Some 4:14 a.m. complaining.

It's almost 4 a.m. and I still haven't fallen asleep...which makes me even more angry than it would in any normal situation (not that insomnia is normal for me), because I'm sick and I really need some rest. Dare I say more sick than I've been in years. I've worked myself to the ground and brought this upon myself. Not that I had much of a choice... when life puts a mountain in your path, the only choice in my world is to start hiking.

It's like one huge bump after another. Too much work, no choice but to hunker down and do it, got the cold/flu of death, which made me miss a day at the office, which made me even more stressed out about work, so I worked 14 hours Friday from home and 8-or-so hours on Saturday, which possibly made me more sick. I missed my anticipated 5k race which was supposed to be on Saturday morning, and at this point I'm asking myself, "Why can't you be like everyone else when they're sick and call it as it is? 'I'm sick. Can't work. Sorry 'bout that, guess you have to deal with my workload while I'm out.' Why?"

I can't take night-time Tylenol, or night-time anything for that matter. The ingredients that help most people sleep keep me up all night in a jittery, paranoid mess. So today I tried Tylenol Cold & Flu Daytime. And I took it... in THE DAYTIME. And here I am 12 entire hours later, with the identical freaky, shaky feeling I get with p.m. meds. So I got up to Google the ingredients and turns out, it's not uncommon to experience shakes and insomnia when taking Phenylephrine HCI, the third ingredient in these "relief softgels". I hate you, Tylenol.

I've already called in sick for tomorrow, but I have to work from home. And now I'm sitting here sobbing because I don't even know how that is possible at this point. The more time I take off, the taller the pile of work on my desk grows. I can't seem to find a way to dig myself out of this one.

Boo. Hoo.

Wah.

There, I got it out. Go ahead and tell me to suck it up, I deserve it.

Don't bust my b*lls

Can whoever taught him this please fess up? You'll have full amnesty, I swear. I just really need to know so I can T.P. your house.

Breakfast

Yum.

What is more fascinating than a developing mind?

Carter has always loved coloring. I love this about him, because I also love coloring. I find it very therapeutic.


You can get your frustrations out:



Or be very quiet and purposeful as you draw.


These pictures were taken several months ago. During that time, when I would ask him what he was drawing, he would say "Cars. I'm drawin' cars."


So this past week we've started a game that he now asks for every evening: "Mom, can we draw cars?" And here's what "drawing cars" means...

First, I hold his crayon-filled fist and together we draw two wheels, the bottom, and a front and back bumper. He narrates each part as our car begins to take shape. If he had his wish, we would repeat this 5,000 times per night, using every color in the box.

One night I asked him to try the top of the car himself. "Just connect one bumper to the other one. Up and over. See? Like this.":

His response was the sweetest, most humble and mildly embarassed, "Mom, I can't do it."

But by the next night, he found the courage to try, as long as the tip of my pointer finger touched the end of the crayon for moral support:(The second one down, he declared, is a "race car!" Indeed.)

By tonight, he is a pro.
Together we draw the wheels, the bottom, and the bumpers.
Then he draws the top and says (even on the 20th victory) "[gasp!] I did it! Look!"
And then, with nested hands, we add the windows.

There is nothing in the caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

Burn down your bridges.

Think outside the box.

Let yourself feel.

Jeter Junior

I suppose, after all the money I spent in New York, I can't complain about Steve HAVING to buy Carter an official (no street vendors, it had to be legit, apparently) Yankees jersey. I'm seriously not even going to tell you the price because you don't deserve to snort whatever you're drinking out your nose - I realize that's a very uncomfortable thing to do, especially when it's on accident.

Steve explained to Carter, "I got you a Derek Jeter shirt because Jeter's not a cheater." And then he went on to tell Carter about the dangers and ethical ramifications of steroids while Carter looked at him with knowing eyes, and then at the end he said in the most reassuring tone, "that's right, Dad. Nice job."

