Renewed Passion

I love cooking. If I had it my way, I would stay home raising my son, crocheting/knitting, and cooking. Since I don't have it my way yet, I improvise. Crocheting/knitting is basically neglected (although I did make myself a hat yesterday). Cooking is something I can't totally neglect. Besides, we do need to eat. With all the breastfeeding and pumping I do, food is very important to me. I'm starving all the time.

In order to have a home cooked meal everyday without killing myself every night at 7 pm, I try making a big meal on Sundays that will last me pretty much the whole week. Now, I can't make any sloppy thing. Remember, we'll be eating this basically every night. So, I've become creative.

Last week, I made a cheeseburger mac & cheese from scratch that was just delightful and a vegetable soup that was very savory. We spent all week eating it. On Friday night (I was home sick), I made a chicken fricassee (Cuban style) that was to die for. We'll probably have this dish again on Monday night. We're going to a wedding today, which will hamper my cooking (but well worth it).

I've been getting great recipes off of the Food Network. While I nurse the baby, I put the Food Network on and get great ideas. Besides the recipes, watching the shows on there just opens up my mind about cooking. I never realized how easy cooking is. There are so many ways of making a good home cooked meal that are just simple.

Now what I do is experiment. For example, every time I've made mac & cheese, I've changed the recipe up a bit. I've made it plain, with bacon, with beef, and I plan to make it provencal style. It doesn't matter which style I make it because they're all good. Cooking could become boring if you cook the same foods all the time.

So when you're running out of ideas, hit the Food Network. You'll end up cooking something very yummy!

Great Pump Story

As you all know, I breastfeed Will. When I am at work, I have to pump. There are three places I pump at. I go into the conference room. This is by far the best place to pump at because it's private and I get to look out at Times Square. The second place I pump at is in the executive bathroom. I'm allowed twice a day to go in there (I need a key). The bathroom is great because it is also private. The third place I could pump in is the public bathroom at work. I hate it. It's my last resort.

I'll tell you why I hate it. There isn't a lounge area where I could sit and comfortably pump. I have to go into the stall. I end up sitting on top of the toilet with very little room for my equipment. I have to use the battery powered plug, which uses eight batteries. Last but not least, there's no privacy. As you can imagine, not an ideal relaxing spot.

Since my pump is electric, it obviously makes noise. I've gotten "What is that noise?" to "Someone must be playing video games." None of those take the cake like what happened the other day. The stall that I went into doesn't lock, which isn't a big deal in this bathroom because you could see if someone's in a stall or not. I normally choose this stall because the toilet is not automatic and I don't have to deal with the toilet constantly flushing.

I'm pumping away and I'm almost done. The bathroom was relatively quiet for the exception of only a few women coming in and out. The last woman that was in the bathroom before I was done managed to ruin what was almost an entirely relaxing pumping experience. This woman pushes my door open. I have the pump on a shelf that comes down (so that you could place your purse on). That's the only thing that kept the door from opening wide. She almost knocked over my very expensive pump (I didn't pay for it because it was given to me, but I know how much it cost). Now mind you, I'm attached to this pump.

As I grab on to the pump to stop it from falling, she realizes that I'm there. She apologizes profusely. She had been in the bathroom and heard a "noise" that she wanted to investigate. Investigate???? How about asking if everything is ok instead of trying to open the freakin door? I very rudely told her that the noise was my breast pump.

Of course now I'm pissed off and had to stop pumping (can't pump mad milk). Can you imagine just opening the stall to investigate a noise? What is wrong with people? At what point did this woman think it was a good idea to do this? Why didn't she look under to see my feet? Even if she didn't decide to look under (which I guess she didn't), the door was closed. These doors stay open unless there's someone in there.

People always seem to amaze me.

Quick Post

Here's my little guy!! I've been meaning to post some pics of him, but you know how free my time really is. There's been so much I've wanted to post about, but I just don't have the time. This post can't be long because I have to jump in the shower. On days that I have to wash my hair, I need extra time. My hair is very thick and takes forever to dry.

