1. When Eli wakes up in the morning. The proper morning, not 4:00 am foolishness - THAT is not morning. But at 7 or 8, when the little "come get me!" whimpers start over the monitor, and I go in to Eli's crib and his worried face turns into a huge warm smile. It's the best way to start the day, knowing that someone is just that excited to see you, day after day. 

2. Bathtime - just before he goes to bed. We have a little bathtime ritual and no matter how tired and crabby he may be before it starts, this is guaranteed to soothe the savage beast immediately. We put on his Rockabye Baby CD and turn off the big kitchen light, keeping the lights nice and dim (we call it the baby spa, just roll with it.) The entire time he's in the tub Eli stares at whoever's bathing him with huge, round, serious eyes. He doesn't break eye contact and he very rarely smiles in the tub, even though he splashes and appears to be having fun. Bathing is clearly not a laughing matter. He's just too cute with his hair all slicked back and afterward when it's dry and fluffy. After his bath he gets a little massage with his Johnson's lotion and then wrapped up in snuggly pj's, a little bedtime snack, then off to dreamland. I love having this nightly ritual with Eli. It's a great way to wind down after the day's craziness.

3. Our conversations. When this boy starts talking, it's going to be nonstop. Eli is already a huge chatterbox. He talks to his toys and babbles away to us for ages. I don't know what he's trying to say but it seems like it's very important!

The Bumbo is serious business too.

Saying "I'm training for a half marathon" sounds scary, but the first week wasn't bad at all. I'm following the Hal Higdon Novice 2 plan, which incorporates five workouts into week one: four runs and one cross-training workout.

Monday - rest
Tuesday - 3 mile run
Wednesday - 3 mile run
Thursday - 3 mile run
Friday - rest
Saturday - 4 mile run
Sunday - cross

I deviated from the schedule a little bit. Yesterday was supposed to be my long run and today was supposed to be cross-training day and I flipped them, and I took Thursday as a rest day and did Thursday's run on Friday. Overall I stuck to the plan. For cross-training I did the Jillian Michaels Yoga Meltdown DVD. I did a weights workout Tuesday after my run and managed to frig my back up doing squats on the smith machine. I did a little elliptical after Wednesday's run too. And today's four miles ended up being 4.85. It was nice and sunny outside and easy to go a little farther.

BUT! Everything got done. That's the main thing!

I like having a plan to follow. It makes me more accountable saying I need to work out X number of times this week, even if I flip the days around sometimes. It's like having an appointment in my calendar and makes me much more likely to follow through.

The best things about training this week were definitely my ugly new sneakers, which are super comfy, and my run outside today. I can't wait for the weather to get nicer and the sidewalks to be less of a death trap so I can get out more.

One week down, 11 to go!

1. I'm in my first week of training for a half-marathon in May. This week has been pretty easy, four three-mile runs and a cross-training day on Sunday...easy peasy, right? On Tuesday I was doing strength training at the gym and decided to do squats on the smith machine, used horrible form and my back has been spazzing out at me ever since. This morning's run was more of a cripple. I did get these puppies to put some spring in my step:

I haven't had black sneakers since high school so I feel a bit weird in them. The colours make me think of Fresh Prince.

2. Winter is maaaaaybe 1/3 over and I'm already thinking about spring - as much as I like my boots and big sweaters they're starting to get a bit tired. I got a 40% off Gap coupon in the mail and it had coloured jeans all over it. I might get a pair for spring. Kind of a fun way to punch up the wardrobe without looking too teenybopper. I think a pair of cobalt blue or red skinnies would be just fine and wouldn't look too ridiculous on me. I'll leave the yellow and hot pink to the younguns.

3. It has been brought to my attention that we're the "weird neighbours" because we still have a Christmas wreath on our front door. Oops. I want to make a new wreath for the door - sup Pinterest? Do you hang anything on your front door? I'm thinking this little burlap number might be cute, although I'll probably skip the heart shape and just do a plain ol' round wreath.

