two more days until florida! hope everyone had a merry christmas and has a happy new year!!

i am behind. the day i accepted this job, i was already behind. the good part about my job is that i blink, and half of my work day has gone by. the bad part is that i blink and half of my work day has gone by and my "to do" list just keeps getting longer. i decided to opt for the paper planner rather than use my pda. i like writing stuff down and crossing stuff off. there's something about the sound of the pen or pencil scratching the paper that is so satisfying. the problem with crossing stuff off of my "to do" list is that crossing one thing off means adding three follow up items.

*sigh*

who thought that one day i would have a job that would keep me so busy that i couldn't chat at my leisure or check blogs 10 times a day? crazy.

eric and i had some time off of work yesterday and spent 90 percent of that time finishing the last couple dvds of season 2 of grey's anatomy. we spent the other 10 percent looking for christmas lights at target.

it's supposed to snow up to 3 inches tomorrow. i'm fully anticipating crazy driving (not from me, of course) and lots of traffic. one would think that i would go to bed earlier so that i could wake up earlier in order to give myself a little more commute time. but no. i've been up late a lot lately. i've also been getting bad sleep. i think that bad sleep is worse than not enough sleep.

i'm totally getting my ass kicked at work, but am loving it. i worked until 9pm the other night...but instead of slaving away over a never-ending and boring report like i used to at my old job, i was sitting in a room of 12 passionate volunteers brainstorming a kick off event for our signature fundraiser. i get to write on giant post-it paper in pretty colored markers and get paid for it. sweet.

can you name the capital of iowa?
now can you name two more cities in iowa?
repeat with each of the remaining 49 states.
fun times, right?!!
*note: maximize fun by doing this with a friend!

thanksgiving is next week, which means that christmas is just around the corner. where did the fall go?

by the way - did anyone catch extreme makeover: home edition last night? that's a big part of my job. relay for life. fyi.

i wish i had a camera. i have sparkly confetti on my desk. streamers strewn over my head with foil spirals and stars hanging from my ceiling. i have a window. a window! and living flowers. those might not last, but it's the thought that counts. i also have a really cute pumpkin basket with healthy treats from my new boss.

ahhh....i love it here!

i am...exhausted.

leaving a job is hard work. i can finally exhale without having this dark linger cloud of report-writing stress hanging over me.

can i just say that my manager didn't know today was my last day?

goodbye consulting! hello acs!

i like that starbucks will give you a coupon for a free drink if they think you've waited too long. "too long" is pretty subjective, but in my experience, i've found "too long" to be more than 3 minutes. i would like all food service establishments to adopt this practice. today, i just want einsteins bagels to adopt it. or at least give me a sincere apology when you've just made me wait 10 minutes in an empty store for a simple bagel and cream cheese. whatever happened to good customer service?

that's it. i'm doing it. switching careers. no longer an engineer.

can you believe it?

i have wanted to be an engineer for as long as i can remember knowing what that an engineer had to be good at math and science. math? check. LOVED math (still do). science? check. okay, i kind of sucked at physics, but i think that was because i didn't apply myself. and then i graduated from umich, armed with my chemE degree...only to find out that i didnt' want to be a chemE. so i decided to try consulting. the environmental kind. i liked that for a little bit and then realized where that path was leading...right to the pit of unhappy where i would wake up every morning asking myself if i should call in "not feeling well."

so here i am. 12:05am, busting my ass for the last time for this company that has employed me for the last (almost) five years. it's so sweet to be writing these reports for the last time. that's probably what's keeping me going at this hour...the LAST time. wheee!!

the timing seems right. my manager recently quit to go to another consulting firm. i really liked working for her. had she not quit, i would have had a slightly harder time leaving the company. i really wouldn't want to work for anyone else in my office. aaand...whaddyaknow. right before i take a job with a non-profit, eric gets a raise and a promotion - something that has been absent in his career for the last few years. pretty lucky *wink wink*.

thanks for all your prayers. God is so faithful. He really just lined everything up for me. all i had to do was follow.

this is pretty funny to me.

i seriously considered buying it. isaiah and ethan like to fall asleep in the crook of your arm. sometimes they snuggle right up into your armpit. one time ethan spent the night with his forehead in eric's armpit. i was pretty grossed out when i picked up ethan the next morning and gave him a big kiss on his armpit-smelling forehead. blech!

*twiddle twiddle twiddle*

last interview down. now all i have to do is wait.

