9.11

This year marks the 10th anniversary of 9.11. At the time, I had just started college at UM. My suite-mate Melissa came into my room and told my roommate and I to turn on the news. We saw one of the twin towers was ablaze. Glued to the TV we all watched as the second plane hit the towers. I remember thinking this couldn't really be happening. I called my best friend Jackie to make sure her dad was ok (he worked in the city) and she was hysterical; away at college as well, she couldn't reach him. That was the last time I got in touch with her for a while because then the towers crumbled and the phone lines were no longer working. Classes were cancelled. TV's were set up in the common areas of the dorms and there were students everywhere glued to the news coverage. I felt so far away from my family and friends. What happened was unimaginable. Still today, every time I watch something about 9.11 I can't help but tear up.

I Know I Should Be Packing, But.....

**Interesting Commercial:

I saw this commercial on tv the other day and thought to myself, is this for real?? I think if a kid activated their alarm while being bullied, they would for sure get beat up. And I don't think this would deter a predator...although I do carry a whistle, Max will not be wearing this backpack.

I Can't Quit You Baby

Hello everyone, I've been determined to resume my blog again before one year elapsed...so here we go!

MAX: Max is 11 months old today!! It seems like just yesterday I was holding him in my arms taking him home from the hospital; a helpless little baby. But as I look at him in his monitor, I know that little baby boy is quickly turning into a little man. He is nearly walking by himself and his babble is almost comprehensible. He eats real food and points at what he wants before crawling over to it. He is an entertainer and loves to be entertained. (Up to this point, pictures are on kodakgallery.com-I will post some here going forward)

ME: Motherhood has really been an incredible experience for me so far and I am so happy that I am able to spend time with Max and be there for him when he does something new, giggles, or cries. It is exhausting, but so rewarding. Now that he is eating regular food, I've started cooking again, which I'm really enjoying.

A couple weeks ago I dreamed that I ran, and ran, and ran and it felt so good in the dream I woke up telling Chris I was going to start running again. So this past Monday I took Max and went for a run! Not quite like in my dream but it was a start. Today was my second run...correction JOG. I was sore today from Monday's run and felt like I was hardly moving but I'm going to keep at it and build up to running a 5k race by the end of the year. I am tracking my progress on RunKeeper.com so hopefully that and your help will keep me motivated.

BASEBALL: Another baseball season is winding down and it has been a great one so far. The team has taken us for quite a ride and Chris has definitely been an important part of that. It would be incredible if the Indians can find their groove again and take us into the post-season, after all, they've made it this far. But as usual, I have to be prepared for anything and today I began making our arrangements to go home to Tampa. I'll be packing some things we're done with here and shipping my car back to Tampa next week. Max and I will fly to Tampa for 10 days or so during Chris's long road trip in September and return to Cleveland to make the final push and to start the celebration of Max's 1st birthday!

That's all for now! Stay tuned for product reviews, recipes, pictures and more!!

Belly Pic 5 and more

Starting on the left, the pictures are from weeks 31 and 33 (last Friday). As of now we have less than 7 weeks to go! I'm feeling great besides some tingles and swelling in my right hand.

My Golden Birthday was great! Chris gave me beautiful jewelry and an unforgettable card. The other wives made a fabulous dinner and cake for me and spoiled me with presents. It was really nice! I'm so thankful for the wonderful women I've met this season. I couldn't have asked for more.

September is going to be a very busy month for me. I'm flying back to Florida in 2 days with Brody, so my least favorite activity is here....packing! Today my friend Julie is coming over to help me get all packed up; seems like things get done so much quicker when someone else helps guide you along, so I'm grateful that she volunteered for the job!

We're closing on our new home in Tampa on Sept 10th. It's about 10-15 minutes east of our current home so there's even more packing in my near future. The movers are going to take care of most of the packing though, thank goodness! We've had great memories in our old home however short our stay there was, but the new house is amazing and we're looking forward to having everyone over and starting our new family memories there.

