Re-Boot?

Hello There! Well, life has gotten busy! I now have TWO boys--Simon (3.5 years) and Baxter (9 months). Simon started preschool this week, and is doing great! I'm taking a couple of classes at the local community college to prepare myself to go back to school for Occupational Therapy. Winter is here, and along with it the cold weather (and snow for Patrick to shovel). I'm thinking of rebooting the ol' blog. I miss it. My original intent was to document what it was like to get acclimated to a new city, but I have to say, I'm pretty well entrenched here now. So, what's it like to live in Malden as a citizen? As a parent? As a student? I think that will be the angle here. And of course cute kids and banana bread and such.

Catching Up

Hi All!

So, I dropped off for awhile there. Here's some catching up:

I found a group of moms and babies to hang out with! We try to meet up once a week, taking turns hosting at our houses. It is so nice to talk about poop and sleep schedules without having to worry if you're boring someone ;-)

We did, in fact, run the 5K in October. I walked just a little bit, so I'm proud of that. But then I stopped running all together. I guess without a race for a goal I lost motivation (it also got colder here). I hope to start up again soon so I can be ready for the Spring races. Right now my friend CCR is laid off (boo!), so we're taking advantage of the fact that we're both home during the day and going walking a few times a week.

Simon is huge! He'll be 8 months old on Monday, but he's wearing 18-month clothes. He's in the 100th percentile for weight and 98th for height. When we compare his weight history to Patrick's (his mom gave us Patrick's baby book), he's bigger than Patrick at every point!

More soon!

7.5 Months Old

Window Arts Malden 2011

So, WAM 2011 is officially on! I have a small piece hanging in E&C Barber Shop--small, yes, but it took me about 12 hours. My mother-in-law was visiting, so she helped me a ton, teaching me new techniques: freezer paper applique, machine quilting, making all those points come together in the center of the circle. The colors go with what will eventually be the color scheme in Simon's room, so that's where it will go when the show is over.

There's a reception on Thursday, October 6th from 6-8pm at the Senior Center for artists, businesses, sponsors, volunteers and fans. Food and drink--try to make it if you can!

In other news, I'm on week 5 of the C25K program! That means that by the end of this week I'll be running 20 minutes or about 2 miles without stopping. I've started physical therapy for some old knee problems to help me make it to the 5K without injury.

C25K Week 0.2

OK, I did my walk yesterday--yay! We did the cemetary loop, which is about 3 miles. One more loop on Friday or Saturday, then I begin week 1 of training next week. What do you say? Are you in? C25K

Tomorrow I'll be on the news! Fox 25 is holding their Zip Trip broadcast here in Malden, and they interviewed some of us last week about Malden Arts. I made Simon a little Malden Arts onsie, and they took some footage of it, so hopefully that will make the final cut. The city made these zip code t-shirts for us to wear--I've been wanting a shirt like this for awhile now, so I'm really happy to have one!

Hello Again!

Hello All!

Well, it has been a long time. Something pretty big happened--I had a baby! I know! I grew a whole baby since I last wrote here. Amazing. He's 9 weeks old. Here's a picture (many more to come, I'm sure!):



Anyway, the reason I'm starting back up here is that I'm planning to run in the FOOGI 5K Haunt Jaunt on October 30th, and I'm going to document my training and stuff here. So far I have the following training partners:
Patrick--lives with me, so we'll be training together.
John--lives nearby, perhaps we'll have the occasional training session together.
Amanda--lives in Philly, is thinking about it.
Elaine--lives even farther away, is thinking about it.

In other news:
I'm now a stay-at-home mom.
I'm very bored.
I'm looking for mommy-friends.

Moonlight Plantings

So Patrick read last year that the traditional time to plant peas is by the moonlight of St. Patrick's Day. I'm not sure why--good luck? Faster harvest? Sweeter peas? In any case, we went for it with a flashlight in hand.


This is our third or fourth year planting peas, and I'm in love with them. Fresh peas are just so wonderful. And little Fisher loves them too, so we plant extras for him.