The Life and Times of TTG

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...