I had to include a picture of Libby: the sweetest bunny cat. Clarence showed his method of scooping her up for a cuddle, but she eluded me.

New York!
Grace, Clarence, and Jonathan were gracious and super fun hosts, and planned visits to interesting bars, lunch at Ukrainian diners, dinner at Korean restaurants, plays by Columbia playwrights, crepes, and walks through the neighborhoods by Columbia and Barnard as well as the Lower East Side. We also took the subway from Grace's place to Clarence's place and I made the mistake of drinking a lot of coffee and water that day so Grace and Todd were gracious enough to let me get off the train and out of the subway and find a bathroom (at that point I was considering peeing in the pants). Thanks to Grace, Claro, and J for opening their homes and their weekends to us.

Bits and Pieces
Gah! Has it really been almost a month since I've last posted? Yeah, it has. What's happened in the last month? Well:
- went to NY to visit Grace, Clarence and Jonathan
- spring break for a whirlwind 3-day wedding planning extravaganza in metropolitan DC (most of the stuff got done!)
- moved most of my worldly possessions into Todd's place, so now it has become *our* place. Moving sucks so very much, but we're getting settled in here and it's getting less chaotic every day with boxes all around.

Oh, and last night we went to see Explosions in the Sky play at the Congress Theater, which is only a couple of blocks away now. It was my first time at the Congress, and I was expecting it to be kind of gross, but I liked it. It has enormous and decaying, but grand--you should see the ceiling. Plus, the main floor is sloped, so wherever you stand, you can totally see the band. It was my second time seeing them, but I really like seeing EITS live: their music sweeps you up and the increased loudness makes it amazing.

The crowd is mostly people who stand/sway quietly taking in the music, but there were some noticeably loud, noticeably drunken people. There were two girls there who looked like they had returned from Spring Break CANCUN! just yesterday: they kept on shrieking over the music and one kept on bellowing "YEAH: Motherfucker!" Todd heard the same girl yell "I'm going to see my sorority BITCHES later!" EITS is instrumental and therefore not what I would classify as a partyitup-music kind of band so I'm puzzled how those people ended up there. I don't begrudge their good time, but they were annoying, so we ended up moving across the floor to escape them. Then we stood next to two loud drunk dudes, one of whom yelled "Freebird!" at one point. Again, so weird.

Yeah, I'm a little late to this...
...but I'm such a white person.

(thanks, Don!)

Um: yum.
Oh my god, I love this collection of pictures of amazingly delectable-looking preschool lunch boxes. And they're so cute!

Look at them here.

(via pcjm).

March?
Can you believe it's March already? Not a whole lot to report, except that at the end of this month I have to grapple with the moving process...so that's fun. Although I'll be moving in with Todd and besides having an excellent person with whom to live, the future place also hosts a washer/dryer and heating and air conditioning. The steam heat I currently have, while economical, is a little spotty at times.

It's also like the season for meetings and reports for me. I've been taking work home regularly for the first time in a long time. If I didn't fool around during work hours all the time, I could probably avoid this, but I almost prefer having that fooling around time and then just sucking it up and writing reports in front of "Project Runway" (the finale is playing right now: my favorite tv night of the year).

One of my little Early Intervention guys is turning three this Saturday, so today was my last session with him. We had fun since at the end of the hour, his mom organized a wee early party for us complete with brownies. The little guy consumed five of them within a seven minute period. Dizzamn. It was nice to get to know that family, though, and I'll miss them. The little guy's seven year old sister called home so she could tell me good-bye. I just finished the 6-month progress report for my other tiny one. It's cool to see the progress that one's made in the past six months. When I started seeing Little Guy #2, he wasn't even requesting "more." The last session, I saw him bring a toy vehicle to his mom and pronounce "Mom, car!" He's also started saying "Shut up" like he's getting paid for it. Nice!

Man, I'm tired. I'm going to bed soon.

Day Off!
We had a day off today in honor of Lincoln's Birthday. Happy Birthday, Lincoln! Our school system is the only one I know of that has today off and I am not complaining. Next Monday is off too, because of President's Day. woohoo!

The good news is that I was 75% productive today. I got lots of good and healthy groceries, I mailed off some seriously errantly late thank you notes, and I went to Target and finally got a little digital voice recorder so I can record clients and students when I want to go back and listen. I also got some more toys to use with my little guys. I had been eyeing this one set of alphabet blocks: each block (each letter) is made of clear plastic and contains an appropriate object representing said letter. For instance, the umbrella has a sweet little umbrella and little beads that you shake around the represent rain. Anyway, I finally got them today. I'm thinking that these will be a hit, because they're so interesting and so good for language stimulation. I wish you could see the little zebra for "z." I'm constantly on the look out for good toys: the problem with working with 2-year olds is that they have the attention spans of...2-year olds.

Crappy weather again today. I'm over it.

Personalized pinatas.

