bringing lazy to a whole new level.

so not only did i pay someone to change my windshield wipers yesterday (my dad is disowning me right now for eternity. i can feel it.), i just finished placing my very first peapod order (and my mom would be high-fiving me over this gem!). for those of you who aren't familiar with peapod, it's a grocery delivery service. have i become housebound in some way, you ask? why, no. i am just tired of carrying groceries up two flights of stairs (and through 5 hall doors). that's all. oh, and i got a free delivery coupon so it's basically a wash... i'm not spending more than i would by actually GOING to the grocery store. except i guess i have to tip the delivery guy. whatever. it's worth it. or maybe it is. we'll see. i'll keep you posted. they're coming tomorrow between 10:30 - 2:00pm. i'll get a 2 hour timeframe in the morning to narrow it down, which is better than the damn cable company.

he's a brainiac, braaainiac!

today is hunter's first day of kindergarten. i just went down to kindercare and watched him line up with the other kids, all of them with giant half-empty backpacks on, and took a million pictures with my eyes full of tears. i never understood why moms cry at things like this and here i was, just the aunt, and i was crying!! i'm just so proud of melanie and happy for him. he's so big. i can barely believe he's in school. like fareel school. and he was like, "don't cry. i will wear my seat belt, i promise." my mom must be busting with pride. i can just picture her all "jesus, can you hold my ginger ale? i have to tell everyone in heaven that my grandson started kindergarten today. mark! get your bike, it's faster if we drive around the holy kingdom."

pouring.

what a day. it's like 60 degrees, which sucks since hi, it's still august. and we finally cleared out the rest of the storage area. what a day. just when i think we are making progress, you know —
being less like mourning freaks — we have to do something heartbreaking like go through boxes and boxes of clothes and pictures and trinkets and just MOM stuff. like only my mom would keep a dumb wooden ruler from the local newspaper. or receipts from 1997. or 7,000 pens.

but again, only a mom would have every card you've ever given her since you were two. and letters you wrote her from half a world away half a lifetime ago. there are little things, like a note she wrote to me, but never gave me:

Steph,
I've planned on giving you this ring since the day I had you, on your 18th birthday. It's very dear to my heart, just as you are. Please keep it close and everytime you look at it, remember how special you are to Dad and me.
Love, Mom

it was in an empty ring box. the ring was the engagement ring my father gave to her. i don't know what happened to it and honestly, i don't care. this little piece of paper means more to me than some ring. i'll keep it in my wallet forever.

melanie and i looked at a collage frame that was my grandfather's and noticed that more than half the people featured in it are gone. both of our grandparents, both of our parents, our uncle wayne, our aunt kathy, our cousin melissa. it's just such a heavy, sad feeling.

but then melanie found a necklace that used to be mine. i had offered it up to both her and my mom and they fought for hours over it. my mom prevailed. mel took it out of the box, put it on and said, "ha. i always win in the end." hahahaha. i love my sister.

you have got to be joking me.

why? why would anyone ever on any tv show, let alone my newly beloved csi, ever want anything to do with k-fed?

thank god i have a ton of leftover cough medicine to od on during that episode.

zzzzz

dudes, i am so tired, i can't even explain it. some combination of allergy medication, coughing and plain old insomnia allowed me to get about 47 minutes of sleep last night. seriously. i was wide awake ALL NIGHT. and now i have that really overtired headache, yet my eyelids will still not close. i just tried to spend my lunch break taking a nap. i mean COME ON, it's perfect. the weather is so awful. it's pouring outside and dark — perfect sleeping weather. but noooooo. my jackass eyes won't shut.

tom leaves for baltimore tomorrow. i hope he doesn't get sick. he said he's not feeling great today. ugh. this is the longest cold ever, too. if anyone would like to know anything about almost any OTC cold product, please let me know, as i've used about 17 jillion of them since sunday.