And then of course there's getting ready for baby Maxwell! So much to do...so much to do!

An exclusive interview with two Chris Perezes

This is an exerpt from a blog posting by Indians writer Anthony Castrovince. It's hilarious...click on the link after the excerpt for the full blog post:

"A long, losing season needs its subplots and surprises to keep things entertaining. And if you've been following the 2010 Cleveland Indians on Twitter this year, you've probably found entertainment in the recent creation of closer Chris Perez's Twitter alter ego, @PureRage_Perez.

The real Chris Perez is on Twitter at @ChrisPerez54. But as of this writing, the real Perez has 54 less followers than the fake one.

Thanks to the cooperation of both Chris and Pure Rage, I was able to gain unprecedented access into the minds and lives of both men, and it is my pleasure to share the results with you here. Below are 13 questions I posed to each Perez, followed by their respective answers."

http://castrovince.mlblogs.com/archives/2010/08/an_exclusive_interview_with_tw.html

Trivia

I just played the License Plate Game to test my knowledge of random information. With a score of 80% I guess something has sunk in on all of my road trips! Click on the link below to see how you will do! Post your score in the comments section below :)

The License Plate Game

Score: 80% (12 out of 15)

That's The Way

This past Saturday was the baseball wives joint baby shower. We received so many wonderful gifts for Maxwell - he wont go naked after all ;) I am one of 6 pregnant wives this year! 2 women had their babies within the last couple of months and the rest of us are due between September and January. Baby boom?? It's pretty incredible to be going through the ups and downs of pregnancy with so many friends; all of us experiencing similar feelings and watching each other grow and prepare to be mothers. [Pics below - baby shower]

Chris and I also spent some time with his family this past weekend. Uncle Bobby, aunt Millie and cousin Lyndsay drove up from South Carolina making stops along the way at hot spots from Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. They treated Chris and I to brunch at another spot on their food tour, Lucky's Cafe, here in Cleveland. I shared deliciously thick waffles with Lyndsay although I must say the breakfast burrito Millie ordered and let me taste was surprisingly delicious! Needless to say, I am now a total addict for Lucky's Cafe. Chris and I made a return trip four days later and shared Mac and Cheese and grilled cheese with caramelized onions....YUMMMMMM! I want it again now just thinking about it!

Following brunch we toured the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and its archives. It's amazing how much memorabilia they hold in the archives. Clothing, shoes, instruments, photos, letters, lyrics, childhood items and more! They alternate the items on display but I don't know that they will ever really show all of the items they have! Having a close up look at the musicians clothing really puts into perspective their size. They are so much smaller than they appear. It was also really cool seeing the musicians hand written song lyrics; to see what they first thought and wrote down, and then crossed out to rewrite the lyrics to some of the most popular songs we know today. Billy Joel's "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" was really written while he was eating at an Italian restaurant! Sauce on the paper and all! I wondered what the Hall of Fame will have to show for current and future artists who write their lyrics on computers? Time will tell... [Pics below - family at the Hall of Fame & Chris signing the Wall of Fame]

Evermore

I rang the doorbell and heard the familiar buzz granting me access into the house. I went up the staircase lined with black and white wallpaper which is still in perfect condition, not an edge in sight peeling. The door opens and the white tile is sparkling. Everything looks just like I remember. Aside from a new stove top the kitchen is the same, the carpet is the same-worn on the staircase where me and my siblings slid down one too many times, couches still perfectly preserved in plastic. Grandma Barbara hands me some photo albums to look through with my sister Mindy while she cooks up some of her delicious food. When we finished looking through all of the albums I put them away and noticed some toys that we used to play with as kids: the Bingo wheel my brother and sisters would spin, the building set we would fight over to make towering masterpieces, the hanging curtains I wore when I pretend married my childhood crush. It's all still there. Even though I hadn't been to my grandma's house in a while before that visit, it felt like I had just been there yesterday and that no time had passed at all. We live in such a fast paced world where everything changes so quickly and were constantly looking forward to the next great thing, its easy to forget how sometimes the unchanged can be so nice.

