Says the girl who crochets all afternoon with the husband in a binary tshirt.)

"Oh God, I remember this."

2009-08-31T10:15:00.002-04:00

Not quite sure why, but I was inspired to get out my yarn and crochet things last night. I kinda forgot just how much I had. I kind of have this knack for getting projects *thisclose* to completion and then being all like "I don't feel like crocheting for a while." And a while turns into 2 years. As a result, I have one blanket that is one panel away from being a GREAT blanket. Only problem? The panels are super complicated, and last night as part of my re-entry exercise, I had to look up what exactly a single crochet stitch is. So yeah, way to go Jamie of a few years ago. You couldn't have just finished it when you knew what the heck a hdc and decreasing stitch was????

I had a good time getting all the different types of granny squares I have going. My favorite thing to do when making a granny square blanket is to lay them end to end to form the length or width of the blanket... helps me visualize the end product. And every time I look at Scott and say "Isn't that pretty????" And he unexcitedly replies, "Yes." And the title of the post comes from one such moment last night when he replied with an eye roll "Oh God, I remember this."

This is what I want to make - does anyone have any good online free pattern sites? I've been finding that all of the free sites are sadly lacking in the usability and visual graphics departments. But free is free, I suppose. And I get these ideas in my head - like why should I pay $18 for something I can make myself??? - and then they just have to be tried. So yeah... me and my stupid ideas.

20 Weeks = Halfway = OMG.

2009-08-23T11:54:00.003-04:00

So, instead of getting Scott to take a respectable, normal belly pic... I've decided to take you on a tour of my home with my iphone. This is the downstairs bathroom - like the new shutters? :) I like that guests can now shower without fearing Peeping Toms. It's the little things.

(And evidently I need to clean the mirror.)

This is the 20 week pic. I was on my way to go run 3 miles with my running buddies yesterday morning. I'm running way slow these days (think brisk walk), but still having fun with it! I'm actually considering doing a 5K next weekend. That's like the ultimate test of if Jamie has lost her competitive drive completely. It was a big challenge in the beginning to "run for fitness" and not time or distance or improvement... just to do it. It felt like slacking. But I do feel like I'm thinking of it differently now, so we'll see how I feel midweek.

I also wanted to officially state that we are keeping the baby name a secret until she's born. You can call her Monkey or Gertrude... we call her Monkey. It's endearing, though I might be a little petrified if she IS a monkey or something. I think we do it because of The Office, when Dwight and Angela call each other Monkey as a pet name. It's a terrible reason, but I think that's where it comes from. Gertrude, or Gert, is what we told my parents her name is. I think they bought it.

Time Traveler's Wife (Book & Movie)

2009-08-18T09:30:00.000-04:00

The fun thing about re-re-reading a book is that each time (if it's a good book), something different will strike me. I'm always amazed by this - Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book to read over and over, but TTW is giving it a run for its money.

The theme that's really standing out to me this go-round on TTW is the difference between young and old Henry - as differentiated by long hair on the youthful, immature and selfish Henry and short hair on married, committed and loving Henry. The idea that Clare loves the older Henry more, misses him and can't wait for young Henry to become older Henry is kind of interesting. I don't really ponder it much, but do we all have a turning point at which we become a more perfect version of ourselves, before which we were a person we might not care to hangout with? Or that our spouse would spend a few hours with and miss the older version of us?

I also am completely obsessed with the idea of spending time with loved ones out of time. Henry would go back and watch is parents take care of him as a baby, and spend time with a younger version of himself. How *cool* would that be, to meet the people important to you in your life back before you knew them? Or yourself, before you really became the you you are now.

I finally finished the book last night, but after the Pillars of the Earth, I feel like I read this in a few hours. It is everything a book should be - totally absorbing and un-put-downable. EVEN knowing what happens and how and when, etc. It's just such an involved book that I could honestly read it again right now.

And now... the movie. I'm disappointed, which I knew I would be as I've acknowledged multiple times that my expectations were pretty unrealistic. I was disappointed that they left SO much out. Yes, it's a movie and they're never going to include it all, and some things were included but kind of modified which I was ok with, but it was such an intricate and interconnected book and I was disappointed they didn't really do much w/ that in the movie. It seemed like there were NO characters but Henry and Clare. Gomez was just a passing role, which sucked bc Rob Livingston was great in the role! I think the overarching worst thing about the movie in my opinion was the melodrama. I felt like the whole time it was either *sad* acting or *we're so in love, let's talk about how in love we are*. Not very realistic, sorry. Also not how the book is. I will say the ending was MUCH sadder to watch than it was to read. I originally really liked the casting of Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana as Clare and Henry, but now I'm kind of lukewarm about it. The movie was mediocre at best, and I don't think I'll ever feel the need to watch it again. Which makes me sad, but I do have the book forever and will most likely read it again and again. :)

Well, it feels bigger.

2009-08-13T13:44:00.003-04:00

18 week belly pic.

Excuse the swimming paraphernilia drying on the tub and my makeup-less and expression-less face. And in obvious news that I didn't realize, taking pics in a miror makes my bathroom look reversed. And the apple logo.

A Girl!

2009-08-13T08:20:00.001-04:00

AAAAAH! We had a great appointment yesterday, got a nice long ultrasound where we got to see our teeny baby GIRL (from all angles!) It was amazing. It was the most fun day, I feel like a grinning fool. In some ways, yesterday was even more fun than the day I found out I was pregnant - I'm further along and it all just feels more REAL now. I'm so, so, so excited.

The ultrasound tech had me all greased up and was showing us various body parts and all of the sudden she's like "here the legs are spread, yup, it's a girl. You see, there's here labia." And I have to say, part of me thought Scott might want to run and hide outside, I mean, anatomical terms like that - ESPECIALLY in reference to his daughter? I just didn't thin

k the ultrasound tech would get away with that. But honestly, he didn't flinch. And he made me text that we had a pic of the labia to his sister. I think he's growing up... :) *sniff sniff*

I also feel like in the movies when they do this ultrasound, the women are usually WAY more pregnant than I am. There you go again, never trust Hollywood.

Also, you can't trust polls on blogs, evidently. 54% of you were wrong :)

After the appointment, we went out for lunch and went to a nice little baby boutique and bought a pink lovey. I don't intend to buy much from a boutique for me and the child -we figure a savings account might be more beneficial to our daughter than a $45 onesie - but I'm excited to have an adorable lovey with the memory of when we found out she was a she attached to it. We're overjoyed.

"And my feet won't touch the ground,

It's such, it's such a perfect day."

-Strawberry Swing, Coldplay

Here's some pics of our girl :)

A profile, full body. (Head at top, you can see the brain. Whoa.)

Now she's LOOKING AT YOU! In all honesty, this one kind of weirds me out.

An up-close of the profile. This is just the head, though you can see her heart (that small black dot at the far left.

Her little feet! Isn't it the sweetest?

It shall become He or She... tomorrow

2009-08-11T15:55:00.004-04:00

I'm SO excited for that - giving my child a respectable pronoun referrant (dangit, I wish I remembered what I learned in Linguistics last year...) So yeah - we have our big ultrasound tomorrow! Pray that the child isn't all demure and leg crossing. That will make the "news" substantially less newsworthy.

I'll update the blog tomorrow evening, and I should warn you, voting ends tonight at midnight in the poll over there-->. So if you've been holding off on voting... 'tis your last chance. And it will make a difference.

I still don't have much of a belly to speak of... my friend Kathleen said she noticed a difference on Saturday, but I think she was just feeling bad for me (although I appreciated it). I think I'm still stuck in the "Gosh, that girl must eat a lot of pizza" phase. Which, let's be honest, I really do. Like... a lot. I'll get another bump pic up soon :)

Pillars of the Earth

2009-08-07T16:21:00.003-04:00

I. Finally. Finished. I have no words for how freaking long that book was - 973 pages. It's the longest book I've ever read. I'm not quite sure what compelled me to want to take that on, maybe just a personal goal or something. But I did it, and I'm so excited to be done.

Ok, so first off. The title and length makes it sound SOO BORING, doesn't it? Well, it's actually quite readable and moves along really well. It's about building a cathedral, back in the 1100's. I can't remember anything I've ever read from that time period so it was educational and cool in that way. There were a few really great characters too. And all kinds of multiple storylines and interconnectedness. I mean, when you have 973 pages to play with, there better be some depth, right?

I gave it 3 stars on Shelfari... I probably would have liked to give it 3 1/2 if that were possible. It was great, but here's my main beef with it: too graphic. I may never hear the words "rape and pillage" the same again... which I guess in a way might be good, I don't want to get desensitized to the way things were and the struggles of former eras, blah blah. But yeah, a little graphic. And I guess at times the writing got a little tedious, so that's the extra half a star off. :)

I think part of why I was so antsy to finish is I am re-re-reading the Time Traveler's Wife this week - under the deadline of the movie release. I'm So. Excited to go see it and cry my eyes out reading the book. I can't really explain it. I get so happy just thinking about it.

2 more swimming workouts

2009-08-06T10:55:00.004-04:00

I know I've said it already, but swimming rocks. It's definitely the right exercise at the right time. I'm trying to go twice a week now, and have for the past 2 weeks, to keep my cardio workouts up to snuff. It's quite honestly, more fun than the Arc Trainer and *shudder* the treadmill. And the freaking heat/humidity/misery of NC August makes running outside a thing of the past for the most part. I'm not keen on waking up super early or going right before bed (plus it storms like daily these days). Meh, it seems to be naturally happening, that swimming is replacing running as my primary cardio activity. I'm cool with that. I do need a new bathing suit though.

So here are the two workouts I did this week. If it's not very obvious, I'm aiming to swim 2000 yards in each workout, which takes about 50-60 minutes depending on how much rest I take/need in between sets. I am having more fun than I thought I would thinking up exciting workouts... it's funny how some of the types of sets that annoyed the crap out of me in HS and college are now creeping their way back into my mind and my workouts. I like to keep it interesting and I think having sets helps to break it all up and keep it interesting. I think I'd rather sit on the couch than just go and swim for 50 minutes. Bo-ring. The counting and the changing of strokes helps pass the time. It's just enough to think about - I am focused on the activity at hand but able to let my mind wander to other more pressing things in my life.

