The Life and Times of TTG

Tonight's dinner adventure started out on a bright note. The parents asked if we wanted to go to Damon's in Monroeville for dinner to use up our Christmas Gifts from my sister. We said sure. So we arrive around 6:30pm and to our delight Wed. kids eat FREE!!! SCORE!!! Elianna can get her own food, mamma doesn't have to share :)!! I had a certificate from restaurant.com and 2 $10 gift cards (I guess they weren't real gift cards, but my sister said they were, they were little cards that said $10 at Damon's on them, so I'm not sure what else it would have been). We were told we wasn't allowed to use them together by the server. Which was insane. Both had been paid for and Damon's already received their money, but we couldn't use both. Whatever, I was too busy trying to remember my log in for the trivia game (which is the only reason I go there) to raise a stink. My Dad orders Prime Rib...but oh wait, they don't have Prime Rib today, because they only...

Here has been a question weighing heavily on my mind as of late. Am I selfish? At what point does taking care of myself and my needs become selfish acts? I guess this was brought to mind because I was watching Teen Mom on Saturday, and it being a show about Teenagers, there are a lot of selfish acts going on. This caused me to turn inward and monitor my own life and my own actions. And ask that hard question: Am I selfish? ACT: I’m choosing to continue to do theater, act and direct, even though I have a baby now. SELFISH?: I love doing it even though it takes me away from Elianna. TRUTH: I still see her for at least 1-2 hours every day. There are the rare days that I don’t see her at all. But that is very rare. I feel bad, like I’m missing out on her life, and that she is missing spending time with her mom, but I feel like I need to be involved with theater or else I might explode. It keeps me happy and sane. So is it really that bad? ACT: Expecting dinner whe...

Today my little girl turns one. We have been together for 365 days. She has taught me more about life, love, and happiness in one year than I have ever learned in the 30 years I've been on earth. Elianna is the greatest gift I've ever gotten. I am excited about what the future will bring for us, but I am also sad that I will never get that first year back. I just only hope that the bonds we formed during her first year of life will last a lifetime. I've heard from others, for years that time goes by too quickly, I don't know if I've ever agreed with them before today. Elianna's first year was the fastest year of my life, I don't expect life to slow down, but I do hope that I will make the best of it and make it a fun ride, not only for Elianna but for the whole family. But if it could slow down, I would be grateful. Today I rejoice in the wonderfulness that is Elianna's first birthday and celebrate her first year of life, and pray for many, many, many, m...

I've not been slacking in my Project 365 photo taking, just simply slacking in uploading. I have no real excuse. I've just been lazy. I wish I had done something of interest in the past 5 days, but sadly that isn't the case. Two items to report: 1) My eye twitching stopped and 2) I did get a new cell phone :), but I am waiting for it be shipped :(. It's nothing exciting, not a 3 g, but hopefully I will be able to hear, unlike my current phone. Which by the way Samsung told me they could fix for $75...which my new phone was cheaper than... Anyway here our my photos. WEDNESDAY JANUARY 13, 2010 Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles , They Rock! THURSDAY JANUARY 14, 2010 Cat naps FRIDAY JANUARY 15, 2010 The young amateur dentist hard at work SATURDAY JANUARY 16, 2010 "Greetings, welcome to my dinner!" SUNDAY JANUARY 17, 2010 The January Thaw!

So as I mentioned in the last post, now is the time I talk about my eye twitch. My left eye has been twitching for a week. Now it's only off and on, it's not constant. If it was, I would have had to end it all days ago. It is the weirdest thing. I mean, I have had eye twitches before, but they always came and went. It's never been a full week. I have no idea what is wrong, but I can tell you it's very annoying. Just when I start thinking it's gone for good...BAM! The twitching starts. I did a WebMD search and you can't find eye twitching or eye spasm in the list of symptoms, so I think I am going to live. But I do wish it would stop. Doing a non scientific poll of the folks I know, stress is considered to be the main cause. But I will tell you I am not under any more stress than usual. So I am not sure that is the cause. If anyone out there has any remedies, I would love to hear them. I am on the verge of desperation. I just simply hope they will end soon. Oh, ...

