Our Family's First Boy!

I'm proud to be an Aunt to this little adorable boy, my first nephew, Emitt Philip Wismer.  He was born on Sunday, July 21, 2013 and weighed in at 6 lbs., 10.7 oz.  Mom and baby are both doing great - they were sent home from the hospital today.  I know I'm totally biased, but I think he's quite perfect.  Greg and I got to see him Sunday night, when he was only about an hour old, he's the tiniest little thing - and we were both instantly in love. 

        

 

As my sister Adrea so eloquently put it, "The female cycle has been broken!"  Bring on the Tonka Trucks, Transformers, and G.I. Joe's, we're ready, Little Man!

It's The Most Wonderful Time...

This year I'm just not in the mood for Christmas.  I want to be in the mood.  I want to be excited about Christmas.  I want to think about things that are pretty, shiny, sparkly, and whimsical.  I want to enjoy the prospect of being able to start again with a new year, and, maybe, unlike year's past, a new me.

Last week, my company had one of the many holiday parties scheduled for this year.  This one was department-specific, and happened to be in good ole' New York City.  In my mind, New York is quintessentially Christmas, and visiting the "city that never sleeps" at this time of year usually gets me to feel more holiday-ey.

The stores are all decked out with unbelievable displays, bars and restaurants are filled with people gathered with friends, the Union Square holiday market is in full swing, and Times Square and Broadway are filled with tourists catching shows and having dinner before making the pilgrimage up to 48th St and 5th Avenue to catch a glimpse of the world renowned Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.  That larger than life fresh cut tree that's draped in millions of twinkling lights, looking over an ice skating rink where new loves hold hands trying not to fall down with an audience of thousands looking down upon them and parents try to teach their children how to glide across the ice with ease.  Opposite the plaza from the tree, stands Saks Fifth Avenue, whose facade is lit up with decorations that blink to a chorus of classic Christmas carols.  To get to 5th Ave from the tree, you have to walk through a canyon of lit up angels with trumpets in hand, making you feel like all this grandeur is just for you.  It really is magical.

So, since I haven't been quite up to the holiday madness this year, I decided that I'd meet up with Greg after my work holiday party on Friday, and we'd go up to Rockefeller Center to see the tree to get me into the Christmas spirit.

Well, all I can say is, it was kind of disappointing.  I don't know what happened.  It could have been the fact that I had imbibed quite a few glasses of wine and was more on the drunk side of sober, or it could be the fact that I'm getting older, or it could have just been the crowds of millions constantly bumping into me as I tried to take a peek - but the tree just didn't do it for me this year.  I took a few pictures with my phone - but as stated above - I wasn't exactly stone cold sober (and the people were bumping into me) so all my pictures came out kind of blurry - but here's the "best" of them:

Not so impressive, right?

Here's a picture taken off the official Rockefeller Center website (gives a much better illusion of the "magic" that the tree brings to life):

And here's an even better picture taken by some random person, whose picture I found doing a quick Google Image search:

In my mind, that is the tree I should have seen.  I think our first mistake was trying to see it from the side rather than from the "Angel" point of view - meaning we entered Rockefeller Center from south of that canyon rather than facing the crowds heading directly into that area.  I'm all for getting away from the crowds, but that seemed to be the fatal flaw.  We didn't even really see the angels, and we also didn't see the Sak's Fifth Avenue facade - leaving my holiday spirits in the same rut they were in to begin with.

I have a few more days to get my act together and get my Christmas spirits high.  I just found out that my Mom won't be working on Christmas Eve, so hopefully me, my sisters, my brother-in-law's, my Mom, and my nieces can all gather at my sister's house early on Christmas Eve to sing carols and drink holiday sangria together.  And if holiday sangria can't do the trick, I really will be worried.

Happy Holidays!

Best Travel Mug...EVER!!!

