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.

woohoo!! go alvin! go jenny! congratulations! it's your birthday (jenny)!!

we we had our first ultrasound yesterday. i was so anxious...by the time i was laying down on the exam table, i had concluded that i was going to cry whether a baby was there or not. thank you God, there was our baby...a little peanut about the size of my thumb! we could see her (okay, or his) arms wiggling and heart beating.

thanks for all the thoughts and prayers!!

*lucky*

it's rare when we have a free weekend to spend with g and mads. luckily bible study was postponed a week, giving us a completely free weekend. so we headed up to lansing to spend some time with g, mads, and luci. yay! turned out they were moving back into their old house on saturday. lucky for gary, eric could offer an extra body to move all of their heavy furniture. they finished late, and by then it was snowing too hard to drive all the way back to sterling heights. lucky us, we get to spend another night with the guevaras!

we woke up the next morning, and first thing g tells us is that they're getting ready to go to the hospital. madeleine had some contractions and she just wants to get checked out. note that her scheduled c-section is not for two more weeks. madeleine is taking a shower, because who would want to be dirty when you go in for an examination like that? she comes out of the shower exclaiming that her water just broke. holy cow, she's having a baby today!!!! all of their stuff was packed in the other house, there's no hospital bag ready to go, no one has clean clothes. it got a little crazy. g and mads take off for the hospital...i don't even think they told luci they were leaving. i guess it was lucky that we were there to babysit.

elijah was born by c-section shortly before noon on sunday, december 4, 2005. 6 lbs. 6oz. and 19.5 inches long. he's precious with curly hair! he has gary's eyes and madeleine's nose. mom, dad, new baby, and big sister are fantastic.

fresca is a good thing. why mess with a good thing? sparkling peach citrus fresca...sounds like a good thing, right?

peach - mmmm.
fresca - mmmmm.

or NOT. it tasted like soap to me. so either, i'm right and it tastes really bad or my pregnancy hormones are totally messing with my taste buds. either way, i'm never drinking it again. yechhh.

hello? is anyone out there?

raise your hand if you called in sick today.

thoughts on flying:

• if you didn't get the window seat, and the person sitting in the window seat is not your significant other, family member, or close friend, do NOT stare over them and out the window. it is quite rude.
• if the middle seat is free, split it down the middle with the person on the other side. don't monopolize the extra space with your ugly floral print blazer.
• flying first class is a different world.
• when they offer you a snack in coach, they mean four pretzels in an aluminum bag and 1/3 of a can of soda.
• when they offer you a snack in first class, they mean an antipasto platter and wine. and real plates and glasses. none of this disposable stuff.
• getting home two hours earlier to see your family is waaaaay better than flying first class!

my breakfast:

a mini hershey bar
a mini nestle crunch
a mini twizzlers pull & peel
a cookie with orange frosting
water

mmm...healthy! did you have a happy halloween?

welcome to the world, isaiah mathew!! 7lb. 3oz. and 19 in. long. congrats, jomy and michelle!!

by request:

luci feeding isaiah an oreo.

isaiah after eating an oreo.

luci cleaning the oreo off of isaiah's face.

isaiah after a luci cleaning.

i never posted images on my blog because i was too lazy to code it. but now, i don't have to! thanks, blogger for the add image feature. (and thanks, conehead, for making me aware of it.)

isaiah and luci at the beach. august 2005.

i can't believe our vacation is over. did 3 weeks really just go by? it's good to be home and to not live out of a suitcase. more details to come...probably on eric's blog. =P

i went to starbucks on saturday all ready to order my extra hot caramel macchiato with extra foam when i noticed on the menu... could it be? was it a tease? dare i ask if they really had...pumpkin spice latte???!

they did! although i think it's too early to sell the autumn flavors (after all, summer isn't officially over until thursday), i was not going to deny myself a great coffee drink. they have it, i get it. it's ridiculous. my joy quickly dissipated after realizing that i was dealing with the slowest. barrista. EVER. ever ever ever! did you know that cpk times their pizza makers? you can't be a pizza maker unless you can make pizzas in the required time. they should have that for barristas. barristas are dealing with very volatile people at times. people that require coffee to function. people that need their caffeine fix. people that are used to getting their coffee quickly. people that are very excited about getting their favorite coffee drink and are having to wait more than 10 minutes to get it. even the super busy airport starbucks were not this slow. what drove me nuts was that there was one dude just watching the barrista make coffee...um, hello? HELP HIM. this is way too long to be talking about starbucks, so i'm stopping.

we're leaving for the philippines tomorrow and will be in LA on the 9th. i hope isaiah is a good boy on the flight. he's generally a good boy, but last week he was insane. he was the cutest insane baby i've ever seen. anyway, see you when we get back!

we're going to the philippines next week. i absolutely cannot wait to not work.