SATURDAY... Started out normal enough, until I got a migraine and the little one started cutting teeth. That made for an interesting morning/afternoon. By late evening we were both feeling a bit better. But I did manage to get this great photo for my 365 project. My little 2 fisted drinker. :) Sunday... Was super busy, Church followed by shopping followed by rehearsal followed by be wanting to fall over. Little Elianna was able to catch my mood just right. That is why this post is so short. Tomorrow I hope to post the wonderful news about my never ending eye twitch. Stay tuned!

Things I learned in 2009: I can't keep a resolution . I pretty much failed at all of them, especially the writing more. I will now take a page from Thomas Edison and not look at is as failure, but simply a life lesson. Lesson being: I don't do well with resolutions. This year I am going back to basics. I will focus on the simple things in life-family, friends, theater :) and myself. No resolutions, no weird goals, just more of what I love. No one is perfect, and now I will relish my imperfections and not look back. Would I like to have had a blog post for every day of Elianna's first year, yes, can I fix that now? NO! So I will sum up her first year with one word: AMAZING!! I have no idea what I did with my life before she came along, nor can I imagine a day without her. She has gone from a small immobile sleeper to a rollover wonder, to a crazy crawler, to an almost toddler now who pulls herself and is trying to learn how to walk. She still doesn't have any teeth, bu...

Saturday started off just ok. I was running late (what else is new) and had to get out the door for Weight Watchers and when I got there I had gained 1.6 lbs L . Not a huge surprise since my points dropped drastically when I stopped nursing, but I was in a crappy mood. However, there was flackle football to be watched. The entire family gets in the car and heads down to watch my hubby and the rest of Yinz Team play some flackle football. CRAP, I left my cell phone charging in the apartment. Hopefully that won’t be an issue. Once we get to Frick Park we learn that most everyone had canceled, so no flackle. Not all was a loss, Elianna enjoyed some much loved time outside and those of us still left at Frick Park 45 minutes later were going to lunch. Lunch was great, Elliot, me, Elianna, Anthony, Jim, Amy and little Jack enjoyed some Applebee’s in Edgewood . Elianna and Jack were even spotted holding hands, very cute. Then Anthony decides to walk home despite Jim’s several attempts to ri...

When you go to a restaurant, you better have food for the baby. For the past 6 and ½ months I've enjoyed going out to restaurants with both the hubby and the baby and never having any issues. She would sit there play in her car seat and have a good old time. Now she has started sitting in a high chair which is wonderful, but don't be caught without food! This lesson was trying to be taught to us last night, but it really sunk in today. Last night we ventured to Fuddruckers for a wonderful early b-day dinner and my free b-day burger. I came armed with a jar of pears. Little did I know I wouldn't get to eat! We couldn't get the pears into her mouth fast enough. We supplemented with some potatoes, but as it turned out we had to alternate burger eating to keep the little one contented. Lesson not fully learned there: The baby wins. If you are out, she comes first. So this afternoon we went to Qdoba for my free b-day burrito (life is so good). We fed the baby right before ...

Writing use to be my thing. I loved it. I never thought I was any good at it, so I decided not to make a career out of it. I use to write all the time; especially back when I didn't have a computer. I found it calming, soothing, relaxing, wonderful. Then life happened. I went off to school got busy got married had a job so the writing slowly went by the wayside. And that was just fine. I had other outlets. I still did write. I wrote reviews, I wrote plays, and I got a few pages into my 'great American Novel.' I got to the point where unless I could sit down and finish something in one sitting, I wasn't interested in doing it. Again that is how I always wrote. But when I couldn't find the time to write, I stopped. It has taken me a few years to realize that a blog would be a perfect forum, and I missed it. When this year started I resolved to make a blog. I did that, but I haven't posted much. It's been hard to find time to write. I would just much rather spe...

