A few weekends ago, with the help of my husband, I updated our IKEA dining table chairs…

I bought this fabric by Waverly – it’s called Luminary – online at Jo-Ann’s Fabric – Tim and I liked the color and pattern (it’s also available in grey and blue shades). It reminds me a little of 1960s kitsch, but applied to the modern shape of our chairs it works.

We removed the seats from the chair base, and Tim cut the pieces of fabric into squares, leaving a few inches extra for folding around the seat (it came with thick removable slip covers, but we left them on for extra cushioning )

Then he stapled the fabric tightly to the seat board (staple guns are useful things to have around). After those were done, I applied two coats of  Scotchgard to help keep them clean.

Lo and behold, a fun chair!

The color is very vibrant, and matches the green in our kitchen – it brought more color out into the brown tiled/toffee colored walls.

We had enough fabric to do all six chairs, plus extra if we need to replace any (we purchased 4 yards, widely overestimating our need, but hey it worked out).

Pink and black polka dot silk blouse with peter pan collar: Forever21

Rhinestone and pearl bow earrings: Betsey Johnson, birthday gift 2010

Black pleated skirt: Forever21 HERE

And finally…my awesome new shoes!

Shoes: BCBGeneration Stevie HERE

Eyelash curler: e.l.f Essentials (also mentioned HERE)
Mascara: Flirt! All That Lash in black  (also mentioned HERE)
Lip stain: REVLON Just Bitten in Crave
Blush: Bobbi Brown blush in Pale Pink

and I get this effect (ghostly white, i know, but I don’t wear powder or use other face makeup unless it’s a special occasion)

I love this lip stain! If I am going for color on my lips, generally Benefit Benetint is what I reach for, but this one by REVLON is an easy to use pen – it basically feels like using a marker. One end is the stain, and the other is a lip balm that keeps your lips feeling soft. I see so many stylish ladies wearing lipstick, but I just can’t pull off the look. This is much easier for me to wear, and it still feels like I’m just wearing my Burt’s Bees peppermint lip balm.

Also purchased this lip stain in ‘Frenzy’ – anyone else try these yet?

So, now I’m feeling a little lazy, and figured a post of photos from my iPhone was the least tiring type of post

New Year’s Eve countdown with Marco

Marco and his aunt Chloe are silly geese

My beautiful, sweet friends Adrian and Micaela visited me last week to cheer me up, keep me company, and fatten me up a little, LOL. In addition to the Gott’s lunch we had (complete with milkshakes!), Adrian brought Timmy and I dinner – a tasty lasagna! Her recipe is HERE

Flowers from my bosses and coworkers

The best way to wake up in the morning!

I love my flats! – REPORT ‘Foley’ 

Dinner at home – black bean ‘burger’ in pita bread, with spicy hummus, yellow bell pepper,tomato and fat-free feta

My pretty girl, Roux

Creepy kitty… ha ha poor Stabler

This year was difficult for movies – Tim and I rarely get a chance to see them, and the past month has been…interesting; so I haven’t seen all that I’ve wanted to (“The Artist”, “The Descendants”, and “Hugo”, namely).  But, I have discovered the wonderful ‘Downton Abbey’, so I was EXTREMELY thrilled when they won for Best Television Mini-Series!! Other than that, I was glad that Martin Scorsese won for Best Director – Drama, because I really like him (especially his eyebrows and teeth; something about him is just effervescent! he’s so intelligent, talented, and interesting).

It was lovely to see Morgan Freeman acknowledged for the Cecile B DeMille Lifetime Achievement award; I’ve loved him since I was a kid (mom took me to see “Driving Miss Daisy”, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” and “Unforgiven” in theatres), and his performance in “The Shawshank Redemption” is AMAZING.

Ricky Gervais was less sneery than last year, which was kind of weird – I expected no holds barred. But, he’s still hilarious and I like watching him and waiting to see what he’ll do next.