i don't have my phone with me. i'm so lost without it. the display on my car dash that shows the time, radio station, cd track, etc. is broken. the only way for me to know what time it is in the car is my phone. so i didn't know what time it was when i drove to work this morning. actually, that's not true. i can kind of figure out what time it is by listening to news radio because of their rigid schedule. traffic and weather together on the 8s. sports at 15 and 45 after the hour. we check your money at 25 and 55 after the hour. cbs news update at the hour and half hour.

i dropped isaiah off at my cousin's house a little after 10 this morning. i was hungry, so i went to mcdonalds because a sausage mcmuffin sounded really good, and i hadn't had one in a long time. as i pulled into mcdonalds, i caught the end of the money report...it had to have been 10:26am because the money report is usually short. i pull up to order my sausage mcmuffin sandwich and the lady tells me that breakfast is over! =( i hadn't even heard cbs news OR the traffic report. i was so disappointed. lesson learned: never let your husband accidentally take your phone to work. and get that display fixed.

i've been thinking a lot lately. (which is not really something i actively do. =P i leave that to eric...he thinks enough for the whole family.) in a nutshell, it comes down to: i believe in God, and i believe that He works everything out to work in your favor. whether working it out in your favor means now or later, in the end, it's for your own good. good, not bad.

eric and i found out on june 4 that isaiah was going to be a big brother. whoa. !! semi-planned...we kind of wanted to wait until after our trip to the philippines, but whatever, it didn't really matter to us. this is exciting! isaiah, a big brother! he doesn't know anything except how to blow spit and he's gonna be a big brother! this was definitely different than finding out about being pregnant the first time. with isaiah, we were both freaked out, a little scared (at least i was), and not quite ready (but, you know, were ready since we had to be). initially, i had to dig beneath the fear and anxiety to uncover my happiness. (don't get me wrong, i was happy.) anyways...this time, it's a whole new ball game. we're ready. we are seasoned pros having done this before. AND this coincides with madeleine and gary's baby boy to come...instant best buddies! so much to look forward to...

the obstetrician makes you wait until you're at least 8 weeks along before your first appointment. my first appointment was on july 8. all the nurses were like "you're here again, ALREADY?!" whatever. they love us. they were happy to see us. i find out that i get to have an early ultrasound. yess!! we get to see the baby (normally you have to wait until your 20th week). so we go on july 14. i was 11 weeks.

*side note: i wanted to wait to tell people about this baby. partly because i wanted our new situation to really settle in my mind and i also wanted to put some good thought into adjusting my immediate future plans to include pregnancy and a new baby, and partly because i quite honestly didn't want to deal with the "already?!", "are you ready for another so soon?", "that was really fast!", and those annoying looks of amused skepticsm from people as if to say "do you think you can handle it?" (which, thankfully, are not too common.)

you never really know how excited you are about something or how much you are looking forward to something until it's taken away from you. i wasn't quite sure what was going on until the tech stopped the ultrasound and told me to follow up with my o.b. later that day.

"is everything okay?" i ask.
"well, i'm not seeing a baby," she said.
what?!

she was so matter-of-fact. almost cold. so cold that i felt stupid and questioned whether or not i really was pregnant (which i had been). but then, is there really a good way to tell a mother and a father that they lost their baby? it was early, and it happens more often than anyone even knows...but, wow, i never thought it would happen to me. what's almost worse than losing the baby is knowing that i'd have to go through the physical symptoms of miscarriage, and the pregnancy symptoms don't go away right away either. every pain in my abdomen, every wave of nausea, every dizzy spell, and every time i don't have an appetite is a reminder of our baby. i came home from the ultrasound and hugged and hugged isaiah. it gets controversial when you think about life before birth. but this is what i know: there was life in me, and it died, and i grieve the loss of our baby the same way i grieved the loss of my dad.

but like i said before...God works everything out for the good. this is one of those things that He gives to us because He knows we can handle it and because He knows it will make us stronger. in His great plan for my life, it will have been a good thing that i've gone through this. [and there are so many things that we'll be able to do because of it (e.g., not missing a third snowboarding season in a row, an easier trip to the philippines, gene's wedding)]

last week i was in pennsylvania. out in the sticks. in the middle of nowhere. i couldn't even mapquest or google map or yahoo map the places i visited because these places were that far out in the middle of nowhere. i couldn't even get crossroads for these places from the people that *worked* there. anyway, i go to my first site, and the guy i'm supposed to meet is tied up, so could i wait for him in the lobby? sure. no problem, i'll just select one of the fine magazines you've left here for such an occasion. my choices: confederate veteran volume I. confederate veteran volume II. confederate veteran volume III. i take a glance outside: pick up truck, pick up truck with the confederate flag where the front license plate goes, pick up truck, another pick up truck with a confederate flag, and so on.