Last weekend I traveled to south Jersey to be home with my mom and my sisters so that we could continue our annual tradition of baking a MILLION Christmas cookies that we can give to our nearest and dearest friends as gifts for the holidays.  It was a ton of fun being with them, making a mess, and baking up a storm!  Here's a shot of our end-result:

Yes, those are full size buffet trays.
Each filled with multiple layers of  artery-clogging , delicious treats.
YUMM!!!!

Anyway - on Sunday morning, my two youngest sisters and I decided to attend mass with my Mom.  Although none of us are really religious, my Mom is, and it makes her happy when we go to church with her, so we did.  Of course, none of us decided we would definitely go until we only had 10 minutes to get out of PJs, comb our hair, and put on some decently non-wrinkled clothes.  As we were rushing around upstairs getting ready, my Mom offered to make us coffee to take along on the ride in travel mugs.  I happily accepted her offer, and just before going out to the car, I threw some milk into the already-prepared cuppa' and hopped into the car.  The coffee was very hot, and I burned my tongue taking the first sip.  Needless to say, because the coffee was so hot, I didn't finish all of it on the 10 minute drive to the church.  Sad that I had to abandon my coffee in the car, I left the mug in the back seat and begrudgingly went into church with narry a half a cup of coffee trying it's hardest to get me to fire on all cylinders.

Mass was fine, nothing earth shattering happened, although, the homily (the part where the priest talks to the congregation after he's read the gospel), was delivered by Catholic evangelist, Gary Zimak.  He didn't have anything earth shattering to talk about either, but he was, at least, interesting to listen to (afterall, you can't be an evangelist and not be charismatic) but, what I got out of his talk was that his facial expressions are extremely similar to those displayed by the actor who plays the character of Nick on one of my favorite TV sitcoms - The New Girl.  (His real name is Jake Johnson, but he will forever be Nick to me.  He's acted in lots of movies you don't even realize until after you become a fan of The New Girl - like the other day I realized he was in 21 Jump St - saw the movie when it first came out, but didn't realize it until I was watching it on showtime.  But, as always, I digress.)

Gary and Jake even look like each other a little bit when they're not making any crazy facial expressions!  Case in point:

Jake Johnson

Gary Zimak

Take away Mr. Zimak's glasses, and add some grays to Jake's hair, and I think they would look like the same exact person.

ANYWAY...what was my point?  

Travel Mugs...RIGHT!!!!

So, after church, we go out to the car, and I make a comment about knowing my coffee, that's been sitting outside in 40 degree weather, won't be warm enough to drink anymore.  My sister Adrea tells me that she bets it will still be warm since the travel mug I used is the best one they have at home and it keeps things warm FOREVER!  SO, without much faith in any travel mug's ability to keep coffee warm enough for me after an hour in a tempered environment, I open the mug and take a sip...and HOLY CRAP BALLS!!!!!  The stuff is hot.  Not lukewarm.  Not pass-able.  IT'S HOT!  (I feel like I should make reference to a Jay-Z or Usher song here - but I'm totally drawing a blank on that one.  Fill in to your liking.)

OH Wait!  That reference should be to Nelly - that's why.  "It's getting HOT in here..."blah blah blah.  I know, I ruined it.  But it just hit me and I had to share.

OK, OK, OK!  Back to the mug.

Seriously.  How is it possible that my coffee, poured well over an hour ago, and sitting in a cold car, could still be hot???  By keeping it in a THERMOS brand mug made with ThermMax Insulation - that's how!!!!  Apparently, the same company that used to make those giant milk bottle things that fit into a lunch box that you had to bring for lunch every day filled with milk because your parents didn't trust you to use your quarter to buy white milk instead of chocolate at school every day - now makes super heat keeping travel mugs for your use and enjoyment.  I was FLOORED!!!  I've been using Starbucks brand coffee mugs for many years - and - seeing as it's a Starbucks branded thing and it costs an arm and a leg to buy - I assumed they were the best heat-keeping travel mugs my hard earned $20 could buy.  And, because I thought I already owned THE BEST, I thought I was just going to have to go through life drinking my lukewarm coffee from my travel mug when I got to work.  There were days when I would get to work and go to take my first sip of coffee and be so disappointed with the temperature that I wouldn't drink it at all or I'd go to the microwave, put the coffee into a ceramic mug, nuke it to get it warm again, then put it back into my travel mug just to be able to drink that necessary one cup I have each day.

