Goodbye For Now

It's been such a long time since I last posted. And the funny thing is, I have no clue where the time has gone.

I've been working hard, teaching three classes this session (Cooking, Creative Writing and Codes, Puzzles and Word Games). But now work is over. This week is the mid-winter break for Easthampton Public Schools, but it's also the beginning of what we can call my maternity leave. Because our program sessions run approximately 8 weeks each, the next (beginning next week) runs into mid-April, which Andy and I thought came a little too close to my due date (May 2). So I opted not to teach this session, aside from substitute work in the after school program (which comes in handy, since I already know I'm working 3 days next week. So even though my "break" has started, it's really doesn't feel like it).

I've also been busy with baby stuff. I still have other interests, I haven't lost my sense of self or my identity (always a fear, I think, for a modern-woman-turned-mama...or at least for me) but I have definitely devoted a lot of my time and energy into reading up on all things baby. But, you know, when you have a living thing inside you, kicking you and reminding you it's there 24/7, it's hard not to be obsessed.

We are still gradually working on our home. Now that we've been living in this house for nearly eight months, we do truly feel like it's home.

Day by day new things are being set up or arranged, everything we can do to make this our home. I suddenly understand how my grandparents' house never really changed. The placement of each piece of furniture or candy dish seemed like it had been there forever (probably had) and would outlive us all (which they all did, for the most part).

As someone who lived in a variety of places growing up, as well as moving between divorced parents' homes, I feel now the amazing comfort in simply setting up my belongings and knowing that I will not have to move them anytime soon. It does make me wonder if you were to fast forward 50 years into the future, would the house would look completely the same with the exception of Andy and I looking 50 years older? While I can see that being depressing to some, it doesn't bother me in the least. The worrywart side of me likes the stability that image implies.

Anyway.

Because I have a hunch that in coming months life will start to become all-things-baby, and because I feel there's a natural line being drawn in our lives, no matter how resistant we might be toward it (life before baby and life after baby), I have decided to retire this blog and move the party over to my newer blog -
Western Mass Mama.

The new blog, as the title indicates, is a bit more baby/family-oriented. I also started it not so much as a personal "all about me" blog (like this one has been) but more of a resource for parents in our area.

When I started looking for information on prenatal yoga in the Western Massachusetts area, I could find very little info. The same goes for other parent or child-related things. So that's the mission of the new blog - provide some resources for parents in the area.

The blog is also pretty new, so now that I'm on leave and moving forward in my pregnancy, I hope to devote a little more time to it and flesh out some ideas. I hope you will check it out, even if you don't live in the area (and aren't a parent).

So, here we are.

It's been a long run.
A fun run, since my first ever blog post - my outrage over "Veronica Mars" being canceled, to my summer of training for the NYC Teaching Fellows to the first of many accounts of our 8 months living in Prague and traveling around Europe, from 2008-2009; and finally, to our moving back to the US and buying a house (and the decorating that followed), and of course, to finding out we were expecting a baby.

Thank you for dropping by, and I hope to see you soon!

Allyn (Western Mass Mama)

Before & After: Master Bedroom

I'm finally ready to unveil Step 1 of our Master Bedroom Redo!

The redecorating of our master bedroom was no small feat... if anyone remembers, the previous owners had some very eclectic taste which they exhibited masterfully in the master bedroom.

The room was a mix of sponged-on mustard yellow walls and large vertical stripes of red and green fabric separated by gold ribbon a la Christmas wrapping. Hm. Interesting.

What we did: We used Stone 2 by Laura Ashely (from Lowe's) on the walls. I saw the color on a design blog, where it was used in a nursery and I loved it. It's surprising, because it's a pretty neutral color for me (I'm generally a bit more dramatic and bold) but it was so soft and pretty and completely unlike the look of the room that we wanted desperately to undo.

The paint is a kind of pinky-taupe that I think looks amazing with our bed (which I've had dreams of for years and we finally got from Humble Abode). I realize most of these after pictures are bed-centric... but we don't have other furniture, aside from a dresser, and it's not a huge room so the bed really is the focal point.

We have so much more to do to bring the whole room together (Step 2) - curtains, pictures of walls...but for now this is what we've got!

