The difference a year makes

I have not posted an update in almost a year, and that year has been quite tumultuous. So, very quick run down. I was pregnant and gave birth to my son this past spring. We moved from DC to State College, PA, sold our house, and I kept my full-time job, now working it remotely. We're currently in the process of buying a new home, and I can't wait for that to happen. It has been a period of unrest and change, and I am ready to settle back down again. I love our new area. I can pitch the hell out of State College as a Penn Stater. It is every alum's dream to come back and stay for good. I am living it. I get to do a job I love in a place I love with my even bigger family. I am ready to make this work.

So! If you follow me on Instagram, you know I have still been keeping busy with cooking and parenting. I am nearing the end of my maternity leave, hopefully around the same time we will be closing on our new home. Things will someday speed back up, but for right now, I am holding my son as he sleeps and considering how a year can change a person.

I am not sure what the direction of this blog will be now. It has always been about me and my ideas, so that will naturally stay the same - probably just less urban. State College is like a suburb with no city, unless you count the university. It really is more rural than anything, but it doesn't feel that way. There is a lack of rushing that is refreshing, especially as summer rolls along. The sky is blue and sunny today with a few clouds, it is warm without being oppressive yet, and I have the space to breathe. I battle internally with wanting to do more, but I am used to the feeling.

Some topics I may write about in future posts: tandem nursing and nursing aversion; my picky-eater Angel Pie, and the issues she's been having with her promotion to big sister; and how I took to the baby blues and changing hormones this time around. It will be helpful for me to hash these things out, and it may be helpful for you to read them. I am a different person lately, and who knows how much of that is due to lack of sleep. I want to live the best life I can, and writing may help me do that.

So for now, let's embrace summer and not try to rush it for cooler months, as I am wont to do. I want to live my life and enjoy my time, the right now time, and not keep looking for someday. What I am doing right now is not good enough - it is just plain good.

Back with a mobile post...

     I'm having a baby in September 2012! Surprise!
     I know, I know. I am terrible for updating consistently. Last I posted, readers were still wondering if I were going to get that house. I can answer that easily enough. Yes, we bought the house in November, but we did not move in until January. The holidays kept us the normal amount of busy that holidays cause, and on top of that, my dear husband had to have surgery (routine for only him) the days leading up to Christmas. A lovely holiday with family afterwards, and lo and behold in January, I discover that I am pregnant!
     Fast forward through my first trimester--it was unpleasant. My train commute made me ill daily, but I got through it, and now I'm on the first day of my twenty-third week! I'm currently enjoying myself, all things considered. I love maternity clothes. Last weekend, with a trip to the Motherhood Maternity outlet store at our closest outlet mall, I picked up enough clothes to last me the summer (I hope). Everything there fit great, which is why I ended up taking home so much. Today, I discovered that I've finally picked up a little weight, which is also good. I lost close to fifteen pounds in my first trimester, and as of my twenty-week sonogram, I still was eight pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight. The doctors say add long as I'm eating, the number on the scale isn't so important. The sonogram confirmed that my baby is perfectly healthy and growing well, and I am also healthy, do there's no reason to worry.
     I kind of feel like my body was made for pregnancy. I get the biological joke here--aren't all female bodies technically and biologically made for pregnancy? That's not what I mean. I'm feeling better and happier than really ever before. I am often prone to occasional depression, but aside from a few mood fluctuations here and there, I am steadily happy, which I really haven't experienced much in my adult years. The weight loss was beneficial for both me and Baby, and my body is generally taking to all of these changes well. These improvements just make me feel better overall, and the bonus? I'm making a person, someone I can already feel kicking around and being active. While it's very soon going to be a whole new world for me and my family, I'm pretty sure I'm going to enjoy it.

Mobile Blogging!

     I'm currently on a train, home-bound. I'm also currently able to share my thoughts with the world! While this is not terribly interesting now, it has the potential to become so. Say, on the DC2NY bus this Friday to New York. Or in the city itself. Or wherever else inspiration may strike. Live content, here I come!