um, i'm in the north, right? i can't remember the last time i was worried that people were going to be really mean to me beause i'm asian. but i was worried. i was actually nervous. all that worry was for nothing, though. everyone was really nice in the sticks of PA...well except for this old lady at the mall near my hotel. she treated me like i was some weirdo. ah, the joys of business travel...

nba summer league is at the cox pavillion at unlv all until the end of next week. word on the street, you'll even get to see darko play. all of you going to vegas should check it out...

there are people in my office that go years (?!!) without taking a vacation. they'll accrue like 3 months of vacation. can you imagine? most people get 2 weeks of vacation a year. that's SIX YEARS without taking time off. i don't know how they do it. *i'm* dying because i can't take a vacation until september when we go to the philippines. i need a break now. i need to not work or think about work for at least a week. i was sick last week, so i called in. ended up working 10 hours at home anyway. isn't that messed up?

anway...eric gets the next two weeks off of work. i'm excited for him. i wish my company would make me take two weeks off. that would be the bomb.

..aand they're back! the pistons have emerged from whatever rock they've been playing under the past two games and took it to san antonio. yesss!! *arm pump*

you know, it's not just up to the pistons. it's up to all of us. yes, it matters that eric and i watch the away games in alvin's living room with chrissy, alvin, j, and chris. and it matters where we sit. and it matters if we wear our jerseys. apparently it also matters that if the jersey has not been washed since the beginning of playoffs, it will remain unwashed until we win the championship. i think for these big games, it's important that i fall asleep at halftime. i know! it's crazy that i can even sleep through any of the game. but lately, i canNOT keep my eyes open. i've been so tired. but it works, so should i really complain? you gotta do what you gotta do to win....

by the way, i'm jealous that you guys got to see stevie wonder perform live.

WOOHOOO!!!

GOOOOO PISTONS!!!!

apparently, that "are you in?" guy has never been inside a meijers. we switched to verizon partly because eric gets a discount through gm and partly because it's supposed to have great service everywhere. um, mr. areyouin?, not in meijers. i'm going to lowe's right now, another place notorious for bad cell phone service. we will see if verizon passes the test. although, i will admit that i can't count down to the exact second where my phone will cut out on 696 in southfield anymore, so one point for the verizon team.

does anyone know how to change the voicemail settings so your callers don't have to hear instructions on how to leave a voicemail? i hate that.

happy friday!!!

dear lola,

thanks for feeding me ramen soup when i was sick and for making us pancakes when we slept over. thanks for teaching me the right way to fold my clothes and for your big smile whenever we saw each other. thanks for slipping me money and always giving me wrigley's doublemint gum. most of all, thank you for all your love and for showing me what it is to be strong despite being in a frail body. i miss you very much, and i hope that you are happy in Heaven. i'm sure you have already found my dad and tita alice. don't forget to stand up straight!

all my love,
your dearest annalisa

wicked! was only okay. totally not what i expected. i was pretty disappointed in the actors. definitely not to par with the originals. of course, i wasn't expecting elphaba and g(a)linda to be as good as idina and kristen (that's right, we're on a first-name basis)...but i expected them to be good at least.



...NOT!


ohmygosh,itwassoooamazing!!!--but i won't get too excited here because i don't want to overhype it. ugh. i LOOOVE wicked!

wicked! in four days and counting...

i was so excited to get coffee before the game today that i forgot to unbuckle my seatbelt before trying to exit the car.

goooo pistons!!!!

i've come to the conclusion that the only way i won't feel dumb wearing a polo shirt or an oxford button-up is if 1) it's part of a uniform or 2) it has my work's logo on it and i'm wearing it at work.

i've recently discovered that you can order your coffee extra hot. i feel gypped* when i get a semi-warm cup of coffee because the person making my latte was too lazy to wait the extra five seconds it takes to make the milk hot. i'm also going to take this time to vent that if you're not going to have pumpkin spice latte available, then take it off the menu. don't tease me. this has only happened to me a bajillion times.

*also spelled "gipped" for those who care.

i've been feeling creative lately:

ode to shin splints
shin splints shin splints go away
come again never ever again.

happy monday!

some people only like to do things that they know they do well. i am not one of those people. for instance: i hate to do laundry despite the fact that i am fabulous at doing it.

we've been so busy lately that i'm actually looking forward to when i get the chance to do yardwork and give the house a good cleaning. the warm temperatures and sunshine must trigger something that makes us want to do those things.

i've had some serious a.d.d. tendencies lately. no focus at all...

hi, it's 5:00 and i'm going home withOUT my computer for the first time in a month. yay!!!

isaiah is crawling. everywhere. this means you can't leave him unsupervised in the house because it hasn't been baby-proofed yet. who knew a coffee table could be so dangerous? it's currently surrounded by all the couch pillows. we've caught isaiah falling head first off of the couch, the bed, the other couch....i mean we literally caught him, not just caught him as in watched him. whew. isaiah learned to roll over (from his back to his tummy), creep, and crawl in the span of a week. they crawl backwards first...bet ya didn't know that. he's growing too fast!! someone make it slow down!

when i was in first grade, my teacher told me not to eat next to the computer because i could break it. i was eating a lollipop at the time. the end.

sd. everytime i go it feels like i haven't been away for a year.