Beeyoutiful cake

Engagement party
Katie, Laura, and me

Party Timez
This past weekend was lots of fun. We got to see Katja and Tom and their precious little bebe on Friday night. We also happened to go and see Pinebender, one of my favorite local bands, play at this place, Ronnys, which may be one of the grodiest bars I've been in. I love dive bars too, so this says a lot.

Saturday we went out to Fogo de Chao with Todd's parents and his brother and sister-in-law, and I have never been to one of these Brazilian meat-fests before. People, it was clazy. There were something like 16 kinds of meat ready to be plied onto one's plate, and I couldn't keep up. I managed to try about five different kinds, but next time I go to this place I'm going to not eat anything else in preparation. I'm not going to skip the excellent salad bar there, even though I know that's how they save money on their customers.

Afterward was our engagement party, put together by Kiley/Steve and Rob/Eileen. They chose the upstairs bar at this cool Mexican restaurant in Logan Square called El Cid. It was the perfect place since there was room to spread out, the staff was great, and it was just loud enough that you could talk to people. Friends came and mingled and Kiley and Steve provided personalized pinatas and a beautiful cake while Eileen and Rob provided decorations. I had a great time, and couldn't have asked for anything more perfect.

On another note, it snowed MORE over the weekend. And today it was 42 degrees so there are seriously moats of melted snow one needs to wade through. I got some super precious pink plaid galoshes this weekend, and I was glad for them since any other shoes are hopeless in this slush.

Hoorah!
Done with this hellish day, y'all.
The Meeting from Hell was as long as expected, but all of my prep paid off and it went relatively well. Two of the people who attended commented afterward that my presentation was solid, and I felt that way too. By the end of the third meeting today, thought, I could barely sit up straight.

But, after school I managed to get a hair cut, drive home (and find a good parking place!) in the deepening snow, drop off a rent check, do early voting two minutes before the end of the last day, and get my book for book club. It's funny how one becomes more productive when one's plate suddenly cleans up.

On another note, I have a new favorite kid I work with. He's three and has a head of bright red hair and has the Irish-est of Irish names. I love holding his hand and walking in the hall to my speech room because he moves like a mile an hour: it's almost like we move backward, we're so slow. He's mellow and I think naturally quiet, although his language is getting pretty awesome at this point. Anyway, his absolute favorite activity is to play animal sounds bingo, where we spread out all of these animal pictures and then listen to a CD of animal sounds. We've done it enough now, that he beats me to my over the top loud animal imitations (you haven't lived till you've heard this kid say "gobblegobbleGOBBLE"). Last week he melted my cold dead heart when he pointed to the picture of a chick and said: "So soft?" It killed. This week he expanded it to: "Baby chick so soft?" Talk about a Cute Overload living experience.

Also: I'm watching "Muriel's Wedding" again, and what an odd, strange movie, but it draws me in every time.

Lastly: it's supposed to snow between 7-12 inches tonight. Jealous?

When it rains...
I'm halfway through my week o' crap. For some reason, everything has culminated into this week. I have several large meetings at work (which all require lots of paperwork) including the Meeting From Hell (which is tomorrow), report cards were due, and I had to do this massive training for Early Intervention. EI is my side job that is fun but the credentialing process is a gargantuan pain in the ass.

Let's talk about the EI training first: it's usually three days in person, but they did start online modules (this year!) so you can do those and then attend a one-day mandatory meeting. The one-day mandatory meeting? Doesn't occur for another few months, so it had to be today. I'm grateful since going for ONE day is waaaay better than going for three, but I'll complain still. See, I was initially told that the online training would be like an hour and a half or two. Wrong. It ended up being 26 different modules that ranged from 15 minutes to 45 minutes each. It took me about a week to get done. Oy. The in-person training today was definitely relatively painless, though, and it was nice to get some questions answered and to meet some other providers.

[Another observation: Early Intervention people tend to have little terms for the kids, which I love. Usually it's stuff like: "little guy," or "kiddo," or "little one." Today I heard a new one that I adore the most. The trainer referred to the kids she sees as "cookies."]

The training today was at a far-away suburb, and because of the terrible weather last night, the roads were covered with fresh salt. I drove on three different highways and by the time I was nearing my destination, my windshield was absolutely frosted with salt and I was helpless since my windshield wiper fluid was frozen solid. Every time I tried it, my wipers would spread the salt around, kind of like frosting a cake. It was getting kind of scary, so much so that I ended up pulling into a little side street so I could wipe stuff down (yay for Clorox wipes!). But, as I pulled into the side street my tires lost traction on the accumulated snow and my civic did a complete 180. It was extremely frightening, but luckily, no one was behind me and no one was coming. I just took a deep breath, righted the car, and got the car into some random parking lot.

My level of bitterness at that point for having to haul ass to the way out suburbs and risk life and limb for a training I didn't want to attend? High.

So, yeah, the training ended up being okay and I got home safely (although I did get a random scattershot pebble/rock hit my car causing the tiniest of cracks).

