I'm Still Alive

Dear Five Friends Who Read This,

I'm still alive.  Work=crazy insanity this week, with lots of pulling my hair out and banging my head against the wall.  Just kidding. Maybe.

Even as I type, John is trying to trick me into being interested in the Olympics.  Which (please don't hate me for saying it), is unlikely.  Because mostly I'm just mad at them for displacing my favorite shows, like The Office and Vampire Diaries.  (Just kidding, they didn't really displace the Vampire Diaries.  Fortunately.)

And now that you know that I'm A) apparently unpatriotic, and B) watching shows that I'm approximately 15 years too old to be watching, I hope that you will still be my friend.

I promise to be a better blogger next week!

Weekend in Pictures, Valentine's Day Edition

V-Day, 2010!  Woo hoo!  Here's our weekend, in pictures--because if I tried to do it in words it would end up taking 5 years...to both read and write.  And I am nothing if not lazy respectful of your time.

Despite the inclement weather (don't you love that phrase? It makes me feel like a weatherman.), we decided to have some friends over to play Rock Band, which Jamey so graciously let us borrow for the weekend.  Can I just say that I either have a totally addictive personality, or Rock Band is just insanely fun, because we played until after midnight.

Don't hate, I know my rockstar pose is awesome. 

Yes, we are parents.  Ally Grace is either going to think we're really cool, or really embarrassing.  And I'm pretty confident that I know which one it'll be.

On Saturday, we went out in the snow to take AG's first snow pictures.

She's my little polar bear.

Girlfriend makes some NICE faces for the camera.

Please excuse my mile-long roots. What's that?  You had no idea I wasn't a natural blonde?
So sweet.

Later that day, John and I went out to celebrate Valentine's day....on the 13th.  Because we're rebels like that.

I'm SUCH a rebel that I dressed in red for the holiday.  'Cause rebels totally dress in holiday colors. All the time. Or not.

Apparently, I also morphed into Martha Stewart for an hour on Saturday, because I MADE a card for John.  I worked all kinds of scrapbooking magic.

Not only did it include construction paper, fabric, AND funky-edged scissor usage, the pieces were held together by a brad.  A brad, people.  Which I thought was just a boy's name, but apparently is so much more.

Finally, on Sunday, John and I received THE MOST FUN VALENTINE'S DAY PRESENT OF ALL TIME.  Well, maybe not of all time, but regardless, it was cool.

We found out earlier in the weekend that we won this Valentine's Day "Breakfast in Bed" gift basket from Haven & Valenza, two fabulous restaurants around the corner from our house.  I am about 97% sure that it's the only thing I've ever won in my life, so it literally could've been filled with straw and I would've been excited.  OH, but it wasn't......

The goodies just kept coming out of this thing.....

I may or may not have gained 10 pounds just by eating all of the Ghiradelli chocolates looking at it.

Why did John make ME hold up the coffee?

Oh, wait.

Happy ten years later Valentine's Day!

Yum

You know what's a really stellar food combination?  A Symphony bar and a strawberry marshmallow.  Hypothetically, I mean.  'Cause I promise I'm not eating that at 9:40 in the morning.  That would be gross, right? Yeah, definitely gross.  Or not.

Here's a list of my favorite things about today so far:
1.  It's almost Friday!
2. My girl was all smiles this morning, and I love, love, love snuggling with her after she wakes up!
3.  The best night of TV--The Office, Parks and Recreation, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, and ahem, The Vampire Diaries.  Yes, I just admitted that I'm at least as mature as a 15 year old girl.
4.  Leftover chicken tortilla soup (which I made myself, thankyouverymuch), so no cooking tonight!

Okay, gotta go clean sticky marshmallow junk off my keyboard get some work done.  Happy Thursday!

A Few Things.....

First of all, I LOVED the comments about breastfeeding & weight loss.....y'all made me feel like it's okay that I didn't lose all my pregnancy weight 5 minutes after I started nursing.  (Again with the weird word "nursing.")

