Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Long Island Baby Shower!

Catching up on some stuff I hadn't had time to post about earlier.

A little over a week ago my dear friend Sarah threw me a baby shower here on Long Island for all my local friends. We had a fantastic time. Again, everyone was more than generous, and I thank you all most dearly.

Some pictures to share:


We played some fun shower games - here we're all trying to guess the flavors of baby food, which is a lot harder than it looks. Turns out, Ann and Kate have the most discerning palates!


The 'diaper cake' gift Sarah made for me. Very fun!


And the opening of the above. Every time I'd take something out of it another piece would fall into my lap. It was more of an 'exploding diaper cake' by the time I was done, but honestly that sounds much ickier than it was.

A great time was had by all! Thanks again Sarah for hosting, and to all you who came from near and far to celebrate with me.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Cute cute cute cute cute!!!!

OK, so I have a bunch of stuff I haven't blogged about recently (like a trip to San Diego and my Long Island baby shower...) and I promise to get to them eventually. However, I just cannot stand to wait on this one because it has me so very overjoyed!

The crib is up! AND we got the crib set we wanted so very much (OK, I wanted) and now it's super super cute.

See:





Yes, I am full of new-baby joy! But really, can little cartoon dinosaurs ever be anything but cute?!?!

I mean, seriously.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

A post-script on the car debacle.

Well, after the whole car debacle, I wrote a letter to the NYS DMV with a recommendation or two about the license plate surrender process (like letting the vehicle owner *know* that their plates have been surrendered if they were not the ones to turn them in.) and AMAZINGLY I got, not one reply, but two. Both informative. It turns out that our missing license plate (the one from the front of our car we hadn’t noticed was gone) was actually being used by some reprobate on their car. It WAS, in fact, stolen off of our car. The state police confiscated it, and surrendered it to the DMV.

Now, why, you ask, were we allowed to renew our registration 3 months after this? Because the state police did not actually report this information to the DMV until JANUARY. Six Months Had Passed. After that, it only took them 2 months to “catch” us driving on surrendered plates. That we had no idea had been surrendered. Argh.

At least I know how our plates got surrendered now. At least that much is clear. Now, if only someone had had the common courtesy to tell us. (Obviously, if we hadn’t reported our plate missing *and* had renewed our registration, we might not know our plates had been surrendered – but no one thought to check.)
At this point I have determined that almost every single individual at the NYS DMV is competent individually. Each person we have interacted with has treated me with courtesy, and respect, and prompt information. But somehow if you consider the whole lot of them together – the SYSTEM is inept and incompetent.

Further proof that bureaucracy just causes more problems than it solves. (and, it turns out, is impossible to spell on the first try.)

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Phoenix Bound

I hadn’t posted this sooner, mostly because it never seems wise to post about Justin being out of town and me being all by my lonesome…but Justin had a job interview in Phoenix about two weeks ago. He was made an offer, and has accepted the position as a tenure-track faculty at the Midwestern School of Medicine. He starts mid-August! Which means I better get off my butt and finish up things that need to be done here so I can move with him ASAP! I don't need (want) to be a 'single mom' with an infant one minute longer than I have to be.




I am super excited about the prospect, although I am having a hard time with how far it will put me from the whole family and all my friends (Mass or NY). You’ll all just have to come out to sunny Phoenix and visit!



Now comes the tricky part - all I have to do is figure out how to get myself a job in the area too. I have a lead or two, and we'll see how this goes.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Drumroll please....

For all of you who have been wondering, and asking, and wondering, and asking some more…we have finally decided on a first name for the baby.
And the name is……

Russell!

So far it has met with widespread approval.

And no, for all of you who have been wondering, and asking, and wondering, and asking some more, we have no idea what his middle name is yet. Not. A. Clue. Although, there have been some very creative suggestions. (Thor, anyone?)

We will be sure to let everyone know AS SOON as we finalize something.

Getting ready for Russell has been a lot of work, but worth it. Last weekend we totally rearranged our bedroom to make room for the crib and all the stuff we brought back from the baby shower(s). Now, we don’t actually have the crib yet (it didn’t make it back from Mass just yet) but we have space for it, AND a very, very clean bedroom. See:



The very clean bedroom.



The 'nursery'. Note how fantastic Tasha's quilt looks on the wall.

It’s amazing how much junk you can accrue without even knowing it. We donated 4 big boxes and a bag to Goodwill just this afternoon. (Of course, it was supposed to go to the Lupus Foundation, but they couldn't find our apartment to pick it up.)

Now if only all that cleaning hadn’t meant neglecting the rest of the apartment…