Buzz Lightyear

So my neighbor came over on Sunday with a Buzz Lightyear costume for Nico. He was so excited I could barely get the thing off him to potty and take a bath. This video is what ensued last night on my couch

More Pictures from Christmas

Nico getting ready to ride the train, a stop in the city and the tree!

Christmas 2008

So This Christmas we spent in New Jersey. My parents live in Atlanta and most Christmases we spend there but this year I decided to host Christmas. We spend every Thanksgiving at the farm in Kentucky and to help cut costs we had it here. I was sooo excited to have my parents and brother here. Unfortunately the day they were to arrive, I woke up with the stomach virus Nico had had two days before. I proceeded to have a very intimate relationship with the toilet bowl. Luckily for me, my parents were super delayed getting here and by the time they had arrived around 5:30, I was over the horrific part and was just weak from dehydration and fever. The next day proved MUCH better and I was able to eat and go to church and a Christmas Eve party. I was left with a bad head cold but THAT didn't stop Christmas! Christmas day I made Osso Buco and Butternut Squash Risotto for my family and my neighbors, Lesley and Ken and their two boys. It was YUMMY. I cooked all day but it was worth it. My mom made cornish game hens with her home made stuffing for my brother who won't eat anything. It was a great Christmas and we had a fabulous time. We even got to take a trip into the city to see the tree. I sincerely hope that all my friends and family had a blessed Christmas and that 2009 is healthy and happy for everyone.

Enjoy the pictures

Women in the work place

I know I haven't posted in a while - and I have a ton to post about Thanksgiving and pictures and such but this video caught my attention. It's interesting and some might say - Oh here the media goes again making a moutain out of a molehill. I work in coorporate America and it has been very good to me....but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't male dominated and IN that can lean a certain way. It's certianly milder than it used to be I'm sure - but it still exists. It's comments like the govenor's that perpetuate stereotypes and I applaud Campbell Brown for saying so.

Inspiration

So yesterday I had the honor of going to visit my friend Christine while she was getting her Chemo. Christine and I met in 2001 shortly before Daniele and I got married. Chris and I became good friends pretty quickly. We both were working for an internet company and I left and shortly after she left. I was working in a restaurant and Christine got a job as facilities coordinator for Liberty International. Christine was working downtown during 9/11. After 9/11 I lost my job in the restaurant and had been out of work for several weeks when she called and offered me a temp job at Liberty. She then encouraged me to apply for the assistant job in Environmental and that's how I got in at Liberty where I've managed to move up to underwriting. So thank you Chris for pushing me to interview. My job has been a true blessing!

Christine hasn't had an easy time of it at least in the 7 years I have known her. She lost two people extremely close to her, she had a very scary child birth experience and in May 2008, she was diagnosed with HERS2 breast cancer. It's one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer from what I've been told. So far she's endured 5 months of Chemo. She's down to two more treatments before they start prepping her for major surgery. I didn't find out all of this until August or September. I hadn't seen her in a long time but promised I'd come visit her one day while she was getting her Chemo. I got to do that yesterday. I have to say her attitude is simply amazing. She has a great outlook, a constant smile on her face and seems at peace with what she is going through. She manages to still take care of her 3 year old while go through what appears to me to be torture, but to her is just what she has to do.

She gave me her Christmas card yesterday. I made a comment about how early she had them done and she said - "Well I had to get my picture taken before I lost all my eyelashes" I giggled because that's just Christine. She is THAT prepared. I think I would have been too caught up in it all. But not her. Looking at her Christmas card with Tom and her son George...you would never know she is in the fight of her life. She's an inspiration. So Chris, I am keeping your Christmas card above my computer in my cube at work....to look at when I think I'm having a bad day. To inspire me to know...I'm so blessed and whatever I might be going through really isn't that bad and also how blessed I am to have you as a friend.

I know she's going to be OK....Christine is a fighter - the kind that only knows how to fight because she's done it her whole life. In spite of that, what I know to be true about her character, I'm asking all who read this to please just say a prayer for her and her recovery, that God not give her anymore than she can handle in a day and that with HIS help, she beats this and heals quickly so she can go do what she does best....and that's be a mom her her 3 year old.