Carson's Mind

My youngest cousin, Carson, has gotten into making Youtube videos. I have to admit he and his friends are quite amusing! My Uncle Luke has even gotten in on the action (see his Christmas/year end recap video) This is a video Carson did a week ago or so when he and Luke went to visit our grandma (Nini) for Christmas. This lady is too much but I dearly love her! Her language may be NSFW so just beware :)

Still...

32 weeks preggers

I am still.....
alive and very much pregnant.
However, I can still wear all of my normal shoes AND my wedding band at almost 9 months pregnant.
Even so I still hate being pregnant.
I still have my sanity (barely) after spending so much time with a cranky tantrum throwing toddler.
I still have managed not to get the flu though I have had at least 2 bouts with a cold in the last month.
I am still working my hiney off to finish up school stuff by the end of January.
And somehow I managed to survive having a sick Mark and a sick Twig home with me for 2 weeks this past month and still got 2 papers and a presentation done!

We had a great Christmas. Lots of food and lots of family time. I did lots of baking which made me very happy. I have started to post some of the recipes I used on my food blog, Black Eyed Peas and Cornbread. Mark and I agreed not to exchange gifts this year. It was one of the best decisions we have made. Instead we agreed to buy ourselves a Wii over the next month or so. We also agreed with his family to only buy stuff for Twig. Which also made us very happy. We now have lots of Brio train stuff and Duplos to play with. Yippee!!

Wee SNOW!

This southern girl is love love loving all this snow that got dumped on us last night. This is also Twig's first year of enjoying the fun. By tomorrow I am sure I will be tired of it but for today it is really beautiful!

Weeeee!

Far only thinks he is going to work today.

Even though I know he is staying home I might as well help.

And yes far did stay home today since the traffic reports were saying it could take him 2+ hours to get to work. At least that gave us a chance to go out and find us some proper snow boots!

Fat Sodas

New York City Health Dept. anti cola, juice and sports drink campaign. Heck all sugar drinks period. LOVE IT. They also did a video which I wanted to embed but youtube is being stupid. Drinking Fat Video.

Sure we indulge in some Coke Zero or Faxe Kondi (soda sweetened with grape sugar) when we have guests over but we treat it like beer or wine. Not for every day but fine for special occasions in moderation. And yes I know artificial sweeteners in Coke Zero are bad for us too but I am not blogging about that today!

Train Adventures

There has been some crazy weird train karma going around this week.

Little old lady who couldn't buy a ticket. I usually give myself 5 or so extra minutes at the train station to buy a ticket from the automatic machine (we don't have a manned ticket kiosk at my station). Yesterday I was there at 7:55 for an 8:04am train. There was an old lady trying to buy a ticket who I swear had never used the machine before. I tried to help her but she ignored me. She finally gets it after asking someone else (who still needed my help) and finishes as the train is pulling into the station. Who needs almost 10 minutes to buy 1 stupid train ticket!? I am panicking trying to buy my own ticket since the train stops for about 30 sec then is off again. I run across the track trying to get there in time. Luckily one of my fellow riders who watched the whole debacle stood in the door of the train so it couldn't close so I could make it. I didn't get it stamped and had to go find the conductor. He told me to run out at the next station to stamp it. Then later on yesterday...

Rock a bye Angel on top of the train. I started nodding off about 30 min before my stop. I briefly thought I should set the alarm on my phone in case I fell asleep. Then I forgot. I woke up, looked out the window and realized "HOLY SHIT" we are at my station!!! I rushed to grab my stuff and they locked the doors just as I was pushing the button to get out. UGH. I sheepishly find the conductor and explain I feel asleep and just missed my stop. He laughed and said it happens all the time. He said the train turns back around in about 45 minutes to head back from the last station and I was welcome to just stay on board and catch a ride back. I offered to buy a ticket and he laughed again and said don't worry about it. I was so happy I was getting home early only to get home an hour later. I have always feared that one day I would sleep through my stop and it finally happened. At least we live on the last stop before the end. Lesson learned and I don't think I will be napping on the train for a while.

&$*% Piece of Crap Ticket Machine is Broke..."Mr. Conductor Man, I couldn't buy a ticket since the machine was broken. Can you help me?" Not quite as traumatic as yesterday but this morning the ticket machine was broken. Grreat. Now what? As soon as the train comes in I run to the conductor and explain that I couldn't buy a ticket. He says well normally he has a machine and he can sell me one but his machine is broken. So I ask him well what do we do? He says to have a seat and enjoy the ride. Yippeee! Finally some good train Karma for me!

Chaos in a Tornado

Or at least that is what my life feels like right now. I was doing so well with blog posts then WHAMMO! School and life got in the way again dammit. Twig starting bornhavn then they only let him come for a couple of hours each day meant he got to be home with me. Which meant no blogging time for me (Hah never mind the no school work time either). Then Mark was home sick and got better. Then Twig was home sick and then Mark got sick again. Now both boys are sick still! At least mama ain't sick. Yet. Amongst all this chaos I have been desperately trying to put together a presentation for Wednesday.

And then COP15 (United Nations Climate Conference) started today! I plan to blog a good bit about my involvement with various parts of the conference though I fear a lot of my posts may have to come after the fact. Today I went to an academic/science seminar through KU which was mostly good. The morning session was a fabulous group of scientists from KU talking about their research and how it relates to climate change. However the afternoon session was a struggle. Economists + political scientists + overly hot room = nodding off during presentations me. Overall it was a good way to start the Climate Conference though.

I am planning to volunteer for several days with Klimaforum which is more public forum for the conference. I am very excited that they have put me in the event coordination group and I will be working with the speakers. I am glad I gave them as much info as I did about my skills and interests because I think this is the perfect spot for me. Right now I am signed up for 3 days but I think I will add on a few more next week. This is such a great opportunity for me both personally and career networking wise I want to make the most of it. In addition there are a few more things I am waiting to see if they come through or not. *fingers crossed*

Phew so that was my quick and rambling update. Now I need to try and do school work for a few while everyone sleeps and I have lots of peace and quiet.