Handsome nurse

Having such a handsome nurse almost makes being sick worthwhile. Almost. This is the worst illness. Ever. (For me. I know that makes me lucky.)


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Memories

I love memories of my Grams so when my Uncle Derek posted this photo to Facebook and Jackson showed it to me (I quit Facebook and Twitter- I'll post about that later), I cried. I remember that house so well down to the coasters on the right hand side of the photo. Grams made me feel so special each time I was with her (Ok, not each time...sometimes she missed the mark and made me feel fat, but that's ok). I loved going to their house in Brinker Heights to play. She always had the best games on the computer. (She was always kind of a techy.) She also always had cookies (please see the above fat reference and see if the two don't correlate) that Kylie would climb on the counters to retrieve for us. Her cookie jar is now one of my prized possessions and will always be prominently displayed in our home (once we have a home, that is). Anyway, I've just realized as I've gotten older how much memories mean and how much they help heal a sad heart. I'll always miss my Grams, but I'm so thankful that she lives on in my heart!


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Norovirus

You guys, I been incredibly sick. I don't even know if sick is the word to describe it. I'm sure you've seen on the news information about the Norovirus. It is a very ugly virus. I am talking about vomiting uncontrollably. A lot. Bless Jackson's heart he even cleaned up my vomit when I couldn't make it to the bathroom. Yes, it was that bad. Tuesday night I got home from work and instantly felt awful. From about 6pm until well in the wee hours of the night it was constant vomiting and other things. Terrible. Poor Jackson had a test to take Wednesday morning at 7 AM for work. He got about two hours of sleep. (We are now in awe of parents who can function on this kind of sleep.) I am proud to report that Jackson passed his test despite being up with me all night. I have obviously not been going to work. Daytime TV leaves much to be desired.

Yesterday afternoon I finally had to go get some medicine and Gatorade because I was dehydrated that my muscles just ached. I got to CVS feeling like death and got Sprite, Gatorade, medicine, soup and candy for Jackson (Listen people cleaning up vomit deserves a little reward!) in a cart. I go up to check out and a woman cuts in front of me because she wants to buy cigarettes. The cashier told her to get behind me because I had already been in line. I assured cigarette lady that while I was already dying I didn't want to interrupt her killing herself and let her go in front of me. I think she was appropriately shamed. (I'm not friendly when I feel bad.)


My lunch. Yum. ;)

Jackson finally got home from work and we started trying to disinfect the house to prevent getting even more sick. This virus can only be killed with bleach so we had to wash all of our bed clothes, towels, you name it. It took nearly all night! I was able to watch the first half of IU kicking Purdue's butt in basketball before I passed out. I love those Hoosiers! I did sleep through the night which was a true blessing based on how I feel today: awful. I'm hoping this all passes soon because I've got a fun weekend planned. I already had to cancel two exercise appointments for this illness, but all the vomiting has helped my showing on the scale. There's always a bright side, friends. ;)

If you're like me you wonder how I got so lucky and picked up this virus. I don't know. Jackson had an upset stomach last weekend but doesn't vomit. Ever. So I didn't even know he really felt bad! He thinks I got his germs. I think a girl at work who had been ill did it. It doesn't matter now I guess. My immune system is such a sissy anymore. I swear. Anyway, you don't want this so wash your hands all of the time and wipe down wherever you can with bleach. I mean it. This is no way to jump start your diet. ;)

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MacKenzie love

I've been sick (more on that later) and MacKenzie has been such a trooper that I decided to honor her with a whole post of only photos of her... :)

I love this dog.

Watching IU games stresses her out...

And when they win she's ready to play ball! :)

She loves to watch the rain from our bedroom window

This is the most accurate photo of MacK. Ever.

:)

Taking a break...with her ball

How to stay married...

I loved this article. Especially #9. Change #7 to have a puppy.
http://girlsguideto.com/articles/15-ways-to-stay-married-for-15-years

Along those lines...stay tuned for *hopefully* a big announcement from the Petefishes soon... :)

Pizza party!