4. This is my new favourite nail polish: Essie Sand Tropez. I already tweeted about it this week but I'm really liking it. Neutral so it doesn't show chips easily and it's a little different from basic light pink. Dark polishes are fun but get dinged up so quickly, at least on my grubby mitts. It's nice to be able to stretch a manicure a little longer.
5. It's a big sports week - NHL all-star game tomorrow night and Super Bowl Sunday next weekend. I predict I'll make it through 10 minutes of each of these games. And I'll spend those 10 minutes shoving snacks into my face. That's what Sports Centre morning-after recaps are for. Until they can start putting games on at sane times (like, 3pm) this girl will be sleeping through all the action. Go Patriots!! And until about five minutes ago I thought the Super Bowl was this weekend. This is how out of the loop I am.

I have never been the type to worry too much about what I eat in terms of where it comes from or what it contains. Aside from calories and fat grams, I pay very little attention to the labels on my food. I rarely look at ingredient lists or give too much thought to things like where my food originated or how it's made.

Recently, I bought some Splenda to use in baking and coffee and the like. I avoided artificial sweeteners the whole time I was pregnant with Eli since there are no definitive studies to prove they don't affect babies. Plus, I was the world's most paranoid pregnant woman. As a result, I haven't had any sweeteners other than sugar in 10 months or so even though I was pretty hardcore about them before getting knocked up.

I had never noticed how eating artificial sweeteners makes me feel, but after almost a year off the stuff, it made me feel weird. Like, headachy, thirsty, and all chemically. My mouth felt funny - cottony and gritty, and a bit like I'd been eating soap. Definitely not a good feeling, and definitely not something that happens when I eat plain old sugar.

Right around the same time, I was making a mug of hot chocolate with the mix that's in our cupboard. I checked the ingredient list to see if it contained aspartame. It didn't, but here's what it does contain: corn maltrodextrin, dipotassium phosphate, sodium aluminum silicate, sodium carboxymenthyl, acetylated tartaric acide ester of mono- and diglycerides...among other things.

WTF?! I don't know what those things are. I can't pronounce them. Granted, I know hot chocolate is hardly a health food, but do I want to be ingesting something called sodium aluminum silicate?

Over the past few days I've given this a lot of thought and have decided I want to eat a lot more cleanly. Yes, I'm still going to have my chocolate binges, eat canned soup and be lazy with frozen foods, but if I can choose a natural, unprocessed, or better yet, prepared at home alternative, I'm going to pick it. At least I know the effects of a few extra calories - I can't say the same for something I don't even know how to say.

I don't plan on going 100% earth muffin organic hippie and rubbing my armpits with a magical crystal instead of deodorant and all that noise. Instead, I want to start making little changes like picking more local produce, avoiding artificial ingredients and scary preservatives as much as possible, and making more of our own foods from scratch when it's an option. Surely it can't be too time consuming to make my own hot cocoa mix with cocoa powder, sugar, and vanilla (or whatever the ingredients are, I don't actually know) rather than eating the premade stuff with an ingredients list that reads like something you'd see on the back of a shampoo bottle. And even it does take a little extra time and effort, it's got to be worth it.

I hope to eat less sugar - but stick to real sugar - rather than artificial sweeteners. Same with margarine and butter. I'd rather eat a little bit of fatty butter than gobs of low-calorie margarine. I saw a billboard once (for butter, go figure) that said "Margarine has 17 ingredients and none of them are dairy" and it's always stuck with me. It's finally sinking in that low-fat and low-cal does not equal healthy.

Do you worry about what goes into your food and how it's made?

Some days, I love being a mom and feel like I'm doing a good job. I love every second I get to spend with my little guy, even the gross things like getting spit up on and experiencing the joy of guacamole diaper blowouts. I love cuddling him, playing with him, reading to him, feeding him, and getting him ready for bed, and I wish he'd stay this tiny forever.

Then there are days where every minute feels like an hour. I feel like I'm trapped in a cage. There are days where I just want to get in the car and go somewhere, anywhere. When I cry because a trip to the Superstore is the exciting highlight of my day. When I feel like I've forgotten how to have an adult conversation or like I'm completely out of touch with everything outside my little bubble. I wish time would go by faster. I can't wait for Eli to be bigger, for him to be able to actually entertain himself for hours at a time. I can't wait to go back to work or be able to have a glass of wine without watching the clock to see how much time I have until I need to feed him again. These are the days when I question my ability to be a good mother. Shouldn't I be enjoying this more?

