Wedding Festivities 8/22/09

The Dress

A Year in Search Terms

I have a stats program installed on my blog that gives me some fun information on who is visiting my blog. Nothing too crazy of course, just typical stuff like I can see the IP address of commenters (not a big deal since my commenters are Alana and my mother about 90 percent of the time). Basically I check it out on occasion to see how many people viewed my blog on a certain day. My biggest day was, not surprisingly, the day I THOUGHT Holland was going to be born, August 27th. I had 99 views that day. Big time blogging! Anyway, my favorite thing about the program is how it shows me the specific terms people searched for on a search engine that made them land on my blog. Often it is just “itsybitsybaby” or “alexia lysandra” or something that shows that they were specifically trying to find me and it is someone I know. But what is really fun are the terms people search and randomly stumble upon me. Alana has been bugging me to write this blog since this summer. With 2008 ending tomorrow, I thought I would finally document it for all to see. So here we go:

My Top Ten Favorite 2008 Search Terms That Led to ME!

10. tillamook cheese and pregnancy (Oh Tillamook…you and your cheese curds are such a tease!)
9. baby clothe swear house (This one creeps me out. Is it a horror film?)
8. “i am barefoot” (hippy la la, is that you?)
7. future nordstrom leaders (This one freaked me out a little at first (Big Nordstrom Brother! Stop watching me!) until I realized I had mentioned being in FNL in a past blog. Phew)
6. styrofoam cubes for sale (Internet search engine user, you have come to the right place)
5. where in the netherlands can i have a 3d ultrasound (Again. Totally the right place)
4. vancouver living (Holland and I will be on the cover of the upcoming spring issue)
3. why does my baby’s forehead look big (Warning: your future son or daughter MAY have a complex if you make this an issue)

Number two is a tie: “slutty baby clothes” and “fleas in bassinet.” The discovery of this fun little combo back in August inspired this IM to Alana:

12:35 PM me: somebody found my blog by googling “slutty baby clothes”
12:36 PM between that and “fleas in bassinet” from earlier in the week, I pretty much feel like i can win the best parent ever award

While those were my two longstanding favorite terms, today someone used one that bumped them out of the number one spot. Drumroll please.

And my number one favorite search term that lead to my blog in 2008 IS…………..

1. feel like shit pregnant

Yeah, I’d say that pretty much summed up my year!

Farewell 2008! I won’t miss you in the slightest!

Ingrid

I went to a show tonight. I went somewhere without my baby tonight. This is very exciting, isn’t it? Tonight Ingrid Michaelson played at the Wonder Ballroom, and I decided that, while the odds may be against me, I am going to go. Ingrid Michaelson is one of my most favorite artists. I love, love, LOVE her songs and even went to see her last year when she was in town, when she was merely an opening act for some dude at the Aladdin on Halloween. Tonight she was headlining at the Wonder Ballroom. The other big difference between these nights? Her show last year was my last before getting pregnant a few weeks later. Tonight’s show: my first since having a baby. This didn’t hit me until she came out and started to sing her first song, and continued to hit me throughout the night with every song she sang.  Going to see her tonight was a really powerful reminder of how much my life has changed in the past year, and of the fact that I never got to say goodbye to my old life before it so abruptly changed. I wasn’t expecting to feel so emotional about it, but I guess that goes hand in hand with the whole “having a baby” thing. Regardless, I am glad I went, because I had forgotten how energizing it is to see an artist you love live, and that is definitely exactly what I needed right now.

The classic Ingrid song…major flashback to Fall 2007:

And my personal favorite…this one is fun because you can hear Emily and Keely getting excited about it, and then we all sing along:

Getting ready for Halloween 2009

“She’ll be like, ‘Oh bitches please, I just got back from Cancun. Time to wear my slutty baby costume’”

-Alana, on Holland’s second Halloween.

Until she gets her own blog.

My mother’s medical drama. Taken from an email she sent out recently explaining her week-long absence.