[*tangent* eric wants me to blog about him. he is sitting with isaiah watching 'i robot' wearing his cuddle buddy bracelet. he just got back from the first jedi game of the season. i think he has a sweet jumper.]

anyway..i feel we were able to make the most of my overnight stay. i mean...sushi deli, a coffee shop where the waiters and waitresses (i'm not sure how well they spoke english) wanted to give us cup after cup of coffee, and some lounge with good music. i wish detroit had places where you could dance to good music. i am a bit sad that i missed in cahoots, and consequently hoots squared...maybe next time. (hi, lilly!) you'll have to tell me how that goes. it was tough being away from eric and isaiah...but the amount that i missed them was made up in quality time with friends. =D

they just opened up a drive thru starbucks near my house. you take for granted just being able to run into a store to grab something like coffee before you have carry the baby around in the car seat. (i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing..might limit my spontaneous purchases.)

going to cali tomorrow. see you guys there!

wicked. i can't get enough of it. got the cd and the music book for valentines day. love 'em! i can listen to it in the car and then come in and plunk out the songs on the piano. i am once again inspired to play the piano well. and i want to play the guitar again. ooh...i can't wait til i can really play the songs.....

*you must realize that i am rarely this excited or inspired about anything these days. i used to live that way, passionate about everything i did, wanting to do soo good at everything i did...class, piano, plays, dance, etc....to have this feeling again is very refreshing.

do you know how much more work you get done when you're not working in front of the tv? it's amazing.

hi. i've been walking around with my fly open all day.

i just ate diet cinnamon toast crunch. 75% less sugar and made with whole grain. now the whole grain, i don't mind at all. but isn't the point of eating cinnamon toast crunch the sugary-cinnamony goodness coating every bit of cereal in every bite? and they just removed 75% of it! so for all you cinnamon toast crunch lovers out there...just stay away from the new version...i wouldn't want you to be disappointed.

i'm rather enjoying working in a group right now. there are other people to bond with over the struggle of this enormous project. the best part is that i'm just helping out...i don't have to submit the final product. i just write little paragraphs here and there about what i see in drawings and that gets added into the report. "whatever you guys don't finish today, i'm just going to finish this weekend." ahh...wonderful words when not spoken by me. =D

i got to work at 7:30am today. is it gross that i'm still drinking the same cafe mocha i picked up on my way in?

almost midnight. why am i up? i should be sleeping. isaiah is such a cuddle-head when he sleeps. if he's not cuddling with a warm body, he's cuddling up to a bunch of pillows we've smushed up against him to simulate a warm body. ha. baby's take up a lot more room in a bed than you would think.

i wonder if connie and eric won the detroit sports bowl with their gm team. they would win superbowl tickets, you know. that would be sweet, although...would they really go if they only got one ticket? and if they could sell the ticket for $2,000 would they still go? would you?

by the way...if you ever need advice on how to get through a 100-foot inflatable obstacle course...chrissy and i are your experts.

embarrassing moment at the detroit sports bowl. while talking to one of the personal trainers from the basketball workshop...

me: so what is the basketball workshop?

basketball workshop guy: oh, we're personal trainers. you know, for high school, middle school, college, and some pro.

me: oh cool, so do you work with any of the lions*?

chrissy: (whispering) basketball! basketball!!

me: (enter sinking feeling of utter stupidity) doh. i mean the pistons.

*in my defense, we were in ford field (where the lions play). regardless...i'm so dumb!

isaiah just turned all by himself in his little play saucer!! usually you have to turn him if he wants to play with different things on the play saucer thing. he keeps looking back at me with a big goofy smile as i type this.

i love him!

phlegm.

if i didn't know that word and i had to sound it out, i would be totally wrong. puhalegum. i just thought it looked funny. it might be the funniest-looking word i know. btw...there is no alternate spelling. can't spell it 'flem'. (in case you were wondering.)

i'm *home and sick. semi-working. don't really want to. it was very nice to sleep all day yesterday (i was home and sick as well). i just found three of my old roommates on friendster and requested that they officially become my friends. already a productive day!