Swimming workout 2
2000 Yards

200 warm up

8x125 (broken as follows: first 75 alternating between back or breaststroke, last 50 recovery freestyle. Rest 10 seconds in between the 75 and 50, 20 seconds between 125's)

8x75 free (Fast 50 into a recovery 25)

200 warm down

Swimming Workout 3
2000 Yards

*this is my "boring" workout. :)

200 Warm Up

10x150 - straight free

300 Warm Down

Edited 9/8
(I'm just going to keep adding on to this post, bc I know swimming workouts aren't all that interesting, but I need them all in one place:) )

Workout 4:
*involves little thinking.
200 w/u
500 swim (alternate 100 free, 100 back to help keep count, for all of the '00 sets below)
50 easy
400 swim
50 easy
300 swim
50 easy
200 swim
50 easy
100 warm down

Workout 5:

200 warm up
1x400 (alt free and back each 100)
4x200 ( 125 swim, rest 10 sec, 25 butterfly kick, 50 recovery)
4x100 IM (I one-armed the butterfly)
200 Warm down

-Edit 9/22
Workout 6:
Total: 1950

200 Warm Up

Main set:
250 free
200 back
150 - 50 swim, 50 butterfly kick, 50 swim
100 free
50 recovery

Repeat, knocking off the largest leg each time (#2 is minus the 250, #3 minus the 200)

200 Warm Down

-- 10/28 edit
Workout 7: (stolen from Masters swim team practice board) :)
300 swim/300 kick
200 pull
100 kick hard

Main set:
100 hard
100 easy
100 hard
2x50 pull
(all that x2)

200 warm down

Workout:

250 warm up
3x500's
Ideas on breaking up the 500's:
Ladder:
25/50/75/100/100/75/50/25 (rest 10-15 sec in btwn)
Dec:
150/125/100/75
Drill (combo of pull & kick w/ pull buoy and kick board)

I'm sorry but...

2009-08-05T13:29:00.003-04:00

Really, journalist from the AP (or maybe Yahoo, I could see Yahoo doing this)? I read the article and to me, being "fed bad food" wasn't the most salient and horrific thing going on in the North Korean prison camps. This is the worst dumbing down I've seen in a while. Headline FAIL!

A Note To Self:

2009-08-03T12:25:00.002-04:00

Dear Jamie from a few months ago,

NICE job on freezing a few servings of that baked spaghetti casserole. I think I recall you were "so sick of it" because it makes like 14 servings, but saving the last 2 in serving size containers in the freezer was a stroke of genius. It warmed up perfectly. Truly, you should do that more often. It was *worlds* better than my usual Smart Ones or Lean Cuisine meal.

I'm going to follow your lead on that here in the present.

You are awesome, Jamie from a few months ago,
Jamie from Now

Oh Belly, Where Art Thou?

2009-08-03T11:11:00.007-04:00

This is me at 17 weeks, in the bathroom at work, taking a quick pic in case someone would enter the bathroom & catch me. I think I'm plateauing in the "spare tire" phase just a little. I'm well into maternity pants (and loving it) but not much of a bump to speak of.

In other baby news/updates, we are likely buying some furniture this weekend! I think ideally we'd wait until we know the gender to choose, BUT the NC Tax Free weekend is this coming weekend and well... we're thinking gender neutral anyway (so no white, basically). And who among us would choose to pay taxes if you could avoid them by shopping on a certain weekend? Anyone? Yeah, me too.

And we find out next week! If you haven't yet voted, please do :) I was a little surprised at how heavily the poll was skewing toward boy, but it seems to have evened out a little. We don't care, as long as it's healthy (smug face).*

*I can't figure out how to embed this video, but you should watch the "Pregnant Women are Smug" video on You Tube if you haven't already http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJRzBpFjJS8

Swwwwimming!

2009-07-29T19:51:00.002-04:00

Last night I went to the pool at Scott's work for the first time. It was fun, I got all giddy and excited being back in the humid, chlorinated arena. I was smiling a lot, and people probably thought I was a little crazy. Swimming has been very touch and go for me since quitting in college, it's always depressing bc I can't help but think how we used to swim 4000 yards a day, 5 days a week or whatever. And then I swim like 1500 and I'm like, I'm old. And then the depression comes. But anyway, I'm trying to approach it differently now, like not think about what I'm doing in respect to what I used to do? Maybe it's far enough in my past now it doesn't seem like a good comparison.

So last night, I swam for about 15 min until they had to clear the pool for thunder. (sigh) I know the drill, but c'mon!

But I got my butt back there today, and I must say that today, I kicked ass at swimming. I felt great. I took breaks when I needed to keep from overdoing it. But I nailed it. I also created kind of a fun and interesting workout which I'm going to post so I can do it again sometime:

Swimming workout 1
Total: 2150 yds
250 yd warm up
10 x 100 - broken (swim 75, rest 10 sec swim 25, rest 20.) Here's the crackhead part - I rotated btwn free, backstroke and breaststroke to keep it fun.
100 easy
300 kick (w/ a board)
6x 50 (with the first 25 sprint, and second 25 recovery.) I alternated back and free.
200 warm down

I can't believe it - but I swam for about an hour. I truly had a blast too.

Revolutionary Road, etc.

2009-07-29T16:46:00.000-04:00

So, reading this summer hasn't been what I hoped it'd be. I hate how *life* gets in the way of reading, it's just not fair. Anyway, I am currently reading The Pillars of the Earth. If you've never seen this book in person, just envision 3 or 4 inches. Got that? Ok, that's what the spine width is. It's 936 pages. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome and I certainly couldn't deal with that many pages of a book I wasn't loving. But sometimes I just get so physically TIRED of holding it. And I wonder if it's too heavy to set on my stomach? And if I can skip the gym that day bc of the arm workout I'm getting while reading. And then I have to reread that page bc I am daydreaming.

But my GOAL is to finish that book up in the coming week, and then revisit Time Traveler's Wife. And then go cry my eyes out at the movie. I get SO excited when I see a preview, and Scott makes fun of me so much because whenever it is on TV, I make him stop talking and I drop everything and watch. I don't even do that when the TV show we're watching comes back on. I have seriously unrealistic expectations for this movie adaptation.

Now... Revolutionary Road (by Richard Yates). I finished this about a month ago and have so many mixed feelings I don't know where to start. First off... a lot of messed up and just generally ugly people in this book. BUT, that's life, right? Not everyone is worth hanging out with. That said, Frank and April Wheeler? No thanks, I would not spend any amount of time w/ them.

I will say, I think my new favorite time period is the late 50's and the 60's. I think it is a totally interesting time period with all of the changes going on in the country culturally. And the generation of folks that were raising kids at the time are even more interesting to me (hi Nanny, Nana and Pop-Pop!) And this is the reason this book (and Mad Men - Season Premiere on Aug 16 - AMC! Woohoo) interested me so much. It was such a convergence of changing times and traditional expectations. And I like the clothes and hairstyles. And it's funny how they smoked like...everywhere.

So the book. Right. I can't honestly recommend it to anyone, bc when you recommend something , someone will think of you if they hate it. And I think a lot of ppl might not like this book. It's not *pleasant* at all. It's a dark, dark book about a couple (Leo & Kate) who are kind of jerks to each other. They are conniving and mean to one another and unrealistic in their expectations. But again, to my original point, some ppl are like that. And there's no reason not to write a book about them. The book takes off when April pitches the idea of them dropping everything in their traditional suburban lives and moving to Paris as a family. Drama ensues.

I have the movie in my Netflix cue. Scott, I know you don't read the blog, but you probably will hate it. :)

The countdown is on!

2009-07-22T10:08:00.003-04:00

We find out on August 12th if Baby McQ is a boy or a girl! I put a little poll in the sidebar - what do you all think? This is a really scientific method, I know.

If anyone has any old wives' tale questions in which the answers will determine your poll response, I'll probably answer them.

Oh, and PS: I'm not voting. :)

3 pictures + 3 stories

2009-07-21T07:53:00.002-04:00

A Tale of Lots of Yardwork
This weekend we did lots of yardwork. We're both very sore. This is all of our yardwaste bags. Scott decided to declare war on the ivy... which, if you've seen our yard, is a pretty insane declaration. But he fought hard and is prepared to do so for many, many months to come. It's on, Ivy.

I'm wearing maternity pants, and I may never take them off. :) Special thanks to Kathleen, Megan and Heather for the donations/loaners. I'm pretty stylin'... and also very comfortable. A related thought: All pants could benefit from a stretchy panel. I'm serious. (This pic is a 15 week'er)

If you were wondering why there's cat hair in your Peaches...

We just learned Smarty loves peaches, like catnip style! I went to the Farmers' Market this weekend, a new hobby I think. And look at all the fabulous stuff I got! And Smarty was doing a little photo shoot for me, begging to have her pic taken.

My changing relationship with Running

2009-07-17T13:59:00.004-04:00

The day before I found out I was pregnant, I ran ten miles the Philly Broad Street Run. And that's the most hardcore thing I've done "during my pregnancy." :) It has always been a goal of mine to remain active during pregnancy and though it's been hard, I've been able to maintain some level of fitness. Not *nearly* what it used to be, but that's pretty much what they tell you to do.

Running while pregnant seems to be a vastly misunderstood thing. It's okay, and I'm going to do it for as long as I want to and feel good doing it. I realize that at some point the belly will interfere, and I'm down w/ that. But for now I'm still enjoying it, just in a very different way. For instance, last night I ran 2 miles at an average pace of 11:30. It has taken me a few weeks to come to terms w/ these numbers. I kind of had to abandon the way I used to think of the numbers - constantly wanting to get a good pace or go farther - and think of them as merely a gauge that I am putting forth the correct amount of effort and hitting a time threshhold (run for 30 minutes) rather than distance threshhold. It's different. In some ways, it's not as fun, but in others, it's a lot less pressure. I'm just going for a leisurely run with my child. :) The new challenge is getting myself out there!