• Friday: Went in to have two benign lesions removed (vanity)
• Sunday: became feeling very ill.
• Monday: went back in to same dermatologist’s office for scheduled psoriasis treatment and asked that someone look at the site on my leg which is now an angry, red, oozing 6 inch circle of dead and dying skin.
• RN looks at and dresses it and sends me on my way dismissing my flu symptoms as…well…the flu
• Monday, continued: go home and proceed to settle into raging fever, chills, can’t sit up, can’t walk without help from wall type of “flu”
• Tuesday: don’t remember anything but fingertips turning white.
• Wednesday: am able to fix soup. I find this very encouraging. Go back to bed. Joe wakes up and finds house filled with smoke…I hadn’t turned the stove off and caught dish towel on fire. (McCoy will not be on the next episode of Amazing Animal Alerts Mistress of House on Fire) Will be installing smoke alarms still in boxes in garage this weekend. Becoming worried about this “flu” and pain in leg.
• Thursday: Go to PCP who looks concerned, asks lots of questions and who then calls dermatologists to see me next morning and prescribes antibiotic.
• Today: see dermatologist who also looks concerned, takes culture, prescribes “speicial” ointments to be mixed and applied twice daily, then wrap with gauze NO TAPE ON THAT SKIN…Tylenol 3 is called into pharmacy and a standing weekly appointment from now until Thanksgiving (?)…I am advised that this will take a “very long time to heal” and I am to call if anything looks or feels wrong. Dermotologist comes back in exam room to tell me to be sure and CALL HIM IF ANYTHING LOOKS OR FEELS WRONG. I am getting the picture.
• So I have a staph infection. I am feeling better. Thank you. I will write more later.

Four Things

I am doing this instead of thinking of something to write about on my own because it is TOO HOT to think. I am tagging Alana and Jen to do it in their blogs too. Also, anyone out there lurking who has a blog and is reading mine, you should do it too.  Have fun!  

Four jobs I have had in my life:

1. Papa Murphy’s! I worked there in high school and for the first half of my freshman year of college. It was a blast. Our store was completely ran by teenagers. Word of advice to business owners: don’t put teenagers in charge of your business. One of the funny things about this job was that we were the corporate store, so they did all the filming of the training videos there. I am in some of the videos. One that I remember is that I show how to properly wash your hands while on the job. It involves singing Happy Birthday to yourself. A lot of other funny things happened at that job, but I should probably not broadcast my youthful indiscretions on the internet for all to see.
2. The Limited: Ah, retail jobs. This was one of several I have had in my life. I worked at the store at Lloyd Center my senior year of college. I spent most of my money on clothes. A LOT of drama went down at that store, and we ended up closing. I wasn’t very impressed by how that company treated its employees–a lot of people who had been working there for a long time got screwed. It didn’t really affect me though, and I quit right before graduation rather than stick around and deal with it. I still have some clothes from there. I also developed an addiction to food court food at that job.
3. Nordstrom: I worked at Nordstrom for a while after I graduated from college, in Handbags out at Clackamas. This job taught me how to spend more than I earn and the importance of accessorizing in threes. After taking my “Future Nordstrom Leaders” class I looked into my own future and decided I saw more than folding boxes and lying to women about how much they needed a $400 bag, and quit. Just like the Limited, this job was nothing but DRAMA.
4. I was so desperate to get out of Nordstrom I accepted a receptionist position at this small company in NW Portland (it will remain unnamed.) They were involved in stocks or bonds or something, but I could soon tell that something was REALLY sketchy about the way things were being ran. My job was mostly answering phones, running errands and putting together information kits for potential clients. Towards the end, creditors started calling A LOT about unpaid bills and our paychecks started bouncing. One day I showed up and was told we would no longer be getting paid. My co-workers and I spent the afternoon at Miu-Mius and 21st Bar and Grill instead of working. That was the end of my college/post-college streak of bad luck with weird jobs, as I started working as a Legal Assistant at LORSK soon after.

B) Four movies I would watch over and over again:

1. Beaches
2. Pretty Woman
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
4. When Harry Met Sally

C) Four places I have lived:

1. In Vancouver, WA for the first 18 years of my life, and sporadically here and there in years following (and starting again in August!)
2. In the house on N. Portsmouth with Quinn and Alana (and Coconut) from September 2004 to February 2005. Brief but very memorable.
3. Stadium Station Apartments next to PGE park from July 2005 to May 2006. Just me and Coconut. My attempt at living alone. Verdict: not for me.
4. The house on NE 14th & Ainsworth with Joe, Max and Aaron, and the animals (Emma, Basil and Mia and Coconut), from May 2006 to May 2007. A very, very fun year.