Now I have to prep for Meeting from Hell tomorrow. The good news is that I am slated to present first, and I will get it over with. In fact, I feel almost ecstatic that it will soon be done with and I no longer have to dread this damn thing! And after that, two more meetings, and lots of kids to make up.

I foresee being dead to the world tomorrow evening.

Sick as a dog
I've been sick all weekend, and--MAN--does it annoy me that I never get sick during the weekdays and I'm taken out for the count on my weekends. It was weird: I was feeling great Friday evening, but as the evening wore on my throat got raw and my body temperature went up. I spent the entire weekend sleeping and napping, and am spending this holiday (Happy MLK Day!) in my pajamas and sleeping off the rest of this sickness. Today I can finally swallow without immense pain, so I think I'll be back in the saddle tomorrow (just in time to get back to work: hooray!).

This has been the sickest I've been in a long time, so it's definitely a little strange. I've actually had to cancel plans and appointments because of it, which rarely happens.

Back to the couch.

Did I tell you about last weekend?
Hillary was visiting from Australia and we had a NU-reunion-ilicious weekend and hit up lots of spots. It was super fun to see her and all of the NU ladeeeez so much.

I also watched two very good movies:
1. The Lives of Others: Todd and I watched the DVD, and it was grrreat.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: I went with the NU girls since the book was a book club selection (one of the books I skipped, though), and the movie features speech therapy. It was beautifully filmed and I bawled at the end. Luckily Lauren came prepared with Kleenex.

I heartily recommend both movies.

Holy Crap.
I am one lazy bastard. It's been over a month since I've last posted. I don't really have a good excuse, except that I was on break from work (which was like the two fastest weeks in the history of time), and visited home and got to catch up with the entire family. I slept, ate lots of delicious food, watched an entire bus load of movies, shopped, and caught up with friends when I could. Todd joined me in DC before New Years, and we rang in the big event at Matt's place again in the company of Anne and Nate, Suzi and Tom, and Annie and Ben and all of the other guests.

This was the first week back at work, and it's been slowly, slowly getting my act together. Right now I'm knee-deep in lists: I need to submit my certification forms for being a SLP (which involved a wild goose chase of signatures), resubmit a form to get my official IL license, take some free online course to re-up my Early Intervention temporary credential and plan a wedding. Dude.

Interestingly enough, I was filling out one of the above mentioned forms today and as I was filling in dates, I realized that this marks my one year anniversary at my job: one year exactly. Time sure does fly, people.

Oh yes: and I'm also attempting to get into fighting shape and am back on South Beach Diet. I finished the first of the initial hard two weeks. I erred a couple of times, but for the most part I'm pretty proud of myself, and even within these past two weeks, I can feel my general appetite shrinking. What do I love most about SBD? The amount of avocado one gets to eat. And that it doesn't keep me from drinking coffee. And sugar-free fudgsicles. I'm down three pounds after this first week, which even though is 99% water weight, is motivating like crazy. Last night at book club, which is like my most favoritest snacking time of the month, I managed to stay away from BOTH the red wine and the delicious dips and basil rolls that Sarah made. Trick of the trade: sit far away from the snacks and eat a big dinner beforehand.

I lerv:

This super obese Chinese baby. Aw, he's so chubby, he can't walk or stand!

(thanks, Lisa!)

I also lerv:

Abandoned baby hedgehogs.
(thanks, Todd)

Missing in action
Yes, I have been a quiet bastard on the blog here of late. It was a mixture of things: work was extraordinarily busy for some reason and trying to get my mind wrapped on where to begin on planning a wedding pretty much took me out of commission. I have never wanted a fancy and extravagant wedding, but balancing this with also wanting to include more than three people on the guest list has proven to be a challenge for me. Because I didn't realize it before, but having a wedding is crazy expensive. I know, I must be like one of the few people on this planet, excluding your neighborhood toddlers, who didn't realize the extent of the cost. Now mama knows.

So, the past few weeks of planning has involved a mammoth amount of wheel spinning. We've explored so many venues and combinations of venues and each time there was *something* that didn't slip into the best place. We've looked at places from both of our respective parts of the country. We've crunched numbers. And I would usually come out feeling exhausted and stymied.

But, on Friday we were out at Beat Kitchen, sharing a Thai chicken pizza before seeing This Will Destroy You (who were great, by the way, even though they were like eleven). And this one place that we like to go popped up as a possibility for the reception. And we both got super excited about it because it would be: fun, casual, slightly (okay, very) kitschy, have room to fit everyone, have good food, and be a hell of a lot cheaper than most places that we've looked at. Why hadn't we thought of it before? A phone call was made and we're penciled in for now and I am extremely relieved and thrilled at the prospect of getting this settled into place.

In other news, it's like three weeks till winter break for me and Hallelujah! I'm still enjoying my job, but for some reason, this onslaught of referrals and meetings has popped up and I can't go to the bathroom without someone stopping me in the hall to tell me about a student they want me to observe.

The Happiest of Birthdays to Robin, my favorite older brother!