Well, after this amazing discovery, I immediately considered taking that awesomest of awesome travel mugs off my Mom's hands.  She has enough stuff already...right?  

Well I made that joke...And was immediately threatened with death if I dared to even think about taking the thing home.  Gosh Mom!  I'm your first born!  Give a little, huh?  Clearly, she wasn't having it.

So, like every logical 30-something, I decided to "Google" the product, and found that Thermos makes whole line of vacuum-insulated coffee mugs and tumblers, including ones that have leak proof seals (the one my Mom has dosn't have that - so take THAT Mom!).  These suckers guarantee to keep hot beverages hot for 5 hours, and cold ones cold for 9 hours!  One review I read said that someone had used one of these things to hold iced coffee for a day, and, when he got home to wash the mug, he found out there was still whole ice cubes inside...after sitting in an office ALL DAY!!!  How is that even POSSIBLE???  I don't care how, really, all I know is that I had to have one. So, off to Amazon I went, and, thanks to my nifty Prime subscription, last night, my new favorite piece of kitchen gadgetry arrived.  I am using it this morning, and even at 10:30, my coffee is still hot and tasty.  I love this thing!  No longer am I forced to rush through drinking my coffee trying to ward off the inevitable cooling down to the point of non-drinkability.  Now, I get to enjoy every sip.  At my leisure.  I may be drinking coffee ALL DAY!!!!  Yeah, it's that good.  Here's a photo of my favorite travel mug (and lots of my various desk stuff).

This baby doesn't look like much, but it's AWESOME.  Seriously.  Thermos isn't paying me to say this at all - but hey, guys, if you're reading this and WANT to send me a free one of these gems, I wouldn't object.  Just sayin'.

And, the best part?  Totally leak free.  I literally sat this thing upside down on my desk this morning, (while it was still full) and peeled off a sticker with a bar code from the bottom, and had to keep it that way for probably 5 minutes, to get all that sticky residue off with tape.  Not one leak!

Sidenote: why do the companies that make stickers for barcodes not make stuff that peels off cleanly?  It's such a pain in the buttox to get that sticky stuff off sometimes.  I mean, come on!  Thermos can make a container that keeps beverages hot for hours on end.  How hard is it to make an adhesive that sticks without leaving behind residue???

Anyway - I think I'll be buying another one of these today.  They make one that's red on the outside that I'm kind of in love with.  The color change is apparently worth ten more dollars since this one cost me $17.99 and the red one is $27.99 - but honestly, I feel like I will be able to keep this thing for years without having to replace it.  Let's hope I'm right!

Sorry for the long post, I'm just SO EXCITED!!!!

Happy 12-12-12 everyone!!!!!  

Thanksgiving II: The Return of the XXXXL Ziploc Bags

Yep, we're hosting Thanksgiving again this year.  And, for all intents and purposes, I'm underly stressed out about the whole thing.  Literally I've done NOTHING to prepare, and the holiday is exactly 9 days away.  I haven't looked up one recipe, haven't nailed down my menu, haven't made sure all our linens and such are ready to go, haven't even decided how large of a turkey we'll get or if I will buy it fresh or frozen (and if it's the latter, I need to get on the ball ASAP and get it defrosting this weekend!).

Remember last year when I was waking up in the middle of the night with cold sweats dreaming about dried out turkey?  Well, not so this year.  By this time last year I had shopped at a million stores to buy tons of odds and ends we'd need to decorate our table, made the breadstick-cournicopia that was the centerpiece of our appetizers, and had even come up with really cute napkin rings to adorn each place setting.  This year, thankfully, I will be able to re-use most of what we bought, but I have no clue about how I'll decorate, if at all.  Or what we'll have for appetizers.  I figure a veggie tray from Costco will suffice, right?

