Thursday, August 28, 2008

One quick post.

Its 11:30pm, and I'm getting home late for the second time in two weeks. Last week, I didn't get home until after 1:00AM. Eeks!

Yeah, my mommy group rocks!!!

They happened upon me by pure accident, when one of the members asked me to join ..through meetup.com because I was in the area. I was so happy to join up, although I couldn't attend for a few weeks due to work....but when I finally made it to a playgroup I was sooooo happy I did!!! The women are amazing...simply amazing. Great moms. Great kids. and uber fun playgroups. And no, I'm not just saying that because I've had two beers and a mead.

We've officially added two mom's nights a month in addition to our normal Tuesday 12 - 3 playgroup. And these mom's are sooo cool. They drink. They swear. and in general, they just rock my socks. They are my kind of peeps. And it feels sooooo good to finally connect with a group of people.

So yes, I might be slightly buzzed, but en vino veritas.....and this, for real, is the truth!

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Beautiful Day!!!

WOW! What a gorgeous Sunday it was! About mid-seventies and sunny, with a slight breeze off the lake. Ahhhh - so refreshing! And how did we spend this fabulous day, you ask? Well, we started with a 5K run in Lincoln Park for the local PBS station, WTTW. It was a fun run, and we could take the stroller with us, so it was a great time for the whole family. Cousin Adrian and Serene joined us for the 3K walk too - double the fun!

The Sesame Street Characters, Arthur, SuperWhy amongst other peeps were out in full force too. Of course, seeing those characters meant waiting in line for quite a while, and since Liam doesn't know the difference yet, we skipped the meet and greet part. BUT - we did have AWESOME run times! 32 minutes for me, 28 for Pat. Pat was convinced it wasn't a true 5K, but I just like to think we did AWESOMELY!!!

After getting home and clean, we met up with friends Ben and Keren for a picnic in the park! Seriously - doing nothing but relaxing on a blanket in the grass while overlooking the lake and Ben grilling us delicious food was quite possibly the most perfect way to spend the afternoon. LOVELY! I didn't even take any pictures, that's how relaxing it was! And, after we got back home Liam and I took about a three hour nap. Heaven I tell you - HEAVEN!

Now, we're getting geared up for the week. Mommy group stuff tomorrow at the beach, and of course, on Tuesday...along with some other job hunt/start up stuff.

Oh, and my BABY is ELEVEN MONTHS OLD!!!! HE's almost one! ACK! How did that happen?!?

Have a great Monday tomorrow!

Friday, August 22, 2008

hahahaha.....

this is funny if you have a couple minutes to spare...

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Busy busy bee!

I've been very busy since my last post! We took a trip to MI, saw my cousin Dennis tie the knot, and then spent the rest of the weekend having a very nice visit with one of Pat's old college roomates and his family in Plymouth. It was REALLY fun - they have a lil' man a week younger than Liam, so it was really cool to see them play and interact. I'm pretty sure Matt taught Liam how to wave, so we're pretty in debt to them :) It was just a nice weekend - great food, great conversation, and very relaxing! We went to the local park, and to a spray park too!



After visiting Karli at nerd camp, I stayed behind with my family while Pat went on to Clarksville, MO for the week. Our visit was fantastic (which is more than I can say for Pat's business trip....who wants to spend a week in St. Louis? LOL) and I had a great opportunity to practice lots of photography skilz...Karli's Senior Photos and some musical pics of Kyle at a bar. Karli's photos took about 5 hours total to take - about 10 gazillion different locations and four different outfits. I went to a Great Lakes Loons game with Karli and her friends, and reminisced while perusing through old high school uniforms that the school was selling. I did pick up a couple cheerleading uniforms and pom pom outfits to add to my Halloween collection...not like I could actually fit into them, but you never know.

Here are a couple of the photos (with added Textures I was playing around with).




Oh, I also starred in my first cable commercial :) If you live in the greater Saginaw area and see a spot for Hamilton Street Pub, look for me "Cheers"-ing a couple other people in the beginning of the commercial. I was excited to make the final cut :) It was pretty fun to be a part of that.

I also ran with my mom, and on two occasions ran three miles at 11:00 miles, which is like world record pace for me. Pat and I have a race on Sunday for WTTW (the Chicago PBS station) so we'll see how that pace keeps up.

Liam and I took the train home to Chicago last Friday, and he was Mr. Social Butterfly! We must have walked up and down our train car 10 times, and each time he was smiling and waving at everyone....at one point he was called the "Official Button Inspector" because he was check out everyone's recline button as he was passing each seat. He did so well, until he misstepped at the end, bonked his head and bit his lip. Damn teeth. He bled pretty well... I knew he was OK, but nothing makes you feel like a horrible mother when you hear people say "OH my GOD he's bleeeeding". Yes, I know. He's bleeding. Thanks for pointing that out.

Since our return we've been trying to get things in order - we had an Open House on Saturday (one person came) and another Open House today, this time for Brokers.....today went well, Saturday, not so much. But, such is the market, and we'll keep plugging along with guarded hopes. And, Adrian made cookies and that is never a bad thing. Also, open houses and showings give us an excuse to really clean the house well, so even if we don't sell the house at least its clean and shiney and I don't have to feel bad if my kid eats a cheerio off of it.