So here he is:

New York City

Quite a long while back, when my friend Natasha started massage school, she and her husband, James, came to us to inform us we were accompanying them to NYC the day after she graduated. The second they mentioned it, we were in. It seems like just yesterday we were shopping airline tickets, etc. (we planned and paid for everything 6-9 months ago) and now the whole trip has come and gone so quickly.

These are completely out of order, but here are some highlights:



Steve and I won Yankee tix on eBay (I hate how it's normal to say you've "won" something on eBay, because these tickets were incredibly far from free). It was an amazing game - Yankees swept the Red Sox. If you know me at all, you know I care very little about sports. But even I couldn't deny the excitement of being in that stadium, witnessing the biggest rivalry in sports first hand. For a split second, I could almost picture myself getting in to baseball. That second has now passed, but I'm pretty confident I could conjure it back up in the future if needed. That was really, really fun.



This is James and Natasha, underground... below what I will henceforth and forevermore call Natasha's Happy Place: China Town. The woman can shop. The end.



My husband is a hot chocolate connoisseur. Here he is drinking Max Brenner's hot chocolate (for breakfast! Travesty.) in one of their famous "hug mugs". He shall now require a set of them in his Christmas stocking; please note, Santa.



This would be the pictorial verdict of said Max Brenner hot chocolate (for breakfast! Travesty.) Steve's words, "You can slice it!"



Natasha and I in Central Park. Can I please take another weekend just to play in this park? It was gorgeous, and I really wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I should because Canal Street and Little Italy took everything I had. Or, I should say, everything my feet had. Very upsetting when you want to do so much more, but your feet and legs hurt so bad from walking miles and miles whilst hauling approx 400 extra pounds on your butt.



Us in Central Park, trying really hard to smile through the foot-pain. I think Steve was doing much better than me at this point, though.



We decided to wait on buying Broadway tickets, knowing we'd be able to stand in line at a TKTS booth to get them cheaper. After just a few minutes in line, we got in to Mary Poppins for $85 bucks or so, which is about 40% off. Mary Poppins wasn't on the top of my list, (even though it's one of my favorite classic Disneys) but I was very surprised at how great it was. Disney knows how to do Broadway. It was a musical and a magic show all in one. The casting was brilliant. My only complaint is that one of my favorite songs from Mary Poppins, Stay Awake, was entirely left out for the Broadway rendition. It's the song I have sung to Carter almost every night since the day he was born, so I was really excited to hear it. Poo.


As close as we got to The Lady. She wasn't our top priority, so we just snapped a few far away shots while on the ferry to Staten Island.

The food was fab, the shopping was glorious, and the people-watching couldn't be better in any other corner of the planet. I am now five handbags richer. And p.s. - one of them is a diaper bag. But that means entirely NOTHING. Other than Isabella Fiore designs a delicious diaper bag and I couldn't leave 5th ave without one. Amen.

And it's kind of pink, which also means nothing at all.

Give me a kiss

How can I complain about a thing when I have this?

video-2009-07-30-19-34-58

shootin' some b-ball outside of the school

Good form!



"Ohp! Rayder's turn"

Embarking

To anyone who reads this blog, it should be no surprise that I have struggled with my weight for exactly 7 years now. Okay, actually I've struggled with it my entire life, but in hindsight, I declare that it doesn't really count as a struggle when you're a size 6. Sorry. I detailed what happened to cause my weight gain in this post a while back. The past year, I have finally been able to get my endocrine system in check - at least in check enough that my weight loss efforts actually have the possibility to bring RESULTS.

Last year I lost 55 lbs, gained some back during the holidays (like an idiot), and have lost a bit more since then. Uber yay. Except that I've been thinking, my long term goal, Sexy Beeyotch, still seems pretty far into the distant future. In fact, I can't even see it on the horizon just yet. That can be discouraging at times, so I decided I needed to distract myself with something along the way ("oooh! shiny!!!"). So I signed up to run a 5k. I KNOW. What the CRAP. WAS. I. THINKING?

