I went “home” the other day - “home” being the house I grew up in where my dad and sisters still live. They’ve got this massive project where they’re cleaning out the attic, which we’ve been using for storage. Looks like we’ve got too much stored up there and it’s starting to cause some cracks in the wall so they’re throwing a lot of the crap we’ve stored up there over the 25 years we’ve lived there out.

I’m a horrible packrat, keeping memorabilia in shoe boxes and folders in crates, thinking that one day I’ll go through them and get misty at all the memories I’ve had, only to be put away again back in the attic. I went over the house to check out my share of accumulated crap and to throw away the things I really don’t need and just keep the essentials.

Damn, I had a LOT of crap. I was there for 4 hours and I’d only gotten through 1/3 of my stuff.

But what stuff it was! It was a wonderful trip down memory lane, bringing back memories that my poor little brain has chosen to keep buried deep inside. I knew a lot of this stuff wouldn’t fit in our new house (and Dave is the OPPOSITE of a pack rat…he rarely keeps anything!) so I knew that I had to throw a lot of it away. It was sad to part with a lot of the things I found - old candles from formals in highschool, pages and pages of letters from highschool and from friends, old movie tickets, dried flowers, etc.

I did keep a lot of things, like all my old pictures that I had hanging up in hand-decorated picture frames, postcards, my old art supplies, and other stuff that wouldn’t take up too much room in my new place.

It’s a bit sad to let go of a lot of these memories, my memory is so horribly spotty that I need these things to reawaken old feelings and remind me of good days gone by. But I’m entering a new stage in my life, so I feel a bit better about putting these things to rest.

I did, however, take a couple pictures of some of the things that I was going to throw away before they got launched into that big black hole of a hefty garbage bag…

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles button (featuring my favorite turtle, Donatello), Belle figurine, my first pager (that I really don’t remember ever using), book of matches from PSA formal ‘97, Cozumel fish key chain, Christmas ornamants that we passed around during a party to have decorated…

My ex-boyfriends old bumblebee fuzzy slippers…if you’re out there, Henry, they’re going to a better place…

Little Mermaid button collection, duck-bill straw, Psych Grad School stuff (I was thinking of going, then decided I never want to go back to school again), my prom date’s bow tie…

Potpourri pillows created during our girls’ crafting night, a gift wrapped, empty box with a poem on the front, and my ever present Pochaco photo wallet…

Glass from PSA formal ‘95, glass from AAA formal ‘97, glass from PSA formal ‘97, glass rose from Sweethearts Dance ‘90….

I think there was a ton more crap that I threw away without taking a pic of them, but these are the ones that i felt I needed to have a visual to remember them…

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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Those of you who know me from my pre-pregnancy days and knew the party gal I was in college are aware of my affection for alcohol. Not alcoholic-affection, but an affection for a good night of drinking, dancing and just being plain silly.

With drinking comes the chance of being drunk. It’s been rare in the last several years that I’ve been classified as drunk, but I have been on occasion…Sometimes I just forget to watch my consumption…and open bars make me really happy.

Anyway, looks like I’ll be staying out of the state of Texas…seems like they’re pretty strict out there:

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Texas has begun sending undercover agents into bars to arrest drinkers for being drunk, a spokeswoman for the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission said on Wednesday.
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The first sting operation was conducted recently in a Dallas suburb where agents infiltrated 36 bars and arrested 30 people for public intoxication, said the commission’s Carolyn Beck.

Being in a bar does not exempt one from the state laws against public drunkenness, Beck said.

The goal, she said, was to detain drunks before they leave a bar and go do something dangerous like drive a car.

“We feel that the only way we’re going to get at the drunk driving problem and the problem of people hurting each other while drunk is by crackdowns like this,” she said.

“There are a lot of dangerous and stupid things people do when they’re intoxicated, other than get behind the wheel of a car,” Beck said. “People walk out into traffic and get run over, people jump off of balconies trying to reach a swimming pool and miss.”

She said the sting operations would continue throughout the state.