*can't say "i'm home sick" because people will think you're homesick. of course you can't be homesick if you're at home. bleh. the more i type "homesick" the funnier it looks.

helloooo 2005!

happy new year!!

i have been rusty at boggle. must re-install text twist to my pda for practice. =P btw: tet = vietnamese new year. it's a word that's a real word! does it count?

saw an old man shopping for lettuce in the grocery store.

i think he forgot his pants. all i could see were boxers. at least he had that going for him.

someone should tell him that it's snowing outside.

it has been a strange day.

someone is cutting their nails. in the office.

is it just me, or is that a little weird?

let's just take a minute to revel in the genius of cookie exchanges.

...

great. we had a cookie exchange at work today and i had committed to making the butterscotch toffee cookies. how great is it that by making a couple batches of one kind of cookie, you will get 18 other kinds of cookies???

i am a zombie. no thoughts at all in my head. i need to be inspired...i'm afraid that i am in a boring lull. (boring lull as in i am boring, not so much that i am bored. if that makes sense.) sorry for the boring posts...

maybe i will be recharged after overeating this weekend. i actually heard a meijer ad on the radio today: "just because there's a lot of food at a low price, doesn't mean that you have to eat it all." basically, meijer is telling us to not be big fat piggies at thanksgiving. nice.

all the managers are sitting in the conference room discussing our raises. you know what that means? i'm going home! yay!

thanksgiving is next week already. that was quick.

i had another random thought to blog...but i forget....

once upon a time there was a baby boy...

...who got swallowed by a baby chicken...

the baby boy cried and cried. he cried so much that he turned into a pumpkin!

fortunately, this was not a permanent state. at midnight *poof* the pumpkin turned back into a baby boy, and the baby boy went home to play with his puppy.

the end.

big day today.

did you vote?

nba opening day. gooooo pistons!!!!

the baby chicken costume didn't work out. he cried and cried. so he was a jack-o-lantern instead. still cute. despite the crying and crying there are pictures of isaiah in the baby chicken costume. cute! i just don't know how to post them....help?

last saturday, playing madden 2k5:

me: you guys are making yourselves [players]?

guys: yeah! and you're a kicker.

me: i'm a kicker?! cool!...hey, you can see 'A. Agustin'on the back of the jersey. why did you guys make my mom a player??

guys: that's LORIE.


hahahahaha...

ran half a mile yesterday...first time running in 10 months. yikes. it hurt. still hurts. that was only half a mile. i'm scared to play soccer. i foresee barfing during my first game back. don't know if that will be on thursday...we will see.

unlimited skips while listening to launch is essential when streaming all day. commercial free is key as well. loooove launchast plus.

i get to work from home tomorrow. actually, i get to work from home on fridays until further notice....isaiah will get to hang out with me while i work. =D i miss hanging out with him all day. ten weeks went by so fast...going back to work and leaving him for the whole day for the first time was so hard (i cried and cried on my way to work). you would think that it would be a relief to get out of the house and escape the constant diaper changing/feeding/soothing the baby. i guess it is, but i hate that i will inevitably miss the first time he does something cool, like crawl or roll over or speak...ugh. i would be so sad if his first word isn't in front of me and eric. anway...next to isaiah..i miss sleeping the most. it amazes me that millions of people do this all the time. it's so hard to stay awake and energized....

...zzzzz........

yesterday, i heard a story on the radio about michigan's attorney general cox. his first name is mike. they kept saying his name over and over. mike cox.

i thought that was funny.
(hi, i'm twelve years old.)

it's nice when all you have to do is sleep and eat all day.

i will miss it when i go back to work. only a few more days left...

they lied. your pictures aren't up yet. boo.

got peed on today. it's been a while, so i guess it was due.

oh, well. gives me an excuse to change the little man into a new overalls outfit. baby clothes are so cute.

there is potential for a cider mill trip this saturday. what fun! it's that time of year where we get to go to cider mills!!

it's my first time on a computer in a week. i haven't been away from a computer for this long since we went to hawaii last year. isaiah is growing and growing...can't believe he's almost ten pounds. i think he's super cute, even when he cries. so sometimes i just let him cry because he's so cute (but not for too long).

a couple weeks ago, eric and i rediscovered the greatness of $1.00 movies. i mean, how many movies would you go see if it only cost $1.00? you might even get me to see garfield for $1.00 if you catch me in the midst of utter boredom. aaand if you go to the first matinee, it's only $0.50. two quarters!! you can't even get candy bars at regular price for that cheap.

i have to go back to work in two weeks. =( i don't wanna go.

happy two-two birthday, bunso!!!

i'm so scared of bugs. i totally just ran away from a HUGE creepy crawly really fast moving bug. i totally fell in the process. hahahahahaha. i can't believe i fell.

my phone is broken. the screens are blank, and i have no idea who is calling me...no more caller id, no more voicemail notification, no more missed call notification. i'm basically taking a chance when i blindly use the search function in my address book...unless of course i've memorized your speed dial number. if you're super special, i actually have your phone number memorized. so look out for a mass email from me requesting your phone number....

