baby shower!

my mom and sister threw me the most awesome baby shower on saturday!

(mom, gram, britt)

it was a blast, to say the least!!  it was so beautiful and so much fun!  brittany did a great job.  and she made me this amazing slide show (that made me cry) and an adorable banner to hang in bella's room. (pictures forthcoming)

the shower itself was such a blessing and between all of our gifts and gift cards from the showers, and all the gently used hand-me-downs we've received from our friends, we have almost everything we need for baby bella's arrival, including her beautiful crib!  the only thing i still need to order is the crib mattress and the cradle mattress and sheets, which is a simple purchase.

we are so lucky and so excited for her arrival!  and i cant believe how quickly the time is flying (and crawling at the same time)...i only have 7 weeks left until my due date; unbelievable!!  and somehow, i am starting to feel like its never going to get here.  im sure that has at least a little to do with how crappy i feel about fifty percent of the time.

 im tired, i waddle, i ache, i have heartburn, im TIIIIIIRED (did i mention that im tired?) i fall asleep all the time - its like the minute i sit down, im sleeping.  and when i wake up i feel groggy and just...blah. i feel like i have no energy to get anything done.

but, at least the house is pretty much done (mike still has to paint a few doors) and we'll be putting together bella's room either later this week or early next week (im SO excited to do that!)

november 13th can NOT get here fast enough!



xo.
   m.

sprickets!

it always seems to happen when mike isn't home.


they come looking for me.


bugs.  and always the worst kinds.  either spiders ::shudder:: ....or sprickets, (really called camel crickets) which i think might actually be worse to me and cause a more paralyzing fear for me than spiders have my whole life.  (shocking, i know!)  they are horrible and terrifying and possessed.  they attack!  (though, i dont think they bite) ... if you're not familiar with what a camel cricket is, google it.

i thought about posting a picture but then i think i would have to stop coming to my own blog.  ugh.  they are so gross.   and right now there is one hiding my bathroom, behind the toilet, and i really have to pee.

: /

earlier, while i was in the bathroom, this same spricket was sitting on the window sill, waiting for me.  when i realized it was there i jumped and started backing out of the bathroom mutter a few choice words under my breath.  and this little monster jumped AT me.  twice.  missing me by millimeters.  i felt like i was going to have a heart attack!

...which, speaking of my heart - my cardiologist's appointment is tomorrow at 2.

in other news, i just found a delicious recipe for cream cheese ice cream.

ingredients

• 5 cups half-and-half or light cream
• 2-1/2 cups sugar
• 4 beaten eggs
• 3 8-ounce packages cream cheese or reduced-fat cream
•  cheese (Neufchatel), softened
• 1 teaspoon finely shredded lemon peel
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• Fresh blueberries, nectarines, and/or dark cherries (optional)

directions

1. In a large saucepan combine 3 cups of the half-and-half or light cream, the sugar, and eggs. Cook and stir over medium heat just until boiling. In a large mixing bowl beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth; gradually beat in hot mixture. Cover and chill thoroughly.
2. Stir in remaining half-and-half, lemon peel, lemon juice, and vanilla. Freeze in a 4- or 5-quart ice cream freezer according to the directions. Ripen 4 hours. Garnish each serving with choice of fresh fruit, if desired. Makes about 3 quarts (24 servings).

it looks and sounds delicious.   so now i need an ice cream maker!  cuisinart makes a pretty good one, so it seems.  maybe i'll add that to my christmas list!  

now its back to waiting for mike to handle the spricket situation so i can go to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and go to bed.  another open is waiting for me tomorrow!  oh how i love getting up at 4 am.  N O T.   but at least work was less stressful today.  and ive decided to not let the dumb stuff get to me.  the stuff i cant change.  the stuff that doesnt have to do with me.  the stuff that, in light of everything else going on in my world, actually matters very little. 

xo.

   m.

blargh.

i am in a foul mood right now...

work feels full of drama.

and its forcing me to think about all kinds of things...

like what i really want.  and how to get it.  without living in poverty for the rest of my life, to say the least...  heh.

im trying not to stress out.  stress solves nothing. its not good for me.  its not good for bella.  i need to learn to let it go.

everything happens for a reason.  i know this.  i believe this.  it will all work out.




sigh.



xo.
   m.

good morning, behr commercial....

i feel like my house is a commercial for behr paint!  no joke.  and i feel like the actress they hired to just walk or sit around looking so thoroughly pleased with herself and her new surroundings that it just makes you feel the need to redo your own kitchen/bathroom/dining room...or all of them!

ahh.  i feel so so accomplished! and relieved that its done.  and my house just looks and feels fresh, lively, bright, and YOUNG!  almost like a new house - almost.  we still have some clean up to do (not from painting though - i already did that) to put the house JUST RIGHT and get rid of more stuff we dont want or need!

then it will be time to set up the nursery!


we still need to get new curtains to match all of our new colors but angela, my best friend in the world, who now has a sewing machine and the skill and patience to use it, said she would make all the curtains for me if i would just buy all the fabrics!  soo exciting! :)  we have a great new store in salisbury called hobby lobby - like a michaels but bigger - and they have SO MUCH FABRIC! in such awesome patterns! i cant wait.


but now, its time for breakfast.  and coffee.  or, if youre me...decaf.  :/


xo.
   m.

it takes a village to...paint a house?

WHAT A DAY!

we successfully painted almost the entire house in roughly 12 hours today!  we still have three doors and two doorways to paint, and that's IT!

and i must say, it looks LOVELY!  i am  so excited to have some color on the walls! i think it looks beautiful!  and i also am so happy that the house is mostly put back together, too...(still waiting on the paint to dry in our bedroom, and dont worry all my wonderful, concerned, friends and family, im not sleeping in the fume-y bedroom with wet paint...!)

for as exhausted as i am right now, i feel VERY satisfied.  i had a great day! painting went relatively quick and the company was awesome.  atreyu acted like a jerk, most of the day (he's pretty much in love with raye and followed her around the whole time she was here)...he's now the dog of many colors - he walked into pretty much every wall and paintbrush he could get his fur on...he looks absurd.

raye totally killed it with the cutting in! (and the yellow in my kitchen looks absolutely delicious!)  mike paints like a tortoise, but you know what they say - slow and steady wins the race.  well, maybe not the race, but his work looks flawless.  (which is more than i can say for what happens if you put a paint BRUSH in my hand - disaster! but give me a roller and i'll blow your mind!)  ang helped me roll a couple of walls and then painted the beadboarding and our windows with a fresh coat of white and they look lovely!  and i was so grateful because i cant paint those things to save my life!  my mom primed some windows and painted the high and low parts of the hallway that i couldnt reach!  she also did some awesome doorway painting/patching and made our hallway look brand new...ahh! im so excited about all of it!  and then, dominick came over and helped mike cut in in our bedroom and then helped me with some post painting cleanup which was awesome of him.

i think mike and angela were totally high for a small window of time while painting our bedroom which obviously wasnt well ventilated enough...

thank you guys for helping us out!! we really appreciate all of you and love you a ton!

and for more on the story, check out my blog update on the GPA blog:

http://gilletteportraitarts.com/blog/monday-moments-with-mel-a-new-coat-of-paint/

xo.
   m.

an architectural facelift

tomorrow is the big day!  we're painting the WHOLE house and i cant wait to see it with a fresh coat of paint!  its going to look like a completely different house!! and i feel like its just what we need to welcome bella home in november (or, as i keep saying, maybe a little earlier...) and to finally feel a sense of ownership in this house.

even though we rent, mike and i have lived in this house for four years and we havent really had a lot of creative freedom - we havent been able to paint which has made decorating uninteresting and uninspiring.  but NOW we are really starting to see some of our personality come through (like in the bathroom and hallway, for starters) and im so excited about that.  i just cant wait to see some color on these walls!



xo.
   m.

ocean weather...

so, after this whole (traumatic!) waterspout/tornado incident today and the hurricane a few weeks ago, i got thinking about weather and general, and specifically weather at the beach.

i know that weather gets crazy everywhere, and here we dont have tornadoes that often, or earthquakes (though, in the past month we've had both!?)...but weather on the beach is a totally different experience - from fog that goes from non existent to pea-soup thick, temperatures that drop 10 degrees or more in under a mile, hurricanes, nor'easters, etc...and i thought it would be cool to put up a few videos of what the weather is like where i live for our family who doesnt live on the coast.  for me, its easy to forget that not everyone has an ocean with storm surges and flooding inlets and rip currents and swells that are incredible on their own, but the effects of that monster on the weather, well - its pretty awesome.

(all pulled from youtube)

(a sudden storm in 2009)

(sea foam!! this is from our recent hurricane, irene!)

(a nor'easter (which in ocmd is usually worse than a hurricane) in nov of 2009 - that's the ocean coming up to the boardwalk! the ocean usually stops about 100 yards from the boardwalk at high tide.)

(flooding after a thunderstorm)

(a washed up humpback that had died at sea.)

(seals - or maybe two videos of one seal - that came ashore last year around 58th street! there were four or five incidents of this last year up and down our coast!)

(a whale and a HUGE school (or, shoal, mike argues) of fish seen from the 19th floor of a hotel - we saw one last summer, too! from up high! pretty incredible)

and because i cant resist - some videos of sharks!  i actually know a lot of the people in the second video (the one with all the photos)!  all of the fish (and sharks and stingrays!!) in that video are caught FROM THE SHORE...pulled, literally, right out of the surf...where we swim.  (did i ever tell you about the skate, or potential shark, i punched last summer?!)

(uhhh...HAMMERHEAD!?)

and finally some of my own pictures from the day after hurricane earl last year!

and our beach when its calm:

how could i ever live away from the ocean!?



xo.
   m.