oh and ps? don't think i didn't try to watch 8 episodes of csi while i was up (since the only thing on at 4am is walker, texas ranger. i love you chuck norris, but f that.) and i'd seen them all. with friends reruns, for some reason it doesn't matter. i can watch them over and over, but i am not going to waste my time watching warrick brown's gambling problems with the judge when i already KNOW he's going to have the judge busted and get promoted to csi 3.

ok, no more whining. >>GONG<<

blessed be.

i'm so lucky. sometimes it's so easy to get bogged down by every day crap and forget how good i really have it. yeah, my life isn't perfect and i am certainly not perfect, but my family and friends and pets and home are pretty perfect to me.

sigh. just sayin.

free tea!

adam just sent me this link to golden moon tea to choose a free sample of any one of their teas! thanks, adam. gotta love a free sample.

i chose vanilla mint, but the coconut pouchong sounds good, too.

it's a miracle!

now this may not seem all that miraculous. it's a cat. sleeping in a cat bed. but for us, it's unbelievable!!! i bought this cat bed months ago and tom gave me hell for it. waste of money; neither of them are ever going to use it, yada yada...
and as of last week, it indeed had become a home to cobwebs and not much else. i even tried to lure them with treats and catnip. no go.
so keli (the above pictured cat. i will post about simon another time so he doesn't feel left out.) had taken to sleeping in tom's big blue chair in the spare bedroom. the other day we had a cleaning frenzy of sorts and that chair was moved back into our bedroom leaving the spare room, well, kind of barren. all that's in there now is the lonely little cat bed (which i've been gearing up to sell on ebay for like a dime) and a spare car seat for hunter.
tom gets home from work last night and is all, "did you see where keli's been sleeping?!?!" i'm like, no, i'm dying of an unknown illness. isn't that more important? he rolls his eyes because he's right, i am a ridiculously big baby. but whatever, you love me, deal with it. so he continues... "in.... the.... CATBED!!!" i so didn't believe him, but lo and behold... this picture is proof. he took it this morning before he left for work.
i know. it's more excitement than you can bear. i should have posted a warning at the outset of this message. i'll try to remember that for next time.

csi: vegas, baby!!

i am obsessed. ask tom. obsessed. i'm actually not sure how long the original csi (note: i do not watch the other two -- ny and miami. they are hackers.) has been on, but i remember everyone always saying how great it is. i think i never watched it because it's on thursdays and as you all know, i'm also obsessed with friends. friends takes precedence over all else. anyway, friends is gone now (RIP, my loves) so i can concentrate on csi. i dvr all instances on every channel which means i watch about 5 episodes a day. hm. maybe i should be in therapy for this. i'll mention it on friday and see what she says. i'll let you know.
anyway! i'm experiencing PTSD. can you believe it? i thought only war vets got this. but apparently, it's applicable to a number of situations. if i call tom or melanie and they don't immediately return my call (it's completely unreasonable), i have a panic attack. J, my therapist, says that's PTSD because of how i found out my mom died. called and called her all day and just assumed that there was a dr appt i forgot about, or she was in the shower, or she was napping, or she was at price chopper. no. in fact, she was none of these places. (sorry for the sadness, but that's the whole reason i'm supposed to be writing.) tom thought i was watching too much csi and that is why i am unreasonably terrified of ordinary things. but alas, it's just my regular old crazy life. just your run of the mill post traumatic stress disorder. who. knew. more later. new episode just started.... ps? nick stokes is wikkid hot. but i love tom more.

pot of gold...

can i just take a minute to tell you how awesome my friends are? i come home from a looooong day at work (yes, AT the actual office.) and roll into the apartment at like 11:30pm on thursday. and what is awaiting me? a little red box from red envelope! i love red envelope. go there and buy your loved ones lots of fun treats. so i open it up, wondering who and why the heck?!?! it's a little four-leaf clover from christine wishing me luck. how great is that? for no reason. those are just the best. so thank you christine, my true friend and one loyal reader. i am lucky to have you. xoxo.