Getting a jump on things, stamps.

     Haven't updated since autumn. I'm not going to try to fill in all of that blank time, so instead, I'm getting a jump on summer. I changed the backgrounds around to the summer theme today, although it is not yet officially summer. I'm not waiting until June 21st to make the change. Summer to me is in months--June, July, August. Although in metro DC land, it's June through October, really. I shouldn't complain--Spring 2011 hasn't been too bad at all. More rain than usual, but we don't nearly have the tumultuous weather that much of the rest of the country is experiencing. I did watch a special on NOVA about tornadoes a few weeks ago, though (you can probably catch it on Hulu if you were so inclined), and they reported about an F4 tornado that hit the town of La Plata, Maryland in 2002. La Plata is about 35 miles south of DC. The expert on NOVA said that if the storm were about 50 miles north, it would have wrecked DC beltway to beltway. I hope that, in this year of increasingly violent weather, we do not approach anything like that scenario. Storms aside, the temperatures haven't really passed the mid 70's. As I type, my computer reports a temperature of 66 degrees, which is comfortably cool to me. I just looked up the forecast for next week, and I saw the temperature 85 coming up--I knew the heat wouldn't stay away for long.

     I decided to pick up posting today because I wanted to write about my experience buying stamps online, and I figured it would be too long to tweet or post on Facebook. I went to the USPS Stamp Store Online, and the variety of forever stamp designs was very tempting. I added a few to my online cart, and before I knew it, I was up to $65. In stamps! The most I usually mail are my holiday cards, and I'll probably purchase holiday stamps for that time. I'm sure in my life, I'll probably use that many stamps, but did I really need to buy that many right now? No. I did enjoy the designs, though. Jazz, American Scientists, Flora and Fauna, Green Living Tips, The Year of the Rabbit. I did buy the Green Living and Year of the Rabbit ones. I also bought 10 of the Comics collection and 10 of the Adopt-A-Pet collection. I should be set on stamps. I was disappointed that the Simpsons collection is no longer being sold, though. I did enjoy mailing in expensive bills with Bart Simpson's outward-sticking tongue on the front.

     In other news, have you ever bought something that you just absolutely loved? I just did on Thursday:


Calvin Klein Sheer Ribbed Drapefront Cardigan
Seriously, I love it fiercely. I'm pretty sure it doesn't "do anything" for me--it doesn't accent my silhouette or my shape and it doesn't make me look slim. I don't intend to hide in it, though, either. I look at myself in a mirror and hear the chastisements of What Not to Wear hosts in my head, but I can't bring myself to care. I feel like I've been looking for this cardigan for a long time, and now that I have it, I'm satisfied. And I'm okay with that!

Miss me? Housekeeping.

     Wow. I am not good at the consistent blogging thing.

     Okay, yes, it has been over two months since I last posted, and I very conveniently skipped what is arguably one of the biggest holidays of the year. Mea culpa. You are exactly right, and I apologize for it immensely. I just got so caught up in the fun of it all! I spent the holidays with my in-laws for a week, and then my family for a second week, and just couldn't find the time to get into "the office," so to speak. Real life fail, I suppose. It is lucky that I have a readership of zero at this point, or else people would be upset!

     With hope, I can now jump back into the posting frenzy with whatever good ideas I may find, or whatever craziness my fall out of my head. You'll notice that I took the time to de-autumn-ize the design of the blog. The photos are taken with my own cell phone camera, so I hope you enjoy them!

Housekeeping.

     I've had to remove my twitter feed, as it appears that the coding is erronous in returning, rather than my twitter comments, the comments of user undefined. It appears that soem part of the code returns an "undefined" result, and since there is a user named "undefined," voila! I'll keep checking back periodically to see if they repair the feed, and when they do, my tweeting shall return.

     Another thing I wanted to address is the general format of my blog. I think I'm going to post separate posts based on topic, so that when my labels are searched, there's not a hodge-podge of things to sift through to find the topic of choice. I prefer this, so it shall be done!