WOLF KAHN’S heading back to harbor. the colors were a pleasant surprise when i flipped the calendar this morning. i want to live in that painting right now. can you believe it’s already june? i say this every year, but this year more than ever life feels like it is rushing by too fast. way too fast.

TOMORROW I TURN 31. thirty one! when did i turn thirty? last year was whisked away by a gusty baby wind. i do remember waking up a year ago today with a very high fever and intense, searing pain in both breasts. thinking it was the flu, i tried plugging along carrying for my 3 week old baby. as the day progressed, and breastfeeding became near impossible, i made an appointment to see my doctor the following day, my birthday, to find out i had mastitis. happy birthday! that was misery and i almost quit nursing at that point, but kept plugging along {my motto last year}. tommy made the most of my mastitis birthday by working from home, changing all of wrennie’s diapers, treating me to in-n-out and rockbottom brewery take-out, AND buying me 10+ bouquets of flowers {no exaggeration, our home was filled with floral arrangements in every corner}. i felt like a very special girl despite the pain, tears, so many tears, and reoccurring bouts of postpartum depression.

lesson learned from last year’s birthday: it can always be worse + your birthday is as special as you make it {unless you’re married to tommy or have my mumcakes as a mom, and it’s always, always, always special}. here’s to my thirty first year tomorrow. happy birthday to me!

oh, anthropologie sent me that birthday candle necklace along with an enticing discount…which led to this overwhelming decision. i’m definitely wearing my birthday dress tomorrow with the necklace.

DO NOT…absolutely, do not watch this if you have baby fever. your heart might explode. mine did.

we’re battling colds right now. first cold for wren, first cold for me in almost year and a half, and poor tommy is on his second cold within three weeks. lots of sleep, soup, oranges, vitamins, and jamba juice for us all, well except for wren, but i have been giving her little sips.

FOLLOWING FRIDAY’S WEDDING extravaganza was the sixth annual pumpkin carving party with our pals. each year the pumpkins get bigger, the guts messier, and somehow the number of kids multiply. this year i managed getting away without having to carve a pumpkin – tommy did all the work while wren and i supervised. he did a great job, my favorite part being mr. pumpybum’s tail.

THEY DID IT! charles and laura are married! laura, bride of mr. peacock {no, charles is not the peacock} but this mr. peacock, was truly the most beautiful bride i’ve ever seen. perfect wedding, yummy food, gorgeous location, and tons of fun was had at our table. so sad to have missed the bailey’s exit – tommy and i were busy acting like fools on the dance floor and missed the big goodbye. also sad, i planned to take photos of all the design work i had done for laura for the reception and i didn’t take a single photo – again, i blame it on the dancing.

JUST A REMINDER wash your hands and eat your fruits and veggies. a heaviness weighed down my head and neck when i woke up this morning. i immediately enjoyed every bite of that wonderfully puckery bowl of vitamin c.

thank you tommy. thank you wordpress.

and now an excerpt from a post written july 15, 2005 which is just as applicable today and sums up perfectly my wonderful husband:

“anyone who has ever worked with me on a project would know what a royal pain i am. imagine being married to me and working with me (which he did for five years and i’m sure he would say it was the best five years of his life). tommy is an amazing creature. a creature with two arms, two legs, a head, and a heart filled with chocolate pudding. literally. it’s all pudding. besides being patient, loving, kind, and willing to build out my web designs, he’ll go the extra mile for me even if he’s tired and crampy. he loves me so much that he gave birth to the comments section, cleaned off the afterbirth, and raised it up to be a strapping, bronzed hunk of utter perfection.”

we’ve been waiting for you

THE RECOVERY after having wren was hellacious. i didn’t have a c-section {i did beg for one though}, and i’ll spare details {cause really, who cares other than the lady who just found my site by googling ‘why isn’t my third degree tear healing yet?’} honest hand-over-heart truth though, labor was absolutely not *that* bad, neither was delivery. sure the recovery was nasty, but it didn’t kill me. i’ve shared that with friends who ask because years back when i asked questions, the only thing i heard were horror stories and a big excuse to complain about something that sucked. yeah, child birth and everything else after hurts, but it’s not the worst. there are many other things far more intense – losing a battle with cancer, losing a limb, losing a child, a spouse, faith, hope in life…losing my brother. that is pain. i didn’t lose anything though, i gained a daughter. my train of thought is getting all emotional on you. alright, all that to say, don’t be scared if you’re about to have a baby.

for two months i was on motrin around the clock. the obnoxious thing about motrin is having to take it with food — a picture: middle of the night, searching for food to take with my next dose while holding a screaming, hungry newborn who is trying to latch onto my neck. i took advantage of the gift basket the hospital gave to us full of snacks – truly, nourishment during those ungodly hours up nursing miss piranha. one particular night i was so hungry i couldn’t see straight, and fairly certain i foamed from the mouth a little. the last snack bag in the basket had m&ms, pretzels, cheese-its and goldfish. junk, horrible awful junk i would have never eaten by choice in a million years. but my gosh it was an emergency, and it turned into my paradise. so good, pure, it saved my life. overcome with joy while eating the salty sweet combo, but crying from the pain of nursing, life was good again. and an added bonus i remember turning on mtv to find fantasy factory reruns. 2am, every morning, rob dyrdek, meaty, wren, me, and midnight munchies. good times.

anyway, i made the same mix for a friend who just had her fourth child. 100% processed, delightful goodness.