Hi, my name is Whitney

(Hi Whitney)

And I'm a chocoholic.

Seriously. In high school I could put away chocolate like nobody's business. A handful of M&M's? Try half a bag. No, not half a bag that you get out of a vending machine. Half a bag for A PARTY.

For my birthday, my husband got me a 42 oz. bag of peanut M&M's (my personal fave). I polished that off in about a week and a half.

Unfortunately, I don't have the metabolism that I had in high school (ugh, that makes me feel old). And, I'll be honest. Downing half a bag of M&M's at any age probably isn't the healthiest thing to do.

So a few months ago I decided to cut back on the amount of sugar I was consuming. I thought I could still buy cookies and brownies and just exhibit enough willpower to not consume a whole batch in 2 days. But old habits die hard.

In fact, those habits didn't die at all. If there were cookies or treats in the house, I ate them. All. The only way for me to not scarf down a batch of cookies was to not have them in my house. So I stopped buying that stuff. (no ice cream, no cookies, no brownies, no nothin'!)

I thought I had overcome my addiction. But last week I bought some M&M's to give away for Valentine's Day. Well, that's how I rationalized buying them. But guess what? They didn't make it to Valentine's Day. They're gone. I ate them all. Blake helped me, but I ate most of them.  I really wish I had more willpower when it comes to chocolate. But the only thing that will keep me from eating chocolate besides not buying it is if it has mint in it. Mint chocolate anything=gross.

Apparently this is going to be a lifelong struggle.

the saddest words ever uttered

Ok, so that's kind of dramatic.

In the almost 2 years (feels more like 5) that we've lived here, the majority of my time has been spent dreaming about when we get to leave. As much as I've tried to embrace where we live, it's proven difficult. On good days I can handle unfamiliar city life without many complaints. On bad days I entertain the idea of just packing a bag for Blake and me and catching the next flight out of here (of course Evan would join us as soon as he got home from work). At one point I had decided that we needed to move away as soon as possible. I encouraged Evan to look for a job elsewhere and I even started looking for jobs for him.

But with Jerky McJerkFace living downstairs, we decided moving now (instead of waiting to move until we officially leave NYC) was the best option for us. We were able to find an apartment that better suits our needs even if it is a bit smaller than our current place.

As we walked to the subway after signing our new lease, Evan said, "Let's face it. We aren't going anywhere any time soon." His statement almost took my breath away. And then I realized he's probably right. And it's probably time for me to stop thinking otherwise.

It's exhausting to spend your days dreaming of being anywhere than where you actually are. So I have to face it. We're going to be here for a while longer. Not forever. Just a while a longer.

Crock pot cookin'

Last week I had a brilliant idea: I was going to find crock pot recipes and use my crock pot everyday. And it was going to be fabulous. And easy.

Here's what I learned:

1) Out of 4 crock pot recipes, only 1 made it into my monthly meal rotation.

2) It's nice to throw the ingredients together and forget about dinner until you're ready to eat.

3) Cleaning a crock pot is annoying.

4) Always have a back up dinner (i.e. frozen pizza, frozen skillet meals) ready in case your crock pot dinner turns out to be disgusting (and there's a good chance that's going to happen.)

So my fabulous crock pot week didn't really turn out as fabulously as I had hoped. I'm glad that I found one recipe that I can use. And with some recipe suggestions from friends, hopefully I'll be able to test out a few more recipes and add them to my list of delicious and doable slow cooker meals.

Dearest Neighbor,

Over the past month I've gone from feeling bad for having such a loud child, to hating you, to reading about how I'm supposed to love you and then trying to love you, back to hating you, then to thinking you are just plain ridiculous.

I know you think I'm one of those mothers who lets her child run amok all day long with very few restrictions. But I promise you, I am not.

Despite what you think (and what you accused me of tonight in our somewhat heated conversation), I do not "entice him to run around". I absolutely never chase him. EVER. When you hear me calling his name, it's usually to either to get him to stop running or to be quiet. I spend most of my days now pleading with him to be quiet. And sometimes that pleading turns into yelling. And time out. All because you say we are too loud.

And despite what you also accused me of, we do have a rug. And we have a play mat for him to play on.

Yes, he does run around most days. He also loves to dance when he hears music. I usually let him do it for about 1 minute and then force him to stop, which results in tantrums, which result in more noise.

Yes, he does drop and throw his toys sometimes. And I try to teach him not to do that. But he's 22 months old. That basically describes a 22 month old: really loud and not very good at listening, probably because they are so loud.

source

I was happy to hear that you got a set of ear plugs. It shows me that you are at least trying to do something to solve the problem and not just putting it all on me. But like I said a million times tonight, there's not much I can do. It's not my fault that you work at home. It's not my fault that our apartment isn't properly insulated.

Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to focus on my family. I'm going to focus on what is best for my child. I told you I'd try even harder to reduce the noise and I will. I warned you that there will still be noise. But your ridiculous claims and requests tonight have taught me 2 things:

I'm not a confrontational person, but I won't let you (or anyone else) walk all over me. (Thank you, NY for bringing that out in me.) And I made that clear tonight.

I'm going to make sure Blake knows he is loved. It never really occurred to me that other people might not be too fond of Blake. He's cute and sweet, and gives great hugs. And he deserves to be a 2 year old and do things a 2 year old likes to do. Whether you like it or not.

 Sincerely,
Your upstairs neighbor

P.S. I'm terribly sorry that we were sick last week. All of the coughing you said you heard must have been so annoying.

Seeing New York- Transit Museum

Last week our friend Lindsay invited Blake and me on a little excursion to the New York Transit Museum. So we hopped on a train...to go look at more trains!

There was an electricity exhibit that the boys had fun tinkering with.

And they even let us drive a subway train! Turns out it's totally doable while you hold a small child!

Ok not really.

I forgot to clear off my camera card, so I only got 2 pictures. The rest of the museum has a buses that you can "drive" or be a passenger on. Blake loved being behind the steering wheel of an MTA bus. And Garrett (one of Lindsays' boys) was gracious enough to pick us up and drive us all the way to New York City!

We even went down to a subway platform and toured some of the old trains they used to use. It was neat to see what the old trains look like and how different some of them are from the trains we ride.

It was nice to get out and explore the city a little more.

Thanks, Lindsay!

Concerto No. 5