The rest of the spare time has been spent editing, uploading and playing with photos. Lots and lots of photos. I think after it was all said and done I took over 800 pictures last week, almost all in manual (whoo hooo for me!). I definitely didn't do great, there was still a lot of correction of exposure to be done, but I had to do it to learn.

See the fruits of my labor at my flickr account: Karin's FLICKR

Soooo, that's it. Now, we're dealing with a semi-sick child. He's had a runny nose for about a week or so. Took him to the dock today and no ear infection or anything, so its just a waiting game to see if it will clear up or not. We'll give it another week or so. Keep your fingers crossed!

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Simply a great day

There are always going to be times in our lives when we have "one of those days". You know, the ones in which every single thing that can go wrong, does. Today, I had the opposite. It was a great day. One in which everything that could go right, did :)

Not anything earth shattering, mind you, but simply a fantastic day. We started off at Foster Beach with our Meetup.com mommy group. Pat dropped us off (always a bonus to not have to take the bus!) and the weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too humid, but warm enough to find the water refreshing (which by the way, wasn't too cold....just right!). The spot on the beach the organizer picked out was prime, and Liam and I had a great time playing and walking home.

This afternoon, I was able to schedule an early dinner with a dear friend which I love getting together with, and we're not able to work it out often enough. Her daughter, a couple weeks younger than Liam, and Liam were SOOO good during dinner. No outbursts, no crying - lots of enjoyable baby babble and smiles :) Dinner was delicious & conversation was great. It was so nice to connect with a friend.

That's it. Nothing extreme, it was just nice. Well, Liam did pee all over me....that wasn't so nice, but at least Pat was right there to see it and it gave him a good laugh. Liam has a tendency to stand up during his diaper changes because its impossible for him to sit still for any period of time. Since I was standing right there telling Pat about my fabulous dinner while he was changing Liam's diaper, I just let Liam stand up so Pat could finish getting his new diaper and clothes ready. That's when Liam let it loose. All over my shirt and pants. About 5 gallons (or so it seemed). And he laughed. Probably because Pat was laughing at me.

Eh. If that's the worst part of my day, I'd say the day was pretty darn good!

Monday, August 04, 2008

Enough Wordle-ness :)

***********************CONGRATS TO MY PRIMOS!***********************

I forgot that I didn't mention the newest member of the Medel family - Elijah James Medel! He was born Saturday morning to my cousins Will & Amber here in Chicago. I can't wait to meet him :) Mom, baby and Dad are all doing well - we wish them the very best in the transition to parenthood and a speedy recovery for Amber!

************LIAM NEWS************

He's really on the go! He's very good at walking, and pretty much prefers it to crawling. Although if he falls, then he usually will crawl from there on out. The following photo is a pretty good depiction of how he is right now....not often in one place and always a blur. That's his cousin Serene behind him. I tried to get photos of the two of them because they are soooo cute together. But Liam wasn't cooperating.



He's also learned to shake his head no (even though he doesn't know what it means) and say "Woooow". At least I think its wow. Pat thinks its more of a "awuh".

Liam also is such a great eater / feeder. He almost hates eating purees now...he's more of a finger food guy. Lots of veggies, cheese and cut up meats. Its pretty cool for us too. Although he makes a big mess, its nice to be able to eat dinner all together since neither of us has to actually put the food in his mouth.

And, as much as we try to put up gates, blockades and babyproof the house, the little dude has such a radar for ALL things he's not supposed to get into. *Sigh* Definitely keeps us on our toes!

************KARIN NEWS************

As much as I've been enjoying my stint as a SAHM (stay at home mom, for you non-savvy peeps), I've been continuing the job search....keeping my finger on the pulse, if you will. I'm still meeting with the outplacement people, getting all my ducks in a row. Scanning online job ads and the newspaper. Really, there isn't all that much available right now that perks my interest. I did apply for a position with a large engineering firm downtown, but I'm not sure where that will lead. It can't hurt to continue to interview and such, right?

I'm still contemplating doing the photography part time too, but I'm a long way from that step. I've been practicing and practicing, reading and learning some more - we'll see where that will lead.

In the meantime, we're still doing OK moneywise. We started a new, super stringent budget to help us both keep a better tab on our money, and I think that will go well. We also *finally* opened up a 529 savings account for Liam. Never too soon to start saving for college!

OK OK one more.....

Here's the last one. I swear :)

Wordle - Part Deaux

OK, so I broke down my blog in various time frames so I could see the transgression of my life pictorially through Wordle. I did have to tweak the words a bit. Apparently I say "Just" "really" "like" and "get" a lot, so I took those out of the text. Anywho - its really fun to play with.....you should definitely try it out!

I started my blog in 2004. This is the first word cloud of my life until around April 2005, when Troy and I split.


Then, this is my life from May 2005 - January 2007, pretty much when I was preparing for and living in Mexico:


Here is February 2007 - August 2007. Life back in the US, but Pre-Liam :)



And finally, a word cloud that I would say pretty accurately depicts my life now. I {heart} it!!! Makes me super happy. I really want to make a T-shirt out of this. I have iron-on transfers.....I just have to find a T-shirt to use. Hmmmmm.....

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Wordle is AMAZING!!!

If you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. WORDLE. Enter a bunch of text and press GO and you have a really cool output :) Here is our lives summed up from March 08 - present:



Here is our friend Keren's Thesis:


Can you tell she's an astrophysicist??

I'm going to work on one that is a summary of my ENTIRE blog....should be interesting, no?