I've been going to the gym at work too, which is good because, let's be honest, it's hot as crap outside in July here. I've been doing more on the treadmill than I typically like over the past few weeks, but it is helpful because it keeps me at a respectable and advieable pace without requiring much monitoring on my part. And it's climate controlled! I've been doing *some* lifting, but that's not my favorite. But the upside is of all the geeky nerds that work here, very few workout. ;)

I'm going to transition to using the gym at Scott's work in the coming weeks. They have a POOL! I'm kind of excited to start swimming again. Should be fun and it's a highly recommended way for pregnant women to work out.

Back with a Big Post

2009-07-08T16:01:00.005-04:00

Well, I've certainly been a bad blogger, haven't I?

here's my excuse:

Hopefully you'll cut me some slack!

Here's some info to get you from A to B. A being "WHAT? Jamie updated her blog, I'm so mad she didn't write for so long." to "Wait, what? She's growing a human?"

Being that I'm getting a bunch of good experience as a technical writer this summer, how about some FAQ's (even though I don't see any FAQ's on IBM's website, so I can assume that it isn't quite a cutting edge technology in tech comm...)?

You're Pregnant?

Yes. Yes I am. And I'm excited too.

What did Scott say?

I think the direct quote from when I got back into bed after peeing on the stick was something like "oooh, good."

When are you due?

I'm due January 8th, 2010. Of course we'd love the tax deduction in 2009, but it'd also be great to get it in '10. That's pretty much the main reason we're doing this. Woohoo, money!

How are you feeling?

Ah, this is popular. While I understand and appreciate the sentiment, I never quite know how to answer it. When I say "Pretty good" or "Okay" I can feel Scott cringe. Some days, I felt like absolute crap, and am not ashamed to say I dug up some of the plastic bags from last year in my pre-reusable bag days as a just-in-case bag for the car ride into work. Yeah. Mornings weren't the best, I'm not going to lie. But it's now the second trimester and everything I've heard about it is true, most the energy returning and nausea vanishing. So, rather than focus on how iffy life was the past two months, let's focus on how excited I am now. And how I can eat fruit and drink water again!!!

Do you know if it's a boy or a girl? Will you find out?

Oh heck yes we'll find out! This is one thing we didn't even really discuss, we're both pretty sold on it. We should be able to find out mid-August. I don't have a huge inclination one way or another at this point. I really hope it's a girl ...or a boy. That's all I really want.

So that's the skinny. With the combination of the end of the 1st tri, the coming and going of Ashley's wedding and just a random TOTAL slowdown of weekend events, I hope to dust off the blog and ... you know... blog on it. Our schedule was pretty insane in May and June, but it's minorly hilarious how there's next to nothing planned for most of July & August. I'm really pretty excited about that, quite honestly!

Before/After of Master Bath

2009-06-10T20:12:00.003-04:00

Well, the new paint is certainly working out well for us, we're loving it. I threw in 3 "befores" just in case the heinousness of the wallpaper had been forgotten. I haven't forgotten, but you know.

After! We decided to leave the brass hardware, with the hopes to doing a double sink (and probably a new vanity bc theres no room for the second sink w/ the drawers, etc), miror and cooler faucets. We spraypainted the fug brass & glass light fixtures black. Also, we did white light switch covers & outlet covers and put in brushed nickel doorknobs.

So, like it?

Thoughts on the Master Bath

2009-05-29T09:39:00.002-04:00

So, more or less, the master bath project is done. It was a long weekend goal to finish it, and, well, we got it done by Wednesday. It just kept going and going. So, the moral of this is I haven't yet done a good thorough cleaning of the bathroom, and once I do that this weekend I'll post some pictures. Taking down wallpaper is perhaps the messiest thing I've ever been part of - no matter how dilligent you try to be with picking up as you go, there are little bits of paper stuck everywhere.

Anyway, we're VERY proud of how it turned out!

During all of the wallpaper removal, we came to refer to the previous owner as Effing Brian. Because we get the feeling that Effing Brian liked to do a lot of stuff in the house himself, and let me tell ya, it was painfully obvious EB did the wallpaper himself. And didn't do it right, at that. It was hard work taking it all down, but it did make it a little better to curse his name and blame it on someone who wasn't there to defend himself. Stupid Brian.

Wanna hear some other wierdness from Effing Brian? During the walk through, we noticed one of the upstairs bedrooms had the doorknob on backwards, like with the lock on the outside. Uhhhh, Veird. And, along those same lines, EVERY door has a locking knob in the house, INCLUDING the pantry & coat closet. Seriously? The pantry? That's all I can think of actually right now. Scott also says he liked to strip out screws. God, hate that Brian.

Book Binge

2009-05-15T09:32:00.004-04:00

I had a week off in between my old job and the end of the semester and the beginning of my internship (this past Monday) in which my only goal was to read fun books. And I did... a lot. It was positively blissful, and as I sit here at work I'm a little sad that week is behind me. Here's the scoop:

Election - Tom Perrotta. I'd read this in freshman year of college and remembered really liking it. I still do. The writing is really interesting to me, he was a very "writer-ish" way of describing stuff and I found that pretty cool. The synopsis is this: A teacher, Mr M, is in charge of a school election where is looks like Tracy Flick is going to win. He doesn't like her so he plants another kid in the election and drama ensues. It's kind of messed up at times, but I think it's written in a very real way. IDK. I gave it 4 stars on shelfari. Oh, and you can read it in like 3 hours, it's a very quick read.

American Wife

Curtis Sittenfeld (who might be a woman? IDK)

This book was a fabulous surprise... my friend Amy mentioned it to me and it was pretty great (an NPR recommendation, turns out). It's a fictional account of Laura Bush's life. It takes the main "events" of her life, starting with a fatal accident in high school which kills her would be love interest, and ends up with her in the White House. It's obviously very fabricated in parts, but a fun imaginative journey since we know so little about our most recent first lady. The character of Charlie Blackwell, a thinly-veiled George W was at once hilarious and appalling. But I will say I was a tad nervous to read this, not having much affection in my heart for the Bushes. I liked it anyway. It was well written and passed the Jamie test there. Cause we all know I don't read crap.

And lastly, The Reader by Bernard Schlink

This book was REALLY good. It was very "literary," which for me is a nice way to say not everyone will think it's good. Sometimes the writing is very thick. It also took me a while to get into it but as soon as you kind of "get" where it's going it's a really adeptly told story and kept me thinking long after I finished the book. I really want to see the movie too, I think Kate Winslet was a great choice for the main character. But part of me is sad I don't get to watch it as a surprise, since I already know what happens in the book.

I started The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon last week and it started a little slow, but I might be getting into it now. Hopefully I can put a dent in it this weekend.

This Summer

2009-04-23T09:18:00.001-04:00

Great news - officially! I got another internship at IBM for this summer. It's with a different group, and I'm excited to have exposure to a different product...and continue to have IBM on my resume. I start 5/11...woohoo! Is it sad that I'm *most* excited to have the week before I start completely OFF? No work, no school... nothing.

And also, I'm about 1 week from being done with this semester, which is pretty awesome. I will have one more full time semester this fall and then my last class next spring. Next year at this time, I'll be Master Jamie (or nearly...) Very exciting indeed.

As usual, I have totally fallen off of reading during the semester, with so much school reading, working, moving, ETC... but all that will change this summer. You'll be glad to know I spent a good portion of last night's class composing a summer reading list:

1. Memoirs of a Geisha (reread, it's our JUNE book club book)
2. Revolutionary Road (JULY Book Club book)
3. The Reader
4. Pillars of the Earth (gulp...it's a big one...)
5. Grapes of Wrath (Kel got me thinking about this one... hopefully it's not too rough)
6. American Wife (I'm reading it right now actually, totally jumping the gun on the end of the semester... oh well)
7. Bridge of Sighs
8. Year of Magical Thinking - Joan Didion

... and I'm sure some more. Any other suggestions would be fab... woohoo!

Hey Master Bath...

2009-04-03T09:42:00.002-04:00

Enjoy your last day w/ wallpaper, bc after this weekend, it'll be GONE! :) That is what we'll be doing this weekend, taking down this monstrosity. Wish us luck...

And though I don't know if it's fair, I think this wallpaper is making me hate the entire concept of wallpaper... And I've only spent about an hour taking down a small portion of this bathroom already.

We have Interwebs at the new house!

2009-03-28T08:35:00.003-04:00

Woohoo! :) And all of our stuff...

So, Smarty is slowly adjusting to live in the new house...one that is substantially larger, with creaky steps and hardwood floors (not nearly as comfy as carpet!) The first day and a half she was hiding and when we'd pick her up to show her her new palace she was *shaking*... very weird. Unlike any behavior we've ever seen from her. At one point on moving day she was totally MIA for like 3 hours, turned out she was head first INSIDE the fireplace. She had soot on her little white chin :( Her new hiding place is a little safer & I assume quieter - in our closet (CARPET!) under our clothes.

(hopefully this image shows up... it's from my iphone and I've been working on figuring out how to use those images in blogposts...)

But, as this picture shows, she's slowly getting bolder and more curious... last night I was here alone and putting away our clothes and stuff and she kept kind of wandering in and out of the room...still very uneasy and freaking out at the smallest sound but at least not cowering in the closet! Progress!

This house is definitely *louder*... something that must be very different for Smarty. The creaky stairs cannot be understated...they're quite loud, and there aren't really ways to ascend or descend without sounding like an elephant. We hear this might be a challenge once there's a baby to wake up. Because, he/she WILL be woken up with these steps.

Another long day of unpacking ahead of us... I have to somehow fit schoolwork in today as well (something I've neglected for 2 days now...) I also have the goal of making dinner in the new kitchen tonight. Woohoo!

The work we've done:

2009-03-28T08:34:00.001-04:00

Lord knows I don't have anything better to do... so I'll post some pics of our remodeling week. :)

Here's the obligatory first pic of us in front of our new home. :)
First up is the OFFICE.
Before:

After! The wall is Pinniped (Martha Stewart color...) and I thought it'd be more gray/brown, but it has a definite purple hue to it. But I'm ok w/ it, it's not too girly or anything.

Now... the Master Bedroom! Was boring white...

Now it's "Chive" :) It's the same color we painted the bedroom at our townhouse, but we really liked it and had a bucket leftover... even though it took two buckets. Oh well!