One of the things they never tell you: being a mom is one of the most tedious, boring things ever. Do you know how many times you can shake a rattle at a baby in a 10-hour period without feeling like you're going insane? Add the fact that the baby just screams back at you in response and it's even more fun.

This week on Facebook some mom friends of mine shared a link to this Huffington Post article, Don't Carpe Diem. The whole premise is that not every moment as a mom is a magical one. It's not all unicorns and moonbeams. There are days that suck. Your entire day could be monotonous, difficult, downright horrible, but if there are even a couple moments that bring a smile to your face, you're doing good. Realistically, that's what being a parent is. It's not all baby giggles and coos and sweet dreams. It's the hardest job in the world and once in a while something wonderful happens, like a big gummy grin at 3 in the morning, and that's what propels you along.

I was beginning to worry there was something wrong with me for not loving and exalting over Every. Single. Moment. with Eli, for wishing time away some days. Realizing that what's not normal is enjoying being a mother 24/7/365 is reassuring. In the time it took to type this last paragraph, Eli has gone from smiling and cooing to crying to smiling to crying again. And now he's staring at me and being quiet. Ups and downs. Get used to them.

1. Last night I made lemon garlic spaghetti for dinner (recipe courtesy of my BFF Pinterest - you can find it here.) It was easy and yummy. Even though it was posted as a Meatless Monday recipe, we carnivores went ahead and added grilled chicken breast to our spaghetti. What can I say? We love eating charred flesh up in this. But with or without the chicken, this was yummy and easy and it's earned a spot on my regular roster.

2. Tomorrow is Peter's 31st birthday! Pete is a much bigger fan of birthdays than me. I view them as another year older, closer to death and without accomplishing anything useful. He sees his birthday as a day to eat cake and get presents, which is a much better way of looking at things.

3. Now that I can run five miles again without dying, I'd like to start a training program for running. I've been looking at Hal Higdon's training plans and am flip-flopping between the 10K and the half marathon. The Bluenose is in May and I'd like to run it. The training plans I'm looking at are 12-week plans, which means I could start them now and finish well before the Bluenose. But where this is my first race I'm not sure whether I should stick to the 10K for now and work up to running a half in the fall or just go balls to the wall and do the half in May. Any thoughts from the experienced running crowd? The Novice 2 half plan doesn't look too bad...you get two rest days a week and one long run.


4. Poor Rory has been getting the shaft lately with Eli ruling the roost so we had a little photoshoot the other day to showcase how pretty he is. He's been so good with the baby, sniffing him and licking his hands a bit, but very protective. If Eli's in his swing Rory just wants to lie close by and if the baby cries Rory gets all concerned. We'd been a bit worried about how he'd adjust but he's been awesome.





5. Peter and I had a date Sunday night to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was good - really similar to the Swedish movie, with a slightly different ending. I want to read the second and third books now. I liked the first book except the first 100+ pages were so hard to slog through. Once it got going it was great, but the first bit, with all the backstory about the magazine and whatnot, I found reaaaaally slow.

Today's post is a writer's prompt from Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. 

You stepped into your first apartment and thought...

"...why the hell is the toilet in a closet?"

My first apartment was kind of an emergency scenario. I was finishing up my journalism program in one province and got offered a six-month maternity leave position at a large daily paper in another province. It was a great opportunity and I jumped at the chance. The only problem was I had to move to a sketch-hole of a city where I knew zero people, and I had less than two weeks to finish school, find an apartment, and move myself down there. Alone.

I spent my 20th birthday with my parents driving to the city to look at a couple apartments I'd found in for rent ads in the paper. I didn't have any prior knowledge of this particular city - I just wanted a place where I could walk to my job at the paper. This meant I'd be living in the south end. The problem was the south end was dirrrrty. Christina Aguilera dirrrrrty. When we got there and drove through my parents went from looking unimpressed to panicked at the thought of leaving their kid in what essentially looked like a giant crack den. We saw people stumbling around at 11:00 a.m., broken glass everywhere, boarded-over windows, and just general riff-raff and grossness.