I had Monday off for MLK Day and Jackson only worked in the morning. I love days like that. Not that I saw Jackson until the evening, but I liked knowing he was "free" just like me. My day was nothing short of crazy. I like to schedule myself thin on my weekdays off because I never get them. (My general policy is not to "waste" vacation days doing things around home. I've modified that this year because of Jackson starting a new job and not having as much vacation time available. It won't last. I'm already itching to get out of the area for a bit.) Anyway, I scheduled MacKenzie for a haircut and she had to be there between 7 and 8. No problem. Unless you wake up without power. You guys, we are dependent on electricity. WE DEPEND ON IT SO MUCH THAT WE DON'T EVEN REALIZE IT. It was still dark at the time of day and trying to get myself and a puppy around was like a preview of what life would be like with children. (Insert sympathy for parents here. Also, sorry Mom, for never wanting to put my shoes on. That must have been SO annoying!) I get MacK to the groomer about 5 minutes late and she pees all over the guy. YEP! I realized that she felt my stress and couldn't deal with it. Oops. :( She regained her composure and I headed to the gym.
Whew. Everything is going to be OK now. MacK is taken care of and I have personal training at 8:30. What can go wrong? I head up to a treadmill with about 10 minutes before my training appointment to do a little jogging warmup. A lady RUDELY tells me that she wants to walk next to her friend on the treadmill and that I "need" to move. I just stared at her. She eventually moved her rude self down the way. Who did she think she was? And did she know that I'd just woken up without power on my day off? Honestly. The nerve. Then my trainer didn't show up because he had a "flat tire" which was either really convenient on an early Monday morning and really unfortunate. I still haven't decided which one I think it is. I ended up running the entire time that I would have been training and then coming home to the power being back on. Hooray. We just don't know how spoiled we are in this country with clean water and electricity. I swear.
I got cleaned up and headed out to meet my dear friend Amber for a spa day to celebrate her birthday. Not so fast my friends, it was snowing. A lot. ARE YOU KIDDING ME, MONDAY?! UGHHH. I eventually met her (15 minutes late) and we headed downtown to the Conrad's spa. That place is lovely and was a welcomed change from how my day had been going. Amber and I had hour long massages and also got to sit in the sauna (130 degrees never felt so good!), hot tub and swim. It was so fun. Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I didn't even have dessert and it was still a great lunch. My day had turned around by then. Massage and Cheesecake Factory? Yes, please. I also went down to MAC and bought myself some new makeup. What bad morning?! ;)
We had dinner with the Portefield family that evening. My favorite! Jackson made an orange/almond salad that I'm obsessed with (recipe below- try it! amazing!) and we picked up Papa John's. No, I wasn't really hungry so I just munched on salad and one slice of pizza. I was really proud of my diet control that day until Heidi broke out dessert: chocolate chip cookie dough bowls. I'm not lying when I say that they were the best thing ever. They rivaled her chocolate cake. Jackson hurried me through mine so he could eat my leftovers. They were SO good. That Heidi is something else when it comes to baking.

The Recipe

Jax ate all of his pizza and applesauce. What a big boy! :)

I'd normally say that Joss has gotten SO BIG but I think since Jax keeps growing she still looks small to me. I love it! She has quite the way of getting what she wants. I like that in a girl. ;)

Jax loves to play with our shoes and even tried them on.

"I don't think these fit!"

"Wait! Let me smile!" HA! I love this kid.

Then he tried on my TOMS for good measure. What a goof!

I love that Jax looks back to make sure I see him flipping off my shoes, that Joss cries in protest (atta girl!) and that she is eating a dog toy the entire time. These kids crack me up! :)

Ale Emporium...