Guest Bedroom (downstairs)
Before:
After! It DOES still have the nasty brassy fan, but we're working on replacing that. Love the way this one turned out!

And lastly, the downstairs bathroom/guest bathroom. You'll surely remember this gorgeous wallpaper and drapery!

And... the AFTER! :) (I'm REALLY excited about how this one turned out, if you can't tell!

MASTER PAINTER! :) (Though, I did a lot of priming and coats of white in the bathroom too!)

Packing

2009-03-25T07:03:00.005-04:00

Isn't our girl just the cutest? We feel so negligent... she's been spending so much time alone at the "old house" while we're spending our evenings at the new house. We keep telling her it'll be worth it, and she'll have so much space to herself, a screened in porch and a special closet for her bathroom, but she doesn't quite get it yet. When we get home late at night she's pretty much got a one track mind: FOOOOOOOOD! FEEEEEED MEEEE!

And she does love being inside cupboards, especially empty ones that have been packed up :)

(See, I'm packing!)

House Progress & I heart Jersey Mike's

2009-03-23T09:19:00.003-04:00

The first weekend in our home ridiculously tiring and long... yet wonderful. Scott and I made some definite headway in our ambitious first week plans on the new house. We still have a long week ahead of us until the movers show up 9am on Friday, but I actually feel like maybe we can get there?

Our goal is to do one room at a time, and to COMPLETE that room before moving on to other rooms... like do all of the little and big improvements at once.

So here's the list and our progress. I'm hoping to get pictures up this week sometime...because I'm really proud & happy w/ how it all turned out!

-Paint the master bedroom (check), replace light switches & outlets w/ white (tonight), replace doorknobs (check).
-Master Closet: Replace brass knobs on built-in stuff (check), replace light fixture (tonight?), replace doorknob (check).
-Office: paint one wall (check) and do the outlets & doorknob (this week)
-Guest Bedroom: paint walls (check) and trim (half done), do outlets & lightswitch. We also need to do SOMETHING about the ceiling fan in there bc OMG it's so ugly. :)

So, long week ahead of us, but I also do feel that the more we can get done before all of our stuff gets there, the happier we'll be.

One awesome discovery of the weekend: I love Jersey Mike's. And Scott is eating his heart out bc at random times over the past, oh, 6 months he'd be suggesting places we could go get dinner and say Jersey Mike's and I'd be like..."meh". I'd eaten there once and just thought it wasn't that special. Well, for some reason I agreed to go there Saturday and wouldn't shut UP about how good my sub was. I think the only thing I said the whole time we were eating it was some variation of "Oh man, this is so good." Just so you know, a #7, Mike's Way? Life changing. (Or maybe we were just really hungry!) We totally had the same thing for lunch the next day.

TIRED!

2009-03-21T07:44:00.004-04:00

One day in and we're totally drained... this could be a very long weekend! Or... 30 years.

Yesterday went well, we signed the obligatory 893 papers and initialed here, here and here. We spent the entire afternoon and evening at the house painting and getting paint on the bottoms of our feet and tracking it around the upstairs. Good times. Our new neighbors Cara & Steve brought the Welcome Wagon pizza & beer over in the evening, which was just what we needed. (I should make it clear it's not an official WW effort, they are existing friends that now happen to be our neighbors! Woohoo!)

Some highlights:

My feet are KILLING me today because I was walking around barefoot on the hardwood. Didn't realize that would happen...
We painted the master bedroom the exact same color our current master is, and somehow needed two buckets for this room where as the old room only needed one. How fun. ;)
We're trying to replace the lightswitches & outlets... but we have aluminum wiring. Does anyone know how to do this w/ out burning down the house and/or electrocuting yourself? Seriously, if anyone has any advice, please email me!
Yesterday we worked hard, we really did, but we also were dumb in that we didn't stay hydrated and well fed... must stay on top of that today.
Today we get our fridge! Making the above point a little easier...

Today we're heading over there in a little... grabbing some paint for the guest room/Quiggy Suite (as it is now called)... We're also addressing the very important issue of the wallpaper this morning. I have this wallpaper tool that's been loaned to me that looks a little scary :)

Thanks for all the well-wishes & posts on facebook! :)

Tomorrow!

2009-03-19T18:36:00.006-04:00

Tomorrow we sign on our new house! :) Sorry I've been a bit MIA this week... lots going on. And of course, my old stand-bys for blog topics - books & recipes - not so much doing either of those things lately! We've boxed up a lot of our stuff, and the plan is to get in there tomorrow and paint, paint, paint!! We're moving our stuff the following Friday, the 27th. Or I should say movers will be moving our stuff (and no, not the ones who asked our size in my last post!)

Of course, we're super excited. I keep telling myself this is really happening... it all happened so fast. Which is good, bc I'm generally not a patient person.

Hopefully I'll have some fun pictures after the weekend to share.

While searching for movers...

2009-03-11T12:26:00.002-04:00

I found this little gem...

I'm checking out the form, browsing over the information they require to quote us for a move. I'm just curious about why the care what SIZE the RESIDENTS are? I mean, excuse me, I'm not going to just put my size out there. And upon scrolling down, it asks how many ROOMS we fill up? :) Oh education system, how could you not educate the movers of our society...

Well, it amused me.

Oh, also their slogan made me laugh, because they're concerned about my (plural) backs.

It is truly hard for me to look at these websites. Truly...

Approved!

2009-03-09T12:40:00.003-04:00

On to closing!

You want to talk about an arduous task, try applying for a loan when you both have jobs and good credit. Maybe someday I'll write about the insanity that was our loan hoop-jumping! I'm afraid the loan industry has gone from offering hundreds of thousands of dollars to anyone with a pulse to making it overwhelmingly hard for qualified people. :)

But for now... Yay! Time to pack, buy a fridge and mooooove!

You are an obsession, you're my obsession

2009-03-09T08:36:00.004-04:00

(...now that song's in your head!)

I'm obsessed w/ blogs. I just love them! Bear in mind, I'm in the final throes of a project detailing how to blog for corporations (I know my readers are really interested in that... totally). But I've been doing lots and lots of research and have found some interesting blogs. They're not even blogs about blogs!

Jobless and Less - The Blog for the Employmentally Challenged. It's a guy blogging through being laid off and looking for a job in this crap economy. It seems really funny, though I did just find it. It's also interesting, since so many people are going through this now.

Mark Cuban's Blog Maverick - I've also just started following this one, but it seems interesting. He's the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, and a well-known entrepreneur & Web 2.0 enthusiast. He has bold opinions too.

FAILblog.org is also a great time... very random but they have lots of updates. And you can't make that stuff up.

Also, I don't know what I would do if not for my Google Reader. It's awesome... would it be bad to be a Web 2.0 Junkie?

Also, I'm debating Twitter (mainly in my head at this point)... I'm on the fence between thinking it's a lame outlet for the self-absorbed and potentially really fun and revolutionary...

Broad Street Run Training: Commence

2009-03-05T09:47:00.004-05:00

So, it is time. I have been equivocating all over the place on my running intentions. I WAS going to run the Raleigh Rocks Half Marathon on the 28th, but seeing as we're moving that weekend I decided to scrap it. Which I am okay with, but like clockwork as soon as I made that decision, I dropped off the running bandwagon. All of the sudden stuff like "it's too cold" or "I just don't wanna" were excuses that I let myself use.

No more, my friends. I am rededicating myself to training. We are going up to Philly in the beginning of May for Ginty's wedding, and spending the weekend in Philly w/ some of my friends (like I did last year!) And I loved the Broad Street last year, so I'm officially officially doing it now. I think I'll be using the same plan I did last year: Hal Higdon's 15K plan. It worked well for me (and it's less intense than the half marathon training as it only requires 3 runs a week, not 4.) I think I'm one of those super fun and non-uptight people who need to have a PLAN at all times. (Scott's nodding his head because he's known this for years.) I'll be jumping in a few weeks into it, since I have run maybe 2-3x a week (okay, 2x a week) for the past few weeks. Anyway, I feel like I can handle Week 3 this week, and might skip Week 4 (it's for pansies).

It's good to have a plan :)

Add this to the list of things we're excited about in the new house:

2009-03-03T09:32:00.004-05:00

Garage.

I wish I had snapped a pic before it was all scraped off... I had to use way more strength than I'd like to admit to open the iced-over door this morning to start the car. SERIOUS refreezing occurred last night.

But isn't Scott too sweet for scraping my car for me? :)

Crow Lake

2009-03-03T09:18:00.002-05:00

We're actually discussing this book tonight at book club, and I have no idea what I'm going to say, honestly. Did I like it? Not really. But the thing I'm struggling with is articulating WHY I didn't enjoy it or feel it had value at all. I can't figure out how to approach it...

As a writer, and one who studies writing in school, I think the writing was baaaaad. We actually talked about "voice" in one of my classes this past week, and what makes an author's voice, what differentiates authors from one another, etc. Maybe that was a bad talk to have before picking up this book, because I felt like the storyteller and main character, Kate's, voice was just impossible to nail down. She was all over the place. She's a college professor (at...27 I think it was? Really? How easy is grad school in Canada?) yet she randomly slips into some sort of backwoodsy sentence constructions. But only sometimes. And not in such a way that you'd be all like "Oh, the inconsistencies tell you something about her character." In the way that made me think "Who edited this crap?" (Oh, I hope school has not ruined me forever...)

As a reader and a lover of books, in some ways it felt like a waste of time. It wasn't *boring* per se (though I will say I took 2 naps - something I NEVER do - on Friday and Saturday while trying to get through this book. It could have been the dreary weather and Spring Break fatigue... but Crow Lake certainly played a role in it!!!) Since there wasn't much interesting ON the paper to ponder, I guess I just let my critical mind wander and started wondering why the author didn't go anywhere new and interesting with the plot. It felt like there were a bunch of interesting and potentially conflicting roads she could go down, but she just didn't. The ending brought it all together, but I still was a little mad bc I wish the author had told me some of that stuff sooner so I could have been interested in the book before page 270!! I also happen to believe the ending was kind of an easy and unbelievable ending... the character's realizations are good, but the plot was just sophomoric. :)

Maybe I'll think of some positive things to say about it. I love books, I love reading, and I don't get to do much of it during the semester. I SO wanted to like this book, and I only say that because when I feel so negative about a book I question my attitude - like did I really give this book a chance? I TRIED... but oh well. Not every book can be awesome, and I'll try to think of it like cleansing my palate.