*twiddle twiddle twiddle*

three interviews down. one more to go...

i went to starbucks three times yesterday. i think i'm still running on the caffeine.

malan is creepy creepy creepy. that laugh...*shudder*
vincent is also creepy creepy creepy.
holy cow, lane is pregnant!

my office is participating in ymca's america on the move week program. with my low-tech pedometer, i have already logged almost 400 steps in just a half hour! it takes 34 steps just to get to the printer from my desk. it's fun to walk around the office when you have a means of tracking your progress. now onto getting some progress with the pile of work on my desk...

p.s. third interview happens this week. woohoo! i have to give a presentation that's basically like running a mass meeting at umich. sweet.

confession: i cheated and looked online at the photos from the project runway show at olympus fashion week. eric will probably be mad at me for skipping to the end, so to speak. my impatience got the best of me. in my defense, they make it so that you can't tell who the final three are. i'm pulling for michael. he's cool. uli is cool, too, but her dresses all look the same. i used the think that laura and jeffrey were just biatches, but both have turned out to be surprisingly endearing. anyway...back to work...

my last full week of maternity leave is over. i go back to work on thursday. i get to spend my first day back in vehicle safety training. my office manager made it a point to tell my manager that i should take that training. =\ i hope it's because i spend a lot of time traveling for my job and not because he thinks i'm a bad driver for putting a dent in the company truck (oops).

september 1. where did the summer go? i officially go back to work on the 14th. boo. =( i wish we had the same maternity leave policy as the canadians. i would love a year of paid time off after i had a baby. i'm not ready to leave ethan for a whole day yet. the longest so far has been 4 hours while eric and i went to a movie and then dinner. that was quite long enough. with isaiah, i hated leaving him with someone else all day. i didn't want to miss any "first" with him. the thought of missing a first word or a first step made me so sad (and jealous of whoever got to witness it). but what can you do? in the end, i'm just happy that isaiah is excited to see me when i pick him up/come home.

new topic.

i scored non-stop first class tickets to orlando for new years for $277. this is super exciting considering that it was impossible to find a non-stop flight for less than $400 a week ago. this is super exciting considering we'll be flying with two kids.

i also scored a face-to-face interview for a new job after passing the unexpected phone interview. can people do that? just call you out of the blue with no warning and interview you? i guess i answered my own question. anyway...yay! for second interview!

so i'm not planning on returning to my job after maternity leave. no one at work knows this, although my manager might be expecting it. the plan is to get a new job while on maternity leave just in time to give them my two weeks without having to actually go back to work. i've decided that my career is steering itself down the event planning path. it took a while to come to this realization, and now that i have, i can really start job searching. i have prospects with a couple non-profits, and i'm pretty excited about them. please pray for me!

there are times when i look at ethan and think i'm looking at an infant isaiah. he's sleeping right now - whew. he was crying before - fighting sleep and from isaiah knocking him on the head (accidentally) with his sippy cup. isaiah was crying at the same time - wanting to drive his blue car outside mixed with hunger and over-tiredness. he's playing in the basement with kimmie right now - whew.

it's a helpless feeling when you're outnumbered 2 on 1 and the 2 are crying their eyes out at the same time. sigh. thank God for kimmie. she rocks.

we're gonna make a trip out to dodge park to cheer j on as he takes on the breast cancer 3-day for the second year in a row. go j, go!!

the "t" key is sticking right now, which is incredibly annoying. more later...

update: 9 days postpartum. tired, but happy. recovering well. i think i'm functioning on adrenaline. relieved to no longer be pregnant.

i was supposed to be induced last thursday (7/20). i started having contractions at about 3:30am and went into the hospital at 7:00am to be induced. i was worried that because i seemed to be going into labor on my own they would send me home and tell me to wait until the contractions got closer together. fortunately, they just admitted me and got me ready to be induced. it turned out that my doctor really wanted to deliver ethan, but he had patients to see in the office all morning. long story short, i didn't get induced, they broke my water around 2:00pm, and ethan was born at 7:24pm.

let me talk about labor. if you're a female and suffer from menstrual cramps, labor is like that. except when labor really starts to kick in, it's like having your worse menstrual cramps ever multiplied by 10 and occurring every few minutes for a minute at a time. if you're a male, there is simply no way for you to know what it would be like to have menstrual cramps, so just be satisfied knowing that women are built with a much higher pain threshold than you.* i was strapped to a monitor that measured the intensity of my contractions from 0 to 100. i asked for an epidural almost immediately after a felt them getting really bad. the intensity of those contractions was 50. by the time i was fully dilated, the contractions were measuring off the charts at 120 and were right on top of each other. i don't say this to scare anyone from having children. i say this to confirm how GREAT and effective epidurals can be. so many women are afraid of the pain of childbirth. um, can you say "no pain" with the epidural? i think i would have been blinded by the pain of those last contractions. i have no idea how women do this without drugs. anyway, after a relatively easy labor (thanks to a fabulous epidural) and 10 minutes of pushing, our second baby boy was born healthy with a full head of hair. 7lb. 8oz. 20" long. ethan looks a lot like isaiah as a newborn:


it's much easier taking care of a newborn the second time around. after having to run around after isaiah all the time, taking care of a baby that just sleeps and eats and soils his diaper from time to time is a piece of cake. the feeding schedule kind of kills us on sleep, but it's not so bad since i can nap during the day (isaiah-willing!). eric and i are definitely more relaxed since we're not jumping up every time ethan makes a little noise to make sure he's okay. anyway, thanks for all the thoughts and prayers! they definitely worked, seeing how everything went and continues to go smoothly.


*when we took childbirth classes a couple years ago, the instructor suggested a means to simulate the pain of contractions to help us practice our breathing during labor: take an ice cube and squeeze it in your hand for a minute to a minute and a half. personally, i don't think it comes near the pain of what a serious contraction feels like, but it does hurt. eric - the dear sweet loving husband that he is - grabbed some ice chips at the hospital while i was in labor so he could empathize with my labor pains. 10 seconds later: "all i can think about is the pain!"

update: 41 weeks. STILL pregnant.

if it doesn't happen tonight or tomorrow, it's happening on thursday for sure. prayers and thoughts are much appreciated!!

update: still pregnant. still. 40 weeks plus 5 days.

i've run every errand and organized and cleaned everything i have the strength to organize or clean. eric just put up new shelves for me to organize my stamping stuff. i could do that, except i just made a big mess of it making little disney puppets for isaiah. at first, i just made little einstein puppets. those were quickly shredded after just one hour of play. i have learned my lesson and have laminated the new puppets to make them tear-resistant. yup. laminated 10 little puppets on popsicle sticks with packing tape because i have that kind of time. sigh.

if anything, this is a test of patience. so i will wait patiently. i'm constantly having contractions, but nothing regular and definitely not labor. did you know there are three stages of labor, and the first stage averages 8 to 12 hours for a first-time mom?

update: still pregnant. 40 weeks plus 3 days.

ethan, don't you want to meet us?

update: still pregnant. 40 weeks plus one day.

t minus four days until ethan is due. eric thought he would have been here by now. me, i think he's going to be late just like his brother. regardless, i've been a little apprehensive about going somewhere by myself and having to drive while in labor. my doctor keeps telling me that this one is going to go really fast. i don't know what "really fast" means to him, but to me, it sounds like a few hours (which is not a lot of time for what needs to happen in those few hours). i've been running errands, all within a 5-mile radius of my house. that way, if i do end up going into labor, at least i won't have to drive far. eric and i spent thursday afternoon in detroit. i met up with lunch buddy while eric got his gambling fix at motor city casino. we took his car even though the air conditioning doesn't work. my reasoning: 1) my gas tank has been on E for the last week, and 2) i felt chrissy would have been more comfortable not driving stick in the event that labor did happen.

i have to go grocery shopping in the morning. it's probably time to get gas. i've been kind of waiting for the prices to go down a bit. it's depressing to drive by the gas stations and see that regular gas is $3.05. i'm sure it's like $4 for regular in california, but you're talking to a girl that still reminisces of the days when $0.89 for regular was expensive. ahhh...to fill up the tank on less than ten bucks!

eric goes back to work on monday. =( it's been nice being home with him all last week. we were definitely productive (he, more so than i). so next week, it'll be me and isaiah waiting around for ethan's arrival...

i just found my nkotb "hanging tough" tape. whoa.

i also found a bunch of mix tapes from college. was college so long ago that i still made mix tapes instead of cds?

did i mention that i saw wicked for the second time a couple weeks ago?

i LOVE wicked. i loved it from when i first heard "the wizard and i" on launchcast. i loved it even more when eric got me the cd. and when i finally got to see it in chicago on mother's day last year, it was everything i wanted it to be and more. even after reading a detailed synopsis and knowing the cd cold, the musical still had some surprises for me.

when eric and i heard that the wicked tour was going to include a stop in detroit in june 2006, we decided that we were getting the best tickets that we could get, even if it would cost a ton of money. thanks to a heads up from a dinner buddy about pre-sale tickets, 3 hours of diligent online searching, and the most accomodating ticket master employee EVER, we scored three awesome tickets for the very last detroit show for a mere $80/ticket. the catch: we weren't sitting together. the tickets were somewhere in the middle in the 3rd, 4th, and 6th rows. whatever, it was in the middle and in the front, and everyone that would be sitting around us would have paid three times what we paid. suckers. plus, the only point of sitting next to people you know is to talk to them, and why would you be talking during the show? exactly.