Texas arresting people in bars for being drunk

Hmm, I can see raids in college towns to catch underage drinkers, but people getting arrested when they’re IN A BAR? I dunno, I understand their reasons for it, but it seems a little too strict for me. Why not have your undercover agents follow people to their cars or set up surveillance in parking lots? Or wait til those drunk people get kicked out of the bar?

I mean, yeah, being drunk in a bar = public intoxication, but come on, isn’t there another way? People won’t want to go to bars anymore and will stick to house parties which a much more dangerous than being in bars (collapsing balconies, alcohol poisoning, etc)

Well, I guess I don’t really have anything to worry about right now…since I can’t drink any alcohol anyway and even if I did, my drunken partying days are over…that is, until my kid gets into college and I become that mom, the one who goes to the college bars and makes a complete drunken fool of herself as her son looks on and shakes his head. Oh yeah, I’m going to be SO awesome at that….

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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This one in from Rod…

Richard Simmons on “Who’s Line Is It Anyway”

I’ll never look at a jetski the same way again….Simmons is CRAZY!!!!

Tags: Cool Link by Yano
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Today I was supposed to drive over to Milwaukee to shadow another person for the job that I’m going to start doing. However, shadowing isn’t a billable thing so if something billable comes up, then I have to do that. Because Christine’s main job is to make money for the company! So I have all this week blocked out to do paid work. I’ve also been doing training, since I can’t travel anywhere. So my calendar has had a scattering of training assignments, which is handled by a different department then mine…

So of course, I have no idea that there’s a training class that’s scheduled that I’m assigned for that I miss because it’s not on my “official” calendar, that is, the calendar that I normally look at. So luckily, Tyson, the golden training god, helped me out with this one and took the class. But tomorrow I’ll have to step in and do some training, even though I’ve got client work to do.

So in reality, I had three things on my calendar for Tuesday - shadowing, client work and training.

It’s nice to feel loved.

Tags: Daily by Yano
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Today Dave and I went to our birthing class, which was a required class (well, more or less required) at our hospital before we give birth. It was a whole day gig, starting at 8:30 and ending at 5.

I hate any kind of school or class, vowing after I graduated college that I’d never go back again, so everytime I’m in a classroom I get all sweaty and fidgety. This was a pretty good class, even though I was still fidgety, with a nice mix of videos, visuals and physical exercises. We learned about breathing techniques, diffferent kinds of relieving pain, the stages of labor, etc. We were in a class with out 15 other couples, and it was nice to share our common fears and misconceptions without pregnancy and labor.

The videos were pretty interesting. One went over the whole process of labor, from the first stages up until the afterbirth. Dave and I were kinda misfits in class, giggling when we saw this lady in the video who had an “I love tacos!” tank top on. During the birth video, there were a number of women who were completely naked. I whispered to Dave (who has been at a good share of births) “Um, is it normal to be naked?!?” and he was like, “No way! I’ve never seen it before!” The instructor then told us that some of the women in the vids opted for a more natural birth, and at the hospital we’d have our gowns and were able to wear whatever we were comfortable in. Of course, it’s kinda funny that I’d worry about something like that because it’s not like my vagina will be out there for all to see anyway! There was also a video on pain management, like getting a spinal or getting the epidural. It was cool to see what Dave does for a living. He keeps on asking me if he could do my epidural, and even after the video, it’s still a solid NO WAY. And yes, I plan on getting an epidural. I am a pain weakling, as either of my sisters can tell you. I’ll cry after a papercut. I can only imagine what havok I’d create when a contraction comes in and I’m not drugged out.

The physical exercises were pretty good, though I know Dave was laughing half the time because my ass is so huge now. He actually remarked that he thinks I might have had the biggest ass in the room, and I had actually thought that even before he mentioned it. He’s supposed to be my comfort partner, dammit, not make me cry because of my fat ass!

I feel a little more at ease now with this whole mystical birthing process. I’m still a bit terrified at it, wondering if I can last that long, wondering what’s going to happen, if I’m going to tear anything, if I’ll need to have a C-section, how my recovery would be, if the doctors will suddenly say, “I’m sorry, but you have to be completely naked for the birth…”, etc. But as they said in class, all the pain and craziness if for one reason that makes it all worth it - the birth of my baby.