This post is about a week over due, but it has taken me that long to be able to formulate the courage to finally put my thoughts down in a blog. Something happened and it was very scary, but I feel I need to share it now. On January 1 st I blogged about this being the year of new things and change , but what happened the night of the BurghMom dinner wasn’t what I had in mind and I hope this is the end of firsts like these. I was out having the time of my life with the wonderful BurghMoms when I got the call my mom was being life flighted to the hospital. With that information I was out the door running to my car, when I fell. (yes the BurghMoms told me to be careful, but did I listen? No.) After I safely drove home and picked up my hubby, baby and Dad, we were on our way to Shady Side Hospital . Before we got there my sister, who lives in Erie , had already made several phone calls and had mom’s situation assessed. My mother had a heart attack and was on her way to the caut...

I just watched the season finally of Dr. Drew’s Sober House, so I feel it’s a good time to address some of my feelings about addiction in a blog. I’ve always wondered why I LOVED Celebrity Rehab and Sober House and the like so much. Why I feel like I’m in their shoes when I watch, and their therapy is like my therapy. I don’t have a drug or alcohol problem. ( though nothing like 9 months of pregnancy to make me feel like an alcoholic) . I don’t have this problem, so why do I somehow feel connected to these people instead of sorry for them because they have issues they can’t control?! Then it occurred to me, I do have an addiction problem, a HUGE one. Except unlike these celebrities I can’t quit mine cold turkey (nom nom turkey) . My addiction is food. It is amazing to me how similar my food addiction is to these folks’ drug addiction. Maybe the reasons aren’t the same for the initial behavior (I had plenty of love and support from my family, they rock, so no daddy issues) , but the rea...

I love the name we gave our daughter. I think Elianna Irene is very pretty, but I’m having a bit of namers remorse. Everyone just assumes that she is named after my husband, Elliot, but that is not the case. He actually cringes at the thought of naming our kids after him. There won’t be any Elliot Jr’s in our future. For some reason the fact that people always jump to that conclusion makes me angry. Here is the story of how Elianna got her name. Since we decided not to find out the sex of our child until their birthday, this made picking out names twice as hard. We obviously had to pick out both a boy and a girl name. Surprisingly the boy’s names came so easily. And I really wasn’t focused on the girl’s names since I was convinced I was having a boy. I mean I would have bet money on it. So, with a month left to go, we had narrowed our boy’s name list down to 1 (we were so set) and our girl’s name list down to about 10. Once I was admitted we knew we had to pick a girl’s name and fast j...

No one ever said giving birth was easy. I was under no delusions that it would be, but I was in no way prepared for how my beautiful daughter was going to enter the world. It all started quite innocently Thursday Jan. 22nd. I went to the doctors for my regular 36 week check up, but something wasn’t regular. My blood pressure was up and I had some blurry vision earlier in the week. I was sent to Magee for some further tests to see if I had pre-eclampsia. After a few hours they decided they wanted to keep me for 24 hours. After 24 hours the diagnosis was in. I had pre-eclampsia. The only treatment was delivery of baby. I had already had a sonogram on the 22nd and they estimated her birth weight to be 6lbs 14oz. A good size for a healthy delivery, however, the hospital policy is not to induce until 37 weeks. After some discussion they decided Monday the 26th was 37 weeks and I was going to be induced on Sunday night at 9pm. After 3 nights in the hospital I couldn’t wait to be induced. The...

Dear Bret, I have enjoyed Rock of Love 1, 2 and now Bus. I love the fact that you are from Pittsburgh, and I appreciate how hard it is for you to find true love being a Rock Star. But let’s be honest here, you aren’t really looking for someone to be your wife anymore. I seriously believed you in Rock of Love 2, Ambre was the perfect girl for you (and you almost dumped her on day one). I wish she didn’t want a career for herself because I could see you two together, forever. But after episode 3 of Bus, I question your motives. At first I was willing to forgive you for all the silicone you kept on the Bus, I just figured you might want to use them as air bags in case of a bus accident. And you even kicked off the girl who had plastic surgery to look like Daisy in the first round—you were so on the right track. But taking your girls to a strip club on a first date? Come on! do you really want someone to be your ‘soul mate’ who would just strip down in front of anyone? And it was totally...