fast forward to us entering masonic temple to see the show. eric and kimmie went ahead of me since i had to use the bathroom. i get to my seat 10 minutes later. eric is sitting directly behind me, two rows back. i am sitting directly behind kimmie. kimmie is sitting directly behind the orchestra pit. PEOPLE! (as eric would say.) can you say 1st, 2nd and 4th row, dead center for wicked? kimmie actually dropped her ticket and it fell into the pit. the piano dude had to pick it up for her. cool. we could see the actors sweat and spit. we could see that their microphones were affixed to their foreheads. we could see that the tape holding down the microphone for the tall chorus girl on stage right was coming off near her ear. we could see all the fun percussion instruments being used. heck, we could read the orchestra's music. it was awesome. and since we caught the last show in detroit, i believe that the actors gave us an extra effort in their performance. i loved it. all of it. wicked rocks.

bye bye work!! see you in september.

-2 station. 50% effacement.

i'm off on maternity leave starting june 28. sweet!! i can't wait. eric will be off at least the first week of july for gm shut down, so it will be nice to have time off of work together at home. we're both totally nesting...cleaning everything in sight, finally getting the laundry out of the way, putting up a new tv in the kitchen so i won't be all alone on the main floor while i'm cooking, ripping up the deck...i still feel like there's so much to do before ethan arrives. we still have to pack our hospital bag. :\

the new season of project runway airs on july 12 - ethan's due date. perfect! eric and i will also both be home to watch the world cup wrap up. too bad the u.s. went out to ghana today. from the matchtracker, it didn't look like they played great anyway. argghh.

9 more days of work until i'm off until september.

currently listening: natural vibe live, gypsy cafe, 4.16.00.

this is by far my favorite vibe performance ever. it wasn't their last, but it might as well have been. they weren't perfect, but the joy that came from singing and jamming with good friends exuded. it was a gorgeous sunny sunday, close friends and fans crammed into the back of a coffee shop in kerry town. it was intimate and fun. there was the added bonus of having matrix media on the cameras, ryan on the sound board, j on the drums, dave fessler on the bass, and rexy on the guitar/keys. plus guest appearances by chris lum, lynn chen, and steve kang. that's some talent. we were all so much cooler for knowing natural vibe. man...that was another lifetime ago...

they are fixing the roof of my office building, and it sounds like there is an airplane constantly flying overhead. it makes it kind of difficult to get any work done. (it's also a little difficult to get any work done when you don't really have any work to do.) regardless, the noise from the roofers is pretty annoying.

friday night was pretty disappointing. i hate the heat. i hope the mavs demolish them. i'm still proud of my pistons. that's all i'm going to say about that.

we spent the rest of the weekend outside at relay for life (it's a 24-hour event that raises money for the american cancer society). the weather was weird...bouts of gorgeous sunshine and 80 degree weather, episodes (sometimes really long episodes) of torrential downpour in the cold, some hail, etc...we got it all. poor kimmie was doing her laps in the torrential downpour when the weather dropped to 50 degrees at 4am. despite some nasty weather, it was a fun time. my cousins are so fun to hang out with. they're so silly and immature sometimes that it's hard to believe that they're all parents and a whole decade (give or take a few years) older. it's really nice to be able to participate in an event like this with family...it's been almost 9 years since my dad passed away and more than 6 years since my aunt passed away. doing relay for life was a nice way to remember them and honor their lives and their struggle.

ethan has dropped a little. this is good because it means that his arrival is soon. this is bad because the extra pressure from having 20 extra pounds pushing more on your bladder makes you have to go to the bathroom every time you walk more than 20 feet.

phew! a crazy weekend came and went just like that. two wedding rehearsals, two weddings, out of town guests, bbq, foosball, x3, no sleep, tons of fun, lots of dancing, lots of eating....

...and now i'm back at work. yuck. thank God everyone loves isaiah (and that isaiah loves them right back). it would have been infinitely harder to take care of him during the weekend festivities if we didn't have like 10 other people watching out for him, too. (thanks, guys!) i'm still exhausted, but it was well worth it. i wish (as usual) that there had been more time to just sit and chit chat with everyone from out of town. visits and vacations are getting harder and harder to plan with the family growing, so we need to take advantage of everyone we get!

congrats, paolo and mandy! congrats, connie and pat!!

i just scored a bag of gardettos with tons of rye chips. yesss.

i've been staring blankly at word and excel documents all day while listening to the da vinci code audio book. it's impossible to get any work done while listening to this story...

tomorrow. 7pm ET. assume game time positions.

you know that work is slow when you've just spent a good part of your morning deleting almost 800 messages from your inbox and sent mail folder.

i have the best message on my work voicemail. it's isaiah saying "hi mama" and "love you" and "later!"

i had pizza house chicken tenders and fries for lunch. it's okay to be jealous.

nba playoffs, round 2, game 2 tonight: GO PISTONS!!