Before Pictures









After Pictures

Babies & Movies. And Stuff.

Hey! A great friend of mine has started a blog. You should go on over and check it out - the dad scene.

My friend is the first-time father of an (adorable) 11-month old boy AND a self-proclaimed pop culture nerd. Because I kind of am, too, we've never run out of things to talk about, and he's like my TV show soul mate. But he's got other things going for him, too. Check it out!

American Life Today

American Life Today is an awesome website! Go there right away! But read this first!

I can't remember if I'd posted anything about the site in the past, but I discovered it a while back and sent in my info, never thinking I'd actually show up on it. But I DID! TODAY!

Go to American Life Today and read about me (you know you'll jump at any chance to get more), and the woman behind the site. It's very cool, and not just because I'm the interview for today!

Yea!!

Healthy Living, Budget Living

Before we get to the healthy living and budget living portion in this post, you need some background.

In case you didn't know...

Back in July we up and left the United States and took a long vacation to the Czech Republic. We then returned to the U.S. this past February with no home and no jobs, and big dreams of relocating to, and buying a house in, Western Massachusetts (Northampton or Amherst or somewhere in the area).

Needless to say, things have been crazy.

We left our old lives to start new ones. This is crazy. This is exciting. Sad. Fun.
Scary as sh*t.

To add to this mish-mash of emotions, we also know that we want to start a family.

Ha! That's right! For those of you who thought we'd get knocked up as soon as we were married, we surprised you, didn't we? We've gone almost eleven years (with the dating and all) of being baby-free, but now we are looking to go there.

Because we want to procreate we know we have to get healthy.
This has been an ongoing theme in our lives (and most others, I'd think). Lose weight, get healthy. Not smoking. You know.

So, we're not smoking. For exercise I'm using the workout room downstairs in our building since it's free and no one is ever in there. (And there's a big TV. Nice.)

Because we are living on only one income right now (more on that later), and times are tough for everyone, we are on a budget. I'm hoping that some kind of "back to basics" food life will help our weight as well as our wallet. This goes along with my whole anti-preservative and chemically-laden, pro-whole foods talk back when we got to Prague (and I did lose weight while there, despite eating baked goods and butter).

So, I find myself channeling my inner Donna Reed right now as I search for good deals in grocery stores and cook things myself instead eating lots of frozen or packaged processed foods (to a degree - I'm not psychotic and am still using bottled and canned things as components in my homemade meals).

I'm feeling my inner Donna Reed today, that I'm about to make a spreadsheet for my own personal use to compare prices of items at different stores.
Don't laugh.
I've been saving my receipts from Stop & Shop, Target, Trader Joe's, Walmart and Guido's (a market here in Pittsfield) and am totally gonna save money by studying where to go for what. It's research! It's fun!
Don't laugh.

Anyway, I'll let you know how our healthy living and budget living attempts go.

In the meantime, here's some links and suggestions that I've found entertaining and/or helpful.

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver I've never read anything by her, but heard about this book and was intrigued. Considering that locavores are alive and kicking in Western Mass, this book about the author and her family living for a year off only what is grown on their land and neighborhood (resulting in each meal costing only 50 cents for a family of four), seemed like it would be an interesting read and good for my own healthy, budgeted living.

A Year of Crockpotting This is a great blog with great recipes for the crockpot. I love my slow cooker (it's the same thing, in case you weren't sure. Crock Pot is just the brand name. It's like Kleenex or Bandaid). No matter what I put in there, it always ends up good. And there's always enough for leftovers.

Great Depression Cooking with Clara
If you don't know about Clara, you must watch this now.
She's great, her recipes are simple and cheap and look very tasty, and her stories are wonderful. I love Clara!


Finally, for the celebrity gossip-loving a-hole that I am (and you know you are, too!), enjoy this site:

Celebrity Body Gossip
I know one of the writers and she's snarky, witty and great. And what better way to spend my time not working out or being healthy, by reading about (and judging) celebrity body issues ? You know you love it.

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to the new address! See, I told you everything looked the same. It's safe here, don't be scared!

Please add yourself as a follower, or subscribe in the feed thingy.


Welcome!

Who Am I??

