Pat and his bicycle

Pat had a date on Memorial Day. This date was not with me but was with his friend, Klane, and their bikes. They set out in the morning and rode all along the west side of Manhattan -- 25 miles total. 

I am glad that Pat has friends that he can do his hobbies with, because even though I had the greatest of intentions and ambitions when I bought my bike last year, it seems that I always have an excuse as to why I can't ride my bike. This time it's was "I'm pregnant."

But it looks like Pat had a great time, and was able to snap some awesome pics with his phone. 

Holy Cow. What a weekend...

We had a very interesting weekend. I don't feel that it was a bad weekend because there were both good and bad things that happened. Surprisingly, I feel very rested despite the events.

Let's start with Friday.

On Friday nights I meet with the young women from my church and do some sort of uplifting activity with them. Since I found out the gender of baby Koelling on Monday, I made some "Gender Reveal Cupcakes" for them with the appropriate colored frosting filling (blue for a boy and pink for a girl), so when they bit into them at the same time they would find out what I was having.

I heard this can be some what anticlimactic, but I thought it was so much fun. On the count of three we all bit in at once, and with our mouths full of cupcakes and blue frosting everyone started screaming "IT'S A BOY!". It was a blast, and so much better than just telling them. 

When I got home I just laid in front of my A/C unit and read a new book my friend, Joanna, recommended: "The Selection", by Kiera Cass. I take Joanna's book recommendations very seriously as she is the one that recommended "The Hunger Games" before it was on anyone radar. She is pretty much a book expert. 

It was a really good book and I could have almost finished it in one sitting, but around midnight I heard a repeated banging sound in the living room. It went on for a good 20 seconds or so and I couldn't identify what it could possibly be. When Pat went to go check to see what it was he found Montee on the tail end of a seizure. I know a little bit about cat seizures and this one must have been really bad because he peed and threw up on the couch...poor guy. As the seizure ended we could tell that Montee was very scared and confused and didn't know where he was. His confusion lasted for about 15 minutes where we just tried to coddle him and tried our best to calm him down. 

The comforting thing about seizures is that the cat is in no pain when the seizure is happening because they are unconscious. Even though watching your poor helpless cat go through a one of these violent fits it very traumatic, it is good to know that they aren't in any pain. That bad thing about seizures is that you never know when they are going to hit and obviously there is something wrong with the cat in order to have them. 

Next, as Montee was coming out of his confused state we thought it would be nice to draw a bath for him as he loves his baths. As I was doing this I saw two GIANT cockroaches creeping out of the bottom hole of our drain stopper on the side of our tub. I DO NOT tolerate cockroaches. I would rather have cute furry mice than giant grotesque cockroaches. In the two years we have lived in our apartment I have never seen one cockroach and have felt so lucky, considering how old our apartment is. So, no knowing what to do Pat just covered up the whole with duck-tape and I emailed our management company. 

Finally, we were able to go to bed once we stripped our coach down and started the soaking process of getting cat urine out of fabric. It was some Friday night. 

Moving onto Saturday:

On Saturday, we spent the majority of the day at the Vet, trying to figure out what was wrong with Montee. And all I have to say about this is THANK GOD FOR PET INSURANCE. After our experience with Frido, we learned how horrible and costly it is to pay for pet medical care out of pocket. So, when we got Montee we weren't going to take any chances and signed him up for pet insurance. I bet a lot of you didn't even know that exists! But it does and I highly recommend it. It gave us so many more options and we could feel like good and responsible pet owners as we were able to perform all necessary (and expensive) tests with out a second thought. 

After spending the day at the vet I came home and took a shower. Little did I know that I was NOT the only one that shower. During mid wash down I looked at the shower curtain and screamed for my life as I saw a giant cockroach. As I was screaming I could hear Pat laughing in the other room, as he knew perfectly well what I was screaming about. Earlier that day Pat cleaned the bathroom and took off the duck tape that was shielding us from these awful creatures, leaving me trapped as one snuck up the shower curtain and just wiggled his nasty antennas at me. 

As Pat finally came mozying in he wanted to try to capture the cockroach (of course Pat can't kill anything- he always have to capture and release) with me in the shower. This was not going to happen, as I was TOTALLY vulnerable. In order to avoid the cockroach I ended up having to stand on tub and escape over our sink (which by the way I don't recommend any pregnant women scaling a slippery porcelain sink sopping wet, but I had no choice!). But alas, when I was as far away from the bathroom as possible, Pat capture the nasty thing and of course released it outside and I got the duck tape and covered up anything that resembled a hole while we wait for a more deadly solution. 

Does anyone want to come stay with us!? I mean our apartment is awesome with a cat-pee-couch and cockroaches in the tub. Sick. Don't judge me. 

Later that night I felt the baby kick for the first time as I was lying on my back. Unlike before, where I wasn't sure if it was the baby, there was no mistaking these punching feelings. 

Then, to wrap up our event filled Saturday, we went out with some friends to dinner and to a pool hall. I am not good at pool but I think it is something I could really get into. It was so much fun and something that we would of never thought to do on our own. 

Sunday and Monday were great, which made up for our Friday and Saturday. I had a wonderful family video conference where my sister Kim, who is due with her fourth child two weeks after me, revealed she is having a boy too! I am excited that baby Koelling will have some cousins that are the same age as him!