.

just in time for my materinity leave.

i was on my way to work this morning when i realize that i left my computer and all of the paper work i would need for the day at home. after a quick call to my manager, i turned my car around and headed home to "work" for the day. i actually need to get a lot of stuff done, but i'm not very motivated. therefore, i blog.

eric just finished 8 weeks of hard core work hell that ended yesterday. he stopped by the dunkin donuts on 12 and dequindre to buy donuts for all the people that helped him over the last couple months. (aww, so nice, right?) it just so happened that i was passing by the dunkin donuts just as he was getting into his car. ring ring! "look out your window and wave to your wife!" he waved. yay! seeing people you know while driving is fun. he had to turn left into a lot of traffic, my light was about to turn green, and i was in a perfect position to let him in. so i did. cool!! (well, i thought so.)

random: on my way home yesterday there was a car in front of me with a license plate that read "tea tee." i laughed like the immature filipino girl that i am.

is it not the best when work buys you ice cream because it's a nice day?

(of course, not as nice as giving us the afternoon off...but it'll do.)

what a great weekend. not really wanting to go into work tomorrow (as if that's different from most days).

had a great weekend hanging out with family. definitely ate too much saturday, yesterday, and today. with ethan growing so fast in addition to eating too much, my stomach feels like it's going to explode. i'm definitely a waddling pregnant lady right now. i can't believe that i was barely showing a month ago.

we took isaiah to his first pistons game. isaiah is the coolest. he's definitely our kid, because he loves the pistons. he spent the first half on his feet shouting "yeah!" and "go!" and "pistons!" his cousins taught him how to shake his butt on saturday, so he was shaking away whenever music played at the palace. we played the knicks minus larry brown, steve francis, and jalen rose...so one would think that the game would not be so great. but it was because 1) the pistons won; 2) the tickets were free (compliments of my work); 3) it was the 64th win of the season setting a franchise record; and 4) it was the first game that eric and i got to go to together this season. oh, and we got there super early, so we sat near the floor during warm ups and got to gawk and ooh and ahh at all the nba players close up. even got autographs from flip saunders and george blaha. it would have been better to get the starting five to sign our hard hat, but whatever. it was cool! go pistons!!

it's amazing. two weeks ago i was in over my head with work work work. the kind of work where you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. and now here i am.

with. nothing. to. do.

this is a rare occasion that must be remembered. we get friday off. i'm taking monday off. i have no pressing deadlines. this is great! now what to do, what to do....

this might only be funny to me:

setting - dinner time, monday night

me: babe, can you go get isaiah some milk?
eric: yeah, yeah. sure.

(eric gets up and goes to the kitchen. sits back down at the table a minute later eating a brownie. i stare at him. eric has no idea why i would stare at him in that way.)

me: i'll go get isaiah some milk.
eric: did you just ask me to get isaiah milk and i came back with a brownie and no milk?

maurice evans is really nice. he didn't have to chit chat with us after he signed my pistons hard hat and after he took a picture with us. but he did. and he now has the agustins cheering for him every game he plays. yeah!

(thanks, benda, for letting us into your poker tournament so we could meet mo. you're the man.)

i'm tired.

kimmie and i spent 3+ hours last night cleaning up a half-gallon of red latex paint off the carpet.

thank God for kimmie and eHow.com and lowe's being open until 10pm.

note to self: never leave half-full paint cans at the top of the stairs (even if you think you've closed them securely). isaiah will surely find it and throw it down the stairs for fun.

yesterday at 11:15am, i got a call from one of our more "demanding" clients:

client: i have some questions regarding so and so project for your manager.
me: is it something i can help you with? she's out all today and won't be back until tomorrow.
client: no. i need to speak with your manager. i know she's at a funeral today, but do you expect her to call in today to check in on things?
me (in total disbelief): no i do not expect her to call to check in while she's at a funeral.
client: do you know if she's checking her email?
me: (??!!!!) i have no idea. i wouldn't expect her to be checking her email since she's at a funeral.
client: could you just shoot her an email and let her know that i need to speak with her as soon as possible?

who does this guy think he is??? i mean, i know there's an approaching deadline (which we would have hit already if he would make up his mind about some irrelevant language - he's a lawyer*)..but how can someone be SO inconsiderate?? i found out this morning that my manager spent nearly FOUR hours talking to him on the phone while she was attending the funeral. he kept calling her! it got to the point where she had to interrupt him to say, "i am at the cemetery, i will have to call you back." i don't know how she kept her composure with him.

sheesh. i had to vent. the other guy in my group and i kept getting more and more steamed the more our manager kept talking about it. it's unbelievable how selfish and cold-hearted that client was/is and how he could expect her to put her work above a family tragedy (in the midst of the funeral, no less). people like that make me so sad.

