An-Ree

My mom and I visited my sister in MA this weekend and this video pretty much captured my activities for the last three days. There's nothing like hearing your 19 month old nephew say your name - seriously he knows like 30 some words so that makes me pretty important. Also, judging by the way he says his own name, he might be French.

Update: I Am Alive

Despite your potential assumptions, I am still alive. My double life as middle school teacher extraordinaire/pale office drone has seriously limited the amount of time I have to do anything other than make and eat dinner, read about former presidents (oh, Mr. Truman, how I love you), drink beer, and beg my bedfellow for head/neck massages to sooth away headaches induced by drinking too much coffee and talking really loud for 6 hours every day.

While I have indeed disappeared from the world of the intertron - I have been busy attending to my meatspace life and have many exciting new developments in the works. Firstly, I endeared myself to my exceedingly agreeable 3-month-old nephew last weekend. His aunt is so hilarious that he's perpetually plagued with hiccups every time he sees me (pictures to follow).

The trip was half a family thing, half a romantic getaway but it was totally more of the previous. Poor Matt suffered through a really brutal Easter dinner with my sister-in-law's family. They are the kind of people who shock you with their ability to talk for three hours without ever engaging in conversation or saying anything interesting. Also, they are really loud. He got me back by taking me to see 300. I crocheted in the dark and thought about how Xerxes was kind of the poor man's RuPaul.

I am nearing the end of my indentured servitude as a student teacher. It has been awesome and I've wowed supervisors with my amazing abilities to educate. I told the kids I'd be leaving soon and when they whined about it I reminded them that a girl's got to eat! Some of them offered to take up a collection - each of my students would contribute a dollar to keep me there for the rest of the year. I could make 102 sweet dollars if I sign on for 7 additional weeks of work. I've been offered a few jobs and am excitedly looking forward to full time employment as a teacher. No more of this moonlighting crap.

Matt and I are also in the early stages of house hunting. We are tentatively planning a move to Richmond in the summer. I hang on to that word "tentative" because it makes me feel less nervous about making big changes. I am looking forward to a new home in a place where there are more that two things to do on the weekend, where friends abound, and where there are glorious paved sidewalks! But I am still a bit disappointed that we don't have the balls to pack up and move to California. Also, selling a house it probably the least appealing task I've ever encountered.

So, I live on. God knows when I will post again - god knows if anyone is still checking anyway. XO if you are!

Nephew Pictures

Alright, I all into being an aunt - I've crafted him three garments, started work on a quilt (OMG, I have never done that before!), and told a billion people about his existence (I love when my dad tells relatives he is "a robust young man"). Finally, I have seen pictures of the little bugger, which I will share with you now.
I think he is a little bit jaundice, but what a handsome little man.

Oh, Henry!

Tobias, Josiah, Zachary, Dashiell - apparently none of these suited my biggun of a nephew and the name my sister and her wife have settled on is: Henry. What? It caught me off guard.

When we were little my dad used to make up these stories about two friends named Henry and Mabel...Mabel was also my nickname as a child and I have been open about wanting to name my daughter that, but I didn't think my sister was so intensely connected to the stories' hero.

Apparently, Henry is a family name on both sides of my sister-in-laws family - it goes back several generations on her dad's side and her mom is distantly related to Henry David Thoreau.

So, he's named.

Baby Update Update

The power of the internet moves fetuses (I would have thought "feti"). My sister-in-law is having the baby surgically removed from her uterus in an hour! (Baby is breech/Erica's late/baby too cute for conventional birthing methods.) The sex is still unknown but we all think boy (mostly because my mom thinks its a girl and she was wrong about everyone of her own children).

OMG OMG TWO HOURS UNTIL AUNTHOOD!

Hey There

I guess my heart's not really in posting anymore…I get good at regularity and then I get busy or distracted or lazy. But, I have lived since my last post and many nice and happy things have happened – I had an especially special weekend. I want to get back on track so here is my quick holiday wrap-up:

• Car was hit by nice young man, still went out to celebrate friend’s 27th birthday. He was depressed-drunk when I got to the bar and kept touching my leg (made me sad). Didn’t feel like drinking so Mari, Sentell, and I asked for a pot of water and we drank Good Earth Tea (which I always have in my purse) at an Irish Pub. (The next morning my dad told me you’ve got to have great self-esteem to order hot tea at a bar.)

• Christmas Eve – party at the Alonsos’ a time honored tradition. Saw amazing elementary school friend who has changed her name from Sara to Zahava and is now teaching Prenatal Yoga and Spiritual Belly Dance at the Deepak Chopra center in NYC…I didn’t mention what I do.

• Mari gave me the DVD of Free To Be You and Me – if you know what this is, hi, I love you.

• Christmas: awesome, laid back, and family-packed. Leisurely morning and day with my mom, dad, brother and his girlfriend – cousins came later – we laughed ‘til we hurt. Went to Grandad’s in the evening – played with babies (fell more in love with my Abs who currently loves “turtles and ears”) and hung out with especially awesome aunt. Sentell came as my Xmas Date for the second year in a row.

• Matt’s Birthday (the 27th): hiked in Bald Eagle reserve to VA coast and lounged on Potomac beach. Made a gigantic homemade ice cream cake, made out, made lavish dinner, ate and drank and kissed.

• Went to work on Friday, had early release and then a four day weekend; got really used to not going to work.

• New Years Eve: Awesome, laid-back, alcohol heavy.

• New Years Day: lazy, rainy, peaceful, and promising. Matt and I laid about, talked about our goals for the year, wrote in journals, read, made out - kicked it off right.

I’ve eased back into work and am gearing up for the challenge of working part-time while student teaching full time…I’ve nervous about working 10 hours a day and figuring out where to fit yoga and work outs and time for cooking – am I the last person on earth that makes dinners from scratch each night? All this starts next Tuesday…OMG.