I'm home today, no work, so you get 2 posts. From time to time things happen that make me go hmmmmmmmm. Kinda like in the C&C Music Factory way. Here is a list of things for today. 1. Oh Target, why do you sell these? Do people really need to wear these pants pictured here? 2. Dear Lady at Target today, When did it become acceptable to talk on a cell phone in a public bathroom? 3. Why do I have a pair of XL Maternity pants that no longer fit, but my L Maternity pants do? 4. Work computer, why couldn't I access you from home today? You play this game of when I really don't need you, I can get you, but when I need you, you are not found. 5. Hormones. Only you can make me cry at an episode of Desperate Housewives where someone I didn't even know was a character died. 6. Why does spending 8 hours at work feels like it is an eternity. Spending 8 hours at home, feels like 5 minutes.

It all started Saturday night. With the snow. So we decided that Sunday we were 'snowed in' and didn't have to go anywhere. Which was very exciting for me a Lazy Sunday. Just look how beautiful it was outside. So since I wasn't going anywhere, why bother showering and getting dressed right? And what harm is that? There was no motivation, and sadly the motivation hasn't set in today either. Well on a normal Monday I would have no problem, but today is Hang Over Monday! The Steelers won the AFC Championship last night. It was such an exciting game I thought I might go into labor during the 4th quarter! Luckily I didn't. But I was up late watching the news, and just enjoying the win. Thankfully today is a work holiday so I didn't have to get up early and get dressed, but now I still see no reason to shower and get dressed. The only thing that is helping me is that I think the cat is avoiding me until I shower ;). That and I need to go to the Post Office. I'...

This post may be a bit premature. But this thought occurred to me today during my 1 hour and 15 minute commute of 10 miles this morning. The thought: The Steelers will win the Super Bowl in Tampa. Not simply because they are the best team, even though we all know they are ;). There is only one good, solid, unarguable reason that the Steelers will win the Super Bowl. And that reason is: Our baby will be born in 2009. Doesn’t make sense, does it? Well, here is how I see it. Steelers Super Bowl wins are in the baby’s DNA. My husband was born the year the Steelers won Super Bowl 9. The year I was born the Steelers Super Bowl 13. And since we were both born in such wonderful Steelers success, how can our child not be born the year of a Steelers Super Bowl victory? The way I see it baby will be born the year the Steelers won the Super Bowl, Super Bowl 43. And then I will have to plan out all of baby’s siblings (if we choose to have more kids after baby comes) births to coincide...

This was my morning. I woke up early, and thought "Sweet Jesus, I'm up early I can stop at Dunkin Donuts, let me sit and watch the news for 5 mins before I shower." Well, 45 mins later, I wake up on the couch just in time for my usual shower time, but since Hubby had to shower too this morning this put me on late time. So after we both are ready we head to the car. He's driving me to work, I look at the clock, and see that I need to be at work in 15 mins, but it's at least a 30 min drive. So I make the decision, it's donut time. Screw on-time-ness, heck I was staying late tonight anyway and I really wanted some donuts. So we drive the 5 mins out of the way to Dunkin Donuts. SCORE!!! I decide to try to make things better at work, since now I should be pushing 45 mins late, I would buy everyone some munchkins. This way they will forget what time I walked in the door. In and out of the big Double D in 5 mins. We get on the parkway east, and what to my wondering e...

I would like to consider myself an educated woman. I would like to think I have good taste. I enjoy reading and museums and the theater and the symphony. So why is it I can't get enough of bad TV? I wish I could say my bad TV addiction was limited to classier fair that comes on the history channel or at least TLC, but sadly I'm addicted to VH 1. It started out harmlessly with a little Scott Baio here and bit of Bret Michaels there. It was so innocent and fun like a train wreck where no one got hurt except slutty whores. Well Scott Baio's show was a bit better done and there weren't as many whores and it felt like a real show. But I was hooked. I've followed it up with several seasons of both shows, including the new Rock of Love Bus. But they turned out to be just gateway TV . I soon fell into very bad TV , probably the worse TV ever. With shows like Celebrity Rehab, Rock of Love Charm School and I Love Money. I can't stop. I must watch these ex-stripper...