*disclaimer: nothing against you who are lawyers. (hi, steen! hi, amit!) i love you guys.

we painted our living room and our dining room. it feels like we have a new house. finally, our house has color! i love that we have a big window in our living room looking out into the park. it's like a big picture that changes with the weather...kind of like the ceiling at hogwarts, except that it's not magical. one of the best parts about the window is this barely noticeable digital thermometer between the window glass and the window screen that eric installed. it's nice to know the temperature outside when you look out the window. you can say stuff like "how is it snowing when it's 45 degrees outiside?" and "it's deceptively beautiful outside with the sun shining and blue sky, but it's 15 degrees, so i'll stay inside/bundle up when i go outside."

it's important to remember when painting that if the previous homeowners did a sucky job at putting in the baseboards that you should just rip them out and put in new ones. it will save you the agony of painstakingly taping them off only to not get a nice clean line. this will also spare you two hours of laying on the floor doing touch-ups trying to get that nice clean line (but to no avail). also, semi-gloss shows every imperfection in the wall, but is necessary if you plan on having little kids running around getting everything from crayon and pen to peanut butter and jelly on the wall. it'll save you from having to re-paint every time you clean off a mess.

lesson of the day: myanmar is the largest country in mainland southeast asia. it sits west of thailand and was formerly known as burma.

i have a non-stop soundtrack of the wiggles songs running through my head. i wish it would stop. it makes me think of isaiah dancing to those ridiculous songs, so at least it makes me smile.

eric and i have totally been getting our asses kicked at work. i had to go to sacramento for work for a day, so eric had to take care of isaiah all by himself. that means picking up and dropping him off at my cousin's house for two days. picking up isaiah limits your whole schedule - especially if work is being exceptionally grueling. you have to leave earlier to get to work (or in my case, get to work later) or leave work earlier to pick him up in time. our house is a mess. there are dirty dishes in the sink and on the table. there are loads and loads of laundry to be done. we're both exhausted. it's going to be crazy when ethan comes along.

yesterday marked the 11th year that eric and i have been together. we were supposed to go on a date, but opted to postpone it since i had just been gone for two days and being apart from isaiah for any longer would have been hard. (plus, isaiah had a rough day. his cousin accidentally knocked him over on the ice, and now isaiah's left cheek is all scratched up. it looks much worse than it is.)

11 years. only four more years, and i'll have been with eric for half my life. time goes by so fast! it reminds me that quality time is so valuable. with all the housework and work work that needs to get done, i'll choose quality time over those things any day. i felt like i spent hardly any time with isaiah last week because of work. taking work home absolutely sucks. kimmie would tell me all the new things isaiah would do, and i would just feel bad because i could have witnessed those things instead of working so much. to me, housework and work can always wait. isaiah growing up waits for nobody. i don't want to wake up one day only to realize that i missed hundreds of important little moments in isaiah's life because i had to work late or i was too busy keeping the house clean. i can't wait to find a job closer to home.

there's too much to do. =( i just want to crawl under the covers and go to sleep.

take your pick:

• prime rib: grilled to perfection served with mushrooms and a marsala wine glaze.
• chicken northern woods: breaded boneless breast of chicken stuffed with wild rice, dried michigan cherries, pecans, and chevre cheese, topped with a raspberry demiglace.

this saturday is my office's annual formal party. for the last three years, i have been charged with the responsibility of planning it. it should be fun. i've hired a casino company to come in and set up, well, a casino. complete with tiffany lamps, dealers, craps, poker, blackjack, etc. they even bring in a dj.

but the food. oh the food. i always get nervous when it comes to the food choices. well, the beef option wasn't really that difficult. i love prime rib, therefore, the choice is prime rib. but chicken...man. so many chicken dishes to choose from. you can't get chicken with proscuitto, because that would disappoint the people that chose chicken solely for the purpose of avoiding red meat. and then there are nut allergies, aversions to mushrooms, cheese likes and dislikes. sigh. and it's not like you can choose chicken picatta or chicken dijon, which will look so plain and sad next to a huge piece of prime rib. so chicken northern woods it is. i've consulted with a few select co-workers, and that is the consensus. i think that the chicken dish will generally go over well. i'm just afraid of the people that it will disappoint, because i sure don't want to be on the receiving end of their *opinion* (to put it nicely).