Shrimp Scampi Linguine

2009-02-28T08:42:00.004-05:00

So, I realize this is about 2 weeks after the fact, but here is the recipe that Scott made me for Valentines' Day with some pictures :) It was SO delicious, made lots of leftovers and Scott has decided it's his new "thing" to make it for me. He actually made it last weekend too!

Shrimp Scampi Linguine Pasta

From: Food Network

1 pound linguini
4 tablespoons butter (Halfed this)
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling (We halfed this)
2 shallots, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
Pinch red pepper flakes, optional (NO MORE THAN A PINCH!!)
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined (We used chicken the second time to be cheap, it was good, but not quite as good as the shrimpies!)
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry white wine
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley leaves

Directions

For the pasta, put a large pot of water on the stove to boil. When it has come to the boil, add a couple of tablespoons of salt and the linguini. Stir to make sure the pasta separates; cover. When the water returns to a boil, cook for about 6 to 8 minutes or until the pasta is not quite done. Drain the pasta.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, melt 2 tablespoons butter in 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium-high heat. Saute the shallots, garlic, and red pepper flakes (if using) until the shallots are translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Season the shrimp with salt and pepper; add them to the pan and cook until they have turned pink, about 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the shrimp from the pan; set aside and keep warm. Add wine and lemon juice and bring to a boil. Add 2 tablespoons butter and 2 tablespoons oil. When the butter has melted, return the shrimp to the pan along with the parsley and cooked pasta. Stir well and season with salt and pepper. Drizzle over a bit more olive oil and serve immediately.

This is the mess he made :) It was quite impressive... of course I helped clean up!

One thing that is cool about this recipe is I think it could easily incorporate other ingredients - if you have extra tomatoes or broccoli or WHATEVER, it could be added to this meal.

Spring Break!! Woohoo!

2009-02-26T08:30:00.000-05:00

I was looking for the direct Friends quote there, but incidentally, a google search for "Friends Spring Break Woohoo" doesn't bring up Chandler's quote. And def no relevant IMAGES!

So, wow, it's almost Spring Break - how weird is it that it's still February? Just a mental thing... Spring does not occur in Feb...I guess my semester is over before May starts though, so NC State's calendar is just running a little early this year. So far, it's going well. It's most definitely hard, with 3 classes and working 20 hours a week, oh and the small matter of buying a home and all the hoop-jumping to get a loan. My classes are better this semester - though I'd say harder. I feel like most of my classes are giving me experiences that will better prepare me for a job in the field, a feeling I didn't have as much last semester when I was heavy into theory classes. This makes me feel better about busting my butt, forgoing small pleasures such as reading non-school books and "relaxing."

But next week, oh next week, will be different! No classes! This weekend, I have a mission to read this month's book club book (Crow Lake)! I actually started it this morning and can say that I don't think plowing through it at the rate circumstances demand will be a problem.

And who knows what other stuff I'll find to get into, most likely it'll be some sort of packing/organizing/cleaning. Since I've been fairly slack on all of those, and things are about to pick up majorly.

Dollar Bills

2009-02-25T10:19:00.005-05:00

So, in an effort to scrounge every available dollar we can find, I've been listing (and re-listing, and re-re-listing) some stuff we don't need or want on Craig's List. I have such a love/hate relationship with this site... I recently sold my old cellphone (Motorola Razr) for $40! I was SHOCKED it could bring in that kind of money, being nearly 3 years old, but who am I to say no to two crisp 20's? That's the "love" part... it's all roses once you get the cash and don't have to deal w/ the junk anymore.

But, (here's the "hate") it is such a pain, because I received "inquiry" emails from about 10 people before finding the chick who was willing to drive from Hillsborough and meet me to get the Razr. And (not to generalize, but) all of the emails I've received in response to technology related postings have been in this vein: (This is a direct copy/paste)

Do you still have this phone

(no punctuation or salutation) Wow...um... ok? But you know what? I do it, because I like money. :) I also like getting rid of stuff we don't need or like.

It's time consuming, and probably not the most efficient system, but it's what we have now. Hopefully in a few years there will be a much more efficient way of doing this! But for now, we're enjoying having a little extra (just a little) cash.

I'm currently listing the first two Twilight books for $15. I'm curious how that'll go...

Snippet of a conversation Scott and I keep having, and it continually amuses us...(we, like most people, use credit cards for EV.ERY.THING, including the $1.99 cup of coffee.)

J: (takes out a $20 and looks at it quizzically) S, what do you think this is?
S: (furrows brow and ponders) Hmmm, I'm not sure... is it some sort of paper you can write notes on it? What's with all the green ink on it? Is that a picture on it?
J: I'm not sure, I don't see these sorts of papers too often. What are we supposed to do with it?
S: (takes $20 from J and examines it) It seems old.

(and on an on.) I'm so glad we have each other to have nonesense interactions with... I'm not sure that many people would continue to humor me as well as Scott does (and vice versa, of course!)

Ok, now they're all up :)

2009-02-21T14:22:00.002-05:00

On Flickr
Feedback on decorating/painting/remodeling is truly welcome! :)

Full set of house pics!

2009-02-20T08:53:00.005-05:00

So yesterday we had our home inspection! It was nice to spend some quality time in the new house, and "get to know" it :) I took a buttload of pictures, and I uploaded a few before the flickr uploader crapped out on me this morning. I intend to do the rest tonight.

So, interweb, take a look at these pics. They have captions and I'd love feedback on any type of suggestions you might have. Other than "Your house looks like a barn"... that's just not productive. :)

Picture Time (Check back this weekend for the full 113 picture set - right now it's just landscaping.)

And also...
Scott and I are also having an back and forth that goes like this:

J: "I think we should use mulch on the landscaping"
S: "OMG, you're so dumb. We should use pinestraw."
J: "OMG, YOU'RE the dumb one. Pinestraw is for losers."
(ETC... on and on into infinity.)

Thoughts are welcome on this topic too. Likely we'll just agree to disagree and let the yard fall into disarray. And then the 'hood will petition for our removal. (Sigh.)

"Hey Jame, is this a skillet?"

2009-02-14T16:04:00.003-05:00

At the moment, Scott is concocting something delicious for me in honor of Valentine's Day. I'm not allowed to know what it is until some point at the future, though hopefully he won't do one of those "now wear this blindfold and give it a try" scenarios. I'm excited, though I do feel it's worth including that before I moved myself & all my homework upstairs, he asked me "Hey Jame, is this a skillet?" I laughed and nodded, and he said "Shut up, it's gonna be good. " I hope he's right. :) At least we're clear on the skillet issue.

I'll post a recipe! You know, since I haven't posted one in months.

We'll probably watch Mad Men on DVD - we have that from Netflix right now and I highly recommend it. I especially think my parents & grandparents might enjoy it since it takes place in the 1950's. It's a largely neglected time frame for television. Sad. A lot of good things came out of the 50's!

...Our New HOME!

2009-02-13T08:21:00.004-05:00

We'll be living in a house with a hat! We got a fabulous deal, and we feel really good about our new home. It grew on us the more we saw it, and hopefully that continues when we live there. We have tons to do in between now and then, including NEVER BUYING ANYTHING EVER AGAIN. :) Which could actually be a challenge since it's 2890 sf. Good deal... if anyone is giving away any furniture, holler at us.

Now, before you look at these, realize that everything will be painted (ahem Master Bath ahem).

We noticed that they DID take down this wallpaper border at some point in between the MLS pics and today. HOT wallpaper. Seriously... this will be painted .2 seconds after closing.

The GLORIOUS yard. I love it...
Some other features we liked were: intercom (yeah! 1967!), a kitty door for Smarty's litter box, screened in porch, totally awesome wooden swingset, downstairs guest bedroom, the biggest bonus room ever! We just really fell in love with it over time... it did not happen immediately. I think most definitely the kitchen is our first project.

To celebrate today, we had Kraft Mac & Cheese for dinner and a can of Miller Lite. Cause we're high rollers now that we're homeowners. :)

Vague and Shady

2009-02-12T11:37:00.003-05:00

Yet again, I've broken my promise to not neglect the blog. Let me explain what's been going on:

We put in an offer on a house today. Our life is consumed with lingo and %'s and all kinds of unfathomably large numbers. And I don't really want to blog about specifics, and since we've been super busy anyway, I've just taken a break on blogging. But we're really excited, and we put the offer in today, so cross your fingers for us!!

More info to come. And pictures if they accept the offer.

This vague and shady post has been brought to you by...Jamie!

Um, oh yeah.

2009-01-28T21:45:00.003-05:00

So, I got a job. This is a weird and random way to update, I know, but it all happened really quickly and I've been busy ever since, so this is what you get :). It's an internship with a strategic consulting firm that does a lot of stuff with the EPA. I'm pretty excited about the people I'll be working with, and the work seems interesting. They pay me, so I'll shut up about it if not. Note to employers: I can be bought. They hired me Monday and I started yesterday... see, quick? I like to withhold information, it makes me feel powerful.

Things definitely feel back at a frantic pace, but it was what I kept complaining about before where I didn't have enough to do. It should be good experience, and you never know who'll hire me when I have my MS!!!

But, oh blog, I will not neglect thee. Really, this time I mean it.