...it's been awhile....or maybe it just seems like that because i've been spending my days indoors?

ryan and lorie are married...finally! woohoo!! what a great day. i love them so much. they're wedding was so gorgeous. i was doing so well, totally ready to not cry at all...happy day, no reason to cry, happy day, i'm not gonna cry. then there's my stupid brother. seeing any member of my immediate family cry will instantly send me into tears. so since i saw his tears right before kris and i walked down the aisle, i ended up crying all the way down the aisle. dangit. lorie did better...she made it all the way past the vows before she partially messed up her makeup. i was totally prepared to not cry during my speech, too...who am i kidding? i'm such a baby. i totally cried...lorie went down with me. our theory that getting our makeup professionally done by suzanne (who will make you look like a STAR, btw...) was shot down that night. oh well. it's just what happens when you're so happy for people you love so much. they're in fiji right now, which i think is pretty cool, since they are the first people i know that have been to fiji.

saw babbs today. i wish i knew how to post pictures, cuz then i would post the picture of him holding isaiah. such a big guy holding such a little dude. it's cute. i can't believe how fast isaiah is growing. he's starting to be chubby! chubbers...hehehe.

the aches and pains of giving birth are starting to go away. i totally want to start exercising, but i'm on restricted physical activities until october. booo. i can't even vacuum or climb the stairs a lot. i'm not even supposed to lift anything heavier than isaiah. you would think that the tremendous amount of physical pain of giving birth would put an end to all the discomforts that come with a pregnancy....nope! it kind of gets worse before it gets better. and it kind of sucks that the belly doesn't go away right away....at least when you're pregnant there's something in there making your belly big. i'm totally waiting for someone to ask me when i'm due. i will cry when that happens. when people say that you forget the pain of labor and delivery after you have your baby...it's totally true. i mean, you don't forget that it definitely sucked to go through...but it's not like you re-live it and suffer through it over and over. you have all the new hurts to go through anyway. but we won't go into detail...i wouldn't want to gross anyone out....=P

and i definitely just babbled.

i'm so sad the olympics are over. i looooove the olympics. i love that the games were on 7 channels so you could watch them all the time. i love even more that i was home the whole time so i could watch all the games i wanted and all the soccer games were broadcasted commercial free in their entirety. i only missed one u.s. women's soccer game and i think it was because i was in labor. a couple comments:

the u.s. women's soccer team is so awesome. i think they are so great that i totally want to be friends with them.

in general, the u.s. women's teams were awesome. chicks rule. i'm kind of glad the u.s. men's basketball team didn't get gold.

i don't understand the modern pentathlon. why is it called "modern"? last time i checked, fencing and riding horses wasn't all that common...

i've been spelling "triathlon" wrong my whole life. all those multi-discipline events...decathlon, pentathlon, triathlon....none of them have a second "a" after the "th"....so i guess that means i've been adding an extra syllable to all those words, too?

okay, i'm done. time to feed the baby.

i am in love all over again.

seven years and one night ago, my sister and i sat at my dad's bedside really late at night, unknowingly watching my dad fight through his last breaths. it was scary. we were crying and crying and didn't know what to do. i didn't consider God to be a great ally at the time, but all we could think of to do was to pray. so we did. "Our Father, who art in heaven...." it's amazing how comforting prayer is, no matter how small your faith.

i remember being woken up before 7am the next morning by my mom. "you guys? ryan?...come down. i think...he's not breathing..." he was gone. our relatives came. i was numb. i was supposed to go to the smokin' grooves concert that night. the first thing i did was wake up my friend up at 7:30am to tell him i couldn't go anymore. i don't know why that was the first thing i thought of. people came and took my daddy away. it was 11 days before my 18th birthday.

the thing that strikes me most about the memory of that day is that my mom specifically called for my brother. see....he's getting married in a couple weeks, and he's gonna be an uncle very soon here...and over the last seven years he's been a rock for my mom and me and my sister. he's dependable. if something goes wrong, i can call him, he'll show up, and i'll feel better. 'ryan's coming, everything will be okay.' he has been strength in our family that goes without saying...and no doubt it has been hard for him, and yet he does it. he so quickly took over the things my daddy would do that we didn't even notice that he did it. again, he's a rock. and it's time for him to put us second. he'll be a rock for lorie in their marriage. she's a lucky lady to have found the someone who will love her and support her forever in my brother. God has blessed them with that love for each other, and i'm thankful that He brought them together. that's really what that comes down to...

seven years after that night my sister and i cried and prayed together, i cried with my brother. i can't remember the last time i cried with him. it's like we never saw any tears because he was being strong for us. but we can be strong for you, ny. we'll be strong together. you're the best big brother and i love you.

due date: august 16, 2004.

