Ugh. Awake

It's early (5:30) and I have been up for an hour and before that... well, it's been a restless night. Ian has a cold with fever and at about 11 last night we gave up and took him into our bed in the hope that we could all get a little sleep. I did, we did, or probably better than if I had spent the night in the rocking chair with him. But it has been a long week at work - trying to keep up with a ridiculous project schedule that has kept me at work late all week and bitch, bitch, bitch. But right now, after giving Ian some medicine at 4:30 and then letting him drape himself over me until he fell asleep, Aaron and Ian are sleeping deeply while I drink coffee and blog. Aaron has Thursday's off so he can keep Ian home from daycare and both can sleep in... I'm jealous. And if we plan on having another child we need a king size bed!! Ok, I think I am done venting now.

I am happy to announce that this month for the first time in years, our income was actually greater than our expenses!! And the budget includes payments to almost everyone we owe money, so things are finally headed in the right direction. Not quickly, but definitively. We weren't exactly struck rich like I thought we would be when I started working and all of our troubles are not over, but for this month, we are at least headed towards the dream of no financial worries. Of course, the grace period on my student loans is up in October... ugh. Is this part of the human condition?

I'm just grumpy this morning. Our life is better than many people's and we both have work, in fields that aren't greatly affected by the current economic ills. We have a great place to live and good food to eat (thanks Aaron!!). Besides colds, we are in good health. We currently have health insurance, dental and eyes too! I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago for the first time in about 6-7 years and only have one cavity! This is the first time in my adult life that I have had dental insurance. I got the bill yesterday and I owe $0. This is good.

I'm rambling a bit. It's early. I'm sure my grammar sucks. I don't want to go take a shower and go to work. But today is Thursday, tomorrow Friday, it's a long weekend, Mary is coming to visit, and nobody has ever died of lack of sleep.

Good Morning.

Shedd Aquarium

Jonah, Doug and Lisa came to visit last weekend and we went to the Shedd Aquarium on Sunday. This is Ian watching the dolphin show. They made us sit for a good ten minutes while they got ready for the show. Ever try to tell a toddler to sit still for ten minutes! ARGH It was worth it, though. He loved watching them jump and do tricks.


This is a baby beluga whale and his momma. It was his first birthday the day we were there. Ian likes babies right now. He has a book of babies and he kisses the book. I keep asking him if he wants a baby brother or sister. He only answered this question once with an adamant, "NO".

This is a sea dragon. Very cool but hard to get a good picture of because they are pretty small and you can't use a flash. I think they must live in the depths where there is no light but I don't know because I don't read all the info when Ian is around. I just tend to watch him watch the fish or I'm busy chasing him. Mostly he really likes to look at the fishes and tell me about them in toddler speak. His favorites were the rays.


This is all of us at the end of the day. Ian crashed eventually, Jonah never did. The kid never naps! Or at least not very much. Gotta go, I hear the patter of little feet.

Cherry Jam

IMG_2223, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Stek.

It's been a few weeks... Alan, Barb and the whole Jenison crew came to visit for the last game of the Tigers vs White Sox here at US Cellular Field (aka Comisky Park). And shockingly enough the Tigers took the game if not the series!! I don't think I have ever gone to a major sporting event (or even minor) where the team I was rooting for actually won. It's known as the Windsor curse. So hopefully this isn't an anomaly and the curse is broken.

After the game Aaron and I had to get home a whole metric butload of good Michigan fruit that my Mom sent along. This was my fault because I had called her after a trip to the farmer's market in Oak Park where we are supposed to pay $9 for a quart of blueberries and cherries and peaches are just as bad. So due to my complaints my Mom sent a whole big cooler full of fruit and veggies right off the farm. This we had to take on the L and then on our bicycles from the stop to our apartment. Funny stuff.

Ian was grateful because we spent the following weekend making jam. He was a lot of help but I had to fight to keep him from eating all the cherries - I think we ended up a little under weight for the recipe. They sure did taste good!

This was all a couple of weekends ago - more catchin' up to come...

Hollywood Beach

IMG_2221, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Stek.

Sunday was this perfect summer day and we spent the morning at Hollywood Beach on the north side of Chicago. It's a little beach that wasn't too busy. The nice thing is that it is really sandy and the drop off is very gradual so that you can be out a fair distance and still be able to stand. It was a great place for Ian to play in the sand and water. And the great thing is that it is just a 25 min drive from our house so we were out there at 9:00am and back in time for Ian's nap. Well, sorta. Ian was so tuckered out that he fell asleep in two minutes once we in the car. But I guess my point is that it is so doable that we will have to spend another morning there before summer is over. Sigh... there's not that much summer left is there? This summer has been so nice and there is so much to do that I think it's going to be great to raise Ian in the city. We went to Millenium Park on Friday. Ian and Aaron came down to pick me up from work and we went to a classic Chicago pub for dinner which is right around the corner from my work. Then we went to the park. It's really this giant puddle!! There were a gazillion kids there and we stripped Ian down to his shorts and let him go to town. I wish I had the camera with us!! We will have to go again cause he was in heaven. He ran, splashed, laid down in the water, played with the other kids and just kept giggling. He kept looking at us like he was having so much fun that he MUST be in trouble. I love being a parent.

New Family Sized Blogs

There are 2 new blogs you will noticed in my links to the left. One is dedicated to the goings on in the Stek side of the family and the other for the Windsors. The hope was that I could get my whole family in on this blogging thing. It's pretty fun and has been a great way for us to keep everyone in touch with our day to day activities. I have a theory that it has helped me to feel closer to you and hopefully vice versa. So in this day and age, when we don't see each other nearly enough and even though we have so many way to stay connected it still seems so difficult... I was hoping that a family blog would help solve that. Ok, I know, I am the one that moved away... so humor me... I miss all of y'all. So help me feel more connected to you and blog! And then I have something to read when I want to procrastinate :-)