fiction!!!

i am still sick. in case anyone feels like sending me flowers (tom). i keep thinking it's getting better, so i decide against going to the doctor. then i feel bad again. it's a vicious cycle that only nyquil can help.

also someone keeps calling from 518 area code and i'm afraid to answer because that's my mom's area code. i'm all set with all things upstate new york, thanks. i've had about all i can handle from them for the year. and i figure if it's important, whoever it is will leave a message.

i'm very cranky. be happy i'm not answering your dumb phone call today. they're all fiction anyway. (Hunter^TM*)

*Hunter recently learned the difference between fiction and non-fiction. so he applies it to everything and also people. so if you lie to him, you are fiction. shut up, he's brilliant.

dirty laundry.

we are back from melanie's birthday dinner. i just took some nyquil and we are settled in bed... each with a laptop on our (shock!) laps, watching friends, waiting to put laundry in the dryer and for mel to give her obligatory home-safe call.

i really think she had a nice night. which is good. and hunter was really funny. as usual. :)

images

happy birthday, melanie!

my baby sister is 26 today. holy cow. i am old. so where to start? i'm sick. my throat started to hurt yesterday afternoon and just got progressively worse. to the point that i actually am "home" from work. which is weird, because i work from home, so being home sick is kind of difficult. since work is here. anyway. i took some dayquil an hour or so ago and i feel a little less like dying, which is good since we're taking melanie to on the border for dinner. OLE!

the wedding was good. i wore a white dress with blue embroidery and all night i kept remarking how awesome it was that i didn't spill on it. so, we come back from dancing and there are delicious-looking strawberry shortcakes at our table. first bite... envision in slow motion, a strawberry leaping from the plate and landing on my lap. and if that wasn't bad enough, it continued it's journey by bouncing down the entire right side of my dress. classy, stephanie.

also, today is important for a few reasons. it's melanie's birthday, most importantly. it's also six whole months that she and hunter have lived in connecticut, which is awesome for a variety of personal and legal reasons. it's also, though, six months since my mom died. which is so overwhelming, i almost can't even write it. but i know she is proud of her little brood. we keep plugging ahead and making small, yet significant progress (i hope!). miss you, mom.

orange is far.

so we have a wedding to go to today. i thought orange was closer, but it's FORTY THREE minutes away. that's a little thing i like to call...................

anyway, babysitting went well. the little one stayed asleep all night until 7:30am. which is still pretty early on a saturday for a non-mom like myself.

ok, wish us luck at the wedding. we don't know many people. that's always a crapshoot when you're stuck at a dinner table with a bunch of strangers.

yawn.

ok so i'm babysitting and quite honestly, i thought it was going to be harder than this. my friends said their little one has been crying lately at bedtime so i was gearing up for a tough night. i know i may be jinxing myself since it's only 9:10pm, but he was rubbing his eyes at 8 o'clock! i rocked him for a few minutes and put him in his crib and he actually pulled his blanket up over himself and totally zonked out. no fussing, no nothing. so, hunter and i are chillin downstairs watching a jimmy neutron marathon (missing the red sox/yankees game).
i keep checking the monitor to make sure it's working since he's been so quiet. it's one of those things where i want to go check him, but if i open his door, it'll probably wake him up, so do i dare? ugh. we'll see. ut oh. dog barking. eeek! more later.

wow. why did this take me so long?

seriously. how come i haven't been blogging for like 10 years already? why does it take some suffocating tragedy for me to realize a) that i should be writing and b) hi, i work online... perhaps i should WRITE ONLINE. anyway... if you're reading this, you are probably expecting me to be good at it (aw, thanks!), but please go easy on me. it may be boring or messed up or actually probably both. continue reading at your own risk.

i'm pretty excited about winning a smooth-edge pampered chef can opener on ebay the other night. those are my thoughts for today. told you it would be hot.