Nicole Tasker Woods

Today was beautiful! The sun was shinning bright and hot, the wind was blowing cool and constant. Ryan, Aidan, Cali & I went to the park as a family after we had donuts for breakfast (Aidan had eggs & fruit first, Mom, don’t worry!). Aidan had a great time swinging as high as he could go, while Ryan & I both took turns pushing him. Then Ryan and I started swinging with Aidan on my lap. He held on tight while leaning back on my chest saying ‘hug’ – he’s such a lover.

Then we did a few rounds on the slide, watching with cautious, outstretched hands as Aidan climbed up the stairs, then cheered him on as went zipping down the slide.

Aidan & Cali kicked the soccer ball around a bit in the field. Cali was screaming with joy and Aidan kept saying, ‘no, no, no’ waving his hands to the side. Cali had a hard time sharing the ball with the Big A, but she did give him a few turns.

We probably spent an hour at the park, it was a blast on such a beautiful day!

I envision myself in a sun dress, sitting by the pool with a glass of wine, listening to music…

…let’s see if that happens.

Don’t you love the heat? I’m a bit picky when it comes to the weather. I hate the rain. Period. End of sentence, I just HATE it. Snow is ok. A brisk spring breeze is ideal. The sun is my enemy.

Not only does the sun make me burn and freckle, but it also makes it ridiculously hot! We are in the midst of an extremely brutal heat wave. Last night at 7pm, it was still a toasty 88 degrees outside. And our house is rocking right around the mid-80’s because our AC is refusing to be cool and chill, honey-bunny.

We are able to get the house down to a liveable 76 degrees by 11pm when the night air is finally cool enough for us to open the windows and turn on the ceiling fans. We are lucky that Aidan does not seem bothered by the heat. That and we keep his blinds closed to make his room a cool cocoon void of any heat whatsoever.

The heat is supposed to break tomorrow night so we have to endure one more sweaty night. Hopefully the AC guy can make a stop tomorrow and fix whatever seems to be broken with our unit on the roof.

Tonight, Ryan & I are going to see The Killers at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. I have never seen them in concert, but I love their music and have always wanted to see them perform live. Ryan saw them before and said they were so good, he had to take me. So here we are, going to see The Killers.

I’m always excited for a night out. I love my Aidan, but I need my adult time to keep me sane. As a precaution to staying up all night at a concert, I took Friday off from work and I’m so glad I did. Now today is my fake-Friday, oh how I love fake-Fridays!

The weatherman is predicting some ridiculously high temps on my day off so I am planning on taking Aidan with me to the beach. It will be my 2nd trip to the beach in Los Angeles, and Aidan’s 3rd. I can’t believe my 23 month old son has been to the beach more than his 31 year old momma!

I wish I could take Cali with us, she would enjoy the beach for sure. But I just can’t handle a dog and a baby all on my own. But I do love reminiscing about the days before Aidan, when I would take Cali with me on trips to the beach. She’ll always be my first born, that’s for sure.

While we are at the beach, Ryan & Brady will be driving to Las Vegas to spend a few days with Clark at the Variety World Conference. Honestly, I think I’m getting the better end of the deal on this 3-day weekend, just me & A.

I do love a 3-day weekend! Ryan actually had the day off as well so got someone to watch Aidan so that we could go out and see a movie. I do love going to the movies, but the stuff I’ve seen these last 3 days hasn’t been that great. ‘Side Effects’ was just OK – ‘Die Hard’ was better, but that’s not saying much.

I wish that I could have seen ‘Safe Haven’ but it was a pretty popular movie this weekend and that made it tough to find a showtime that worked. But even if they turn off the lights and make shadow animals with their hands, I’d still enjoy going to the movies. Always have.

We also went to Costco to pick up a big-boy car seats for the A-man to use when he rides in Ryan’s car. I’ve had one of these in my car for months, but we finally got around to replacing the infant seat that Ryan had been using. Those infant seats are crazy because they say it will last until he’s 35 pounds, but he’s barely 27 pounds and he’s so scrunched up in that seat when he’s in it.

I’m so glad he can now ride facing forward to look out the window when he’s with his Daddy.

It’s back to work we go tomorrow, but I enjoy it so I’m not that bummed about my return to the office. I know Aidan isn’t that thrilled because he just loves having us home. But that’s what weekends are for!

I have been sick, sick, sick since Friday night. I left work feeling the fingertips of a cold creeping up the back of my throat and nose. Saturday morning I woke up to Aidan yelling for me to get him at 8am and I wondered what I did to be punished like this. That’s how bad I felt. My nose was stuffy and runny at the same time, I had an unforgiving cough and the body aches were indescribable.

