catching up - a year in review, June 2012

It has been just a little over a year since I posted anything of substance, as outlined in my post earlier.  I figured I'd start off small with that recap of resolutions from years past just to get the rusty fingers used to the keyboard again.  Now it is time to get down to the actual goods.  The details, or deets as the kids call it these days.  Ok maybe they really don't call it that, but whateves.  YOLO.  LOL.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand.  The last 12 months have been an absolute blur. So much has truly happened since May of 2012 that I think the best way to break this down is to give you a little blurb about each month.  If you don't like my style stop reading.  No one invited you anyway.  

June 2012

House
In the end of May 2012, a lovely couple made an offer on our house that we promptly accepted.  Once this happened, we kicked our house hunting into overdrive.  We knew from the start that wherever we moved to, it was going to be our"forever home" (yes, we know it is a cheesey term, we're cheesey kind of people).  Our search area was in South Jersey, as close as possible to my parents, still a reasonable distance from my office in the city and the house was to be everything we wanted it be to and more.  We never ever ever expected to want to move into an old house.  In fact both Pope and I agreed that we didn't even want to look at houses that were more than 40 years old.  After looking at a number of different neighborhoods we decided that we loved the character of an old house.  A new Toll Brother's community could offer us all the amenities in the universe, but it could not offer us character.  

Character is what lead to our two final choices, both of which were built in the 1800's (a little past that 40 year cut off) in Woodstown Borough.  While both houses were fantastic, the one we decided on was just perfect.  You could tell the previous owners loved the house and took pride in their home (bonus, it was the house a fellow WHS class of 2000 graduate grew up in).  The decision was a no brain-er.   Anyway, we made an offer, they accepted and we set a date for settlement on both homes (7/30 and 8/1 respectively) which started a mad dash to get everything done and packed up before settlement.  I would post pictures, but I just realized that I actually don't have any, which I'll promptly correct tomorrow (yay vacation day) and add them to a later post.  

Obligatory Mommy & Me Selfie
June 2012

A3

We started calling Ari "Bly" or "The Bly Bot" around this time last year.  One of us texted the other about A3 and our iPhone auto corrected whatever the term was to "Bly Bot" which found to be incredibly hilarious for no real reason. This is actually completely irrelevant, I just wanted to fill up some text so I'm not just randomly posting pictures of the kid.  But seriously, he's really f-ing cute and the center of my universe, so why wouldn't I be posting pictures of him?  Besides, I'm sure you'll all want to see him grow over the months.

Me

Normally I wouldn't have a little section all dedicated to me.  I mean really, this is MY blog, so by default it's already kinda already about me or my life anyway, so having a little section dedicated to me is slightly obnoxious.  But June 2012 was a big deal for me as on June 7, 2012, I turned 30 years old.  The big 3-0.  Halfway to 60.  Using my youngest sister's logic, being 10 years away from 40 makes me almost 40.  Being that it is my 31st birthday tomorrow (by the time I post this it might already be midnight), I'm sure I'm now officially a senior citizen to my sister.

On that note, this old lady has to hit the hay!

...baaaacccckkkk

Way back when I went on about these things called "resolutions".  Apparently in the beginning of 2012 I was still living in denial of my lack of follow through with resolutions.  Lets review how they worked out, shall we?

1. Blogging at least once a week: I don't really count the last post I made in August as a real post, but rather a much overdue explanation of my random deafness, so my last real post was in May of 2012.  On that same day in May, I (ironically) posted a long winded rant about how I needed to get my shit together.  One would think I would follow up with getting my shit together.  Not so much.
2. Take pictures, lots and lots of pictures:So this is really one I should have focused more on.  I will say I did manage to get the camera out here and there over the past year, but not nearly as much as I should.  A3's life is super well documented for just about the first year, then there is a quick drop-off.  Though I can't feel too bad about it; we do have an f-ton of iPhone pictures which I guess is better than nothing.
3. Lose weight/Get Healthy:I didn't do too shabby on this one actually.  I didn't get my shit together in enough time to lose all of the weight before getting pregnant with number two, but I did end up coming down about 20 pounds before the pregnancy.  Is it what I wanted?  No.  Is it ideal?  No.  But it is better than nothing.  The bonus here is that I started a really good workout routine and weight loss coaching at Lady Fitness.  Seriously, if you live in the area and are looking for a low key place to work out in a super supporting environment, give Debbie a call and get in there.   Anyway, with Debbie's help, I was getting on track.  I also quit smoking, like quit quit.  Quit as in I gave it up BEFORE I got pregnant type quit.  Might not seem like that big of a deal to distinguish the two, but it is much different to quit because I wanted to versus quitting because I had to.  So overall, I wouldn't call this one a resolution fail.
4. Get to Crafting:
   Not a total fail here.  I did finish the redo of Ari's baby blanket and started building the granny squares for my granny square blanket.  I do somewhat hate them right now though, so I may be restarting.  
5. Get Organized:
   Well I can safely say that I actually accomplished this one.  You should see my awesome binders in all their glory.  I even already made one for Penners (more about her in a later post).

So right.  Let me go back to my original idea that resolutions are for suckers.  My plan right now is to catch you kids up on the last 13 months (a lot has happened) and hopefully get in the routine to keep this going on, well, a routine basis.  We'll see.