status: still pregnant.

updates: to come...

bleh. i just erased a whole entry because it's that uninteresting. i think i've reached my limit of idleness. two weeks is about all i can take before i need to be useful again. there is only so much sleeping and tv watching and running errands that i can do without anything else to fill in the time.

hmm...not much to blog about. household chores can really fill up your day. it's amazing that it's normal for both parents to work these days.

i've discovered that i like watching 'revealed with jules asner'. i don't know why. but it's on every morning on e!...just in time for me to enjoy my breakfast.

pretty cards ALL over my living room. i love it!!!!

it's amazing what plastic sleeves and plastic boxes do for presentation.

oh, i'm kind of sad. this morning, it felt like the day before summer vacation (except for not really, right, suj?)...pretty exciting. still pretty exciting that i don't have to come into work on monday. but everyone here is so nice, and i didn't even think i would really miss them much. not that i'll miss them a ton, but there will be some missing going on....so many people stopping by...making sure they see me before i take off for a couple months...making sure i'm gonna come back after a couple months (hehe)... it just surprises me, i guess, that people care as much as they do.

don't get me wrong. i'm totally not working for the next 10 weeks. yeah!!

last night on the world poker tour, the winner donated all his profits to charity.  he won close to $1.3 million.

i thought that was nice.

it makes me happy to see that kind of generosity, particularly in the realm of poker.  fill in the blank:  if i made $1 million in a poker tournament, i would _______.

whenever i go out for breakfast i always struggle with getting eggs and bacon or pancakes or waffles.  pancakes and waffles don't come with anything else, so i never feel like it's a complete breakfast.  therefore, i hardly ever order them....BUT!  there's this restaurant that eric and i think is so great because when you order eggs and bacon they ask "do you want a side of toast or a side of pancakes?"  pancakes?!!!  how GREAT!  of course i'll have the pancakes!  (i think they might do this at ihop, but ihop is not so good.)  i only bring this up because i'm working at home (please note the lack of quotation marks) and i'm debating whether or not to make pancakes for breakfast....

my hands smell like garlic.  i forgot to get the smell off with stainless steel after i cooked last night.  not having a stainless steel sink sucks.  our kitchen sink right now is porcelain.  it's like having a bathroom sink in your kitchen, but bigger.  i can't wait til we get a stainless steel sink.

to fit an 11"x17" page in a 8.5"x11" bound report you...
 
1. fold 11"x17" page in half lengthwise, with the right side of the page on top.
2. fold the right side of the page in half in the opposite direction of the initial fold.
 
voila...the page gets folded to fit in a bound report without having to reduce the page to itty bitty print.  the great part is that it allows you to peek at the title block conveniently located on the bottom right hand corner.  they even have machines that do this kind of thing.  now for almost all of you, you probably don't care.  i, however, am dealing with inadequate folding.  can someone pleeaase tell me how hard it is to fold a piece of paper in half and then half of the half in half again?????  i wish i wasn't so anal.

neat-o.  user friendly formating.
 
whenever i finish a task at work, i like to reward myself with a break--check a blog, check my email, etc... when i finish a big task (or when i just don't feel like working), i check everything.  all my email accounts, all the blogs.  i even check my gmail account...(which i might get yelled at for having one because i think some people may have tried to get me to start one when they were first available).  regardless...i have a gmail account and i check it even though no one has the email address.  isn't that silly?
 
happy monday everyone.  begin two week count down of when i will be off of work for 10 weeks.

i found a michigan quarter! i had one when it first came out, but i lost it...and i almost just spent this one in the vending machine. phew!! i haven't been very good about keeping up with the new quarters. it's hard to collect them when you don't use cash. i hate it when you give the cashier change so you'll get quarters back, and they give you your change in nickels and dimes. argh. i want the quarters!!

this kid can't grow any bigger. there's no more room in my belly!!!! i thought it was crazy before when i could see little bumps here and there. but now...we're talking full on tummy distortion.

and i'm gonna stop talking about the baby. i sometimes feel like i talk about the subject too much, and i don't want people to think that i don't wonder about them. =( it's just so out there (literally), so i guess it's easy conversation, but really...what's going on with YOU? how are YOU doing? tell me about YOUR life because i really really want to know. so if you catch me babbling baby baby baby, feel free to stop me and change the subject. =)

people need to blog more. (perhaps this will make me more productive?) and my heights girls need to come back. we have no girls to play soccer with. and my random banter buddy is gone for soooo long. come back!!! (again, more productivity?) oh, and we need to stamp. august 7 is not so far away...

the doctor is pretty sure the baby's postitioned head-down right now (yay! we don't want a breeched baby - pray that he stays this way!) which got me thinking....i wonder what it's like to be upside-down all day. i'm thinking that it's not as uncomfortable for isaiah in my tummy as it would be outside of my tummy. anyway, now that i know how isaiah is positioned, i can name the movements: 'oh, that was his foot. that must have been his elbow. dude, his knee is protruding from my stomach.' you get the idea.