NOTE: Meryl Streep smooched my man on television! I’ll have to scratch her.

Colin Firth with his lovely wife (darn it)

Anyway, on to the fashion!

Red carpet looks to die for…

Reese Witherspoon
Va-va-voom! I liked that she went a little sexier than normal! Must be the newlywed phase

 Salma Hayek

Madonna
I loved the bodice of  her dress, but the bottom was a little perplexing (and what was with the glove?)

Emma Stone
The dramatic coloring was different! I like this dress on her

Octavia Spencer
Once again, I love lavender for awards shows – and I love the neckline and sleeving – I want a dress like this.

Rooney Mara
She does look lovely in black, with her pale skin tone

Looks that confused me…

Zooey Deschanel
I adore her, and while I like the cut of the dress, the color combination didn’t feel right. And the weird sideburns! Ugh!

Sarah Michelle Gellar
I was glad to see this girl back in the spotlight, but couldn’t wrap my head around this one.

Lea Michele
Just awful.

Jessica Biel
Please fire your stylist, Jessica. You have a fantastic body, what is with the grandma gown?

What were your favorites? Any dress you deemed a ‘disaster’?

The pain from the surgery kept getting worse and worse, and I’d already lost 5 pounds between the day of the surgery and the following Thursday. I called my doctor, and they had me come in and get a shot of antibiotics and some vitamin, to see if it helped. Friday morning I woke up and found the my incision had been weeping all night, and I felt horrible. I had my scheduled follow up that morning, and when I arrived they told me that I would need to go to the hospital for IV antibiotics, an ultrasound, bloodwork, and to be monitored for 24 hours. Have I mentioned before how much I hate hospitals?

I’ve never stayed overnight in a hospital by myself, and I was scared. It was pretty crummy – luckily, Tim was able to stay with me during the day, since Marco was at daycare. Our friend Justin was extremely kind and came up to watch Marco for a few hours, so Tim could come back to the hospital and tuck me in; I felt so much better to have Tim there before I went to sleep. He left at 9 to head home, and I tried to sleep.

HA! Total hours of sleep – 4 1/2 hours. A patient in another room on the same floor must’ve had something terrible wrong with him, because he moaned, groaned, screamed all night. I fell fully asleep sometime after midnight, when they’d given me a second round of antibiotics. I was asleep until 3:30, when a new nurse came in to check my blood pressure. At 4:30, she came back to see if I needed any more pain medication. At 5:30, a tech came in to take blood samples. At 6:30, a nurse came in to check my vitals again, and to tell me to order my breakfast. At 7:30, breakfast was delivered.  Every other person that came in would leave the door to my room open, thereby letting in all the noise from the nurses and the moaning guy.

My doctor came to check on me at around 9. He wanted me to stay another night, but I begged to be allowed to go home. He ended up letting me go home later in the afternoon, but with two antibiotics and orders to see him on Tuesday.

After he left, I slept for a little over an hour. Tim and Marco picked me up around 2:30, and I was so happy to see my boy! I hadn’t seen him since Friday morning, and I’d missed him so much! I hated not being able to kiss him goodnight! Marco gave me hugs, kisses, and huge grins. He’s been so sweet – patting my arms and asking “Mama, otay?”, trying to help me up off of the couch, and holding my hands when I walk around the house.

The pain is starting to lessen, but I’m exhausted all the time. It’s hard to eat much, and I can’t stop losing weight – trust me, this is NOT good. I look like a corpse, and I feel disgusting. All I can really stomach is cereal (Frosted Flakes and Lucky Charms), candy (so healthy, right?), and occasionally, crackers or pita chips. I want to feel like myself again. It’ll come soon, I just have to be patient, right?