We drove to the first building I'd written down and I shit you not it looked like a legit haunted house. I took the liberty of Google Street View-ing the actual house. Here it is. Just swing that puppy round till you see the big brick house with ghosts popping out of every window and turret. "Keep driving," I said. I was freaked out at this point, looking at the list of addresses I'd written down for apartment viewings. I was going to spend the next six months living in a murder house surrounded by junkies with needles hanging out of their eyelids.

We went to the next address and it was a 100% improvement over the first. Still shitty, mind you, but it didn't look like a place where Dracula lived. It was a basement apartment, but bright and relatively modern. It was furnished, which made things easier for me since my furniture at that point consisted of one red inflatable chair. It was in a house with only three other apartments so there wouldn't be many epic battles for the washer and dryer. But the bathroom...the bathroom was an issue. As in, there was no bathroom.

Basically, as you were going down the hall from the living room to the kitchen, the shower was right there - just a glass door separating you in all your showering nudeness from the rest of the apartment. So having overnight guests was obviously not going to happen, because people don't typically like to shower in front of their friends and family, and there was no bathtub in this masterpiece. Next door was the toilet. You pushed open a folding closet door, went up two steps (??) and sat on this toilet on a pedestal. No sink. Just a toilet. So after you did your business you came back down the steps and continued to the kitchen to wash your hands in the sink.

The rest of the apartment was fine. New furniture in the living room; bright, open, cheery kitchen; decent-sized bedroom. But the bathroom situation. And then I thought about the haunted house. "I'll take it," I said. And I spent the next six months hiding out in a basement apartment with no bathroom and counting down the days until my job ended and I could move back home. I've never been so happy to be unemployed in my life.

At this point, I will pay $100 per hour of uninterrupted sleep I can enjoy during the night. All you have to do is listen for Eli to cry, and when he's hungry, feed him. I'll even pump bottles of milk for you - all you need to do is warm them up. That's it. Just be on guard for the hungry cry and feed the baby when he wants to eat. And maybe change his bum once a night. Easy peasy, right? 

I'm definitely being overdramatic here, but a full night's sleep is the thing I crave most in the entire world right now. Not chocolate, not wine, not a spa day, not an exotic vacation. I want sleep. At nine weeks, Eli's still up twice a night most nights, which is completely normal for nine-week-old babies but still blows for me and Papa Bear. Our nights usually look like this, give or take half an hour here or there:

7:00 - 7:30: Bedtime. Sleeps 4-5 1/2 hours.
Between 11:00 and 12:30: Eats. Back to sleep for 3-4 hours.
Between 3:00 and 4:00: Eats. Back to sleep for 3 hours.
Between 6:00 and 7:00: Awake for the day. 

So unless I can stay awake until around 11:00 and feed him right before bed (which doesn't happen very often...I usually pass out by 9:00) we're up twice a night to eat. I'm probably getting between six and seven hours of sleep a night, maybe eight occasionally, but it's all broken up so it feels like a lot less. I know I shouldn't complain...it could be soooo much worse. Plenty of babies insist on eating every two hours through the night, sometimes more often. He's also been great about recognizing the difference between night and day since he was a newborn - I have heard horror stories about babies that have their days and nights mixed up, want to party all night and can't be budged during the day. We're fortunate in a lot of ways.

We asked our doctor about baby sleep schedules and she said that until three months, it's normal for babies to be up every three to four hours during the night and that Eli seems to be pretty typical for his age when it comes to sleeping at night. It's likely that around three or four months his sleep stretches will get longer and his schedule will start settling out so we'll probably just have to keep on keepin' on until then.

I bought Becoming Babywise and Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. The trouble is I don't have time to read them. Why do baby sleep experts insist on writing these humungous books? Does a new parents really have time to read a frigging encyclopedia on how to get their kid to sleep? Someone needs to make a one-page guide to baby sleep. That's what I want. I want a synopsis to both of the above books. I will also pay you $100 per hour to read the two books and write me 400 words or less summarizing each. Essentially, I want someone to just tell me what to do, because I'm not very good at figuring it out by myself.


Or, you know...leave it in the comments for free out of the goodness of your heart?

1. This week, I learned what my 50mm/f1.8 lens is for. I had no idea before. I thought it was just an extra lens. Thanks to this tutorial on Running on Happiness I now understand the difference and all I want to do is play with my camera!