i am convinced that ice cream is one of the best ways to cheer people up. what is it about ice cream that makes us so happy? we went to my church's ice cream social last night and people were literally skipping in the parking lot. skipping like they were five year old girls. tangent: we got graded on skipping in kindergarten. how does that have any bearing on our ability to learn?

i just spent the last 10 minutes of my work day trying to figure out how to change the clock on my radio. i always forget how to change the clock. last time it took me a half hour to figure it out. i think i'm getting better.

i have a crate underneath my desk to prop my feet on while i work. my feet are looking like pillows with toes. i really need to get different sandals. the ones that i can fit my pillow feet into are brown, which doesn't really match a lot of my clothes. i wish a certain bunso hadn't broken all my black sandals. or stolen them. =P i used to have so many shoes. i tend to find them on my sister's feet months after i stop looking for them.

blah blah blah.

pointless blog.

i'm gonna go home now.

this is the song that i can't get out of my head:

down by the station early in the morning
see the little puffer bellies all in a row
see the engine driver pull the little handle
puff puff toot toot!
off they go

i am partial to gala apples. however, not all gala apples have the same texture or taste. why? perhaps the little sticker on the apples are not the rignt ones?

one a different note: don't you hate when people give you crappy work and then get pissed when you keep giving the work back to them with corrections? ugh.

i'm such a pack rat. i found my new kids on the block 'hanging tough' tape amongst my junk the other night. why why why do i still have it? and why why why did i not throw it away? hehe...anyone want an nkotb tape?

...and for some reason i can't bring myself to throw away the programs from all of the shows and musicals i've seen.

to take off the whole two weeks or not to take off the whole two weeks before the baby is born??

i kind of want to. why am i even struggling with this? i should take advantage of it, yes? they'd even pay me for it as part of my "short term disability". (that's what they consider maternity leave, btw..) and my manager doesn't care...

me: my doctor said i can work up until the baby is born.
mgr: oh, don't do that.
me: but he usually recommends that his patients take off the two weeks before the baby is born.
mgr: oh just do that. just work to the end of july.

how cool is she? such a blessing that she doesn't want me to work too hard. but two weeks by myself? will i be bored? i might. i don't want to sleep *all* the time. but i would be able to sleep. mmmm..sleeeeeep. i love sleep. especially now. do you know how annoying it is to wake up in the middle of the night/very early morning because you have to pee? it ruins a good night's sleep.

who am i kidding? i'm totally taking those two weeks off. you know what that means? i only have to work for another month!

let's talk about the pregnant maternal "glow" and how it's not so much a "glow" as it is the reflection of the light off of the excessive amounts of oil oozing from the pores making one break out as if she were 12 years old.

i forgot my lunch at home.

=(

this is potentially upsetting to someone with only two dollars in her wallet. there is always the option of charging...but when you have to charge a meal at say, wendy's, don't you feel somewhat inclined to buy more to justify the fact that you have to charge less than five bucks? or you end up going somewhere where you end up spending much more than you would want. and i know there are dollar menus...but my lunch was WAY better than the dollar menu options.

*ten minutes later..

good news: vendors are coming in to give us a presentation on tanks or something.
better news: they're providing us with pizza and pop! yesssss!!

WOOO
HOOO!!!!!

i can't remember the last time i felt well rested. i finally finished up these reports that have been looming over me for the past three weeks. *exhale* i can finally clean up my desk. i want to clean my desk and then go home and sleep.

the baby's moving a ton these days. it's really funny because you can see my tummy move when he does. i guess it's not that funny...but i'm pretty easily amused these days (more so than usual, haha). i think it's the hormones. (although it's probably because i'm a big dork.) eight more weeks til isaiah's e.t.a. eric thinks he'll be early. eight weeks!!! that's nothing! think of how fast the year has gone by already...memorial day feels like ages ago, and the first session of outdoor is already over. (i got sunburned again, btw...not doing so well for the non-tanline look i'm going for for ny and lorie's wedding.) i hope the rest of life doesn't go by this fast. i do like time better when it slows down....

argghhhh!!!

note to self: save often.

what am i doing??? i have so much work to do and yet...i'm sitting here checking blogs. ahhh!! i'm so stupid!! i'm a bit overwhelmed. all. i want. to do. is. sleep. i'm not about staying late for work on gorgeous fridays. i'm really not about being at work on most days. i feel a little stress. something i haven't felt very much while working. i don't really stress...least of all about work....yet looking at these huge piles of papers and binders on my desk makes me want to crawl into bed and disappear under the covers for a while.

i think i want some bubble tea.