P is for Perfect waste of time :)

2009-01-27T18:18:00.000-05:00

So, I've been tagged - thanks Katie! The game is coming up w/ 10 things that start w/ that letter. I have homework to do, and will probably just be lazy & have leftovers tonight, but this is fun so I'm doing it. :)

10 Random things that start w/ P...

1. PhD. I'm married to one.
2. President - I have now shaken TWO president's hands - Obama & Clinton (today!) I shook Kerry's too, but we all know what became of him.
3. Pain in the butt... That's what I think of grocery shopping.
4. Privilege. I'm a little introspective today, after Clinton's speech yesterday about "the world today" and just how many people don't have food and other basic needs. It's making me be extra grateful that I have so much respective to so many in the world.
5. Pei Wei. I had lunch there yesterday w/ my dad, and the chick brought Dad the wrong food. She brought Kung Pao shrimp instead of chicken for my dad, and just threw away the shrimp they made. See #4, and understand why it upset me. 35 million people go to bed hungry, chickie, and we're throwing away perfectly good kung pao shrimp??
6. Philly - we're going to Philly (and the Dirty Jerz - for Ginty's wedding!) the first weekend in May and I'm already excited. I want to go see the Liberty Bell & Independence Hall, because even though I'm a Pennsylvanian by birth, I don't think I've ever seen these things.
7. Pansy. I am one, bc even though it's not *that* cold out, I think I'm going to cop out on running this afernoon.
8. Poor. Bc we're trying to buy a house. Which will be cool... but for now no $$ spending allowed.
9. Posting on my blog. I need to keep up w/ that more. I love reading blogs, so it's only fair that I contribute.
10. Punctuation. I'm reading Eats, Shoots & Leaves right now and it's a surprisingly funny book about commas, apostrophes and other misused and misunderstood punctuation. I know that sounds dorky, it is. But it's funny. (it's=it is. See? I'm learning)

Now to keep the game going I'm tagging Jackie with N , Heather with B and K-Fud with F(if she still does her blog! Ohhh, burn.) And I also won't be at all offended if they don't do it. I do feel powerful (P!) choosing everyone's letters though...

Blogs

2009-01-25T08:28:00.002-05:00

So, at the moment I'm quite excited about blogs. I'm reading The Huffington Post's Complete Guide to Blogging and it's really, really interesting. It is a medium that has totally revolutionized the way we read, get news and the way traditional media has to cover news. In my opinion, for the better, as stories that traditional media might have let fall through the cracks get caught by bloggers and forced into the public discourse. Blogs give so many more people a pulpit and a voice - the natural order of certain voices having more power than others has been flattened (to throw in concepts from another book I'm reading - The World Is Flat). They throw around the term "democratizing technology," which though it sounds all uppity and high brow, actually kind of fits. The book lays out a lot of best practices for current bloggers and how to's for new bloggers... Though HuffPost is political in nature, the book isn't over the top w/ the lefty views.

If you can't tell by the way I'm talking about this, I'm quite taken with blogs and their power. And in today's technological climate (which is only getting moreso), it's almost an essential tool and skill for businesses to have to connect with their constituents. I'm not exactly sure the form it'll take just yet, but seeing as I'm about half way through my masters program and have a large capstone project looming next year, I'm thinking it'll have to do with blogs in some way. And perhaps even my life's work will have to do with blogs... wouldn't that be cool!

This is objectively awesome!

2009-01-23T14:21:00.003-05:00

To quote Jack Donaghy from 30 Rock, one of my favorite characters.

Here's a story about how one Democrat and one Republican pulled together to help Jamie meet the former President...
First up - Casey the Dem! Woot woot! I'm volunteering at a fundraiser pre-speech and I have the very exciting job of manning the Photo Room. He was sweet enough to say I'm "helping him out," which is pretty funny bc this "favor" pretty much makes my year. I'm hoping there's time for a Jamie & Bill photo in there. I'm going to try to play it cool. You know. And not tip my hand that I never really was all that into a Hillary Clinton presidency and that I was in 5th grade when he got inaugurated. I will not say any of those things. Probably not.

Then, thanks to my awesome Republican dad I have 2 VIP tickets to the speech (did you ever think I'd put awesome and republican beside each other, without not preceeding awesome??? hahahahah, me neither...) My friend Kathleen was a doll and picked them up today and we're gonna be hooked up on Monday! And she's pregnant so $20 we get to go to the front of the VIP line. (haha, except maybe really!)

I am so psyched, I have the best guys looking out for me! I get to meet Bill Clinton on Monday!! Picture coming soon...

OH - and I have a student General Admission ticket printed. I'm willing to donate it to anyone who wants it, along with the borrowing of my student ID so you can pass as Jamie... Just email me.

A bulleted list of things that are going on...

2009-01-19T18:44:00.003-05:00

I feel like I've been a bad blogger the past few days, so here's the rundown:

School started. I'm reading a lot of boring stuff all the time now.
Tomorrow's a big day here in NC! They're calling for some snow, and if it materializes the forecast is for it to stay below freezing, so... it'll stay! We might get a snow day for Inauguration!!
I finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I hearted it... I'd read it a googloplex times.
We met w/ a realtor, we're looking at houses Sunday. Hi, American Dream? Yeah, it's us. Oh, and Economy? Thanks for screwing a bunch of homeowners to make it cheap for us! (thumbs up!)
Because of the prior bullet (and just our general attitudes), we keep the heat low, so it's generally cold in our house. I have resurrected the big fat Irish sweater I got abroad back in the day and wear it pretty much every day. It's about as flattering as it sounds, but sooo warm. I must say, if Stacy and Clinton from What Not to Wear showed up, I wouldn't really be surprised. (Please don't submit me...)
I'm back into running - working toward a definite maybe participation in the Raleigh Rocks 1/2 Marathon March 28th. I have donated the Nike+ to the Ashley Foundation (aka Sister) and am now rocking with my sweet Garmin Forerunner 350. GPS>Nike+. I'm also on board for the Philly Broad Street again (we got our tickets already), and I got a definite maybe (could have been just to shut me up) from Scott too.
Friday Night Lights is back! We've been catching up, rewatching the first and second seasons on Netflix online... it's humorous to me because Scott has played it all like "That's YOUR show, I'm not all that into it" and I was like "Oh... ok, well if you want to watch it we can... I thought you liked it". BUT when the episode is over, who says "You wanna watch another one??" Oh yeah, that's Scott. He's back on the FNL train, woot woot!
Due to the low temp in the house, Smarty is extra cuddly.

That's all I've got...

2 books to kick off 09

2009-01-09T09:05:00.000-05:00

Welp, school started up Thursday... so my reading vacation is officially over. I'm quite happy w/ the amount I was able to cram in, and with any luck I'll be able to keep some of it up throughout the semester this year. Right now I'm reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman and it's really good, but almost too "like school" for me right now, so I think I might dive into a fiction book today. You know, while I still have free time and no homework.

The first of my 2009 reads is Black & White, by Lewis Shiner. I recommend this book for a bunch of reasons. Firstly because I feel cool bc I know the author, and worked with him at IBM this summer. He's a cool guy. And secondly, it takes place in Durham, and I would even call Durham a character in the book, as it plays a very key role in the plot. It's about some "urban renewal" that went on in the late 60's and early 70's in which a prosperous and vibrant black community in Durham, Hayti, was basically destroyed to build what is now the Durham Freeway. I found it interesting since I live so close to it, and most of those parts of the book were accurate. And it's pretty appalling what was allowed to go on in Durham, and in many cities across the country at that time. I didn't realize the building of the Durham freeway was so closely tied to the establishment of RTP and all the businesses that moved there, ultimately making this area grow and thrive.

Besides the historical aspect, the basic synopsis of the book is this: A guy (Michael) who grew up in Texas comes back to Durham as his father is dying. His father was a highway engineer in the late 60's and played a key role in the destruction of Hayti and never really talked about it. The book follows Michael's investigation and revelations as to what really went on. At times it read like a Dan Brown book, but so much more substantial! I'll loan it out to anyone who wants it.

If you're into multi-media - here's the audio of when Lew was on the local NPR show talking about the book.

And the second book I read this week (I'm a MACHINE!!) was also kind of depressing but SOOO good. It's called A Long Way Gone, a Memiors of a Boy Soldier, by Ishmael Beah. I gave it 5 stars on my shelfari shelf, it was an amazing book. I came close to putting it down bc I wasn't "in the mood" for a depressing read, but it kind of grabbed me by the brain and I couldn't put it down. The most poignant detail in my mind the whole time was that this isn't some ancient history - this boy is my age. MY AGE. (Well, actually he's a year older, but you know... close enough). And his life was so different - while I was at middle school dances he was trying not to get killed in the forests of Africa. While I was whining about one thing or another in high school he was a freaking boy soldier and addicted to drugs and brainwashed into indiscriminate killing and violence.

It's just an amazing story of redemption and (as corny as this sounds) triumph of the human spirit. I can't imagine going through what he went through... and it's sad to me to think that people ARE still going through what he went through. It definitely put some perspective on the life I live. It changes the way I look at news coming out of Africa. A GREAT book.

Happy 2009!!

2009-01-05T08:53:00.002-05:00

Omg, 2009... wow! 2008 was a great year, in our opinion. Scott and I were doing a recap of all of the wonderful things we did and changes that happened and we feel it was maybe our best year yet! So, in honor of that revelation, I did NOT eat pork and saurkraut (well, not the kraut, I did eat the pork), which is a PA tradition for good luck on New Years. Maybe I've suffered through sticking one nasty strand of saurkraut in my food for no good reason all these years! I definitely didn't do it to ring in 2008, since we were in NC last year. So, now that's my superstition :)

While I don't really have any resolutions this year, I can say there are a few things I'd kind of gotten less dedicated to or completely stopped doing at the end of last year. And with the craziness of the holidays over, I'm even more excited to dive back in and rededicate myself to the things that keep me centered: reading good books, cooking good healthy food (and trying new things), and running. Cheers to a healthy and happy 2009!

Christmas Wishes (shooting out of your eyes)

2008-12-25T21:35:00.003-05:00

...sorry, that's from 30 Rock! Gotta love a Jordan Christmas.So, ho-ho-ho! This is our Christmas card!!! It's green and cheap (free) and conserves time :). We had a great holiday in NC with my parents and sister. We watched the entire John Adams miniseries which was educational, inspirational and fun! Scott and I exchanged gifts this morning - and a first for us - we woke up in our own home on Christmas morning! We're off to Pennsylvania for a week, with a stop by DC to visit Spector in 2009.

Merry Christmas everyone!

The Other Queen & Atonement

2008-12-23T16:26:00.003-05:00

Good Book and Better Book!