2. I got my hair cut. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Here are before and after shots..."before" was taken in early afternoon and "after" was in the evening, with the lights on, hence the difference in lighting. It's just to my shoulders now and while I can't decide if I like it or not my hair feels one hundred percent healthier.



Notice the bags under my eyes big enough to pack everything you need for a two-week vacation? Gorgeous.

3. Have you ever had a dilemma where you know you want to pound some baked goods into your yom but you can't quite choose between cinnamon rolls and pancakes? Now you don't have to decide. My weekend is going to involve these cinnamon roll pancakes I found on Pinterest. I just ate lunch but looking at those pictures has me drooling.

4. We just finished watching season one of Community on Netflix and I'm going through withdrawal. I hope Netflix adds season two right away. Is there anywhere we can watch them online? I've read and heard the show might be dunzo now. I sincerely hope not. It's a favourite for sure. I've been watching Friday Night Lights season four and we're just about to start season six of The Office. I did watch The Bachelor premiere. Holy hell. Where do they find these broads?

5. Today is Friday the 13th. I'm not superstitious but I always get a little nervous when Friday the 13th rolls around. There are a few superstitions I follow religiously: I never flip the calendar page before the month is over and I never sit in a wheelchair unless I'm in the hospital and they're like, yo, sit your ass in that chair. My great-grandmother used to say "if you sit in a wheelchair you'll end up in one" and our dad was always hauling us out of mall wheelchairs any time we tried to crawl into them to play. What a fun spoiler. But I'm OK around black cats, ladders, spilled salt and broken mirrors. Are you superstitious?

Eli turned two months old on Tuesday. Over the past week or so, he's changed a ton and suddenly he seems so much older, with lots of personality. He's more aware of his surroundings now - he  loves to make eye contact, make faces, and share big smiles with people. He's a big talker and babbles and coos constantly. We've had lots of pretty intense conversations that lasted several minutes and he kicks, waves his arms and smiles the whole time. Before, he'd kind of space out and stare at the ceiling or at the wall for several minutes at a time, to the point where it was almost creepy. Now he'll look at a toy or watch Pete and I as we move around the room. Just trying to imagine it from a newborn baby's point of view, I'm sure it would take several weeks to get used to being "outside" in the big world, and it feels like Eli is getting more comfortable with it and with us.

I read about something called the "six week peak" which claims babies are the fussiest and cry the most around six weeks of age. I believe it 100%. When he was six and seven weeks old Eli was a huge grouch, but over the past week or more he's seemed a lot happier and more content. He still has his whiny moments, but for the most part he's a happy, busy guy and really only gets fussy when he's hungry or tired.

He loves walks in his stroller, drives in the car, and hanging out in his gym or on his play mat. He likes when we read him stories or just hold him and talk to him. "Fais dodo" is his favourite jam and I sing it to him to calm him down. Shushing and swaddling also work wonders. He's a huge cuddlebug and often falls asleep on our chests. I know, bad habits, baby needs to learn to fall asleep in his crib! But I know it'll be about five seconds and he'll be a little terror running around the house not wanting to be hugged or cuddled so I let it slide for now. He just started to enjoy tummy time over the past few days and is still meh on baths. The entire time in the tub he has a super serious, borderline stressed out expression on his face but he seems a lot more mellow when he gets out. 


This month he's had plenty of firsts. We had his first medical issue last week with a little blocked tear duct action. We noticed his eye was extra watery and a bit goopy, so we wiped it clean. A while later it was goopy again. When it didn't go away after a day or two I brought him to the doctor, who reassured me this is very normal (it affects more than half of all babies) and that we should just continue wiping it out with warm water and it ought to clear up.

We also had our first family car accident - good times. We got rear-ended in the rotary in Halifax on our way to the farmer's market. I completely lost my mind with Eli in the backseat. Luckily everyone was OK and other than my back bumper getting a little scuffed and needing to be repainted, no harm done. The couple that hit us were really apologetic and you could tell they felt awful especially since we had a baby in the car - the woman kept saying how they just had their first grandchild. We're just lucky it wasn't a serious accident and that Eli was safely fastened in his seat. I didn't even think to check the car for damage so it's a good thing Pete was with me to make sure we got the other driver's insurance information. All I cared about was that Eli wasn't hurt.

