Going Gray???

back in 2006, 1 week before the wedding, i went to van michaels to get the 'gray' hairs dyed out -that's right, all 4 of them. i had 4 strands of gray hair and KNEW that everyone was going to be so distracted by my 4 strands that they wouldn't be able to pay attention to the wedding. so, i did the rational thing, and paid a lot of money to have them dyed out. yes, the colorist laughed at me.

fast forward 2.5 years and i have like a million gray hairs. and THIS HAS JUST HAPPENED!!! so, it makes me wonder, do kids really cause your hair to go gray? my mother always said that i was giving her gray hair - could there be some truth to this??? i mean, ok, so a 5 year old throwing a tantrum is probably not going to cause the silver to come in, but is it possible that the hormones are causing this? it's really gotten out of hand in the past few months and i can't explain it...

so yeah, i'm almost 32 and this could be a cause, but seriously it's so bad that on sunday a friend went to pick something out of my hair, and then realized that it was a strand of gray - just an awkward moment for everyone...

so, now i can also thank the baby for all of the money that i'm going to have to spend on getting my hair colored. husband - are you reading this??? it's not my fault... it's baby's...

happy anniversary

so, today upon waking, I realized that January 18th had passed me by and was really sad. husband and i met on January 18th, 1997, so this year was our 12th anniversary of meeting each other...

i think that i was most saddened by the fact that i completely forgot. and it's not like i remembered a day or so late. i remembered today, february 4th. sure, we have lots of anniversaries now - 2 wedding anniversaries included, but we really don't celebrate anything. we usually go out to dinner for the wedding anniversaries, but we have basically stopped doing anything for each other on any other occassion - christmas, valentines day or any other holiday like that, so we really don't go overboard on anything. i guess i just liked celebrating that day in january because it's just a fun random day in our lives where our paths crossed for the first time.

and let's face it people. i'm pregnant and i get emotional about everything... that's probably what this is...

Do-Over

Dear Baby,

This morning I was scolded by your Aunt Erin. She told me that one day you'll be my 4th blog reader and you may not like what I had to say yesterday... she's probably right, and while I can't say that I didn't mean it (because I was feeling really crappy yesterday), I think I may be able to explain a few things...

First of all, husband and I are really excited about you. We talk about you every day and now I find myself touching my stomach all the time. Just a reflex really, since you're not very big yet (around the size of an apple), but nonetheless, I like knowing that you're there. And as much as I complained about feeling sick and being pukey, I think I'd rather have that than have no symptoms because at least I know you're still there everyday!

Here's the thing... people who have had children (and your Aunt Erin) get so unbelieveable excited when we share the news with them. They jump up and down, they cry, they scream - it's crazy for us - and we get really excited when we see those reactions because we know that means only great things are in store for us. People with children say that you can't comprehend loving some one so quickly, so immediately, so completely and so unconditionally. I guess husband and I are in that phase of not being able to comprehend it yet...

So Baby, I am excited, it's just that it doesn't really seem real yet and the only 'real' thing about being pregnant so far is being sick and pukey, which isn't that much fun. My mom keeps saying that I need to be happy during this time so that you'll come out a happy baby. I personally think that after making me so sick for this long, you should just come out happy because it's what I deserve, but I'll try and cheer up. I'm going to allow myself to be miserable and sick this week, but then I'm off to New Mexico for the weekend for a super fun wedding. And next week, I think things will be better. We're going to be looking for childcare for you as well as starting to clean out the spare bedroom (also known as your room). Maybe then you'll start to be a little more real to us...

I'll keep you updated - but seriously, if you could stop making me sick and stop getting so grossed out at every smell, things will be easier for me... thanks Baby...

Love, me

sick and tired...

so, since i only know of like 3 people who read my blog, i haven't really mentioned that i'm pregnant yet. mainly because the 3 of you already know, so i didn't think there would be much to mention. if anyone else does read this, you'll have to comment or email me sometime so i know to keep my news more timely.

so yeah, i'm almost 15 weeks and am still feeling like crap. the good news is that i started feeling a lot better last week. the bad news is that i got sick - like the cold and fever type - which has somehow made me start puking again and so i feel crappy again. i've heard that pregnant people get sick a lot which is really not fair. not only do i puke because of food, or bad smells, or thinking about things that gross me out, or because i have to go to the bathroom, but now i'm gonna get sick a lot? yeah, i know that husband has to deal with me, which hasn't been easy since i can't open the fridge or go into a grocery store because of the abundance of bad smelling items in either place, and so he's forced to do everything, but i think that's better than wanting to throw up all the time... he doesn't seem to think so, but you'll never hear about it since he apparently boycotts this site (and no, i don't count him as one of the three readers).

i've heard that feeling this way is actually quite good for baby, so that part makes me happy. and since i'm not really displaying other signs of being pregnant, i guess it's nice to know that something is going on inside of me...

anyway, here's a picture of baby at 12 weeks. we started out calling it an alien, but i've stopped in the past few weeks - i guess i'm not feeling as sick as i was in the beginning. i think the ultrasound is pretty cool since you can really make out baby - for those of you who can't, the top picture is the baby's face - the baby is laying on it's back, so it's a profile shot. the bottom picture is the whole baby - profile shot again, still on it's back.

i'm hoping that this cold passes soon so that i can start enjoying being pregnant. not sure how that's going to be, but anything has to be better than how i've been feeling... wish me luck!

