My dad died this week last year. I can't believe it's been that long, it seems both like forever ago and just yesterday I got the call.
I can't believe how much you've missed and been missed in one short year. I hope you are happy wherever you are. I hope there is a nice golf course and lots of chocolate covered cherries and Harley, Cooter and Bubba to curl up in bed with you at night.

I made it to spin class last night. Just barely. I left the house in plenty of time. Class was at 6;30 and I walked out my door at 6. I thought with the snow, it might take me awhile. Alas, I pulled into Legacy Village at 6:08 and was fretting about being so early. But it turns out it was a good thing b/c it took me 10 stinking mins to find a parking spot. It was awful. It didn't help that a snow plow had just plowed snow over several rows of spots. SO, finally I am rushing in the door to the gym around 6;20 and head to the locker room to change. I walk over to the spin room and YIKES all the bikes are taken and here I stand in my spandex padded shorts and bike cleats. I had forgotten to sign up. Yes, this gym is so popular you must sign up for spin class. I was so pissed. So I waddled up to the front desk and asked if there were by chance any spaces and left and was told no...but....there is a broken bike, you can ask the teacher if you can ride that. And I did and he let me. It was barely broken, the knob has just fallen off on the seat height adjuster. So, I got to spin. Woohoo, it would have stunk to have had to try and use some other cardio in my bikes shows, as I had no other shows but snow boots. Class was really good, really good. And I adored the teacher. In my mind I was saying to myself how I was going to come every Wed. Then at the end of class the teacher says he's having surgery and out for the next few months. Oh well. I guess he'll be back when I am back from the baby. It felt good to sweat and I hope the spinning isn't hurting my little bean in any way. I googled and found that a lot of people still did spin class when pregnant and hell I have seen accounts of plenty of gals doing marathons. So surely a 45 min spin class is okay.

Boy do we have a lot of snow here in Cleveland this weekend, there is over a foot out there for sure. Thank goodness we got a snow blower this year or hubby would be on his own shoveling for the most part! I was supposed to go out of town this weekend, but due to my little mistake on Tuesday, decided to forgo the trip, as the moolah to be gone just didn't make sense after the week we've had. So, I am taking advantage of having no plans, which is so rare for me. I can't stand to sit still, I am overly scheduled. This weekend = relax. Well, relax and some quality gym time. Friday night we watched a movie. Well I should say we tried to watch it, we didn't finish it, it was the latest Indiana Jones movie, we quit half way through. On Sat I got up pretty early and cleaned the house and then headed to the gym. I did 30 mins on the arc trainer, then 15 on the ET, and then ran 2 miles on the track. It felt good to work up a sweat and the running certainly wasn't comfortable, but I did it nonetheless. 10 laps is a mile and I allowed myself to walk 2 of those 20 laps. The pressure I feel when I run on my bladder/belly is just annoying. The rest of the day was resigned to lounging, other than a trip to the grocery store and making some veggie/boca crumble lasagna. Hubby painted the ceiling in our office.

This morning I got up and went to spinning class. The teacher was an annoying one I remember from my old gym, I was disappointed to see her. But she led a good class, her voice is just so darn annoying and she counts down for no reason. Like she'll just count backwards from 8, but then you don't change anything or go to another move. She just likes to count. But I kept the resistance high and really gave my legs a good workout. Hopefully I can keep up this momentum the rest of the week. When I got back I took the dogs across the street for a play date in my neighbors fenced in yard with her dogs. They had fun and are now sacked out next to me in bed. I need a nap. I'm finding I can only do 2-3 things now before i feel like I need a nap. I am a week away from my last trimester. Crazy. Carrying around this weight is getting hard. My back really aches. But I am now starting to see the baby move, which is just crazy. I love it.