Another big first this month: Eli is now sleeping in his own room. We started this on New Year's Day. We put him in his big boy crib, went to bed ourselves, and I laid there looking at his empty pack'n'play and sniffling. So pitiful - he's only across the hall! It's gone well so far. We're sleeping better because we don't hear when he flails his feet around and kicks his mattress (which is surprisingly loud and disruptive given how little he is!) And he seems to like his crib.

On the topic of sleep, he's been doing a little better. Eli isn't the world's best napper, and unless he's in his car seat or stroller or laying on somebody, he rarely naps for more than half an hour at a time during the day. He gets tired early in the evening so we've started putting him to bed around 7:00 and he usually sleeps until about 7:00 the next morning, up twice to eat (around midnight and again around 3 or 4). His longest stretch of sleep is always in the evening, sometimes five or more hours. While getting up twice in the night to feed him isn't the most fun in the world it's pretty good especially for a breastfed baby - some are up every two hours at this age! Of course there are setbacks, like Tuesday night when he was up at 12:15, 2:45 and 5:30. Luckily, during the night he eats and falls right back to sleep, and he eats quickly too, usually not more than 10-15 minutes at the most. I can't wait for him to start cutting out one of his night feedings but I know it'll just take time.

At his doctor's appointment yesterday he weighed 12lb 2oz, which is average for his age, and is 59.4cm long, so he's a little on the tall side. He favours turning his head to the left when he sleeps so we need to start putting a pillow or a head-hugger under him as a kind of wedge to keep him from turning left too much. He's like a reverse Zoolander. Again, it's a common issue for babies, one they generally grow out of with no problem. 

So that's the life of Eli right now. Eating, sleeping, playing and being adorable. Not a bad gig at all.

The past three nights haven't been bad in terms of our little man's sleep schedule. He's out around 7pm, sleeps until at least midnight, then is usually up around 3:30 or 4 to eat before waking around 7am for the day. Translation: we're now getting three good, solid chunks of sleep at night and are feeling less like death by day.

But one day (night?) last week, before all the awesome sleepage begun, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror circa 3:00 AM and was so shocked at how hideous I looked, I actually did a double take. Obviously, 3:00 AM isn't the kindest time for anyone's appearance but this was baaaaad.

There are only four good reasons to be up at 3:00 AM:

1. power puking
2. shoving donair pizza into your face like it's your job (this will also lead to #1)
3. making poor sexual choices
4. feeding your new baby
Guess which one I was doing?

Anyway, "haggard" doesn't begin to describe it. It was kind of like this:

...except she has better hair. More body and bounce.

I know I've been tired but come ON. I've chirped for months about how having a new baby is no excuse to look like crap, yet here I go resembling feces. Sure, it was the middle of the night, but I've been looking like ass during the daytime too. I decided there are a few things I need ASAP.

1. A new hairstyle.
Every time I mention getting a haircut Peter cries and starts wailing about "mom hair". Unfortunately, anything above my elbows constitutes "mom hair" in his book. What is it with guys and their long hair obsession? Of course I'm going to go ahead and get it cut anyway. When a man carries a child for nine months, gives up caffeine and booze and ALL THE THINGS and then expels the child from his body, only to be attached at the boob to said child for months afterward, then he can do whatever he likes to his hair.

2. A good concealer.
I don't know any good undereye concealers - please help!

3. Non-flannel, non-slutty PJs.
It's hard to look and feel even semi-attractive when you're wearing plaid flannel pants and a t-shirt with baby fluids all over it. Granted, it'd be a bit awkward and inappropriate getting up in the night to feed Eli in a thong or a teddy (confession: I'm not even sure what a teddy is, only that it's some sort of skanky nightwear). There must be a happy medium in jammy land.

4. Bright lipstick that doesn't make me look like a clown.
I keep reading how wearing lipstick is the quickest way to brighten up your face. If there's brightening to be done, I need it.

If anybody has any tips for how to not look or feel like 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound bag while on mat leave, please share in the comments! 