Ahh….I’m so excited!

…and scared, too.

But still excited!

[10 points if you can guess what movie the subject title is from…]

Tags: Pregnancy by Yano
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For the next couple weeks, I don’t have a husband.

I’ve lost him to the big screen TV in our basement…watching basketball as soon as he gets home from work. Today, there’s 10 hours of NCAA basketball on, and they TV will be on for most of that 10!

I admit, though, I really love watching the tourney. There’ve been so many upsets it’s been exciting to watch. A lot of the top seeds are out, replaced by teams like Bradley, George Mason and Northwestern State. How far will they go? Who knows! That’s what makes it so great to watch!

Hopefully my baby isn’t born until after the tourney is over. I’d hate for Dave to make such a difficult choice - be there for the birth of his first born son, or watch the Final Four. What a shame if Dave missed the baby’s birth!
…and Sue, you have my condolences for Iowa…

Tags: Daily by Yano
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[updated below for the flickr-handicapped]

I’ve got my Chicago Home and Garden pics up, there aren’t too many that turned out well, but some of them are pretty nice…click on the picture to get to the gallery!

Thanks to Noelle’s request, I’ve created a little map on how to scroll through the pics without having to return to the main thumbnail page - there is a box on the right where you can click on the next picture or click on “more” to scroll through the thumbs until you find a thumbnail you want to click on…

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! I’m gonna go out to the local pub and celebrate this day with a pint of Guinness and an Irish Car Bomb.

Oh wait, I can’t.

Hmm…then I’ll reward myself with a dinner of corned beef and cabbage.

Oh wait, it’s Friday, us Catholics can’t have meat. Anyone know if the pope made an exception?

Oh well, I guess its fish for me and my pregnant lady vitamin drink.

Well, the rest of you non-pregnant non-Catholics live it up for me!

Tags: Daily by Yano
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When I was a little kid, I hung out at the library a lot. Across from the library was a Metra station. The Metra is the train system that connects the suburbs to the city. I’d always check out the train, wondering what kind of people rode on there. I’d ridden the “L”, the Chicago subway system often as a kid with my parents. I was used to messy trains, shady characters, and keeping my valuables close to me. People who rode the “L” were inner city people, middle to low class, sometimes we’d have the occasional yuppies on there, but there really wasn’t a “yuppy” area when I was a kid.

So I’d check out this Metra. These trains that stopped at a special station. What I found so fascinating with these trains was that they were double deckers. There were two levels of people who could ride on the train, and I would try to peer through the tinted green class to see how they did it. The train would stop, well dressed businessmen and women would climb out and go to their cars, their briefcases in tow. I imagined a whole bunch of rich people, drinking champagne and living the good life on the Metra. To me, anyone who lived in the suburbs was rich, they had a better life, the kids got everything they wanted and didn’t have to share anything. “One day, I’ll ride that Metra!” I thought to myself.

The Metra

So now I ride it all the time to get to work, since I moved to the suburbs. I totally had the wrong impression of the suburbs! Not all suburbs are rich, and the Metra isn’t this amazing, wonderful first class train. It looks pretty ordinary inside. However, it IS a lot cleaner and safer than the subway. I can work on my laptop without worrying about someone punching me to steal it. But it wasn’t as magical as I thought it would be…

The inside of the Metra

Also, in a weird way, I miss that musky, dank, basement-like smell of the subway stations, as well as the entertaining street performers!

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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It’s been so hectic for me lately, at work and at home, that I just needed a break. So I went on a solo field trip yesterday to the Chicago Home and Garden Show to check out the flowers and use my camera, which hasn’t been getting much use lately. It wasn’t as cool as the Philly Garden Show I went to a couple years back, but there were a couple cool exhibits…I’ll post more later and hopefully get my pictures up by this weekend, because I know you all love to look at pictures of flowers!

Anyway, here’s a couple of my faves that I uploaded yesterday night…(click for a larger view)

Of course, to go to the show yesterday after work sacrificed a lot of my rest time, so today I’m exhausted!

Tags: Pictures by Yano
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