The one thing I do know for certain is that Greg and I will definitely brine the turkey again - it turned out to be very tasty last year and I see no reason to change a good thing.  Of course, to brine a 20-lb turkey appropriately, one needs a rather large pot - or - in our case - an XXXXXXXL Ziploc Bag.  Yes, they make them that large (OK I may have exxagerated the number of "X's" shown on the actual bag packaging, but seriously, these bags are ginormous!)  Here's a picture of Greg from last year, man-handling our 22 pound turkey, which fit (with tons of extra room) into one of those aforementioned GIANT ziplocs.  Take note of how the turkey looks like it would barely fit into our sink.  That's because it was almost too large to do so.  The sucker was huge.  But it had nothing on the brine bag!

Here's a picture of the box of bags we bought last year at Target. They come in a 3-pack, and yes, they're safe for food use (at least according to the Ziploc FAQ webpage - see below).

Here's hoping that we can pull off another successful holiday...or that we at least have relatives who love us enough to not care much if we botch it all up and end up eating Chinese.  

The Love Dare Hiatus

So I think Greg and I got to somewhere around Day 11 in The Love Dare, and we haven't really been interested in it since then.  I'm not sure what the problem is.  Part of me wonders if it's because we're both too lazy and/or apathetic to really try to make our marriage a more loving, kind, wholesome one ala June and Ward Cleaver...but another part of me wonders if it's just because there's simply too many references to God, the Bible, and Jesus, which kind of makes each of us feel just a little bit uncomfortable.

The thing about the book that bothers me the most is that it constantly refers to difficult times in your marriage - it often makes references about being mad at your partner, feeling unloved by your spouse, etc.  I don't know if it's because Greg and I have only been married for 4.5 years, if it's because we don't have children, or if it's because our relationship isn't what it should be - but this book makes me feel like we should be fighting more and using the book as a tool to make up for all the wrongs we've done to each other.  The thing is that we really honestly don't fight much.  I mean we bicker, and have disagreements - but recently they've been mostly about how we're constructing the porch - and our disagreements usually are a result of Greg wanting to do everything 100% accurately and correct and me having no patience to sit around waiting for him to make a decision.  Which probably is demeaning to him and isn't productive for me, but really, we usually are able to talk out our frustrations and move on.

The Love Dare, Days 1 - 5

So, my Mom recently gave me a bunch of books to read, consisting mostly of Clive Cussler adventure novels.  Snuck (yes, in my mind, that's a word) into the mix of gratuitous fiction was a book entitled "The Love Dare."  When Mom dropped the stack of books off, she mentioned "The Love Dare" to me, saying that she had received it not too long ago from one of my cousins, who was hoping that maybe my parent's relationship could be salvaged.  Alas, it could not, and my Mom never actually used the book (at that point I think she already knew they were headed toward splitsville). Anyway, apparently the book is featured in some movie starring Kirk Cameron (aka Mike Seaver), and, like most things my Mom brings to me as a specialty item, the book and the movie are actually faith based in Christianity.  The premise of the book is to take 40 days to challenge yourself to small daily dares that will increase your awareness of and love for your spouse.  Each day's challenge is prefaced by a short summary of the day's theme (replete with biblical quotes) that will be carried out in the dare.