D) Shows that I watch:

1. Law and Order SVU
2. Anything on E!
3. Jon and Kate Plus 8
4. So You Think You Can Dance

E) People that e-mail me regularly:

1. My mom
2. Alana
3. Jen (email christmas!)
4. Nobody else regularly, although I get emails from Quinn and my grandma on a semi-regular basis.

F) Four places I have been:

1. Cancun
2. New York City
3. Las Vegas
4. Los Angeles

G) Four of my favorite foods:

1. Ice Cream x10,000
2. Ham the way my dad cooks it for me. Fried and delicious.
3. Deep fried spicy tuna roll at Yuki
4. My mom’s tuna fish casserole. I can’t replicate it, no matter how hard I try.

H) Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Not pregnant, at a bar downtown, drinking margaritas or dancing or doing anything that pregnant people can’t do.
2. Disneyland. Again, not pregnant.
3. At Good Samartian, post-birth of my baby.
4. Cancun.

I) Four things I am looking forward to next year:

1. Not being pregnant.
2. Living with my mom (no, really!)
3. Going to Cancun in the fall of 2009 with my mom and Holland.
4. Having the prettiest baby.

Survey.

Alana, what is your favorite flower?

“My favorite flowers are whatever looks modern. You remember how we were looking at those address stamps and I was like, “If someone really knew me, this is what they would get me for my birthday”? Well, that’s how I feel about flowers. If someone really knew me and decided to send me a bouquet, they’d send me bamboo.”

Mine

I have been thinking about what sort of baby bag to buy for quite some time. Despite the fact that my mother informed me that I “don’t need” one (give me a break), I continued to think about it (please! like I am going to pass on a good reason to buy a new bag!). Bags are important to me. This couldn’t be just any purchase or just any diaper bag. NO. It has to match my outfits, fit the baby stuff, be convenient and useful…but I really didn’t want something that screams “diaper bag” either. There are a lot of ugly diaper bags out there. There are also a lot of EXPENSIVE diaper bags out there. I had to stop imagining myself owning the Coach Signature Stripe Patent Tote (in black!) because, let’s get real, I am not at a point in my life that I can rationalize a $400 bag purchase. Maybe someday. I had been anticipating payday for a while, pondering what sort of big purchase to make this month now that I don’t have to worry about a crib…new sunglasses? Pack and Play for the baby? Diaper bag? ALL THREE? That remains to be seen. Anyway, yesterday was payday, and I was having a bad morning. Coming up on a holiday weekend, no plans to be seen. All my friends made plans to go out of town and didn’t include me (thanks, friends!) and to make things worse, I actually WON tickets to see Maria Taylor at the Doug Fir this Saturday, and have no one to go with. Nobody wants to hang out with the pregnant girl. So, on the verge of a meltdown at work yesterday, and without Alana online to talk me down like normal, I decided to do some shopping to make myself feel better. I waked right over to Nordstrom, checked out the sunglasses (decided to wait for the sale), bought a couple of tops at BP (they fit!) and looked at sandals (my feet have grown! aaah!). On my way out, on a whim, I walked into handbags. I looked around for a while, and then stopped at a display of some marc by marc jacobs totes…and there it was. Not a baby bag, but usable as one. Nylon. Quilted. Black. Pretty. I put it on and it fit me perfectly, and I could wear it and have my hands completely free because of the long strap. Perfect for pushing a stroller. Anyway, I bought it. I love it. I am going to buy a diaper bag organizer kit to put inside (travel changing pad, some sort of bottle holder, etc..). And here it is:

After my exciting purchase (I was excited, the salesgirl was excited, we were all excited) I skipped out of Nordstrom and stopped by Baskin Robbins on the way back to the office and bought an Oreo Explosion Sundae (which was amazing) to top off my great lunch hour. A good time was had by all. Later that day, Alana finally got online and I told her my story. She promised to hang out with me this weekend (Me: I had to buy something because I was sad that everyone ditched me this weekend. Alana: I am staying in town. I could have saved you a lot of money!) but being Alana, could appreciate the purchase of an expensive bag. Sunday we are going to do our favorite activity: JB shopping (Jantzen Beach, for those of you not from the ’hood) and I plan to buy some diaper bag necessities. Happy weekend!