A Few Random Pictures & Events

Mindy & Jonathan's 2nd 24th Birthday Dinner @ Benihana:

One of the cake's from birthday dinner @ dads - thanks for all the helping hands to make this!

Event for Boys & Girls Club of Cleveland - one of the official Cleveland Indians Charities. It was a bowling event (obviously), Indians vs. Browns teams. Amy, pictured below on the right is an amazing bowler and deserved to take the trophy home having won best female bowler out of all the bowlers there! I on the other hand, won the worst female bowler and took home a lovely vase from Crate & Barrel and some coupons for free bowling :) Honestly though, I wasn't even that bad! There was some serious competition (see Amy & Jackie below: two of the many competitive bowlers)!

Me with Onion, my favorite hot dog at the field! Love her new hot pink purse! LOL

When Good Intentions Go Bad

Last weekend I was in St. Louis with friends enjoying an Apple Pie Concrete at my favorite frozen custard location, Ted Drewes, on Chippewa Street. For those of you that have never been to Ted Drewes, please refer to the picture of this location - the crowd is an accurate depiction any night of the week and multiplies after a Cardinal baseball game. Anyway on my most recent visit, there was a small party bus parked on the street and we wondered who was out partying and making this awesome pit stop? Turns out to have been a bunch of kids no older than 10 or 12 chaperoned by one of the kids parents and a friend. How nice of them to take the kids and their friends out right? Well it quickly became blatantly obvious who the bus was actually for....the wasted adults, drinks in hand. One of the parents thought it would be a hoot to jump into someones convertible in the parking lot while a friend took her picture all the while a child was saying "mom that's not your car!" Really makes me wonder how some people get to be parents. And if I happened to be one of the children's parents this mom was supposed to be supervising also out for some frozen custard, I don't know what I would have done! It's unbelievable that this mother didn't seem to care what kind of message this was portraying to the children, most of which weren't hers...

The Self Directed Search

Lately I've had some trouble figuring out what to do with my free time so I thought it would be a good idea to take the Self Directed Search. It is a questionnaire that helps you find the career which best matches your interests and abilities...I would translate the result into a volunteer opportunity perhaps or a part-time job. It also gives you a listing of hobbies you might enjoy. The theory is that there are 6 groups which people can be loosely classified into:

Realistic-likes to work with things more than people.
Investigative-likes to explore and understand things or events, rather than persuade others or sell them things.
Artistic-likes to work with creative ideas and self-expression more than routines and rules.
Social-likes to help, teach, and counsel people more than engage in mechanical or technical activity.
Enterprising-like to persuade or direct others more than work on scientific or complicated topics.
Conventional-likes to follow orderly routines and meet clear standards, avoiding work that does not have clear directions.

So 20 minutes later my results appear:

The three groups that best fit me in order of most to least were conventional, social and enterprising. The top career that might interest me...systems accountant...types of hobbies I might enjoy-playing card games and the collection of random items like souvenir spoons...I believe this is where the saying FML comes in handy.

Fun at the Theater

What do you do when you get to the movie theater a little too early to see your movie of choice? Sit in the theater waiting for your movie to start or go to the screening of another movie at the theater?

When was the last time you saw two movies for the price of one? Prior to today the last time I can remember was when I was a kid in Brooklyn...our trips to the movies were quite infrequent as taking 4 children to the movies can be quite a handful. I guess thats why we stayed for two!

Today, my sister in law Courtney and I were 45 minutes early to see Valentine's Day so we decided to sit in on the movie least likely to require background information an hour deep - Shutter Island. It ended up being a very engaging movie so when it came time to switch over we wanted to know what the ending was going to be! Soo after Valentine's Day was over we made a daring dash across the snackbar and snuck into a later showing of Shutter Island which happened to be at the point right where we left off! How perfect. The rush of getting caught didn't hurt either!

I love this commercial: