birthday

Christmas Recap (Pictures)

/ adam, aidan, birthday, christianity, family, ohio, pictures

Adam and I exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve, because we knew we’d probably be rushing the next day. He got me lots of cool stuff; a bed desk (WOOHOO), THE PATRON SAINT OF BUTTERFLIES, candy just to name a few things. Santa and Hanukkah Harry brought us The Dark Knight and Mario Kart. :) It was a nice Christmas Eve.

My Presents from Adam

On Christmas Day, Adam and I flew to Ohio to see Aidan and family. See, Aidan’s Christmas list consisted of only four things:

– a Spiderman puzzle
– a Wii
– a bike
– his Mommy

They pulled up at the airport and Aidan, who’d been excited at the prospect of seeing me (all he knew was that Santa was working very hard and picking us up and etc., and we tried to keep it a secret as best as we could), was fast asleep. He woke up while we were putting the luggage in the truck, and the smile that was on his little face was just… wow. Best gift EVER. :)

We spent Christmas evening with Chris, Aidan, and Matty. It was great! They loved their presents, especially the toffee we got them from Terry’s Toffee.

Slinky!
Aidan playing with stocking stuffers!

This picture cracks me up:

Adam and Aidan

Adam looks like the innocent child and Aidan looks like a little gangsta.

The next day we headed to my mom’s where of course, I got a food picture:

Christmas Dinner
Mmmm.

YAY. I also took random shots of anything and everything:

Happy Aidan At the Dinner Table Mommy Aidan & Mommy

My mommy got me lots of cute pajamas, a soft cuddly robe that I am wearing now, and she and Greg got me a $50 American Express gift card meant to spend on books! Woohoo. She got me a Mickey Mouse fleece hoodie for my birthday. Adam cleaned up on clothes and pajamas this year. My hubby is styling! :)

After Mommy’s, we spent some time at Andy’s, and thank goodness. It was dark and rainy and I HATE driving at night when it’s raining. I can’t see a thing on the roads. I can’t imagine trying to drive all the way back to Columbus when the weather is like that. So we stayed at Andy’s, and ended up staying another day because that’s when I started feeling icky. I got randomly sick and achy. Boo. A lot of rest and medicines helped me push through, though. And Aidan got to watch Wall-E twice. It was nice and relaxing. Andy has a nice house. He also got me cool gifts, including an adorable Domo tee-shirt.

We got back to Columbus on Sunday. A package from Ivy came Monday, full of Disney goodies and COOKIES!!!!!!

Santa Aidan
Here, Aidan is enjoying one of Ivy’s icicle cookies. Yum.

Then……

Yesterday was Aidan’s 6th birthday!!!!

Aidan's Spongebob Cake

Happy Birthday, Aidan! Happy Birthday, Aidan!

We had a nice little celebration for him, and he once again, cleaned up with the presents! He’s so excited to be 6. I just can’t believe he’s no longer 5! He got Mario Kart, too, so we’ll be able to play with him online once Chris or Matty gets it all set up over on their end. YAY! I got him Wall-E, which he watched right away.

In case you’re wondering, Aidan DID get everything on his list above, AND THEN SOME. And when I say “and then some…” well, basically, you have no idea how much stuff the kid got. It’s really, truly overwhelming. I doubt he even realizes the magnitude of love that was poured out to him in the form of gifts. But you know, you’re only five on Christmas once, and I’m pretty sure his was more than magical. :) I’m so grateful I was able to share it with him, and be part of what made it so good for him.

I didn’t get to see nearly as many people as I wanted when I was in town, but maybe next time. I got to see the most important person–Little Aidan, and that’s what matters most.

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Hello Winter! (Pictures)

/ adam, aidan, friends, living in chicago, pictures, yay

Winter came in like a lion, let’s hope it goes out like a lamb. :) Here’s the latest weather update, screenshot taken from my iPhone:

Temperature December 21, 2008

I was supposed to head up to Jeff and Deborah’s today to have a little party, but Adam and I talked it over and decided that it’d be safer and make more sense to stay in where it’s warm. I was looking forward to hanging out with Jeff and Deborah, but we rescheduled. So now it’ll be a combination birthday/Hanukkah/New Year’s party. :) All the more reason to celebrate, right?

Speaking of celebrating, I had a really great birthday. Adam kicked things off at midnight with this awesome box:

Birthday Present!

It was full of Lush goodies! My very favorite kind of present! He kept hinting that it was something I’d love, but would never buy for myself. Or that I’d want it but constantly talk myself out of it. He was so right. I love it, and I would have never got myself a box that big of Lush stuff. He got me a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, and a cheeseburger from Salerno’s which was yummy, and my friend Jen came over. We went on the Weird Chicago tour where another one of the patrons shared my birthday (but he was a year younger). One of them bought us all drinks. I had an Amaretto Sour. Adam had Scotch. The tour was really cool. As I’ve said before, every one is different, and I hadn’t been on one in a long time. This time we went down Prairie Avenue and looked at gorgeous houses. The snow was that pretty, soft snow. See?

Snow in Chicago Snow in Chicago

Jen & Adam Snow in Chicago

After that fun night, Jen, Adam and I came back and hung out and chatted. It was very pleasant. We have kidnapped her for the time being. :)

My Facebook wall BLEW UP with birthday greetings, and I got an eCard that I have yet to check out. I talked to Aidan, my mom, and my old friend from college Rita. I feel very loved and blessed.

Only a few days until Christmas!

(Originally published at Anywhere Is…)

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Ow Ow F*ckity Ow

/ life, sick

Adam is here, resting on the futon, doing something with his computer. We just got back from Upper Arlington, where we went in search of the crazy house. I found it very easily this time! Yay me.

We also went to Walgreens, where I bought the big 500 count bottle of Ibuprofen 200. My throat. My ears. I get about ten minutes of day when they’re not killing me. Other than that, I have to load up on the drugs to at least take the edge off, even if the pain never goes away. I can’t even swallow without flinching anymore. I don’t know what else to do.

Actually, I am tempted to ask my co-worker if she can get her father, an ear-nose-throat specialist, to recommend someone I can go to. I’ve been suffering from this for almost three months now, have seen two doctors, gone through three different rounds of anti-biotics, and I’m taking pain pills and putting in that nose spray stuff, and nothing’s helping. Every night I can expect to be in near tears because of the pain.

Other than that constant pain, I’ve been having fun. Adam got here on Thursday, my birthday, which made it a good day automatically. But I had a fun half-day at work. People gave me gifts and cards, and Heather bought me cocoa and a donut from Tim Horton’s. Yummy. Adam took me to lunch at Brio, where I had the Garganelli Carbonara. That evening, we went to another free screening of Juno (where I got a different t-shirt!), and then we had ice cream at Jeni’s Ice Cream. They serve weird flavors there, like one with cayenne pepper and one with goat cheese. I had the Belgian Chocolate ice cream. It was good.

Saw The Golden Compass also. Win.

Now that it’s Sunday (Semagic has an auto time updater), I’m gonna go try to rest. Aidan’s coming over tonight and well, there is no rest when Aidan’s around. Later!

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Very Much A Potluck

/ birthday, friends, music, work

Way I Are – Timbaland
I heard this song for the first time on the radio on the way home from work today. I was enjoying the beat. Then I heard the chorus. A part of it. THE WAY I ARE. Again, I like the beat. It’s a catchy song. But, as a copy editor, I feel morally obligated to refrained from obtaining it in any way, shape or form. It’s like the way I cringe when, In Big Girls Don’t Cry, Fergie sings, “like a child misses their blanket.” The noun/pronoun agreement in that sentence is off. But I like the song. So now what? *sigh* I just know that everytime I hear that “way I are” part I’m going to want to throw something across the room. So I guess the answer is to let the song be.

During the Spring, I was taking the Zaner-Bloser Handwriting course. It was a correspondence course. I worked on certain letters, manuscript and cursive, and turned them in to an evaluator. It was HARD. Writing is very much about muscle memory, and my hands had been trained to write a certain way, to make letterforms a certain way. To retrain is hard and painful. Even still, I got very good scores on my lessons, and on June 7th, I became certified to model and teach Zaner-Bloser Handwriting! 🙂 Yay.

Other than that, work’s been pretty run-of-the-mill.

I did a BAD THING last night. I installed Zoo Tycoon on my computer. And no, not the new one. The ORIGINAL one. And I played it for TWO HOURS. ARGH. I can’t believe I got sucked in again. I managed to spend $250,000 trying to get the thing established, and the stupid giraffes just kept on being pissed off, and the stupid zookeepers and maintenence workers refused to clean up all the poop which pissed the giraffes off even more! So I sold all the giraffes, and I’m going to rebuild the exhibit and only put two giraffes giraffes in there. I’d added too many before, then they started making babies and oh man. OUT OF CONTROL. I never got any of the expansion packs, and I don’t know if I am going to ever invest in the newer versions (they look fun!), but I tihnk that’ll be okay. Speaking of computer games… OMG Bookworm Adventure. Defeat the enemies by making big words!!! Yeah, game heaven for a word geek like me.

This just in:
Nielson did some research on the Harry Potter phenomena, and here’s a statistic that surprises me:

51% of people age 12+ in the U.S. are aware that the new Harry Potter book is coming out in July.

I honestly thought it’d be a higher percentage. Wow. But I think 51% is still pretty darn impressive.

The whole “Save Harry” campaign is kind of annoying. Let the author do what she will. Signing a petition to get her to sign more books, while it must be flattering, has to be kind of infuriating as well. The security measures around the book are crazy!!!!! I can’t believe the lengths these companies are going through to keep it secret. Well, one week and one day, and the fans can be satisfied.

And one last note…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO goaliej54!!!!!!! ♥

See ya!

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