Wow. What a F-ing week I am having and it’s only Tuesday. On Monday Gary got home from work to find out that the puppy had had a party in our house. He had gotten into a basket of magazines and proceeded to tear them to shreds across the dining room and living room, he pulled the table cloth and items on the table down into the floor and started to chew on the folder with our ultrasound pics in it (luckily no damage done), he went in the kitchen and chewed his piddle pad to shreds (they are hard to clean up b/c they leave dusty fluff everywhere), then he peed on the rug and went upstairs and ate my DKNY glasses. I am not a brand name type of person, I don’t buy nice stuff, but those glasses were nice and I wear them a lot and with the baby coming and me getting up and down during the night I knew I would need them as I can’t sleep in contacts. So, I was fully expecting that I would have to buy new glasses this week for a couple hundred. Then I get up this morning and I can’t even explain what happened, I will blame it on my pregnant brain, but I was backing out of the left side of our garage, with plans to pull my car over to the right side and park in front and leave it running to heat up, I wanted to open the left side of the garage for the lady I carpool with to pull into b/c it’s easier to back in and out of….so I pull out and I cut it funny and ram on the gas for whatever reason and hit the garage and demolish my car. I mean demolish. I am going to have to get a whole new bumper, quarter panel, there is going to be body work involved, etc. I just stood in my driveway and cried. 2 seconds of stupidity for thousands of dollars in damage. That’s not even counting the fact that I messed up the garage door. So, the lady I carpool with pulled up and I’m like I don’t know what to do and she’s like put it back in the garage. So, I did and I got in the car with her. I couldn’t even close the garage door. Sigh. I am so sad. We soooo don’t have the money for that right now. I was supposed to take a trip to visit friends this weekend, but now I wonder if I can justify the money it’ll cost in gas and food? Gary is taking my car to the body shop right now and getting a rental car. I am so furious at myself. Our deductible is high and I’m sure our insurance will go up a good bit. This is the last thing we need at 6 months pregnant with a ton of home renovations going on. Okay I think I need to go to the bathroom at work and cry again.

We had quite the snowy weekend here in Cleveland bloggy friends. We got nearly a foot of snow over Sat & Sun. I am not a big fan of winter, but I can appreciate a large snowstorm on the weekend. It’s the perfect excuse to lounge around and be lazy and snuggle! Despite the weather, I still had a very productive, fun weekend.

On Friday night Gary and I decided to stay in and we watched a movie – The Savages. I wasn’t a big fan. I love Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman can do no wrong in my eyes. But I found the movie just draggy and depressing. Sat morning I woke up to the ridiculous amount of white stuff and it snowed all day with no sign of stopping. I got up early and cleaned the house, then I let the dogs out into the yard to play in the snow. They had a grand old time. Mushi loves the snow despite having a very thin coat and this was Fonzi’s first encounter and he was just hopping around like a monkey and eating it. They had a good time. Once they were worn out Gary and I ventured out into the snowstorm to run some errands, including a trip to Marcs. Going to Marcs is always an adventure. For those of you who don’t live here, it’s a discount grocery store. We are making attempts to cut back on money to prep for the arrival of our daughter and not spending $140 every time we go grocery shopping is high on that list. Despite the ugly weather Marcs was still packed, but we managed to walk out of there with a week’s worth of groceries for under $100, which never happens at Heinens or Giant Eagle. We still buy our meat elsewhere though. I don’t trust Marcs that much. After that, our neighbor Renata called and invited the dogs over to play with hers! We are still trying to keep Fonzi socialized as much as we can as he doesn’t do great with strange people and dogs. So, we took Mush and Fonz over to their house to play with their husky and old shepherd Peanut, who mostly growled the whole time. Fonzi was scared to death of Frank, their big husky, but after about 15 mins, he was doing better and would run after Mushi and Frank, but as soon as Frank headed back towards him, he was right behind me, tail between his legs! Poor pup, he’s such a chicken. They dogs were thoroughly worn out after their playdate. So, I didn’t have to feel bad when we left them to go over to Salty’s for dinner. Salty and her hubby MRP have a beautiful little son and G and I went over to see him and have some dinner. We had a nice time and being around babies just means so much more to me right now. He is such a looker that little Peanut! Since we had a dinner date with parents of an infant, I was snug in bed by 10:00! Yeah! I swear I need about 12 hours of sleep anymore.

Sunday morning I was up by 9 but laid in bed with Gary and the dogs until after 10! From there I got a good workout in, as once again I am starting over this week and I will get in 5 workouts! If it kills me! Then I headed off to book club, we met at Bar Louie. Our book this past month was “3 Cups of Tea” which I admit I didn’t finish. That’s the first time since I started my book club. I was too busy reading baby books and I didn’t really like it. Next month’s book is “Assassination Vacation”. From there I rushed home and Sara and I went to the art museum and saw a traveling exhibit on early 1900s excess – “ Artistic Luxury - Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique”. Which was really nice, I liked it more than I thought I would. It was a few rooms of just amazingly decadent personal items like jewelry, hair clips, cigarette cases, vases and of course Faberge eggs. It was hella crowded though and I was walking around in my heavy snow boots. Sara and I went to Starbucks afterwards and I tried one of their new creations which was some sort of berry tea/chai juice drink. It was awesome. When I got home I was absolutely spent. I don’t know if I am getting sick or I just did too much. Every muscle ached, I was sleepy, but couldn’t sleep and I just felt overly tired for doing so little. So I was in bed at like 7 and just watched junk tv the rest of the day. Thank goodness for VH1 Celebriality.