1. Eli turned eight weeks old yesterday. What the haaaaaaaeeeeell? He's so super big and getting so cute I just want to stare at his face all day and run around taking pictures and videos of him. I'll be doing a two month update next week, but in a nutshell, he's been doing great.  He loves to play, is full of smiles and babbles and seems reaaaaaaaally close to giggles. But enough gushing about my little boy - I'll save that for next week.

2. I saw a pair of round-toe wedges at the Gap outlet earlier this week. I debated buying them and ended up leaving them there. Now I'm having whatever the opposite of buyer's remorse is. Cheapskate's remorse? I keep thinking about them and wondering if they were ugly or if I should go back and get them. I can't find them online - the closest thing I could find was these. Picture them in dark brown with a shiny strip around the edge. Ugly or no? Help me decide what to do with my $39.99.


3. Did you know if you have a Starbucks gift card and you register it online, you get a free drink on your birthday and can accumulate points for a bunch of other rewards? Of course you knew that. Apparently, I was the only person on the planet to not know this. But now I do, and I'm working on my gold status. I want that personalized gold card. I can't wait to swagger up to the counter at the Bucks and whip out that puppy. In the meantime I'll just keep buying decaf nonfat lattes like it's my job.

4. I've been reading some great books lately. I just finished Room by Emma Donoghue and am now reading The Virgin Cure by Ami McKay. I got a couple of others for Christmas - Sarah's Key and 11/22/63 and will be reading those ones next.

5. I've decided to hop on the bandwagon late and start doing the January Photo A Day Challenge with Instagram. I'll be catching up on January 1-6 today. My Instagram is amyw1981 if you would like to follow along, or see my progress here.

January - Start using my slow cooker more
We have a slow cooker and we've used it a grand total of three times in four years, which is a shame. Nothing can be easier than throwing a bunch of food into a pot in the morning and enjoying a piping hot meal come dinnertime with zero effort. I'd like to get into the habit of using it at least once a week.

February - Try a new exercise class or a new workout video at home
Whether it's yogilates, spinning, boxing, or even just a new routine I can do in our TV room at home I'd like to try something new fitness-wise in February to keep from getting in a rut. 

March - Do a super duper spring cleaning
This is a boring and sucky one, but I half-assed the spring cleaning last year. This year you'll be able to eat off the shower floors if you want to. I hope.

April - Take a mom and baby class with Eli
I'd like to take a swimming class with Eli to get him used to the water before summer, so hopefully if we go to the beach he won't have a total meltdown. In April he'll be five months old, so old enough to do mom and baby swimming.

May - Run the Bluenose 10K
This would be my first organized 10K run - and this is the third consecutive year I've vowed to do it. Obviously the first two years didn't work out. Third time's a charm?

June - Take a trip to somewhere new
It can be a road trip to a new town an hour away or something that requires more serious traveling, but I'd like to see some new places in 2012 and June is the perfect month for a little getaway.

July - Wear a two-piece to the beach
AKA "get back in pre-baby shape". I have no idea how long this will take. Maybe it'll rain all of July and give me an extra month?

August - Buy groceries at the farmer's markets and from local producers
I always say "we should get our food at the market!" And then I go buy a bucket of cherries from the opposite side of the globe. I'd really like to buy more local, fresh produce this year and summer is the best time to do it.

September - Complete a home renovation project
I'm plotting a few of these for this year and will share the details as they happen. Right now Peter's reading this going "renovations WTF?" Hee hee.

October - Get a makeover
I'll be returning to work (if I haven't already) and I'm sure that after up to a year running around behind a baby I'll be more than ready to freshen up my look. Fall is the best time to revamp a wardrobe with new clothes and makeup anyway, plus I'll try a new hairstyle. And maybe a massage. Not that a massage has to do with a makeover, but if I'll be at the spa anyway to get my hair done... I have to say I'm most excited about this month's resolution.

November - Plan Eli's first birthday party
Little man will be the big 0-1 on November 10 and I'd like to have a birthday party for him, with our families and friends. We haven't had a party at the house for a while and this is a good opportunity. Plus I'd like to do something special to mark Eli's first year complete with fun decorations, snacks and treats.

December - Volunteer
I used to volunteer regularly and it gave me the warm fuzzies (or cool swag depending on the gig). Next holiday season I'd like to volunteer for something of the warm-fuzzies variety.