Ok, so The Other Queen is the latest in the Tudor series by Philippa Gregory. It's told from three perspectives and mainly about Mary Queen of Scots and all the stuff she went through. She had a pretty tragic life... I guess I never really knew! It was really interesting, with the different storytellers and stuff. I don't have a whole heck of a lot to say about this book... as usual with the Tudor books it makes me thankful to be a woman in modern times and not one who had to be subservient to men at all times, back in the late 1500s. No thanks. Sometimes when I read I just like to be transported to a different world, and P-Gregg does that. I do adore the Tudor series... and while this one wasn't the best, it was definitely a great read and stacks up well to the others!

Now...for the GREAT book (I said "better" above, but I'm upgrading it after having just reflected on The Other Queen!) Atonement... oh, why did it take me so long to warm to this book!? I tried to read it years ago and wrote it off as boring and hard to get into. Oh, Jamie from a few years ago, you ignorant twit. I finished it not an hour ago and closed it and clapped (as I usually do... for good books at least) and immediately added it to my short list of favorite all time books. It's SO good.
While I was reading it, since it was kind of about a writer, I kept reflecting on how the novel was put together and it just seemed impeccable, like I was taking a class on "how to write a novel" and this was required reading. Everything about it just seemed like a work of art - the writing was very literature-y, and I guess I can see how maybe if you're not into that kind of thing you might think it's "boring and hard to get into." But you'll be missing a great book, just sayin.

I am not going to go into a ton of depth on the plot. It spans I guess about 60 years, and covers family relationships, war, forgiveness (aka atonement) and how one night can change 3 lives. I was stunned by how wonderful the writing was. However you say this dude's name, he's the real deal, and I'll be searching for more books by him in 09! And I'm kind of excited to see the movie... I think the cast looks well chosen and it was up for all kinds of awards last year. Maybe it'll be a good representation :)

Here's a quote I really liked, from the introspective young writer, Briony (p38):
"It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value That was the only moral a story need have."

Ok, I think I'm going lighthearted next. Skipping Christmas, John Grisham :)

Meet the Wilkinsons!

2008-12-22T09:39:00.003-05:00

Here are some good pics from the wedding! They weren't quite as wonderful as I was hoping, but who knew that heavy drinking (at the reception... I'm not that tacky ;))and use of a Nikon D80 didn't complement each other??? :)

Cara and the two kids - we played a lot of I Spy pre-wedding.
This was the second best thing to happen with a shoe this week... the best? Need you ask? Little Wilmond (is that how you spell it?) liked the fancy black shoes... for chewing.

Will and the ring bearer :)
I liked this one...
Reception! Cara & Steve, our new buddies!
Meet the Wilkinsons! :)
Ash had her company Christmas party the next ballroom over - crazy! Family pic!

Gu gives everyone a practice bubble blowing session...

We had a great time at the wedding, and it was our pleasure to be involved with it :) Here's the link to the flickr album with a few more.

Biltmore Estate and Misc McQ family pics

2008-12-19T08:37:00.006-05:00

We spent most of the day Monday touring the Biltmore Estate and Winery. It was the Vanderbilt's house...er... mansion, and is beyond description. Unfortunately, they don't let you take pictures inside so there's no way to show you the crazy over-the-top opulence (big word, I know, but it's the only one I can think of to fit!) Some highlights for me: indoor swimming pool, the "man wing" of the house that had a secret door in the wall, the "Don't Tread On Me" flag (but that's only bc Scott and I are obsessed w/ the HBO miniseries John Adams), and I looooved the library.

So here's some pics:

If you're wondering what's up w/ the "look", it's bc he's saying "Jame, stop taking pictures of me." This one had a bus-full of hyper middle schoolers off to the side looking. I think he was worried what they would think :)

These old and crotchety trees were just amazing!

I call this one "two men with computer bags":
Wow.
They brought the sass all on their own...

Family pic!!

There's more to come... if you can believe it!! :)

Asheville!

2008-12-17T12:47:00.005-05:00

...was awesome! We had such a great time. We left Sunday night with Scott's parents, who were in town for the wedding. I'm uploading all of the pics today... and will post them to the blog when I can! Here's the first installment. Our first night there, we went to the Grove Park Inn for the Gingerbread House exhibit - I think it's a national competition where everything has to be edible and the most creative and prettiest win. It was definitely amazing! Strolling around the Grove Park Inn was pretty fun too - it's a gorgeous and ritzy hotel. :)

Here's a few awesome Gingerbread Houses:

Ok, now THESE are the good ones! All of the above ones were either made by kids or were honorable mentions. They were just so impressive, I doubt the coolness can be captured, even by a Nikon D80.

Some Christmas decor from the Grove Park! It was so pretty at night...

Scott was really fixated on this butterfly ornament... hmmmmm...
Scott got to see Santa's list!! Lucky!!

Happy Wedding Day, Amy & Casey!

2008-12-13T07:58:00.005-05:00

I'm off in a few hours to spend the day at the Wilkinson-Beattie wedding, and I'm so excited! Congrats to the bride & groom (and happy 11 year dating anniversary too!)

Another classic memory from this summer!

We're off to Asheville for a few days on Sunday, so I'll have lots of pictures when we return!!

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

2008-12-10T08:51:00.004-05:00

Ok, so let me start off by doing some PR for the book, since it seems that is its biggest problem. If you judge books by their covers (who doesn't?), you might never read this one. In my opinion, the title is lame... and while it does play into the book, it misrepresents the nature of the book and probably turns a lot of people off of it who might really enjoy it! After reading the summary, my first thought was, oh, it's like Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It's so not the same... and I'm gonna go w/ it's better than that! Oh, and all the quotes on my book from magazines and other authors made it sound like chick lit. I'm not sure the official definition of chick lit, but I personally wouldn't consider this it. It had a dynamic plot, character development, big words.... it's just *about* women.

It's about a group of 5 women who live on the same street and start up a book club. It kind of chronicles all of the stuff they go through in raising their kids, life with their husbands and various other issues... it's a huge book. I read it super quickly because the writing was awesome, and the characters were great. I really wished they were real, and I'm sad to be done with the book! I think I'll read it again someday... there are a lot of sections that might read really differently after you've had and raised kids. So, note to self: In 30 years, read this book.

I highly recommend this book - it's a quick and engaging read and well worth it.

Photos :)

2008-12-09T08:16:00.004-05:00

So, I uploaded some photos on flickr (I upgraded so I have unlimited storage, because face it, I take lots of pictures these days!). My photostream can be found here:
http://flickr.com/photos/24936116@N07/

I'm going to be uploading gradually all the pics I've taken (mostly Thanksgiving & babies), and once I get caught up, I hope to do it more as they're being taken! Stay tuned!

For now, here's the "Sophie" album...

Poisonwood Bible (Finally!)

2008-12-07T19:20:00.004-05:00

I finished it on Friday! Yay!

Can I just say I loved this book? It definitely had some rough spots where it was a little hard to read...and in retrospect it probably wasn't the best "easy" book for me to read intermittently through the semester, but I made it work. It's about a family of 4 daughters whose father is a crazy Baptist minister (not implying all Baptists are crazy, this guy was Crazy, capital C!!). They go on a mission to Africa and in doing so, he tries to convert the village to Christianity... (non-spoiler)...it doesn't go well. It's a really interesting glimpse into African life, how different it is from American life, and what the experience does to the family. I really liked how the story was told - through the voices of the daughters. It was surprisingly real and relate-able, even though it was a pretty "out there" story. It took me forever to get to it, and even longer to finish it, but I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Now, I'm reading Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons (my Dec Book Club book)... I love it so far, from what I can tell it's just a book that needs a better title. It's fabulous, but sounds a little weird/scary if you judge books by their covers & titles.

So many pictures!

2008-12-04T11:17:00.004-05:00

If ever there was a captionable picture, this is it!! Scott and I are in love w/ our gorgeous and sweet niece, Sophie. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving trip to PA, and for real, I have more pictures than I can handle. I'm trying to figure out a way to share them online that will allow me to post them all... picasa and flickr make you "upgrade" to have more storage.

Those of you waiting on pictures, do you have any preferences on how I upload them? I've been using photobucket, but sometimes that gets annoying, and I'm not sure you can see them if you don't have a login set up there. Any thoughts?

Oh, and I'm *almost* done w/ my last paper, then I get to START READING again! Here's my reading list for December:

Poisonwood Bible (yes, still reading it from like October... skool...)
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Black & White (by Lewis Shiner) - about Durham, and was written by a coworker from IBM, it sounds cool.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman

Ok...that feels like a lot... we'll see :)

Bear with me!

2008-11-23T10:45:00.002-05:00

I'm really coming down to "crunch time" on my first full time semester... it flew by all in all, and I can only hope that the next 2.5 weeks also fly by bc dude, then I have an entire month to do the college thing. Now that part - the one where you have a month off? Yeah, that's the good part!

So, we're headed up to PA for Thanksgiving next weekend (and we get to meet our niece! Finally!)

I'm hoping to do fun things with my time off... and surely I'll blog about it! :)

Record: Most pictures taken in a day...

2008-11-15T14:36:00.004-05:00

I got a KILLER new camera - it's so much fun!!! It's been a fabulous day - we just ate our weight in fondue and bread at The Melting Pot. Good times. :) It's been a happy day...

Halfing Fun

2008-11-14T08:49:00.007-05:00

Yes, that's a cute title, and yes, I thought of it while running 13.1 miles. You get bored out there... Here's "the girls"! These fabulous girls are the ones I've been running with every weekend and some weeknights for the past 3 months. Sometimes I seriously wonder how people train for a half all by themselves - it was so nice to have their company through all the mileage! And of course, you recognize the "tall one" - Nikkkki! We had a great time, even though her first trip to the Outer Banks wasn't quite leisurely :)

Some more pics...

Jockey's Ridge - not that these pictures do it justice :) It was way cool.

A shadow running pic, we're so awesome.

And a "love" pic...lol. At least we have each other...

Here's the Pasta Dinner - it was so delicious! A bunch of the girls got a BIIIG house and then they made us a BIIIIG dinner, so pretty much an awesome set up! :)

does it look like we're sucking it in big time? Bc that pasta is hard to hide... :)

They got us cake! Bill's (Kathleen's husband) birthday was Sunday, and mine is ...coming up tomorrow. So technically, that's a week long celebration, if you count this cake as the beginning... not too shabby!

