I'm Back

...at work that is. Boo hoo. I started back on August 31st and have survived my first week (and a day!)

Here's a quick wrap up of the last few glorious weeks of maternity leave.

I painted the outside of the house. Yes, you read that correctly, the exterior. I would not wish this on my worst enemy (not quite sure who my worst enemy is? Could be Melinda Bower who flushed my sandwich down the toilet in 1st grade or "Crybaby" who Andrew Scheeper dumped me for in 9th grade. What? Yes. I am sure he is happy with his decision. As far as I know, he is not married to Crybaby.)

Before shot of house

These are the pictures I emailed to Taki since I got all paranoid about making the color decision by myself.

I mean, you will not believe the amount of people that drive/bike/walk by your house while you are painting and feel it necessary to comment. "Nice color" has me wondering, is he being facetious or does he really like it? "You know, that would go a lot faster if you used a sprayer" has me wanting to kick the girl in the head. "Still painting, huh?" causes me to stare at the driver of the truck and think Ah ha - I think that is the contractor that said he would paint the house for $6800. Little does he know that, on day 8, if he would have stopped I would have offered him 10k to finish it. Ha.

I took a break from painting the house to have lunch and a few beers with high school friends Jason and Rich.

Painting is better after a few beers, btw. I mean, it still sucks, but it isn't quite as bad.

On Friday I had both the kids at home with me so I couldn't paint (thank goodness), we all headed out to Contra Loma with Mel and the kids.

On Sunday...more freaking housepainting. Linda came over to watch the kids so Taki was able to help out since he realized I was about to just quit halfway through and have a tie-dye house.

For U. Ray

Here's a shot of Taki "helping paint".

In progress

After daycare one day Taki and I took the kids to the park and Olive enjoyed her first time on a swing. Figment kept her company.




Here's a cute carrot outtake.

Another Friday after a long week of painting and we met the Roberts at the Streets in Brentwood.

Love the kids all pigging out on their pretzels. Sorry about the idiot in the background.

On another Friday (where did all of these Fridays come from in this post?) Mel, Mason and Kira came out to Berkeley for a visit to Studio Grow.

And finally, we celebrated my last day of maternity leave by having dinner at our favorite pizza place in Oakland, Pizzaiolo. They have a great outdoor space that includes a fab patio, complete with a bocce court and a chicken coop (big hit with Nikos.)

Phew - glad to finally get this post up. I know some of you were afraid that I was going to go the way of a certain someone (think "...Family Reunion") and my blog would be forever frozen on the carrot video post. :) Of course, Jennie called me out - and since she is at home with newborn twin boys and a son a little older than Nikos and still manages to update, I thought I better as well!

PS - the house is finished! Taki just finished the peaks (I couldn't reach them) and now all we have left is the garage, oh and the trim. I'll post some pics when we are done.