it scares the crap out of me when i'm walking down a city street, and this person that has been walking two feet in front of me, in the same direction as me, for over a block suddenly turns to me and asks for money. dude. if you're going to ask me for money, at least approach me. don't turn around and be all unexpected like that.

i never know what to do when people on the street ask me for money. they say they're asking for money for food, but what if you just gave them money to feed their drug addiction? that would do them no good. if i had food on me, i would totally give it to them. i must have been asked at least 5 times for money on the 2-block walk to my car from city hall, and every time, i said no or ignored them. but then i think of Matthew 24: 37-40 and wonder if i just passed Jesus and left him hanging...

i dont' know how people live the "go go go" kind of work life. always super busy, always barely making deadlines, people always wanting stuff from you. when work gets that crazy, i go to sleep thinking about work, have nightmares about work, wake up and immediately think about work...i can only take so much of it before i feel my head falling off. i guess that's what you're supposed to do when you're young? work your ass off while you can before you have a priority other than yourself? i feel that my office manager expects us younger engineers to have that mentality. i don't think i'll ever buy into it. there are way too many things more important than advancing my place in a stupid company. maybe i just have small ambitions. all i want to do is go home to hang out with eric and isaiah. anyway...if you want to check out the latest on everything isaiah, you can.

the drive into work was more excruciating than usual this morning. it took me nearly an hour and a half. but all has been made right with the delivery of...girl scout cookies! thin mints anyone?

p.s. on a completely different note: how sad is it that michelle kwan has withdrawn from the olympics?

watch out, world. a second baby agustin boy is on the way. ethan and isaiah are going to be causing all kinds of trouble, i know it. i hope they are great pals. it makes me happy that isaiah loves little babies right now. he's always trying to kiss them. i hope he doesn't grow out of it before july.

by the way, if you ever get pregnant, don't listen to what anyone tells you about what they think the sex of your baby is gonna be. it's all crap. all of it!! i was SO SURE that this one was gonna be a girl. there was a general consensus. there were confirmatory dreams from more than one source. even when the ultrasound tech was scanning me and commenting on how well behaved the baby was being during the scan, i was POSITIVE that it was my well-mannered little girl. *surprise!* there was no mistaking that the baby in my belly was a boy. eric spared the "it's huge!" this time....instead left his mouth gaping open. i think mine was too. i was so surprised. i shouldn't have been. this is exactly what happened when we found out isaiah was a boy. i must say that i am very relieved that the baby is doing well. right now he's about 19cm long and about 6oz. ultrasounds are so cool.

well, baby ethan. we love you so much already! can't wait to see you in july!

i am trying my darndest to drink 40 oz. of fluid before my ultrasound. not an easy task to accomplish in one hour. i basically just chugged a 20 oz. of gatorade. drinking large amounts of liquid makes me want to throw up.

will it be a gracie or an ethan? anyone? i hope (s)he cooperates with the ultrasound!

habitat for humanity superBUILD.

40 house frames constructed in 5 days. 100 volunteers a day. 8 hour days.

we volunteered on the kick-off day. i love the energy at huge volunteer projects like this. it's a rare opportunity to be immersed in a warehouse full of positive people. i think that volunteering is so good for the soul. people just want to feel special. i think that you feel special just knowing that you've done something that will tell a complete stranger, "hey, i think that you're worth something. in fact, you're worth my rare free saturday and the sore muscles i got from the ridiculous amount of manual labor i gave." and of course the recipient totally thinks that *you* are special for giving up your saturday to build them a house, so it's a joyous circle.

i'm always overwhelmed by human kindness on projects like these. SO many people making life better for someone else who needs it. plus it keeps us grounded. it reminds us that we don't *need* much. and, wow, we have a LOT. anyway, it was a great experience and something i'm really glad that a bunch of us could do together (even if i did have to volunteer in the non-building sector of the project). deck 1 punched out two house frames more than two hours ahead of schedule. good job, guys! i'll leave you with a picture from the build...

just set off the security alarm at my office. that was fun. (not.) i'm definitely awake now.

f/ot: pistons 106, bucks 102.