Because I have so much time on my hands lately, and because it's cold out, I have found myself reading about blog writing.

You know, you find some websites that say, "Do you want to write for a living? Earn money writing your blog!"

Hey, I think. That sounds great. I mean, who wouldn't want to write for money? I want that. Or just know that someone other than my mom reads about my thoughts and daily adventures?

So, because I want to make easy money, I read on. A big step in all this is promoting your blog - getting it hooked up to sites so that it will come up when people, like me, are looking to be entertained by some stranger's goings-on and such.

So, in my signing up for these sites, I find myself faced with a problem.

My dilemma: I don't have a proper name for my blog.

It's hard to find one because I don't have an angle. I don't write focused on food or travel or crafts or parenting. It's just me.

I started writing the blog to entertain myself and any bored friends. When we came to Europe it seemed an easy way for friends and family to keep in touch and know what's going on with me. That's all fine and good, but...a name?

I'm really bad at trying to think of things like this. Like my handwriting, or my blog background, I choose something great, for a while, but soon want to change it. This probably means that I'm manic or psychotic in some way. Whatever.

I asked Andy for help and he was useless. Thanks, Andy. For nothing.

In my search for a blog name, I used a random word generator online. It made me think of when I was in high school and we were trying to think of names for our band (that never really happened), pairing random words together like (examples, not real) "Citizen Shitball", or "Angry Tampons" (grrrl band?).

Regardless, here's some words it generated, and why they didn't work for me:
Bigotry - duh
Stick - this just doesn't feel like it represents me in any way. I don't really do nature, nor am I really skinny
Utterly - makes me think of cows
Con - I am not a con-man
Oddly - I don't think I can live up to this, I'm not *quirky* enough
Naturally - this sounds like some nudist or "not so fresh" thing
Cowbell - I think of one thing only - "More Cowbell!" And I'm not Christopher Walken
Frankincense - Christmas blog? I am not a wise man

I found some words that were good, though. I'll think about it and should be naming this blog soon. Don't be scared when it doesn't just say "allyn allyn allyn" anymore.

I'm not funny

I don't try to be funny in my blog. But there are some people out there who are damn funny. Two blogs that are examples of this are Plastic Brain Train which is actually a retired blog of my friend, but has a lot of great and hilarious stuff on it, and the other is a friend of a friend's, Jen's Extraordinary Life and Beyond. Jen's blog is linked from another friend's blog, and that's how I found it, etc. etc. The whole blog world thing, I guess. Whatever. Anyway, on her blog I saw her list of 100 Interesting Things about her, and I was inspired. I totally stole the idea, but hers is much better and funnier. I just realized I like lists and didn't think I could even write 100 interesting things about myself... and while they may not be the most profound or amazing facts, I did come up with 101. So, here they are.