Like everything related to Christian faith, I was a bit skeptical to delve into the book, because, well, the truth is, I'm still trying to figure out where I stand related to religion and faith.  On top of that, Greg was raised Jewish and I was raised Catholic, and although neither of us identify fully with either religion, sometimes discussions related to faith get jumbled between us because our backgrounds are so different.  On top of that, our marriage is pretty awesome.  I'm not saying we're perfect, but we don't fight often, we work well together on most days, and we are pretty decent with communicating with one another.  Of course, there's always room for improvement, so, figuring it couldn't hurt to bring it up, I asked Greg what he thought about taking the "Love Dare" with me.  Surprisingly (or really not surprising at all since he is so good natured that he basically always goes along with anything I want to do, including going for ice cream at 10:00 PM on a Tuesday night), Greg agreed to give the dare a try.  He, like me, was also a bit skeptical about the amount of references to the bible and God, but we agreed that we would both keep an open mind about it, and not focus as much on the God stuff, but more on the things that we would be doing to make ourselves more aware of each other.

So...here's how it works.  Every night, we agreed that we would read the pre-dare passages to one another (alternating days of course) and then read the dare, which we would carry out the following day.  We started  on Saturday night.

Dare #1 - Say nothing negative to your spouse all day.

Seems easy enough, right?  HA!!!!  It just so happened that we were working on our porch that day, and doing some pretty frustrating, tedious work.  On top of that, we had to be finished working, showered, dressed, and get gifts for our neighbor's 3-year old twins' birthday party which was starting at 3pm.  The slew of negative comments going through my brain (as we were trying to figure out how to cut and fasten column wraps onto our support columns) made me stop and take lots of deep breaths before saying anything on several occasions.

Dare #2 - Say nothing negative AND do something kind for your spouse.

UGH -- you mean we have to be positive two days in a row???  How about me being not negative is the kind thing I do??  Huh?  The day was kind of cool.  It was a Monday and I randomly bought steak and lobster for dinner as my kindness to Greg (who always whimpers a bit when I tell him, no we are at the fish counter for salmon, NOT for lobster!) and Greg did a ginormous amount of laundry solo -- soo kind of him! The negative part was difficult again, but being at work made it a bit easier.

Dare #3 - Say nothing negative AND buy a gift for your spouse to let them know you're thinking of them

Seriously?  Is every day going to be like this?  At least it's another work day.  Greg got me an awesome green re-useable coffee mug and gift card from starbucks, and I bought him a sweet knife that has little holes in it to prevent stuff from sticking to it while chopping and a novelty book called "Thanks for Being You" or something like that.  Very cute book!  This day was not so difficult, in fact, I kind of liked it since presents were involved :)

Dare #4 - Call your spouse during the work day to see how they are and ask if you can do anything for them.

This was kind of a weird day because on a normal day, Greg and I communicate regularly.  More so via e-mail than phone, but we're usually planning what we need to do that night, what groceries we need at home, etc.  Greg did actually call me, but I was in the middle of a meeting and couldn't talk - and I totally bombed on this day and didn't call him at all.  We chose to call it a good day, though, since we think we do pretty well with checking in.  Go Us!

Dare #5 - Ask your spouse to list 3 things that irritate them about you.  Listen to their complaints without judgement.

SOOOO...Day 5 (Thursday) turned into a disaster.  One which I will tell you about another day.  But, we never got around to talking about being irritated on Thursday.  And we were both going away from home separately for our cousins bachelor/bachelorette parties, so we tabled our discussion to Sunday.

Sunday night, we discussed, and I learned that Greg hates that I leave stuff all over the house, which was surprising to me.  We talked about some other irritating habits, and I'm guessing these things will come up at some point later with dares.

We're now on Day #6, and I don't fully understand what we have to do today, so I'll hopefully have some info another day.  Stay tuned.

For Love of Family...

It's been a long time since I've blogged...but I have a good excuse for my naughtiness.  I was studying for the Professional Engineer's Exam - an 8-hour, 100-question all engineering test that required all my time, energy, concentration, and will power to prepare for.  So, forgive me for not having the ability to think about anything other than chemical formulas, Bernouli's equation, or proper sizing of wastewater treatment systems for the last few weeks.  Yeah, my life was pretty darn exciting for the entire month of March.

BUT...like all things, good and bad, that day has passed, and now I am able to go back to my normal, witty, charming self.  I know you were all missing me so much!