• i love chauncey billups. you go, mr. big shot!
• tj ford is really small. only 5'10"
• sitting in the first row on the upper level allows you to shout directly down to the floor. i feel the players can really hear me.
• being on your feet and cheering your brains out is essential to helping your team to victory.

my head hurts, but it only hurts this bad after i've been working. it doesn't take much work for my head to start hurting. i think my body is trying to tell me something. "stop working" perhaps? i mean, when your body is telling you something in the form of pain, it might be good to listen to it, right?

i once told eric that i wanted to ask bill gates (or any equally rich gazillionaire) for a million dollars. that's like $20 to any of us regular joe schmoes. then i wouldn't have to work where i work. of course i would share it. it would be quite selfish of me to keep the whole million to myself. wouldn't that be nice? then it wouldn't be so scary to open up, say...A Bun In The Oven with mads. that makes me giggle. it's pure genius (and all madeleine, i might add). a bakery in the front with an ob office in the back. "enjoy a cinnamon roll and de-caf coffee while you wait!" if only...

we're back from sd.

*exhale*

our flight coming into detroit was delayed a half hour and then our luggage didn't get transferred, so we didnt' get home until 3am. i'm still on pacific coast time, so it's amazing that i'm up and functioning right now. i did however, choose the "work from home" option because 1) i dont' have a car and 2) i would probably die on the way to work because i fell asleep at the wheel.

congrats gene and helen! the wedding was really nice and gene looked really really happy. the reception was in the nicest tent i've ever seen. (when i heard that the reception was going to be in a "tent" i was thinking more of a canopy with open sides on some grass behind the hotel, not a permanent structure complete with doors and carpet.) isaiah danced the night away. he couldn't stop himself if he tried. the music played, therefore he danced. he charmed the pants off of everyone. there were so many random people coming up to see isaiah. i met way more people than i should have.

got to catch up a little with everyone, although i wish i could have caught up more. watched tv with chris lum and passed on out the couch just like the good old days at lake village. played trivial pusuit pop culture edition at the hotel. trivial pursuit a la gauntlet style did not quite work out in jon yang's favor. isaiah counted the stars with me and tita lynn while the boys attempted to catch lobster in la jolla. saw galvez for the first time since his surgery. he's making such an awesome recovery. i can only imagine how frustrating it is for him to be limited physically, especially after all the tris, races, surfing, etc. he's been doing. i feel that it must be very humbling and hard to endure this kind of recovery. you have to be so strong (mentally and physically), and galvez is. i have no doubt he'll be up and walking without any aids in no time. he's strong and determined. he's the man. galvez, you're my hero. (*tangent: when galvez got in the car, i was like "isaiah, say hi to tito galvez!" tito galvez?? sounded funny, especially since mrs. galvez was right there.)

thanks, hongk, for playing host and letting us take over your bedroom for the weekend. isaiah left you a pink bottle of baby magic lotion in case you ever wanted to smell like a filipino lola. =P i don't think he'd be offended if you threw it away. can't wait to see those of you cali folk coming into michigan soon (or you know, in four months). miss you already.

what a crappy day. people that are rude, impatient, and bitchy can really ruin your day. they frustrate you to the point that you can't thoroughly enjoy the gorgeous sunny 50 degree weather outside. definitely looking forward to hanging out in sd for a few days....far far away from the office!

i forgot to mention in yesterday's post that eric's blog has moved back to blogspot. so those of you that haven't changed your link to his blog in years and years, that link should work now.

i'm sick. i hate being sick. i've been sick for a month, and it just won't go away. i finally caved and took robitussin dm. since i'm pregnant, i try to not take medicine if i can tough it out. but i'm too miserable to tough it out. i'm sure people at work are expecting me to respond to their emails even though i'm sick. i can't believe that i work for a company like that. please pray for me...i'm gonna start looking for a new job and i have no idea what i want to do. i'm getting out of this field once baby #2 is born. i'm nervous but excited. any suggestions??

hello 2006!

i had so much fun on new years. it has been a while since i was so excited to go to a party. when i was little, we'd go to my cousins' house every year and party it up in their disco-carpeted basement. one of the cousins recently bought the house from his dad and re-did everything but the basement. so we brought the new years eve party back to the old house and partied like it was the 1980s. while we were getting ready, we drew inspiration from berry gordy's "the last dragon." i had crimped hair and wore obnoxious bright blue eyeshadow. eric wore legwarmers. my little niece ran around in her leotard and tights as flashdance. my cousin wore a poofy strapless pink prom dress with layers and layers of lace. j used half a bottle of polo cologne that night. my cousin was lamar from revenge of the nerds. spence wore stone-washed guess? jeans and a members only jacket. we karaoke'd to "we are the world" and whitney houston. good times. great way to bring in the new year.