At 10am I thought to myself, “Is it time for Aidan’s nap yet?!” His naptime is at 3pm every day, so you can understand how depressed I was to realize that I had to make it through 5 more hours of baby-play before I could get a break. But once his head hit the crib, mine hit my bed and we were both out for 3 1/2 hours. I woke up so stiff I could barely move. I continued to take the daily allotment of dayquil and pound water like I never had before in an attempt to flush the cold from my system.

By Sunday morning, I had less aches all over, but could not stop sneezing. Aidan was up again at 8am (so unlike him) – I had to suck it up and make it through the first half of the day. Since it was Super Bowl Sunday, I prepped Chicken & Noodle (very gravy-like stew) per Ryan’s request, along with some chocolate fudge pudding for dessert. We watched the game and enjoyed the food. I continued to struggle with the stuffy feeling of a head cold until 10:30pm when I realized that I just couldn’t go to work the next day. I showed no signs of feeling better by 7am the next day (which is the time I have to leave each morning in order to get to work by 8:30am) so I emailed my boss and let her know that she should not expect me at work in the morning.

Monday was odd because I felt ok. I forced myself to sleep until 9:30am and then proceeded to watch the worst daytime television while barricaded in my room. I ended up getting antsy and started to clean the shower, then the toilets, then vacuumed the rug and mopped the floor. I made dinner and timed it for Ryan’s return from coaching soccer practice after work and it felt like a good night. I took my last dose of dayquil and suddenly got very chilly and my hands got the shakes. I had to step outside to catch my breath – it was very unexpected. I decided to lay off the nyquil, take some cough syrup instead and hit the sack.

Tuesday morning I woke up at 6am and though, ok – I can go to work today. Then at 7am I thought I was in the long process of dying. It hurt to sit up, stand upright and lie down. My cough was uncontrollable and my head was so stuffed up that I lost my breath after unloading the dishwasher. I was haunted by cold sweats and just couldn’t shake the sick feeling resonating throughout my entire body. Nothing I did worked. I went back to bed until noon.

Today, Wednesday, I took the liberty of tacking on a third sick day from work and here I am, enjoying one last day to get my strength back. Honestly, I don’t know how I will feel tomorrow, but I switched my meds up a bit and am planning on going into work tomorrow. I feel OK at the moment. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

If Tom Brady can’t get it done in the playoffs, he doesn’t deserve to go to the big game. I’m just glad he realized that during the playoffs so I don’t have to cry today. And no, I’m not fair-weather, just realistic. I told you 2013 was unlucky, maybe 2014 will be luckier.

If I wasn’t already married and were picking a significant date for my wedding, I might chose January 31, 2013 (1/31/13). How could your new husband ever forget it? You know how everyone got married last month on December 12 so their special day was 12/12/12 – that was the last really significant date we’ll ever have because the months number no higher than 12.

But now that one month is down, we have 11 left to go in this unlucky year of 2013. Next year has a much sweeter ring to it: 2014. I like that way better!

This morning, as I mentioned in Not Very Pleasant, I had stitches removed from my leg.

While the doctor was in awe of the incision (it was done by a plastic surgeon, should I expect any less?) she told me after the stitches were out that the scar had not completely healed. She said that I was young with beautiful legs (duh), so I should take it easy on the walking, stairs, exercising for another week.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I waited 8 days after the procedure last Monday when the doctor told me I only needed to take a break for 4-5 days. I thought – give it a few extra days to heal, can’t hurt right? Now I find out that it wasn’t long enough and have to wait another week. I can feel myself getting fatter as I tell you this ridiculous story.

Exercising is not my issue, it’s the food. I love food. All I want to do is eat – and eat badly – but exercising makes me feel hungry so I pig out a little here and there and you know what? I don’t feel guilty. Because at lunchtime, I forgo the fast food to sweat it out with my co-workers for 30 minutes. Shouldn’t I get to enjoy a couple york peppermint patties???

I had a very minor procedure done on my leg last week to remove more of a skin abnormality for the dermatology specialists to take a closer look at. I go to the dermatologist every 6 months and they poke and prod my skin at each visit. One time, they removed 12 things–not very pleasant!

Well, the thing on my leg was just a freckle – they all are freckles, I never have had moles – and sometimes they look dark or feel rough and then the dermatologist will numb it, remove it and test it. The leg freckle had been biopsied and they said they needed to take more off in order to have a good reading. So they went in last week, hacked me up and gave me 5 stitches. Not very pleasant.

I had to take the week off from exercising, which is something I never have trouble doing. While I like working out and I like seeing the results of sweating it out on my lunch break, I do enjoy avoiding the speed walk to the gym, speed changing of my clothes, speed work out, speed shower, speed dress, then speed walk back to the office.

Well, this morning I finally get the stitches out of my leg and I’m so excited! I know it was only a few of them, but it was still unsightly and it’s not like they are soft or anything. They are stiff and black – like spider legs – I will be glad to have them gone!