We found a new love in Indy: Ale Emporium. It is a sports bar that doesn't allow smoking anymore. I know, I know you've all known about it for years. Hush. I'm not a big bar-goer. I had even been to Ale once with friends, but only sat in the front room and didn't realize how large it was. I never understood why Jackson would rave about the place each time we passed it. I do now, buddy. They basically wallpaper the place with televisions. There are 14 televisions in the photo I've posted below and that doesn't even scratch the surface of how many they have going all at once. Their food was amazing. The prices were incredibly fair. The waitstaff was friendly. The other patrons were fun-loving. It was great! It didn't hurt that my two teams (SF and Baltimore) won and we were there with Kort and Heinz (some of our favorites), but still. I kept saying that restaurant had not been more my element since the womb. (Get it? HA!) We even had coupons! Amazing. We will certainly be back for March Madness- I've already scheduled to be off work on the opening Thursday and Friday of the tournament and plan to have everyone at Ale Emporium know my name by the time IU is crowned the champion. ;)

Please excuse the PDA of this couple and focus on the televisions

Te'o...

Too soon?



I'm just kidding. Time will tell what really happened. I'll remind you all that I dislike Notre Dame and am glad they lost the National Championship, but I really bought into this Te'o story.

Nothing like this better come out about Tim Tebow. I'd just die.


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Volleyball games

Grace and Kathi are in town for some travel volleyball games so we hosted them (at Susie's! Ha!).


First, how funny are these little tiny kids playing basketball? They were on the court next to ours and made me laugh.


Anyway, my Grace has become quite the volleyball player. We really enjoyed watching her play. What didn't I enjoy? The parents. Ugh. I now know why my teacher friends say you can explain a kid after meeting their folks. It was so easy to tell, based on the parent's attitude, who their daughter was on the court. I seriously wanted to record these parents and make them listen to how annoying they were. Ok, end of rant. (They were REALLY annoying!) Ok, I'm finished ranting. I swear.


When Grace saw this photo she said, "I look funny when I am serving!" Ha. I was so proud of her. She really played well.


Her serves have gotten just awesome as seen below:


They played games all day, but we came home to take the dogs for a walk,on this gorgeous, sunny day. Jackson made a delicious dinner or steak, twice-baked potatoes and salad. Yum!


Kathi even did some physical therapy for me since my running is tearing me up! It has been fun having them around. :)

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Is this love?

Packing my lunch AND putting chocolate chips in with my peanuts proves to me that Jackson loves me.



Life is about appreciating the small things and those small chocolate chips are appreciated. :):)


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After running...

Surely Forrest Gump had to ice, right?


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Mea culpa

I started a blog on December 3, 2012 by stating, "I do not want children of my own by any means (e.g. birth, adoption or inheritance), but I do enjoy children's antics and love Heidi and Andrew for being willing to share their children with us from time to time since our nieces and nephews reside all over the great state of Indiana."

What I meant by this statement: We do not want to birth children of our own or adopt and I certainly don't want my sister and brother-in-law to perish leaving their son behind. I'm about to post about how much fun I had with the Porterfield children which will lead to some of you (ahem, you know who you are) to pressure us to have our own. I really just wanted to post about enjoying someone else's children without getting pressure. Honestly.

I have two questions that really push my buttons: "GEE! You guys are always on the move! When will you settle down?" and "When are you going to have children?" These two questions annoy me more than someone burning a cinnamon candle.

Anyway, how my sister read my introduction was as follows: I hope I never get Alex because I don't ever want a kid.

Isn't that strange how wires get crossed? She's been offended by this so I thought I'd publicly set the record straight just in case someone else misunderstood me, too. When we said we'd be Alex's godparents, we meant it. That doesn't mean that we don't wish for my sister to get to fulfill her lifelong wish of being a mother for a long, long time. It means that we truly hope that Alex never experiences such a great loss, both of his parents, that he has to live with us. Jackson just told me yesterday that even at 35 years old and having his dad gone for many years he still thinks of him at least five times a day. I hate that for Jackson and cried when he told me that. He assured me that it just meant that he loved his dad and would always miss him. I don't want that for Alex. I want his parents to watch him grow up and learned to drive, graduate from high school, go to college (if he wants to), get married (we missed Charlie, Jackson's dad, so much at our wedding), and if he so desires, have children of his own. I want them to raise him like they planned to because that's the desire of their hearts. However, if Alex lose his parents, you can bet your life's earnings on the fact that we'd take great care of him, raise him Catholic (as promised), and love him like our own. There's no question in my mind of that fact. We'd also make sure that he knew how much his parents loved him and how proud they were of him. The very thought brings tears to my eyes, though, because I just don't want it to happen that way.

