Stages in Life

Some of you may have heard, but I have decided to step-down from being a Stroller Strides instructor at the end of August.  It is not because I do not enjoy it.  Stroller Strides has been one of the most worthwhile organizations I have been a part of, but once Tommy starts going to school M-W-F in September, I want to have Tuesdays and Thursdays to do fun mom/kids activities in the mornings.  I am looking forward to using our memberships at the Zoo, the Childrens' Museum and OMSI! 

With this decision I find myself once again trying to figure out who I am.  For the last little bit (since April of 2007) I have been a Stroller Strides attendee and then late in 2008, I became an instructor.  I LOVE Stroller Strides and truly credit it and Rachel Heyer for saving my sanity when I first became a mommy.  I have met some of my best friends through Stroller Strides and I would not hesitate to ask any of the amazing women that are a part of this organization for help or advice on life or something one of my kids is doing.  But I just feel like it is time. 

When I first became a mom, I had the self-imposed problem of losing my job identity to "just become a mom."  It is so funny to me now, but that is how I felt.  I was depressed and lost.  All I had ever done, post-college, was work.  I was proud of my job and proud of what I had accomplished in those 9 years; similar to today, I am proud of what I have done and accomplished as "just a stay-at-home mom and Stroller Strides participant."  But I find myself again questioning, "Who am I without Stroller Strides?"  I am still not sure if I am giving up attending classes or not, I am just going to see how September goes, but the question still looms, "Who am I?"

I have thought about the following pathways:

• Nurse (but I would have needed better grades in college to get into nursing school)
• Lab technician (i.e the person who draws blood)
• High School Guidance Counselor
• Williams Sonoma employee
• Opening a bakery (which would require me to get a part-time job in a bakery first so I knew what I was doing)
• Opening a Mom Spa (which takes way too much capital that I do not have access to)
• Opening an outdoor neighborhood swimming pool with a summer league swim team (again takes too much capital that I do not have access to)

But in the end I do not know what I want to be when I grow up.  If anyone has input on any of this or can think of other things that I should be doing with my life, let me know. 

For now, I have decided for the next year, I am going to be satisfied to be a stay-at-home mom - that is if my mind will let me.  I am trying to be patient and know that a path will develop, but for right now I am back to feeling a bit lost.

I am also getting excited for Tommy to start public school.  We went and visited my mother-in-law in her 1st grade classroom.  She hatched baby chickens from eggs and so we went to visit the 13 baby chicks (she ended up with 14 chicks - one hatched after we left).  I think Tommy is going to have a great time in public school and I can't wait to be involved in both the classroom and making our school a better place.  So I do have that to look forward to.

I guess what I am saying is I know there are different stages in life and I think as I am moving out of the baby stage, I am struggling to find my place.  But I am sure it will happen and I just have to have faith in that. 

Cheers to different stages in life and being a bit lost.

Girls' Weekend in Seattle

We had a girls' weekend in Seattle this past weekend.  It was so much fun!  My mom, sister and me - three girls on the town.  We stayed at Diana and Tobais' house in Shoreline. 

Mom drove up to Tigard, picked me up and we headed north on Friday night.  We arrived around 9:00PM and had a glass of wine and chatted.  It was then time for bed.  I must have been tired and happy because I woke both my mom and me up laughing at 4AM.  We both went back to sleep but it was pretty funny.

We woke up, got dressed and headed out to downtown Seattle.  We were headed to Matt's in the Market.  I had heard about this place from my friend Jennifer.  She loves it, so Diana made a reservation.  We ate lunch there and it was phenomenal!  Here is what we had:

This was homemade salt and pepper potato chips with a warm bacon and caramelized onion dip.

This is Diana's catfish sandwich and simple green salad.

This is Mom's chicken sandwich with simple green salad.

This is my shrimp salad sandwich with potato leek soup.
And of course as you see in all the pictures, we had bloody mary's that also came along with a small glass of beer.

Our lunch was outstanding...and yes we did have 2 bloody mary's a piece, but seriously this is a great place! 

Then we went shopping at Nordstrom.  Nordstrom was busy and fun!  We walked around the shoe department and did not find anything fun, so then we went to the makeup department and found our dear old friend Laura Mercier.  Our new friend J.R. helped us at the Laura Mercier counter and we had so much fun.  Diana and Mom made me get blush because they said I needed the color not to look dead...I felt a bit like a clown.  But I was happy with all that we bought.  Then we went to the Accessories Department.  We tried on funky fun headbands, Diana bought a hat and I bought a scarf.  So all-in-all it was a very fun shopping excursion. 

We then headed back to Pike's Place Market.  There was a cheese festival going on so there were gobs and gobs of people.  I had seen a Henna Tattoo shop on the way up to Nordstrom and of course I wanted one.  So I headed into the shop and found a sun that looked good to me.  So here is my new Henna Tattoo:

 
Then we headed back to Diana's house to apply new makeup and get ready for dinner.  We wanted to meet our Aunts (Sarah and Suz) for drinks and dinner.  So we went to Kirkland and went to Brix Cafe.  We got there early and drinks/appetizers - even though we had been drinking and eating all day long.  Here is a pic of the three of us at that restaurant:

Then Sarah and Suz showed up and we had the best time!  We ate dinner, drank and had a blast!  Both Sarah and Diana said their cheeks hurt from smiling so much.  We decided we needed to do that more often and hopefully we will!

Suz and I were the designated drivers, so we all made it home safe. 

Sunday morning we slept in a bit and stayed in our sweats and headed to breakfast at the Honey Bear Bakery.  This was a fun bakery next/inside of a bookstore.  We had a great breakfast and then headed to the bookstore to find some letter tracing books for Tommy who is into writing his letters. 

Then back to Diana's house to change for a bridal shower for our cousin/nephew's fiance (Laura).  So not only did we get to see Sarah and Suz and dinner, we saw them at the shower too since it was for Sarah's future daughter-in-law.  It was very fun and cute to see all the fun presents that she received.  We are very excited for Nick and Laura's wedding in August. 

Then it was time for Mom and I to hit the road.  Sadly the weekend was over and while it went by very quickly, we had such a great time and can't wait to do it again.

Cheers to weekends with family!

Update on Jesse

As my Aunt Sarah pointed out this weekend, I have left you all hanging on Jesse's status. Jesse survived the surgery although there was worry there would not be enough skin to close the incision.  They made two incisions - one large and one smaller.  He spent the night at an animal hospital down in Tualatin the night after his surgery.  We took him down there, but our vet picked him up from the hospital and took him back to the vet office.  We picked him up that Saturday.  He was very drugged up and I rode in the back of the car with him.

We visited the vet about every other day to get the bandages changed and she let me know they had the results back on the type of cancer that the tumor was and while it is an aggressive cancer in that area, it will not metastasize (which means spread to any of the other organs in his body).  So he does have cancer and we do not know when it will come back or really any type of timeframe.  We are very happy he is home with us now!  I did ask the vet what I should be looking for as far as reoccurence/Jesse not doing well and she said he will just stop doing what he normally does, he will stop eating, etc.

With that being said, Jesse is recovering very well!  He had some major swelling the days after his surgery but the doctors were not worried about it and they were right it was just swelling from the surgery.  He had part of his stitches out two weeks ago and the other set out last week. 

Here is the healing area:

Jesse was not being a very good model, but here is a snapshot of him with his donut on and his side:

So our puppy is home.  He looks a bit like Frankenstein, but he actually likes the donut - he snores when he sleeps.

I want the incisions to heal a bit more before taking off the donut, but we are getting very close! 

So cheers to having our dog home and healing!