And here is another post race pic with our medals. Yay! I was so proud - I finished in 2:05:41, which is a 9:36 pace and I remained pretty constant at that. Seeing as my goal originally was "not walking", I kind of amended that once I realized I could do it to under a 10:00/mile... so I'm really pleased with how I did!

Off to the OBX!

2008-11-07T19:58:00.002-05:00

I'm so excited! Nikki arrives in a few hours and we're leaving tomorrow morning to the Outer Banks! We're doing the half marathon on Sunday... and I can't believe I'm going to type this, I can't wait to run 13.1 miles.

I should add that I am MOST excited for the pasta dinner tomorrow night with my running buddies and the massages Nik and I are getting Monday morning. All around, a pretty exciting weekend!

A letter to my president

2008-11-06T11:01:00.001-05:00

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing to thank you today. To thank you for the tremendous campaign you ran which reached out to new voters, disenfranchised voters – anyone who would listen and open their minds to a new idea of what government should be. McCain’s campaign was as divisive as any campaign I’ve witnessed, and the brainpower Palin brought to the table seriously made me doubt whether I could handle living in America if it went the other way. Seriously.

But, I digress… it didn’t go their way. Praise the Lord – we won. Mr. President, thank you for running as the candidate for change, hope and embodying all that is good and pure in America and Americans. You brought out what is GOOD in us, instead of pandering to the lowest common denominator and playing to our fears and politics of division. I want you to know, I believe in you. I know you can do what you say you can do. And if the campaign is any indication of what you can pull off, we're in for a great four years.

Here’s what I’m excited about: Having a smart president. You obviously are a bright guy, and you are even keeled and good natured. I attended three of your rallies in Raleigh and that much about your personality was obvious. I know this is going to rock! I’m proud to say I voted for you, and proud to say I shook your hand a year ago.

Good luck!

Jamie

- - -

Have you guys watched the Will.I.Am video again since he won? If not, grab a tissue or two and watch this... it's amazing. Oh, and NC is blue - the cookies worked! Yay!

Blue North Carolina?

2008-11-03T22:18:00.005-05:00

If only just for tonight, Blue NC (cookies)! :) Do you think election Santa will come if we leave them out tonight??

We don't know what'll happen tomorrow...but since I'm *such* a good sport about March Madness and all that, I got Scott to do some Electoral Map predictions w/ me... here's what we think!

Jamie :
Electoral: Obama 351 (including a Blue NC... a girl can dream!, PA, OH, Montana! and a Red Florida. I just think the senior citizens will go for a peer.)
Popular Vote: Obama 55%, McNasty 41%

Scott:
Electoral: Obama 329 McCain 209 (I think he copied my map and just changed one so the teacher wouldn't notice.)
Popular Vote: 51% Obama, 48% McCain

If any readers want to make predictions - please comment! Here's the site where we found the interactive maps!

WORLD CHAMPS!

2008-10-30T09:22:00.001-04:00

Could go either way...

2008-10-28T10:23:00.004-04:00

I see a potentially awesome week for Jamie and Scott... with the Phillies and Obama looking goooood, and both being obsessions of ours. The question is...what will we do with our time and energy if both are victorious???

We're crossing our fingers for both!

As always, it could be potentially a disastrous week... if there are two entities that know how to play games w/ your heart and mess up a lead, it'd be Philly and the Democratic party. So yeah, crossing the fingers :)

If you're in NC - Early Vote! :) We did, it was fun.

And in case you're not sure if you want to vote democratic, here's some additional persuasion from a real live state congressman in NC...
(pretty sure I just shored up the election... it's a powerful video.)

LOL!

Blergh.

2008-10-11T18:40:00.002-04:00

So, as you know I'm Fall Breakin', and I decided I'd take a break from boring school reading and read a fun book. I had been eyeing up Poisonwood Bible on my shelf for a while, and gave it a go. I'm not even joking, JUST as I was getting "into" it, 30 pages are missing from the book!!! It's odd, bc it's not like there's a chunk out... it just casually is on page 82, then you turn the page and it's 117. I got it off of Paperbackswap a while ago, so I think it's too late to take any action on that. What I'm really annoyed about is that I have time, interest and motivation to fun read at the moment and NO Poisonwood Bible. Blergh.

So, Scott's going to watch Penn State and I'm going to start Jodi Picoult's Plain Truth. But only bc it's about Amish ppl.

Mexican Lasagna

2008-10-09T16:11:00.003-04:00

I found this recipe on Pioneer Woman's blog (awesome pictures!) and thought it looked fantastic, BUUUT, it called for a ridiculous amount of ingredients. 3 lb of ground beef, to be exact. No offense, I do love the PW recipes, but 3 lbs! That's easily 3 weeks of meat for us! lol ! So, I had to make a few downsizings... We went to Trader Joe's this weekend which was not only FUN, but we got lots of fresh ingredients for this meal and I must say, it tasted really fresh and wonderful. :)

Mexican Lasagna

2 packages of Steamfresh Whole Grain Rice
4 tomatoes, diced
2 onions, chopped finely
4-6 garlic cloves chopped finely
1 lb lean ground turkey
Cheese (we used Cheddar & shredded it ourselves...mmmm. Mexican blend cheese would also be great.)
1 c frozen corn, microwaved.
1 jar salsa verde
1 can enchilada sauce
chili powder, paprika & cumin (to taste)
Flour tortillas

Directions:
1. Prepare rice in microwave.
2. Chop tomatoes, onions & garlic. Saute in pan. Add chili powder, cumin and paprika to taste (this is "taco seasoning"... fun fact)
3. Mix with rice & set aside.
4. Brown turkey and add taco seasoning stuff to taste, and add 4-6 oz water.
5. Assemble the lasagna in a 9x13 casserole dish. Here's how the layers go:

1/2 salsa verde
layer of tortillas
1/2 of rice mixture
1/2 of grated cheese
layer of tortillas
enchilada sauce
meat
corn
tortillas
rest of salsa verde
rest of rice
cheese

Bake at 375 for 25-35 min. Serve w/ Sour Cream and say "mmmmm" a lot.

Scattered updates...

2008-10-09T11:50:00.002-04:00

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I'm so sorry! :) I have two wonderful recipes I'll post... here's a recap of what's up w/ us...

1. School: I'm on "Fall Break"... which sounds wonderful but in actuality I only miss one class for it. Oh well, it's a bit of a mental break. Plus I had a bunch of big assignments culminating in the past week and a half so it's a break. Scott is laboring hard to finish his dissertation this weekend.

2. Running: The OBX half marathon is one month exactly from today. Yow-zah. I've been feeling really good with my running, doing long runs on the weekends (up to 8 miles on Sunday!) with some girlfriends and having fun, and getting faster! At the same time, can I admit I'm really excited for the event to be over so I can just run leisurely... this whole training plan is exhausting!

3. Work: My co-op at IBM is over next Friday, leaving me as a full time student. Scott threatened to call me a trophy wife... so I might have to get a job to avoid that! I'm not quite sure what the next step is jobwise for me.

4 Other stuff: We're loving Netflix - latest obsessions are watching 30 Rock (they FINALLY put season 2 on netflix instant queue!) and John Adams, the HBO miniseries. And we're not couch potatoes or anything, but having new TV to watch has been really fun. (Don't mistake "new TV" to mean a new television set. We're still rockin' it old school...)

5. Oh, and we also are going through a lot of Shipyard Pumpkinhead beer. We became obsessed on our trip to Maine last month, and once we discovered we can get cases of it at Total Wine? Well, that did it. If you don't believe me, check our recycling bin.

I will say that Pumpkinhead has made the past two debates VERY enjoyable, where as the first one, sans Pumpkinhead, not so much.

Happy Birthday Sophie!

2008-10-01T08:25:00.005-04:00

My niece, Sophie Anne, was born this morning! So excited to meet you, dearie... in November!

We're so excited!!!! :)

*Edit* Turns out she's wicked cute too!

If I haven't mentioned, I heart Tina Fey.

2008-09-28T13:12:00.003-04:00

Another killer Sarah Palin sketch... I particularly enjoy the call for more "dollar menus" and the request to use a lifeline. And Katie Couric's face...

Still awaiting my Aunthood...

2008-09-26T10:01:00.002-04:00

Good morning Sophie,

Hey, how are ya. So yeah, guess what? It's September 26 - already! Can you believe it? Well yeah, don't know if you've been keeping track as much as we have, and I might add, your mom & dad have, but that's actually *supposed* to be your birthday. So here's the plan, all you have to do is decide to come out. Really...everything else will be taken care of for you! :) And I don't want to spoil anything, but you'll be greeted with more love than you can handle.

So in short, come out!!

Love,
Aunt Jamie

If only it was a cash prize.

2008-09-24T13:11:00.005-04:00

I kept wanting to title this post "Hold my trophy while I kiss your girlfriend." Anyone remember that obnox No Fear tshirt? I remember kids wearing it in elementary school - anyone from my generation who says "kids these days are awful" needs to remember that tshirt! Good morals.

Anyway, here's the story. You know I'm training for a half marathon now... and last weekend my "long run" was replaced by a 5K according to the schedule. I was in Myrtle Beach with my friend Amy & her bridal party for a getaway weekend, so I googled it and lo and behold there's a race in N Myrtle! I registered that morning... it was very small. VERY small - my bib # was 70. It was fun, low key, ON the sand. I did pretty well time-wise so it was good. Well, they happened to give out trophies to the top 3 in each age bracket (which, if you think about it was the vast majority of runners in an 80 person run.) It was fun - made me feel like a winner.

I owe the blog some pics of Maine...I've been super busy with school. Though I'll be honest right now I'm watching The Hills and rolling my eyes. It's gone from vapid entertainment to absolutely pointless. Why can't I turn it off? Ugh.

Watch and laugh

2008-09-16T09:55:00.003-04:00

I will update with all our wonderful Maine pictures and stories, until then, enjoy the funniest sketch ever from SNL this week!! :)