I apologize that my message wasn't received as I meant for it to be. I'm also sorry that I let people pestering me about having children change the way I openly express my appreciation for time spent with Jax and Joss. I won't do that again. I'm going to enjoy other people's kids with reckless abandonment and when the prodding comes to have my own I'll just smile and dislike that person internally. ;):) Kylie, I love Alex. I really, really do and I'm very sorry to have offended you. Please accept my sincere apology.

ESPN: Call me, maybe?

I got home from work Friday night to these roses. Jackson wanted to thank me for sticking with him through the last couple of tough months.




I joked that they were "I now remember that working full time sucks" flowers, but appreciated the gesture nonetheless. ;):) Friday night was a lazy one around the house which was fine by me after a busy week. I slept in on Saturday until nearly 10:30 a.m. (with a quick potty break for MacKenzie worked in there around 7!). Yep, I'm still young. That proves it to me. Jackson cannot sleep in for the life of him (but I think he enjoyed watching that stupid Gold Rush show without my sarcastic commentary). See? He is not young anymore. ;)
We spent the afternoon running errands, buying million dollar shoes (see previous post) and watching football games. I love the PLAYOFFS! We finished watching the Denver/Baltimore game at our favorite Mexican restaurant and were delighted to be seated by other Raven fans. They also disliked Peyton Manning. Score!
I am now dying to go to the Baltimore vs. New England game next weekend. I feel like ESPN should contact me anytime to go and offer witty commentary with my friend Kortnee. She thinks we only entertain ourselves. I beg to differ.




Here we are discussing a potential date for Kortnee. (I'm the writing in blue.) I've recently taken to Twitter (about 3 years after the rest of the world) and did tweet that photo of our conversation to Coach Crean. He was too busy watching games to respond and I'm ok with that. I still think he probably chuckled at our banter, ESPN. I think Ray Lewis would love us. Ok, I'll stop pretending that ESPN is going to discover me via Twitter. Sigh.




Sunday was a busy day. We met my friend Megan at our church for a really interesting sermon (I intend to blog about it in a few days) and then went to Bub's Cafe in Carmel for a late breakfast. Jackson's breakfast in a bread bowl did not disappoint. Yum! The restaurant got a good Trip Advisor score from us so if you're local make a point to go try it out. We also made the mistake of needing to go to Target around 12:30 on a Sunday afternoon in Fishers, Indiana. Ugh. Awful. Sunday afternoons are the worst part of living in suburbia: people are everywhere during this time. Everywhere! We did fit in a great trip to the gym before we went to the Bates' house to have dinner with them and another couple.
You know what I found? The so-called "runner's zone" that I've heard for over 28 years and never believed existed. I actually ran for so long (6.5 minutes. Shut up. That's a long time in my world.) that I got into a zone and only stopped because I was so outraged by Seattle losing to Atlanta that I needed to text Kortnee. (I still love you, Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson, no worries!) I view my willingness to leave the elusive runner's zone as further proof that ESPN owes me. What if I never find my way back to this zone?! I plan to go looking for it again tonight. Positive thoughts welcomed, friends.
Anyway, we had a great dinner with Shaya, Matt, Liz and Lyle. The humorous part was when Jackson sat with Liz and Shaya house shopping for them and I watched football with the guys. What is wrong with that picture? ;)
Monday morning arrived too early as it always does and we're back to the grind today. As an update, Jackson started his new job last week and really enjoyed it. We're so thankful for that and everyone's support through some very trying months. We have been quite blessed.
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Newtons

Listen, I'm trying to become a real runner so I've got to have the proper gear. I heard that the shoe company Newton was the best for beginners so I researched where to buy them around here. There is a running store on 37 that was locally owned and had these in stock so we headed over. The manager of Runner's Forum was really helpful and nice. I ended up with this colorful pair because they were lightweight and fun. Their price? A cool $175. Yes, you read that correctly. We almost passed out. I kept saying that I better be able to run like Forrest Gump in them. I can't. Yet. They are nice shoes, though. I tried them out at the gym tonight and did quite well considering that my head was pounding from a nasty caffeine withdrawal side effect. I think they'll be a good piece of equipment to have around when I start really putting in the miles to train for the Mini.


