2024 Updates

Hello and welcome back to my blog.

Sorry for the super long delay. First, my husband needed to use my computer for over a month back in September/October. Then we didn't have internet for about another month or more. By then we were approaching the end of the year and the holidays. I was in the third trimester of pregnancy which brought back some of my nausea and left me generally exhausted. Work continued to kick my butt. We were trying to prepare for the baby. We took in a stray kitten in August and adopted two new rats in October (I was supposed to wait until after the baby, but they needed a home! I couldn't say no). It was just a crazy time.

Our son was due on January 17th 2024, but decided to come early. My water broke a little before 9am on December 24th, 2023 and Gabriel was born at 10:17am. And then we had this little baby to care for which was new and scary.

Being a parent is probably the hardest thing I have ever done. I think I have started to get the hang of some of it, but it is exhausting and challenging. It is impossible to keep up with everything, but I am trying my best. And there are wonderful things about having this little one. And I love that he is a baby and mom is still able to fix everything and make him feel better. He's starting to smile and make intentional noises, which is adorable and makes me immensely happy.

My anxiety has been way up high. I want to make sure that Gabriel is getting cared for and that chores are getting done. I am also not getting much sleep, which always spikes my anxiety. And I am not back at work yet, but there have been changes made there that are very much against me and against my advancement. That has been discouraging, frustrating, and has also increased my anxiety. If I wasn't on anxiety medication, I would be having panic attacks about going back. I figure that isn't a great way to feel about my place of employment, which has been discouraging. I have been missing my work friends, though, and I am looking forward to seeing them and getting back in the lab.

I am trying to enjoy the rest of my time off. Obviously it is heavily spent on caring for Gabriel and doing the never ending dishes and laundry that come with that. Luckily for me, Kevin helps where he can and has kept up with many of the household chores so I don't have to worry so much about those.

I have been going to counseling for a while now, mostly to deal with work anxiety, but we have been covering a lot of things surrounding parenthood now, of course.

I fell off of the journaling bandwagon last year and decided I wanted to get back at it this year. I needed a way to simplify it to make it easier for me to keep up with. But I also wanted it to be more fun and interactive so it felt less like a chore. That has been really nice so far. And I have started including different things that I never did before, like vision boards, inspirations and aspirations, and other notes that come in handy. I am trying to keep track of things that are important and trying to help myself since I have all of these big things going on. It has been really nice so far and I may make a little blog post about what I am doing and why.

I have still been reading, but these days it is easier to get through audiobooks than physical ones. And because of my anxiety it has mostly been re-reading. But I did join a group read through the Owlcrate Nest app for the January book. That has helped me stay on track, even though I haven't participated in the discussions (I do still read through the questions and some of the things other people post). Between that and my journal, I have had something else to focus time and energy on in the times I get a break.

I haven't decided what this blog will look like moving forward. I'd like to still post about the books I read each month, but it can be very time-consuming. I will likely need to simplify what I have been doing. Maybe post two months at a time and stop reviewing re-reads. Which probably means it would be a good idea to go through my blog and update tags to include book titles in case anyone (or I) want to go back to those book reviews. That will be a bit of a long term project, but I will see if I can do that.

I have a couple other posts started, one is a disease post and one is sort of about Gabriel. I have made it a goal to pick back up on my blog, but it might take a little time for me to figure out what it will look like. I hope you will bear with me.

Meanwhile, here are the books I read in January and February this year:

 

The Lost Hero by 

Rick Riordan

4 stars out of 5 stars

Re-read

Red White and Royal Blue

by Casey McQuiston

4 stars out of 5 stars

Re-read

 

 

 The Fablehaven Series

by Brandon Mull

5 stars out of 5 stars

Re-read

 

Charmed Life and the Lives of Christopher Chant

by Diana Wynne Jones

4 stars out of 5 stars

Re-read

 

The Foxhole Court and the Raven King

by Nora Sakavic

4 stars out of 5 stars

Re-read

The Jungle Book

by Rudyard Kipling

Synopsis/Thoughts: This is the traditional Jungle Book that most people are familiar with. This version is a full cast podcast read of the Jungle Book stories. I had never read them before, so it was a fun, quick read. I won't lie though, I spent much of the time trying to figure out how all of the characters and stories were represented in the Graveyard Book.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5 stars

 

 

A Fragile Enchantment

by Allison Saft

Synopsis/Thoughts: This is a fairy tale of a girl, Niamh, brought to a palace as a royal tailor for the younger prince's upcoming wedding. And in normal fairy tale fashion, the two fall in love despite the prince's engagement and Niamh's common-born status. This was an enjoyable read. I liked a lot of the characters (and I liked Sinclair, but I don't feel that other people liked him as much) and I liked the magic (especially Niamh's). This was an Owlcrate book and I sort of participated in a read-a-long through the Owlcrate Nest app.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5 stars

I have read 13 books towards my goal of 75.

Belated Welcome for Raina!

I know I posted while we were still waiting for Raina to be born. I think in all of the hub-bub I lost track and realized recently that I never got around to posting about my new niece! What on earth is wrong with me?

So without further ado, meet baby Raina!

Pamela took this picture, and it is my favorite so far!

She was born very early (a little before 1am) on August 10th! About 6 and a half pounds and 19 inches long (for those of you who are interested in knowing such things).

Thus far she has been healthy, if occasionally fussy. She's already stubborn (Pamela is so sweet, so I have to assume that she got this stubbornness from her dad...).

I'm sure that I am biased, but I think she is so cute! And it's funny to have her be so new, but to love her so much. Arik and Pamela are doing well, too. I know it is sometimes tough, but they are both taking it all in stride. It's fun to see them be parents.