My Apologies...

Dear Mr. Jobs,

First of all, I'm so sorry to hear about your health. I sincerely hope that these 5 months off from the day-to-day operations at Apple will allow you to get the appropriate care that you need to ensure a speedy recovery back to the daily grind of the company that we've all grown to love...

Which brings me to the point of my letter. Mr. Jobs, I doubted you. I doubted your judgment when you said that the iPhone would revolutionize the cell phone industry. I did not understand why you thought people would toss aside their perfectly good phones to spend $200-$300 on something new and "pretty". How dumb do you think we really are? I knew that your iPhone was WAY overrated and I wasn't buying your sales job.

Let's back up. I'm a Blackberry user. I love my Blackberry. I'm now on my 3rd model and was making plans to upgrade to another one. I love all of the synching capabilities, the plethora of applications that I can download for it, the web browser, the keyboard - I could go on forever about my love. That is, until Husband got an iPhone.

I put up a fight - "why do you need an iPhone, you have a FABULOUSLY new Blackberry" and "The iPhone is just hype, it's not that good" and "You're going to ABSOLUTELY HATE the onscreen keyboard"... This conversation had been going on for several weeks.

Well, Husband bought the iPhone on Monday and asked me to check it out for him. 3 hours later he had to pry it from my fingers. Mr. Jobs, I take back everything bad that I've ever said or thought about your phone - it DOES live up to the hype. It is NOT overrated. I was WRONG.

So, I wanted to share with you a few things in particular that I really love about it:

• Air Hockey (yup, that's right, it's a FREE game!!!)
• Remote (you can remotely control your i-tunes music from the phone - change songs, change playlists - it does it all!!!)
• Shazam (another FREE application - you can hear a song playing on the radio/tv/movie, hold the i-phone to it, and it will identify it for you - how cool is that?)
• Pandora (you guessed it, it's FREE and you can access this on the phone - I LOVE it!!!)
• All of the other applications - phone, calendar, email, etc.

After just 3 hours of playing with Husband's phone, it was love at first sight and now the iPhone is at the top of my wishlist. Again, thank you for making such a FABULOUS gadget that will waste plenty of time and adequately distract me from adding any real value anywhere.

I look forward to the next big thing that you and Apple have in store for us...

Best Regards, Nandita Keswani Koehler

P.S. If you'd like to send me a complimentary iPhone, I will continue to "sing" your praises to the 3 people that read my blog! I'd prefer the 16GB model! :)

Happy New Year!!! What???

How did that happen? What happened to Happy Thanksgiving??? Or Merry Christmas??? Where did the past 2 months go?

I think I seriously woke up on the 25th and thought "oh, crap, it's already Christmas. i'm totally unprepared..." There's really no excuse for this feeling - it does occur on the same day of the year every year, but nonetheless, I didn't see it coming this year.

We've been pretty consumed with moving (among other things). We spent most of November (early November) packing up the townhouse and then we officially moved in to the new house on November 21st. That was followed by Thanksgiving and a long weekend with the host family in Rochester, NY (coldest place on earth).

I think we were home for about 2 weeks in December before heading to Germany for Christmas. Great time - not terribly relaxing, although vacationing with Oliver never is... but it's always great to hang out with the family and see Oliver's friends who we don't get to hang out with enough.

We came back home on the 29th, spent a relaxing New Year's Eve with our friends Duane and Tracie, and have been getting settled (again) in the house for the past few days.

We're in the market for a big screen TV and a washing machine, so if you have any advice on either, we'd love to hear it... the internet is fantastic until you start finding all sorts of conflicting advice!

Hope you all had a great holiday and we wish you a great 2009! We have a feeling that there are great things in store for us! :)

Week in Review

so, it's been a while since i've written anything. what can i say, life has been crazy! the two big things going on in my life right now are running and buying a house.

1. running - first, i've only run a total of 3 times in the past few weeks, but when i'm not running (which is most of the time), i'm thinking about running - er, i'm thinking about how to get out of running. i didn't run at all this weekend - not 1 time. not good considering i'm supposed to run a 5k next saturday. i did run 3 miles last sunday and it was fine - i pushed through it, but it took me forever. i'm the slowest runner on the planet.

the other issue with running is that i need better music. i love disturbia, forever, and stronger, but they can only keep me going for so long - so definitely let me know if you've got some suggestions.

2. buying a house - so, we've been house hunting since march, put offers on 3 houses, and we've FINALLY gotten one! it's good that we didn't get the first two though, because we definitely like this one the most. we went under contract on tuesday and close on november 12th - SUPER fast! but we really can't wait. the biggest thing that we have to do now is rent our townhouse - so let me know if you can think of any takers!

other than that, we're just enjoying the weather... :) hope everyone had a happy halloween - i boycotted it this year (i hate dressing up) and voted instead!