Secondly, I have this cute video of AG giggling, which I realize, may only be interesting to a few of you.  But since it's interesing to me, and this is MY blog, I'm posting it.  Soon.  As soon as I can figure out how to post a video, that is.

Basically, John was playing with Jackson and his squeaky not at all annoying new toy, and AG just started giggling like a maniac.  A cute, non-creepy, baby maniac.  And we did this for about 15 minutes straight before it occured to us to try and video it with John's iphone.  Fortunately we caught a few more giggles, even though AG tends to be stubborn and generally refuses to perform for the camera.   Diva.

See how she's purposely not smiling?  She's all sassy now that she has the big flower hat.

Finally, I have a truly interesting guest post over on my work blog....which is finally named something better than "Sherri's Real Estate Blog."  Maybe.  It's at least named something DIFFERENT, so that's what counts, right?  Anyway, the post is about interior design on a budget, and since I blog-stalk about a hundred design blogs, I know this is a topic that lots of people want to know more about. 

The post was written by my friend Jessica Duncan, of  Home Studio Interiors.  She's GREAT, and pretty much designed AG's entire nursery, plus a couple of other projects in our house.  If I had a million dollars, I would have her do my house top to bottom.  (Which wouldn't literally cost a million dollars.  But there's this little thing I like to do called "exaggerate" or "be dramatic.")  Maybe one day when I rob a bank, or get famous for blogging about nothing, I will make my house designer-y.  Which may or may not be somewhat unlikely.

Btw, if anyone knows how to help me move into the 21st century post a video from an iphone, I'd love for you to ignore how technologically-impaired I am clue me in.

Question

When I first started nursing AG (is this TMI?  Maybe, but I need some help here), the pregnancy weight was coming off pretty easily.  But now, I'm 4 months in, and we've hit a bit of a wall.  And by "we", I mean "I," since I am fairly positive that I don't possess multiple personailites.  Yet. 

Has anyone else experienced this weight loss wall, or known someone who has?  I would really like to hear that it's normal, since when I google "nursing" and "weight loss,"  I get sent to all these annoying message boards where people say things like:  "OMG, I gained 95lbs when I was pregnant, and within six weeks it was all GONE, and now I weigh 10 pounds less than I did before I got pregnant.....oh, and my baby is only 2 months old."

Really?  I mean, REALLY?  I am clinging to hope that maybe my body is hanging on to a few extra lbs so that I can keep nursing AG.  Or maybe it's just hanging on because I keep eating sugar cookies and golden oreos. 

Encourage me, ladies!  Is it false hope to think that I won't lose those extra 6 (ish) pounds until I'm done nursing?

(Also, I may or may not have said the word "nursing" a few too many times.  My apologies.)

(Which seems like a weird word now that I've said it a few times in a row.  Nursing, nursing, nursing.)

Dilemma

So lately, I've been having a little work dilemma. 

Apparently, work-related blogging is all the rage these days, and so I should be updating my work blog on a regular basis, right?  Well, let's be honest, real-estate is not super cute or fun to write about.  I mean, how do you make mortgage rates, filing for homestead exemption, and tax credits sound exciting?  If my clients wanted to know about, say, raising a baby, while wearing sweatpants, and eating cupcakes (wow, did that make motherhood sound super glam or what?!), then I would be able to write (marginally) entertaining & informative blogs all day long.  Or once a week.  But still.

However.  That doesn't really help my buyers and sellers, nor does it help us pay our billz, (yes, I'm out for that) and put food on the table.  Or more accurately, buy me new clothes and decorate our house. Unfortunate.

I don't even really know why I'm writing about this, except that maybe someone has an idea they can share about either A) how to make real-estate blogging exciting, B) how you make your own work blog entertaining, or C) how I can turn blogging about AG, Twilight, and People magazine into something that gets me some new clients. (Unlikely).

Or D) how maybe I can turn this pointless post about nothing (see, I'm good at that!) into a shameless plug for my real estate blog.  Which should probably be named something a little more creative than Sherri's Real Estate Blog.

Let's go with D.