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MacK pho

MacKenzie is so lazy. She loves when we are doing laundry so she can "nest" in the blankets.




She can sit for a treat like nobody's business, though.




I've just not met a cuter dog and I'm fairly certain that I am not biased. ;)




Slow news week, eh?
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Dinner at Madison's

I stopped by Upland before going to the viewing I previously posted about and got to see some of my favorite pups.


Miss Madison has taken to laying by the fire. What a smart girl!


Macy is so funny. She screams when I arrive. I love it.


I had a good laugh when Mom and I returned from the viewing to that note. I made sure that Madison got a ball game, a greenie treat and lots of pets. She drives a hard bargain, but her food is delicious so it is all ok! Thanks for dinner, Madison. ;)

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New Year's Day

I forgot to post this so here's a little flashback.

Happy 2013! We are back in the country and already off and running. Groupon had a great deal for 4 tickets to the Indianapolis Autoshow for $12 so I got them and we headed down with my parents.


This year they had a whole Jeep driving demo that Jackson just HAD to go through.


He was disappointed that they didn't let him drive. Ha!


"How far can we tilt this thing before it flips?" Jackson asked. "31 degrees," the guy answered. "Oh, how titled are we know?" Jackson asked. "30 degrees!!!" Hahahaahaha


It was a pretty cool course.


Jackson kept insisting that his Jeep couldn't do these things.



I really wanted a four door Wrangler when he finished.


Then we headed to Bub's Burgers in Carmel. The restaurant was featured on "Man vs. Food" and did not disappoint.


Jackson was pretty excited for his burger.


The "hangover" burger had a cheeseburger, slice of ham, bacon, a fried egg and then all the typical toppings. It looked disgusting, but he loved it. The food was actually just delicious and we really enjoyed it.


That evening we went to watch the Florida State vs. Northern Illinois game at the Fox and Hound with our friend Kortnee. She's a Florida State (online) alum and wanted to watch the game with the Indianapolis chapter of the alumni club. Yeah, it was a bit disappointed. We could have wandered into a more exciting funeral. The alumni were all about 900 years old and not rowdy at all. Tear. We had a great time giving Kortnee a hard time for dragging us there, though.

We had a really good day and were happy to be home again.

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Grandmas are special

My dear, dear friend Shannon's grandma passed away last week. I saw someone post to her Facebook wall a note expressing their sympathies and noting that, "Grandmas are special people." Isn't that the truth? My own Grams passed last January 22nd so the pain of my own loss was fresh in my mind as I entered the funeral home. It was a wonderful scene, really. Shannon's grandma, Bonita, hadn't wanted the Christmas tree to come down last year in her room so the family kept it up and redecorated it for the different holidays throughout the year. At the funeral home there were six Christmas trees all decorated for different holidays (think Easter and July 4th). I LOVED it. Isn't that a way to be remembered? As someone who didn't want to stop celebrating? What a lovely legacy. I was already just torn up for Shannon and her family when I spotted her granda. My heart absolutely fell to pieces to see him sitting by his wife's casket with tears welling in his eyes. According to obituary they had been married for over 64 years. 64 years! That's beautiful. I was just so sad that he was going to be without his beloved. Isn't that what love does to you? 64 years isn't enough!

I wish there were words to comfort people in such times, but they do not exist. Your memories bring you comfort, I've found. I love nothing more than to laugh at times I had with my own Grams. I like to listen to Susie talk about memories she shared with Jackson's dad like they were events that happened only yesterday. Here's hoping that Shannon and her family can find comfort in the happy memories that I'm certain are great in number. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this tough time.

Also, here's to remembering to hold our loved ones a little closer, a little more often so that they know just how special they really are to us.

Home!

There's no place like home! :)


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