Weekend Things

Apologies if this post is all over the place but my brain is mush because I have a newborn and WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT!!!!!! I don’t think I can properly relay the explosion of emotions I have felt since Saturday morning when we saw CNN had projected Joe Biden as the President-Elect. I think part of me had already mentally prepared to be disappointed in the outcome of the election — I was SO blindsided in 2016 and I did not want to feel that way again — so when things started going our way, I was shocked in the happiest of ways and seeing that announcement was the biggest feeling of relief and happiness and still a little bit of disbelief. I fully realized how stressful and heavy the past four years have felt and knowing it was over was EUPHORIC. This little baby won’t have to watch our president bully or name-call or lie or tweet insanity. We’ll have decency back in the White House. And dogs! We’ll have dogs in the White House again. I’m just so happy!

I have no idea what my posting schedule will be like in this unpredictable but wonderful newborn/maternity leave stage, but since it happened to be Sunday when I wrote this — I definitely thought Saturday was Friday and was bewildered when I realized I was wrong — I’ll go with a Weekend Things post for now. We loaded up Dempsey and walked to the coffee shop late Friday morning and… I hated it. There were so many people out and about and I felt very weird about it. Don’t worry, the baby didn’t go inside and we kept him away from everyone but still. Later that night, we supported the Denver Film Fest, by ordering up a movie called The Killing of Two Lovers. I really liked it! Joey was unsure about the ending but enjoyed the rest.

Saturday morning, Dempsey wasn’t interested in going back to bed after his 5 AM feeding, so Joey graciously got up with him and let me sleep in a bit longer. When I got up, I made us some blueberry pancakes, so I think we’re even :). They were really good and it’d been a few weeks since we’d made pancakes, so it felt like a luxury to eat them. And Andi was excited for the return of his Puppy Pancake.

Well I wish I could say we did anything productive on Saturday but mainly, we watched the news, scrolled celebration videos on Twitter and held the baby. We whipped out the Solly wrap and I’m not sure about it. I’m sure I’ll get better at it, but I can’t get it tight enough to feel like it’s actually supporting him and not just hanging off my body in a way that makes me feel like I have to lean backward to counterbalance him. Joey fared better and also sent me pictures of Dempsey’s sweet face from the other end of the couch.

My parents came over for dinner and we picked up food from Ginger Pig, a new restaurant just a few blocks from us. I thought it was all really good, but everyone else seemed to be more critical, which is the opposite of how it usually is! We all watched Kamala and Joe speak and can you believe we have a female Vice President??? I cannot tell you how much this means to me. My mom and I definitely teared up afterward :).

Sunday was semi-lazy too. For me, at least :). We ate breakfast and watched SNL because there was no way we were making it till 11:30 when it aired on Saturday and I thought the cold open was lame but Chapelle’s monologue was great and I loved that performance of “Times Like These” the Foo Fighters did. We have not done a lot of cooking in the past three weeks (thanks to everyone who has brought food!), but before Dempsey was born, Joey cleared out our garden and picked a TON of green cherry tomatoes. Did you know tomatoes will ripen on the counter?? They were finally all ready, so Joey made up some cream of tomato soup and I made two grilled cheeses and it felt like such a indulgence to have a fresh cooked lunch, especially one that tasted so good! The rest of the day included a Cowboys lose game, me writing this post, a fussy baby and a few episodes of Breaking Bad which we’d been talking about re-watching and finally pulled the trigger on. How was your weekend??

December Memory-a-Day

Saturday, December 1st: Being at a social gathering and feeling no rush to leave, which honestly isn’t usually the case.

Sunday, December 2nd: Standing in front of the open but still running dryer (obviously, it’s broken…) with Joey and reaching our hands in to catch pairs of pants as they spun around in there.

Monday, December 3rd: Seeing Andi’s empty bed and the empty couch (his two usual resting spots) then seeing a dog-shaped lump under the comforter on our already-made bed 😛

Tuesday, December 4th: Walking back to the car after dinner at Dio Mio and saying “I finally got to eat those beer-battered squash rings and I’m so happy!!!”

Wednesday, December 5th: Getting a message from my cousin that she poured eggnog in her coffee that morning too! ♥

Thursday, December 6th: Having lunch with my dad and admitting (to myself mostly) that I had a cold.

Friday, December 7th: Listening to Binge Mode: Harry Potter on our way to work and deciding what our “identity verification questions” would be 😛

Saturday, December 8th: Really burning my mouth on a piece of fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza, that I couldn’t wait to cool down.

Sunday, December 9th: Petting the softest little puppy at Betsy and Jory’s “Pregger Kegger” (HA!).

Monday, December 10th: Running on the treadmill and maybe watching the Christmas episode of Arthur instead of the news.

Tuesday, December 11th: Remembering to put my hair up in a ponytail before going out in the wind for a walk.

Wednesday, December 12th: Giving my sister a big hug goodbye after she, Wayne, Joey and I had dinner and went Christmas light looking together ♥

Thursday, December 13th: Listening to a really good Barry Jenkins interview.

Friday, December 14th: Laughing really hard at the “I think, if we’re going to destroy our son’s delusions, I should be a part of it!” line in The Santa Clause.

Saturday, December 15th: Getting texts from both parents about how much they loved the restaurant and movie I recommended for their anniversary date ♥

Sunday, December 16th: Wheeling my chair (as I sat in it) through the house, back to our “office” and only once rolling in the wrong direction because our 100+ year old house, is NOT level.

Monday, December 17th: Letting out the tiniest of laughs, while running on the treadmill, listening to a podcast about Mary Poppins Returns when someone referred to Mary Poppins fans as “Poppiners.”

Tuesday, December 18th: Leaving book club, new read in hand and a chorus of “Merry Christmas!” in my ears.

Wednesday, December 19th: Typing “dumplings” into the Yelp search bar.

Thursday, December 20th: Making cranberry sauce for Christmas and maybe portioning out a little bit to keep for myself.

Friday, December 21st: Joey describing the wings we had ordered as smelling like our dog…

Saturday, December 22nd: Dipping a piece of a giant pretzel into some horseradish cheese sauce.

Sunday, December 23rd: Sitting on the couch, watching Love Actually, when Joey randomly handed me a puzzle piece that was just a guy’s face, ha!

Monday, December 24th: Watching the trailer for the live action Dumbo and trying to prevent that thing where I burst into spontaneous tears when I hear “Baby of Mine.”

Tuesday, December 25th: Standing in my father-in-law’s kitchen, coffee cup in hand, husband by my side, Christmas movie playing in the background and feeling just so so happy.

Wednesday, December 26th: Texting Joey to say “I’m running a teense late…” before leaving for work on the day after Christmas, bleh.

Thursday, December 27th: Eating a cookie my mom made and packed me a little container of ♥

Friday, December 28th: Reading Barack Obama’s list of favorite songs, movies and books from 2018 and really wishing we still had this intelligent, thoughtful and kind man as our president.

Saturday, December 29th: Eating the last half of a donut that was still on the table before leaving brunch. Someone had to!

Sunday, December 30th: Walking down a very dark, very long set of stairs, on my way out of yoga.

Monday, December 31st: Buying a bag of black-eyed peas for good luck in the new year!