Right now, I love her "fussy faces," as I call them. When she's not crying, but she frowns and pouts. I think that is the cutest thing ever. Sadly, I have no good pictures of her fussy face. I will have to work on that.

I'm sure you guys will be seeing more of Raina in the future.

Welcome, little Raina! Auntie Mara loves you so much already!

Getting Ready for Baby!

My new little niece is due any time now! I am very excited!

I finally finished crocheting the baby blanket I was working on:

Yay! Finished blanket!

I used the shell pattern and went for an ombre look

I have also been collecting a few things to keep on hand when I babysit. I have some diapers, wipes, clothes, rags, blankets, and other miscellaneous items. My mom is going to bring me a little bed type thing (I don't even know what it's called, which seems sad) for her to sleep in.

Here is one of the cutest things I have obtained:

Pooh bear!!!

As you can see, I am pretty excited! I'm ready to babysit my niece! She can come anytime now!

We are actually in the hospital room right now. Poor Pamela and Arik (and my mom) have had a long day already. It looks like it's going to be a while longer and it may be a late night. I am ready, though! Wish us luck and send Pamela your good thoughts!

And while I still miss Romulus like crazy (I still can't quite believe he's gone), I am glad for something so happy to follow. I suppose not everything is wrong in the world.

Planning a Baby Shower

My brother and his girlfriend, Pamela, are pregnant! I'm sure that I have mentioned it before. I am very excited for them and I am excited to have another niece!

My mom and I (with some help from my sister, Kema, and friend, Rachelle) recently got baby shower invites out! My momma and I are hosting and I am pretty excited!

One of the first things I did was get on Pinterest to find things that I liked. They have it all: from budgets to gifts to favors and decorations to food to games and then some. It is pretty amazing! I found some invitations that I liked, but I didn't want to purchase them, nor did I get into the cheesy-ness of them. As a scrapbooker, I am fairly handy with such things, so my mom and I bought the supplies and we all banded together to make them.

Here is the Etsy link because this person did a great job, and I copied the general style: Modern Baby Shower or Sprinkle.

And here is a series if photos to show how I decided to make them (which may or may not be similar to the original-this is just my interpretation):

Sorry the image is skewed. I blanked out important information that I don't want all over the internet... So I designed the invites and used Word to print two per page. my mom and I picked all of the papers.

We got lucky and found a paper punch for clouds! Each invite got two clouds.

We also found a small heart-shaped hole punch. I figured this would be easier to make the rain drops because we could fold them around the string.

Like so. I cut the strings (which matches the background paper pretty well) and we folded and glued the hearts around the string ends.

To attach the clouds, we used these double-sided foam stickies.

I attached one side to the strings for the raindrops ad then attached the same side to the clouds. The other side was stuck to the invitations.

The final result!

And there you have it! Pretty invitations! We also decided that we liked the "rain" theme and are planning to stick with pink and rain for the party.

We ordered the cake from an AWESOME local pastry and cake shop: Das Meyer. They do amazing things! And I cannot wait to see the cake they make for the shower! It also goes with the pink and rain theme.

I have a secret Baby Shower board on Pinterest right now. Once the shower is over, I will make it public so people can see what ideas and inspiration we had. I just don't want all of this to get out to Pamela and Arik before the shower--it will ruin all of the surprises. To that end, I will also be waiting to post most of our creative gifts and decorations.

I will post the beginning of the diaper cake because everyone knows you have to have a diaper cake, right?

It isn't too tall, but it's pretty big around. I got three bags of diapers in here! Around 100 or so diapers.

Nice so far! Have to decorate it now! We have some other decorations and gifts ready that just need to be put together and organized. We have most of our game prizes already, but I still need to solidify the games and supplies.

My mom and I are going to get table decorations and other miscellaneous things tomorrow. Friday is our cleaning, set up, and maybe some cooking day and then the shower is Saturday! Ahhh! Still so much to do, but I am very excited! And the day after the shower, Isaac and I leave for our vacation! What an exciting week!

"Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the marvelous, magical..."

~Cats "Mr. Mistoffelees

It is past time for me to introduce my niece. Yes, I am an aunt! Isaac's lovely sister, Liz, had a little girl on June 8th. Her name is Wren Matilda!

Isn't she adorable? Being an aunt is definitely fun! I think I get all of the fun parts and I can hand Wren back to mom and dad if she gets too fussy.

For those of you who don't know me as well, my experience with children has been limited and awkward. Despite occasional lessons from my friend, Julia (mother of two), I don't know how to interact with them. And I have never changed a diaper (though I am sure that will change in the near future). While I dislike many children and feel out of place with the rest, Wren can stay. I love her already. Maybe it's because she is family, but I like her so much better than other kids and babies. I feel much more comfortable with her than I ever have with other children (though that doesn't say much since I still don't know what I am doing). I also attribute that to her being family. I know and am friends with Liz and Peter, and I know the family so I know the boundaries and what to expect.

Babies sure change the dynamics of a family. Everyone is so excited about a new baby (but, let's be honest, who wouldn't be excited about this cutie?) and everyone wants to be around. I think this is a good thing. For one, it's nice to have people around to help the new parents. For another, I think establishing strong family ties early on is important. Regardless of the reasons, Isaac and I have been over there an awful lot and so have other family members and friends.

Anyway, I am infinitely proud to be an aunt (Auntie Mara? Aunt Samara? I guess Wren will decide that one day). Liz and Peter have been amazing parents! It has been almost as fun to watch them grow as parents and people as it has been to hold Wren. You will probably see more about her in the future! I am so excited!