The show centers around an English aristocratic family that resides in the ancestral home, Downton Abbey;  the  viewer is given both the lives of the aristocratic family and the lives of the servants. You get a chance to see these seemingly parallel paths intersect. I love the characters, the music, the landscapes…it’s all wonderful! Yes, it’s set in the early 20th century – so if you have a distaste for the period drama, then you may wish to move along. But please, don’t dismiss it based solely on that!

This show has gotten me through this past week. Luckily, Tim really likes it too; we’re both dorky about it, and drink tea and eat biscuits while we watch. I can’t wait for the 2nd season to start (Sunday night!)

Last Friday, I had my follow up appointment with my regular OB-GYN, from the previous week’s ER visit. After he looked at the ultrasound report, and examined me himself with the ultrasound, he had some interesting news for me.  It turned out that the complex cyst on my left ovary was full of blood – instead of either going away on its own, or rupturing,  a vein had torn inside of it, so it was just getting bigger and heavier. Then, there was an even bigger cyst in my right ovary. The ovary was getting so heavy that it was starting to drop from the weight (explaining the pull on my sciatic nerves).  I had to go from my doctor’s office straight to the hospital to have surgery to remove the cysts. He explained that if things were too hard on my ovary, there was a possibility that it would need to be removed, but he seemed to think that was unlikely given the circumstances; it would be a fairly simple laporascopic procedure, with minimal recovery time and two small incisions.

Tim had stayed at home with Marco during my appointment, but luckily my friend was able to sit at our house so Tim could meet me at the hospital. He arrived just in time to hold my hand before they put me under the anesthesia.  When I woke up, my doctor had already left for the day. I woke up from pain, and discovered it was hours later, and Tim was next to me. I just kept shouting “What happened?”, until the nurse came over. The nurse explained that they had taken my left ovary out entirely. In addition to the cyst, there was a large tumor, which they think is benign, but they sent it out for testing. I didn’t get any more information, and won’t know anything else until my follow up in a few days.

I’m scared. I’m in so much pain and I feel so awful. The pain medication helps with some of it, but the incisions hurt. I have two small incisions from the initial procedure, but once it was determined that my ovary had to come out, they had to cut a larger section. It’s still smaller than a C-section, and lower, so I probably shouldn’t complain, but I’m going to anyway. Laughing hurts – it’s all I want to do, to feel better and laugh, but it feels like my abdomen is ripping in half when I do.

I don’t know how this affects my ability to have children. I know nothing, and I think this scares me more than anything. I’m not as scared about the tumor – I can’t process that information yet.I don’t even know that I would have had any other children – but having the decision making process taken out of my hands is infuriating, frightening…. I can’t even remember all of the words there are to describe how I feel.

Christmas morning dawned, and still the Dicksons snored. Marco woke up at 8am, not exactly happy with life. He insisted that Daddy hold him on his chest. The three of us stayed in bed and passed out for an additional 45 minutes. Then, we decided to have breakfast before Marco discovered his treasures.

Marco loves his eggs

Look at his excited face – and his adorable holiday jammies!

After breakfast, we let Marco run out to the living room to discover what was there. He was SO excited to see his tunnel tent!

There was even a special note from Old St Nick

Tim had piled Marco’s gifts into the tent so we could all hang out with Marco in his new digs.

I gave Tim two sets of cuff links (one that is reminiscent of a circuit!), and a cool book by Brian Cox, and the accompanying BluRay documentary. I also gave him a few silly things for his stocking, like binoculars, candies filled with Sambuca, and such.

After a pleasant morning and early afternoon lazing around, we got ready for our Christmas dinner with the Dicksons.

 Marco looked so handsome! Vest, tie, slim fit jeans and Converse.

I made my special baked Brie for an appetizer (by special request), and it went fast! I was only able to get a few bites before it disappeared. We had a delicious dinner, and I spent a lot of time talking with Dad and Tim about photography.

My body wasn’t thrilled with me that day, and I was losing the battle to stay awake and comfortable., so we left around 9 so I could get home to bed.  Overall, a very good and quiet Christmas.