William is doing wonderful. He's a very yummy, happy little baby. He smiles and laughs often. He's great! I'm so blessed to have him in my life. I just want to squeeze him!!!! We have loads of fun together. Can you believe he's already 4 1/2 months old? He's growing so fast. I feel that there isn't enough time in the day to enjoy him.

I'll leave you with this last picture:

It's bath time at the Diaz's household. We just bought him this bathtub. Previously, we had been bathing him on a sponge shaped like a bear, but he outgrew it. He was so cute in here. When I first sat him down, he looked at me and cried out. Ten seconds later he calmed down, shoved his fist in his mouth, and enjoyed his bath.

Well, got to go! Talk to you later.

Two Days in a Row?

Since the weather is going to be awful tomorrow morning and I have no choice but to go to work, the baby is staying over my parents' place tonight. I hate it! I miss him so much already. I do admit, it's better taking him over there tonight instead of tomorrow morning with possibly 8 inches of snow on the ground. I will also allow me to sleep in later.

Anyway, I made it to the gym!! I didn't get to go today, but I went yesterday. My workout was awesome. The gym has new elliptical and treadmills that are great. I worked out for an hour and felt invigorated. There has to be a way that I could go throughout the week.

Well, I'm keeping this update short because I can't keep my eyes open. I going to take advantage of being able to sleep a little bit longer.

Talk to you soon!!

Hello!!!

Wow! Time is flying! I finished nursing the baby about twenty minutes ago, made coffee, spilled the coffee, paid some bills, and pumped. I was successful in putting the baby in the crib without him being asleep and him not complaining about it. I love it!! Daddy is still sleeping and so is the dog.

My goal this morning is to drop off the dog at the groomers and make it to the gym. Will it happen before 10 am? Why 10? Well, that's Will's next feeding. I'll probably be able to drop off the dog, come back home, nurse Will, pump, and then go to the gym.

So if my morning already seems hectic, why am I blogging? I need to! I've been trying to blog since the new year started and I just don't get to. I promised myself that once the new year starts that I would start doing activities that I did before the baby. Now of course, everything will have to be in moderation, but I need to do so.

The main one is exercising. Although I've been extremely lucky with my post-baby body, I need to get back into working out. I crave it. If my gym would open earlier than 6 am, I would go throughout the week. It's too late for me otherwise. I'm going to start off with the weekends and see if I could squeeze a workout during the week. We'll see.

The second thing I want to get back to is crocheting and knitting. This one is still tricky because we're not done settling into our apartment. But there are all these wonderful things I want to make and I need to soon.

The third thing I want to get into (and this is new) is baking. I've been messing around with different types of recipes trying to create something that will be a hit. I'm thinking of starting a little side business selling my baked goods. This one won't happen right away, but I'm hoping within the year I could get it up and running.

Since this post is sounding like a New Year's resolution, I want to say that this year I want to be more proactive with my life. I've already have made some changes within myself that seem minor to some, but are a big deal.

One thing is if I have a nagging feeling about something, I follow through. There have been many times in the past that I'll do something or something comes up where I that feeling creeps up and I just ignore it. Of course it always comes back to bite me in the ass. So no more on ignoring my feelings.

Part of being proactive is keeping up with lingering bills. For example, my student loans. I have to start paying some of them soon. So, I have to remind myself to do so. This may sound stupid to some, but I tend to forget (not on purpose either). By the way, I'm practicing what I'm preaching. I just went to the Sallie Mae site to check on my loan status. I'm still not in repayment. So, I'm good.

Another thing I want to work on is worrying less. I tend to worry about everything. I get this from my mother who worries about the most insignificant things in the world. I've always had that type of anxiety creeping up in me and I want to nip it in the butt. This anxiety has been most prevalent since the baby arrived. I now worry about things I can't control. For example, I worry about children not being taken care of correctly. I can't do this to myself. It's just not healthy.

Well, there you have it. Of course there's always more I want to chat about, but as you know my time is limited. The baby just woke up. Talk to you later!