Too late to turn back now, I already paid my money. Nevermind that I've never ran a day in my life. I don't even like playing sports. I have a specific training program I'm following to develop a running base and prep myself for my race. This requires an amazing amount of trust, an emotion not native to my kind. Trust that this program really will get me ready to run withint 6-8 weeks as it promises. Because seriously? This week it's telling me to run 2 minutes at a time and walk 5 minutes in between? And 30 seconds in to the running spurts, I'm fumbling around with my phone's running application wondering if the freaking thing has somehow stopped working because I SWEAR IT'S ALREAY BEEN LIKE 6 MINUTES AND IT WAS SUPPOSED TO TELL ME TO WALK 4 MINUTES AGO AND I'M SERIOUSLY ABOUT TO DIE, LIKE LITERALLY HYPERVENELATE-AND-THEN-MY-HEART-WILL-STOP-BEATING DIIIIE.

Trust. Just don't think about the fact that your race is weeks away. Trust the training program.

So anyway, the purpose of this whole story is that, as extra motivation to myself, I am detailing my entire grueling training experience at KENNARUNS.BLOGSPOT.COM. This blog is my accountability system. So come on over and offer my chunky butt some words of encouragement. Or, I'll even take heckling and criticism because either way, it's still attention, and I'm very much like Lindsay Lohan in that respect. Amen.

Isn't he a little young for this?

My son's fingernails grow so fast, it seems like we're clipping them every third day - and that frequency is slightly on the side of neglect. He hates having them clipped, so we invented a game called "POP!" about a year ago, and that has helped us all survive grooming time much more happily.

So the other day, I picked him up from spending the day at his Nana's house and his nails had been cut. Steve and I inspected her fine work, wondering how she got such a close cut. That was a week ago, and I just realized last night that I hadn't cut his nails in a while, so I checked them and sure enough, they're perfectly manicured.

Tonight after bathtime, we were cuddling up to a movie and I looked over at Carter and he was biting his nails! Drool dripping down his bare belly, and a handful of fingernails in his other hand. Turns out he's been biting off his toenails too.

What... the... crap.

He's barely two. Is this normal???

My first try at bribery

"If you stand there real still and look at mommy without your hands in your face and laugh and say "cheese," you can have an M&M"

"A red oned?" (everything ends with a "D" nowadays)

"Yes! A red one if you want!"

"CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ!!!!!!!!!"

Love is a many splendored thing.

Some wedding announcements I recently designed.
I chose the most delicious matte-coated paper with spot UV coating on just the green letters to give them a glossy pop.
They mailed them in long black envelopes with green and white mailing labels.
Perfect for a bride who thrives on marching to her own drum-beat.
Three cheers for uniqueness and individuality.

Oh, and I took the photos, too.

The most boring meme you've ever read.

Emma tagged me because she thinks I say funny things.

6 names you go by:
1. McKenna
2. Kenna
3. Ken
4. Hon
5. Mama
6. Honey (by my son, nonetheless)

3 things you are wearing right now:
1. Wedding ring
2. Sweater that I'm going to wear to my sister's wedding.
3. Yellow shirt that is so cute and I wish I dared to wear it outside the house but my arms are still too chubby.

3 things you want very badly at the moment :
1. A housekeeper
2. An allergy-free head
3. Pedicure

2 things you did last night:
1. Pruned my tomatoes
2. Watched Forever Strong

3 people you last talked to on the phone:
Steve, husband; Megan, sister; Natasha, best friend and poodle. Totally a poodle.

things you are going to do tomorrow:
Wake up cured of the swine flu.
The laundry I am supposed to be doing tonight.

3 of your favorite beverages
1. Ice, ice, ice cold water. Filtered, please.
2. Umm...
3. Medifast Flavor Infusors that you mix into water - basically flavored green tea.

Sorry Emma, apparently I'm not that funny today.

i can haiku 2

i'm so distracted
with a bouquet of flowers
except just one thing

instead of flowers
chocolate covered strawberries
perfectly ripe, rich

so hard to believe
seven years gone by so fast
here's to many more