Sigh....

Another one of my very close friends left the island this morning for good.
=(
I'm bummed.
ugh... the navy life.

sooo sleepy

I haven't been able to update any of my blogs lately... Saturday my friends threw me a baby shower!! It was sooo awesome. THEY are sooo awesome. It was kind of weird for me, because I've never had a party thrown for me as an adult, so I kind of kept forgetting the party was for me LOL. I kept finding myself in the kitchen, and my friends would give me looks like, "What are you doing? Go to the living room!" haha. I hope no one was offended, I didn't do it on purpose. =) I will post pics later. I loved everything I got for the baby. I'm so grateful for my good friends I have here. I don't know what I would do without all of them.

So, why am I sleepy? Well, for the past week I've been dealing with Carlee's weird sleep patterns that showed up out of nowhere! Seriously, is there a reason to get up at 3 AM and NOT go back to sleep for the rest of the day!!!???!!! I'm not kidding. I'm 30 weeks preggers and dealing with this. I'd like to enjoy my sleep for the last few weeks I have it, Carlee, thank you. One night when Tony had duty, I fought to get her to sleep for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night, and finally decided to just let her cry it out, and went to bed. Well, she came in to my room and crawled into bed. I was too tired to even say anything... my biggest mistake. Well, I did tell her that when Daddy was home, she would not be able to do that, but she knew better.... LOL The next night, (when Tony was home) she did it again. Came into our room around 1 AM, went straight to my bed and started feeling for my face (since it's so dark in there, heh). "Can I help you?" I asked.

"yeah, you can help me. Pick me up." I had to laugh... little smart butt. We let her into bed. It's a battle for me, because I naturally parent with attachment parenting. I did it even before I knew what it was, just by following my instincts. But now, my brain is telling me that she's going to start taking advantage of it, and I don't need to deal with bad habits after the baby gets here. Anyway, she wanted to sleep on the edge, so I was forced to the middle, which is horrible for someone who can't sleep in their current state if it's higher than 71 degrees. It was so hot between the both of them... ugh. I couldn't move, my back was killing me. After laying there for a few hours, I finally had enough and told Tony to take her to her bed. Just as he was laying her down, she said, "What are you doing with me?" AHHH!!!! She ended up back in our bed.

Last night, I told her she had to sleep in her bed. It took me a while to get her to sleep the first time. As I left her room, I put the baby gate up in the doorframe. Yeah, she was not happy about that at 2 AM this morning, let me tell you. LOL I took her to the bathroom, then back to her room to try to get her back to sleep for over an hour. I didn't want her crying loudly since Tony had to work this morning. After that hour, I gave up. I was exhausted. I left the room, and of course she got out of bed, opened the door and screamed and cried and was pissed. I kept hearing her open and close the door, say Mom!!! (she's been calling me that lately,) turn the light on and eventually quiet down. Turns out she passed out with the light on the rest of the morning lol. sigh.... I don't know.....

I hope this weird phase passes soon. She used to be such a good sleeper. We'll be doing the baby gate again tonight. I hope she gets the point.

I am so JEALOUS!

Go take a look at this room my friend put together for her baby girl.
It's completely awesome.
I'm so jealous.
Emy, maybe I will be able to convince Tony to go to Virginia, then you can come help me do my baby's room. :D

Update

I have a ton of pictures to go through for the 365 project... LOL it's not going to happen right now.

Carlee caught another viral infection and started showing signs of it on Sunday. She's feeling better now as long as she's on tylenol.

Been busy the past week with MOMS Club stuff, taking Carlee to parties, and whatnot (not knowing she was carrying that yucky sore throat bug.)

Last Tuesday I went in to the college office to talk about my credits. The one guy who would know anything was out of town until yesterday. So, I have to wait for him to take a look at it and email me...

Pregnancy is still going good. This child is always kicking me. LOL I go to bed, I'm getting kicked, I wake up and I'm getting kicked, I'm cleaning/eating/walking/sitting/etc/etc/etc and I'm getting kicked! little booger. :)

We found out yesterday that a mutual friend from highschool died over the weekend. I saw him last about a year and a half ago. He was only 25. He had just gotten married 2 months ago. :( My heart broke for his wife when I found out. I can't imagine. Just makes you realize it could happen any day. I'm so grateful for everything I'm blessed with.

Friends + Food = A Good Time

Today, we went to a BBQ at an Italian friend's farm in Niscemi. It was so nice to be out, although it could have been a bit more sunny. The clouds were making it a bit chilly all day. We had great food, the vegans in the group (there's 5 of us now!) had grilled boca burgers on Italian bread, with lettuce, tomatoes, onions, and all the fixings. I made a yummy potato salad that everyone loved. I was so happy with how it came out. There was also chips, bean dip, and an awesome homemade salsa, and a noodle salad that was so delicious. Grilled artichokes made an appearance (they're farmed right there!) and grilled corn on the cob as well. We enjoyed all the company, and watching all of our kids play with the Italian kids was priceless. Carlee made a new best friend that she didn't want to leave. :)

I would love to have a farm like that, but even having something small that would sustain our family would be nice. They have artichokes, tomatoes, orange and lemon trees, fennel, squash, and honestly I don't know what else! Anyway, everyone had a blast. I hope we get to do it again soon. We're also planning on going to a nearby beach in a few weeks, to clean it up for Earth Day. I'm looking foward to that. Here is a pic from the guys' chicken fight today:

This was hilarious to watch. Tony and his partner won both times. In the picture, Tony is on the right on top fighting Carmello on the top left:

Bummed... and exhausted....