Surprise!

I had the shock of my life at work today when my co-workers threw me a SURPRISE baby shower! Apparently it’s been in the works for a while, and I was completely clueless. Really, I can’t remember the last time I was as surprised and speechless as I was today. On Tuesday a meeting request went out to staff from client services for a training thing. It was scheduled for lunchtime on Thursday. I usually order lunch for that sort of stuff, but when I mentioned it to Jen over gchat, she was like, oh Rodica said she would take care of it. Hmm. Yesterday I IM’d Rodica asking if she needed my help, and she was like, oh no, already taken care of. I thought it was weird but didn’t really think anything else about it. So today at 11:59 I realized I was going to be late if I didn’t get downstairs, went to the kitchen to grab some water, and thought I should bring a notebook and pen with me in case I needed to write anything down at the meeting. I waddle down the stairs and down the hall to the big conference room. The first thing I notice is that the tables are arranged weird, no one is sitting, and no one is lined up getting food. Strange. Then I get closer and notice that some people are holding noisemakers with…puppy faces on them? Huh? THEN I notice….everyone is looking at ME. And then “SURPRISE!!!” Huh? What? I seriously couldn’t comprehend what was going on. I looked around…streamers. Balloons. CUPCAKES. And presents!

What is going on? I am pretty sure I just kept saying something like “No. You guys did not do this,” and just stood there like an idiot, holding my notebook and water. Even after I had sat down with some cupcakes and pizza, I STILL thought we were having a training meeting. Then Christi passes out shower games! We played shower games! I did really well at filling in the blank nursery rhymes and not so well at matching baby animals to mommy animals. Then Jen handed me my present. It was an oddly shaped, flat thing, wrapped up in cute wrapping paper. I opened it…and it was a piece of wood? With…a manual for a CRIB? Again, it didn’t really compute. It took me a second. A crib???? I HAVE A CRIB! Then a crib mattress appeared…

I was so shocked.

This is me after I realize I have a crib.

It’s the crib I have been dreaming about for months now…it’s beautiful.

 
I can’t wait to put it together with my pretty baby bedding and put a pretty baby inside. The whole experience was really surreal…I felt like I was in a daze for quite a while after, because it was so much to take in. I am continuously astounded at how generous people have been towards me during my pregnancy. We are still two months away from Holland’s arrival and I have pretty much every single thing that I need. And I didn’t buy any of it, besides some clothing. I really don’t have to worry about anything. It’s amazing, and overwhelming. After my last (non-surprise) shower a couple weeks ago, later that night, I was going over all the cards people had given me and just started crying, completely overwhelmed by everyone’s generosity and love. It’s funny that something that started as a scary, unplanned “mistake” back in December has turned into something that has so many people SO excited. It’s days like today that remind me that I made the right decision, and that despite our circumstances, despite how tough/frustrating/scary this pregnancy has been, Holland and I are going to do great. And now I am done being sentimental. It won’t happen again, I promise.

Because it made me laugh

The Alexia Baby Trivia questions and answers from my shower. My mom thought these up. They are great. I can’t wait to see how Holland compares.

Q. At what age did Alexia start walking?

A: 13 months

Q: When was Alexia successfully potty-trained?

A: 3 years

Q: Which character did Alexia like to imitate when she was little?

A: Rainbow Brite

Q: What did Alexia take to bed with her as a toddler?

A: Her favorite books.

Q: Did Alexia suck her thumb or a pacifier?

A: Pacifier

Q: What was Alexia’s first word?

A: Me

Q: When did Alexia start talking?

A: 10 months

Q: What magazine was Alexia’s mom surprised to find under her bed when she was nine years old?

A: Cosmopolitan

Q: What was Alexia’s favorite treat as a toddler?

A: Milkshakes

Q: How long did Alexia drink out of a bottle?

A: Alexia never drank out of a bottle.