This week looks to be very busy as well. I am going to be meeting a new bloggy friend on Tuesday (Running Duff), I am going to try and get to spin class one night after work. And this weekend I am heading to Cinti and Bloomington if the weather holds up. Should be fun.

I'm not being a very good blogger lately! I just feel like I am repeating myself. I am tired, I am not working out, I am eating too much, I can't sleep, wahahaha. What else is new in our world? Well we of course found out it's a little girl. I have made it to 25 weeks with about that many lbs. My only real issue right now is that I can't fall back asleep once woken up, which last night was 3 times by Mr. Fonzie. His wake up choice is a cold nose to the ear or forehead. What ever he can get to. Quite startling at 12:30, 3:30 and 5;40. Fonzi waking me up to go out wouldn't be so bad if I could fall back asleep, but I just can't. I don't know that it's pregnancy related, but I never had an issue dozing back off before. Last night was extra special brutal. Fonzie has for the most part cut his nightly potties down to one time around 3. He is 4 months old now. We were gating him in our kitchen, but last night he figured out that he is big enough to jump over. So, now we are without a way to contain him (he freaks out in a crate). Surprisingly out of the 4 days he's been loose in the house, 2 of those he didn't touch a thing and didn't potty in the house and 2 of those he pottied on an area rug and checked through an extension cord. So, he's either bad or an angel. Mushi is a little worse for the wear as the Vampire puppy is constantly attached to his neck tugging and providing Mush with numerous cuts and scrapes, poor old guy.

House renovations are moving along thanks to my lovely husband. He is 95% done with finishing our basement. We now have both of our bikes, the bike trainer, a weight bench and full set of weights, a futon, a desk and a tv with Xbox 360 down there. He just needs to finish painting the area coming up the stairs and put down some sort of baseboard. Next up is our downstairs office which will be a guest room, I've already painted the woodwork, he now needs to do the ceiling and walls. Once that room is finished, I think I will feel much better. Pregnancy is making me so anxious to get everything done. I need a place for people to stay once this baby gets here and for the showers coming up in Feb & March.

This weekend should be fun. Sat Sara and I are going to the art musuem to check out a special exhibit of Tiffany and Fabrigheioncieso (I have no idea how to spell it) eggs. That night G and I are going over to a friends for pizza and to play with their new baby. Sunday I have bookclub and a run. Fun, fun. Now I need a nap.

I had a follow up ultrasound today and it looks like we will be having a little girl. Yeah! She showed the goods this time. 24 weeks, 3 days and counting.

I started the new year off right – with a 6 mile run with Sara! Goooo me. I haven’t run much at all lately, and honestly didn’t think I could manage 6 miles. But the stars aligned. Nice sunny cold day, clear roads, and enough sleep and I made it through without much discomfort. I was certainly feeling the lower belly heaviness that makes it uncomfortable to run, but it got better about 2 miles in. We kept an easy pace and didn’t push it. I felt pretty good the 3 we ran out to the Polo Fields (started at south Chagrin Miles parking lot) but was worried I would run out of energy and have a hard time getting back. But I felt pretty good the entire time. One potty break at the polo fields and one short walk break for a cramp, and that was it.

When I got home hubby was in a freak thorough house cleaning mood, so I left him alone as he sorted cabinets and dusted things that haven’t been dusted in years. I decided that I wanted to get moving on some of the home renovations, so I taped and painted the baseboards in our office, that will soon be our guest room. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be painting. But if you google it, most agree that you can paint with latex paint in a venilated room. I was just doing the baseboards and it didn’t smell too strong. I decided to wait a day to do the second coat so the smell would die down. I probably won’t mess with painting the walls and ceiling, but I figured I could do a little bit to help. Unfortunately after the long run and the crouching to tape/paint, I was left with a horrible back ache and crawled into bed at 7 not to get out for the rest of the evening.

Today I will finish the painting and maybe do a little exercise, the paining might just have to be it as I am still pretty achy.