101 terribly exciting facts about me
1. I was born in Anderson, Indiana
2. I used to lick hot sauce off of tortilla chips when I was less than two years old
3. I was bald until I was like 2 or 3 years old
4. My eyes were blue before they turned green
5. I tweezed my eyebrows too much when I was in junior high school
6. Now I am forced to use eyebrow pencil, lest I be almost bald-faced chickie
7. I hated reading before I discovered The Baby-Sitter’s Club series when I was in fourth grade
8. My best memory of elementary school is my awesome 4th/5th grade teacher Liz Saplin playing guitar on Friday afternoons while sang along
9. My #1 favorite song from those Friday afternoons was “Harold and the purple crayon”
10. #2 favorite song was “Christopher Robin” (You know, the Winnie the Pooh song)
11. My oldest friend is Erika O’Rourke (kindergarten at PS 58!!)
12. My parents got divorced when I was 18 months old
13. I lived with my grandmother and grandfather in Indiana when I was 4, while my mother went to find a job and a place for us to live in NY
14. I moved to Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn, when I was 5 years old
15. The day I got to Brooklyn I had my first egg cream
16. I moved to Battery Park City in lower Manhattan when I was 10
17. My mother married my stepfather when I was 11.
18. I bullied a classmate when I was in 6th grade, making her jump up and down for tic-tacs and called her “Rat”
19. I’ve had the chicken pox AND scarlet fever
20. I was bullied by 2 ex-friends when I was in fifth grade
21. I played cello and violin in elementary school
22. And took piano lessons
23. I have such vivid, crazy dreams that I wake up crying at least once a month
24. I love sauce
25. I cut school a lot during my freshman and sophomore years in high school
26. Being forgotten is a huge fear of mine
27. I went to three high schools before finally graduating
28. Before graduating, I dropped out of high school for almost a year
29. I went to two colleges, Beloit and Hunter, before finally graduating from Hunter
30. I worked full time through three years of college
31. When I was a kid I was torn between being an artist, fashion designer or model.
32. My mother tried to get me into commercials when I was a kid, and they would have taken me but she asked me how I felt about it and I said I didn’t want to do it. So much for my acting career!
33. My brother Mark is 13 years younger than me
34. Every time I went back to Indiana with my father he’d drive around Indianapolis and make sure I knew which grocery store David Letterman bagged groceries, and where Kurt Vonnegut went to high school
35. I love Christmas
36. I’m Dutch, German, English and Irish
37. I married a Czech
38. I took his name, Spacek
39. I didn’t change it to Spackova, which it would be if I was Czech
40. This caused major issues when proving our marriage in the Czech Republic
41. I have 3 step-sisters
42. I met my husband working in the restaurant Harry’s at Hanover Square
43. This restaurant was where Patrick Bateman goes in American Psycho
44. I broke my ankle by slipping on ice
45. I broke it so bad my foot looked like it was hanging off my leg
46. I had surgery where they put in metal pins and plates
47. I worked in a medical call center for several years and would like to write a humorous novel about it
48. I am halfway done with my Master’s Degree
49. I was a NYC teaching fellow for a year
50. I like kids
51. I want to have a baby
52. I have baby names picked out for 6 kids
53. I pass out easily
54. I passed on in New Orleans while on a vampire tour
55. I like traveling to the South
56. I love to read
57. I majored in cross-cultural literature in college
58. I enjoy African-American and Cuban-American writing
59. I love reading about East-Asian culture
60. I grew up going to clubs where my mom sang, and in recording or rehearsal studios
61. I love epic miniseries
62. I think Colin Firth is hot
63. I really dislike body odor
64. The Czech Republic has many people who have problems with body odor
65. The only sweet things I crave are chocolate or ice cream
66. I love spicy food
67. If I had to eat one dish for the rest of my life it would be spaghetti with tomato sauce
68. If I had to eat one type of food for the rest of my life it would be Thai
69. I wrote a novel during November for National Novel Writing Month
70. When I was 17 I moved to Baltimore with my boyfriend, best friend and a bunch of freaky types
71. I drink Beaujolais Nouveau every year for Thanksgiving
72. I am a good speller and always have been
73. The one word that always gave me trouble was “maybe”
74. I don’t own much music
75. I listen to the same artists/albums/songs over and over again
76. I call my grandmother every other day from Prague
77. When I’m in the US I call her every day
78. I was a women’s studies minor
79. I have been to 7 countries outside of the US (not counting layovers) and it’s not enough
80. I have no allergies
81. I have four tattoos
82. One tattoo was done by a friend with a sewing needle and India ink
83. I can join the Daughters of the American Revolution if I want; I qualify
84. I might, when I’m older
85. I would like to be a famous YA writer like Judy Blume
86. When I hear about something I don’t know about, I look it up
87. I have become very interested in history as I’ve gotten older
88. And even more interested in war
89. I worked at Au Bon Pain when I was younger
90. I’ve never been fired from a job
91. I’m not a great speaker, but I’m a good writer
92. I like to be organized with my thoughts and plans
93. Yet I’m very messy with my things
94. I really don’t believe in most “new” diseases and conditions like Irritable Bowel Syndrome, etc.
95. I played Sylvia, the girl who speaks to dinosaurs in the audiobook of “Dinotopia”
96. I love a good tv series.
97. I often find myself obsessing about characters on TV or in books and feel like I know them
98. My hair is naturally brown but I’ve been dying it since I was 14
99. I am a very empathetic person
100. When I’m bored I Google/Facebook/Myspace search for old friends/boyfriends/classmates/students
101. I have a steel-trap mind for famous names/faces/gossip/news