Needless to say, every spare moment I had throughout the weekend was spent scrubbing and rescrubbing our couch. However, all the hard work paid off because I am happy to report that we are now pee free.

It was weird as I went back to work this morning I felt that my weekend was SO LONG...that NEVER happens. Even we had some major not so good events, I think the good outweighed the bad.

Chinatown Outing

I had the best day this past week with my friend Mariah. Mariah was here on business and I was so lucky that she thought of me and decided to come a day early so we could spend that day together. I took the day off of work (my favorite thing to do as of late) and tried to plan for a memorable New York City outing.

I have said this before, but I love having visitors. It can be stressful because I always want my guests to have the best time and the best possible NYC experience they can have. However, through the pressure of trying to find something to do to entertain them I end up finding things to do that I would have never done otherwise. 

This was true once again when Mariah came this past week. Mariah has visited me a few other times over the past couple of years, so I had already exhausted all my usual "points of interest" where we usually take our visitors. As I searched the internet days prior it seemed that "nothing" was going on and nothing seemed fun or interesting. I was beginning to feel a bit defeated. Sometimes living in a city where there are so many options makes it a bit difficult to decide or find anything to do (as strange as that might seem).

Finally it just hit me. When my sister was here a couple of months ago, we were walking through Chinatown and we saw all these shops that said "foot rubs." I am ALWAYS up for a foot rub and was intrigued by the idea. So of course I went to my favorite website, yelp.com, to find the best foot rub spot in china town. And just like that the perfect day was born. 

I read a lot of reviews and found the most favored and popular place to receive this type of service. Next I found a very popular Chinese ice cream store that sold unique flavors of ice cream, and also the most popular cheap Chinese restaurant in the area--all with a few block of each other. We were going to have a Chinatown outing! 

I haven't spent much time in Chinatown because I always viewed it as dirty and over crowded, so i didn't have very high expectations for what the day would hold. I thought it would be unique New York City experience, but I thought that is where it would end. However, to my great surprise, it was awesome! 

As we entered our chosen foot rub destination, Foot Heaven, I was immediately surprised by the cleanliness of the building, considering it was Chinatown. As soon as we set foot in the doors we were approached by whom yelp reviewers call "The Massage Nazi" asking us "What do you want?", "How long?", then "How many?" (asking if Mariah and I both wanted the same service). Immediately, without any other words spoken, we were lead to a dimly lit private room with two leather "lazy boy" chairs. I couldn't believe it. This is not what I was expecting for a Chinatown service. When I have seen these these types of stores in the past there is no privacy and the ambiance is never taken into consideration. 

From there "The Massage Nazi" grabbed two Chinese gentlemen who would be rubbing our feet for the next HOUR! They had two foot basins at the foot of the chairs that contained some type of muddy solution where they cleaned our feet. Then, within just a few minutes of entering the store, our feet were being rubbed. They massaged our calves and out feet, as well as performed reflexology. 

"Reflexology, zone therapy, is an alternative medicine involving the physical act of applying pressure to the feet, hands, or ears with specific thumb, finger, and hand. It is based on what reflexologists claim to be a system of zones and reflex areas that they say reflect an image of the body on the feet and hands, with the premise that such work effects a physical change to the body."

I am total believer in all of this especially after our experience there. Occasionally, Mariah's "foot rubber" would occasionally ask "Hurt?" where Mariah would confirm. He then would tell Mariah the corresponding body part that was a little tense. For instance, he said Mariah's shoulders and back were extremely tight because of where it hurt her when he pressed that area of her foot. How cool is that!?

During our time there I thought: "So this is what Heaven is like", "This is why I love living in New York City", "This is one of the coolest things I have ever done", and "I am bringing everyone I know here." I would also laugh periodically when I would hear people getting "slapped" throughout the facility. Chinese massage is very different than American massage. One of the differences is that they do this slapping technique that actually feels really good! When they first did it to Mariah, I was a little leery of how that could help or in any way feel good, but as soon as they did it to me I was a believer and was super impressed with how they just hit the right points and in the right way.

After spending 30 minutes on each leg/foot our massage was done. The Chinese men were so polite and helpful and even offered us waters as we left. I left feeling like that was the best $40 I had ever spent! 

Next, we headed around the corner to the very popular Chinatown Ice Cream Factory. I have been here once before years ago when our friends Chris and Annie came to visit us while Pat was doing his internship here. It's actually is a tourist spot, but for good reason. They have very unique and delicious flavors of ice cream for a decent price of $4 for two scoops on a cone. It couldn't have hit the spot more after our hour long foot rubs. 

Mariah and I had such a great day in Chinatown of all places! Thanks Mariah for coming and forcing me to get outside my comfort zone! 

Gotye and Parenthood

My friend Joanna sent this to me and I fell in love with it. I have been totally obsessed with this song ever since I heard the remake of it on American Idol a few weeks ago and can't get enough of it, and now I can't get enough of these kids singing it!

Being a "realist" who is pregnant I tend to gets moments of fear and anxiety for the change in my life that is about to take place. I envision sleepless nights, a crying baby, me struggling to get a carry a stroller up subway stairs, financial stresses, a totally stressed out mom, and more, more and more. However, being a "realist" doesn't mean that I should only focus on all the difficult times ahead, it means I must be realistic about all the happiness and fun Pat and I are going to have raising our kids. This video really made me get excited for those awesome times when kids just make you laugh. I can only hope our kids are this cool!