Last night I joined a bunch of girls for a girls night out (only 3 of them were personal friends.) It turned out to be a disaster. First, we couldn't find any dance clubs after walking around forever in Catania. Around 11:30 we finally decided to head to Deja Vu, a club in Motta which is actually a strip club during the week, but on the weekends it's just a dance club. (I swear it looked like Sopranos with all the Italians and the strip club atmosphere of the place LOL)

Well, after a while, it picked up, and the dance floor was packed. I didn't dance. I barely sipped away on my orange juice and vodka that my friend recommended. The music was the same over and over, they never varied from the Soulja boy type rap, which is fine for once in a while but not over and over the entire night. I did have fun people watching though.

I don't know what time it was when we finally decided to leave. It was at this point that for some reason (don't ask me what it was) the DD picked up two guys that needed a ride to base. Two wasted guys. Two wasted guys who thought they were the most original in pick up lines, and even though they were told repeatedly, they didn't understand the concept that the entire bus was full of women who were MARRIED. Well Drunk Dude #2 ended up passing out, so he wasn't much of an issue as the other guy.

Then on the way home, everyone (minus G and I) decided they wanted to eat at McDonald's even though we had decided to just go home. My friend G and I are adamantly opposed to McDonald's due to the whole vegan aspect, but also because of health reasons. McDonald's doesn't care about the trans fat they're pumping into your body as long as they make the $$. Anywho.... To top it off, McDonald's was back in Catania! The drive to and from there would add about 45 minutes to our drive! However, our opinion apparently didn't matter. So, when we got there, we stayed in the van and waited.

While we were waiting Drunk Dude #1 came back and continued to tell us how pretty we were and how he'd like to see us again. We reiterated the fact that we were married, and had no interest in him whatsoever. He continued to show us his ignorance and annoying drunkenness while we were silently hating this whole fiasco. Dude finally left after figuring out how annoyed we were. A few minutes later, one of the girls came back near tears, really mad at something Drunk Dude #1 had just said to her. She didn't even remember what he had said, but she had told him off for it.

Finally everyone filtered back into the van. Drunk #1 apologized for whatever he had done, and we headed home. Drunk #1 continue to act like an ass as he spit on the door, and threw his trash of the floor of the van we rented. So G told him to pick up his trash, and as he was standing up to open the window, she pushed his arm away from the window, and said, "The ground is not for you to throw your trash on. Where did you come from that you can just throw your garbage out the window!?!" (You go girl!) Dude sat back down muttering under his breath, while Dude #2 tried to keep his friend quiet. We finally pulled in front of Nas 1 where the driver (much to our relief) told the guys to get out. They were mad the driver wouldn't take them to Nas 2 even after the driver had originally told them Nas 1 in the very beginning. As we were driving off, Dude threw his cup at the van. All I could say was... wow. unbelievable.

I finally climbed into bed at 4 AM, and I had thought we'd be home at a decent hour since we all had kids! ha! I completely forgot about doing the last few steps I needed to do on my science lab (I needed the moon's and street light's light spectra,) and just passed out instead. So, this morning I woke up so exhausted, and still needed to finish up my school stuff, which I put off in order to go out last night. I had wanted to hurry and be done with it, so that we could try to go to an Italian farm with friends (something that had been planned for a few weeks.) Well, I finally got finished with everything at 7 pm (after barely failing my test, turning in my lab, and getting a C on my 4 page observation.) So, needless to say, we didn't get to go. During my test, G came by and brought some stuff from the Italian's farm: some freshly picked & grilled artichokes, fresh fennel, and lemons. OMG I so wish we could have gone!!! I'm so bummed!!! They had such a great time picking all the food and hanging around the farm. I'm so jealous. Oh well... even though my grades sucked this week, at least I got everything turned in.

Now, I need to immediately start on the next two chapters, get them done within the next few days, because on Friday those two chapters and my midterm are due.

I cannot wait to be done with these classes.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone! I'm blissfully happy with a full belly. We had such a great day today. We had a potluck Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of our friends here. Almost everything was vegan friendly! Are my friends awesome or what!?! It does help that one other family is vegan also. :)

"I brought the green bean casseroooooole!" (I always think of that old commercial, where all the ladies show up at the door singing that, haha.) I also took an Apple Cherry Crisp from Everyday Vegan cookbook. And for Tony's and my "meat-y" portion of the meal, I made Tofu Cutlets. All of my dishes came out so tasty! The green beans especially. They were awesome, better than any regular green bean casserole I've ever had, and trust me, that's always been one of my favorites, and I know it wasn't just me because everyone was saying how good they were. The tofu came out nice too, I was pleasantly surprised with it. It went along with the meal perfectly. There was also vegan stuffing, a potato dish, a corn dish (my friend says it's Pennsylvania Dutch style,) it was pretty good, vegan gravy, pumpkin, a cranberry dish, and a ginger carrot cake. Everything was so delicious!

I was so grateful at the effort everyone put in to make the meal vegan friendly. I'm so thankful for a ton of stuff: my wonderful husband, one of a kind daughter, awesome family, great friends, my freedom, my health, all the once in a life time opportunities I get here, and so much more. I could go on, but that would be a very long post. And my full belly is making me sleepy. :)

At the Kids' Table:

Our Awesome Friends:

Happy Thanksgiving!