Monday, September 24, 2007

So Long, Farewell

For the past 2 ½ years Lucretia Avenue has been our home, more importantly our first home. We say good-bye to it fondly and take with us the many memories it has held. I would like to share some of those here now:

July 2005 - Moving in…and crying over a missing bathrobe.

July 2005 - Miss G's pink ...too pink bedroom.

August 2005 - Miss G turns 5.

Sept 2005 - My first time at the Big E.


Oct 2005 - Our first (and only) Halloween Party here.

Dec 2005 - Mad Dog asks me to marry him in our living room after a 4 hour ordeal to find a Christmas Tree that didn't cost us $50.00 in Western, MA ( yes in Western, MA!). He gave me 2 rings- my diamond and my Banana Splits Ring he found on Ebay.

Dec 2005 - Our first Christmas morning with Miss G.

New Years Eve Day 2005/2006 - In Boston with Mad Dog & Kevin for Dim Sum, Ice Sculptures & to tell our engagement news to friends.

Feb 2006 - We lost Phantom (who couldn't control his drool), he pasted in his sleep.

Feb 2006 - I found my place at Barnes & Noble in Enfield, and stopped my horrible commute across the state.

June 2006 - Miss G goes away to WI, for much more than a vacation.

July 2006 - We find out we're pregnant, with our first child. This is happy news - too bad all

August 2006 - We tell our families, and the baby shopping begins for Nana Sandy.


Oct 2006 - those days of "morning" sickness isn't.The transformation of the Media Room into Little Man's bedroom.

Nov 2006 -
The many nights of Most Haunted spent on the couch until Mike got home.

Dec 2006 - Miss G returns for Christmas.

Jan 2007 - Impulse gets sick.


Feb 2007 - The first false alarm. No baby, not yet.

Feb 2007 - Little Man is born, 2 weeks early and we would still have time to go to New York Comic-Con (Mad Dog's wishful thinking).

Feb 2007 - My Mom visits our apartment for the 2nd time in 2 years.

April 2007 - Impulse passes away with Little Man and me by his side. Lots of tears and sadness.

May 2007 - Miss G comes home for Easter and meets Little Man for the first time.


June 2007 - Miss G comes for the summer, full of video games, reading, High School Musical 2 and new friends.

August 2007 - I get my new job at Covidien.

August 2007 - Mad Dog and I get married.

Sept 2007 - Little Man finds out he can roll and chases Spirit (our cat) around the bed.

Sept 2007 - Mad Dog, Little Man and I go to Baltimore for Comic-Con. Little Man rocked the Con and is looking forward to next year.

Sept 2007 - We find our new home on Beacon Street.

Oct 2007 - We move!

Monday, September 17, 2007

Movin' Right Along

Movin' right along in search of good times and good news,
With good friends, you can't lose,
This could become a habit.
Opportunity knocked once, let's reach out and grab it,
Together we'll nab it.

If you don't know where that's from there really is no hope for you! Just kidding - but you do need to re-exam your childhood. Its official we're moving to Worcester, MA. Can't believe it myself - Looks like in the next 10 years we might manage to get back to Mansfield somehow. No joking we found a place and it's not exactly where we wanted to be, but it is what we were looking for and for the right price.

I'm not looking forward to the rest of our packing, however I am looking forward to making the new place ours. I have a terrible habit when I go into people's home that I try to make it mine in my head - how would I change it and how would our stuff fit. The only house I can't do this with is my Mom's. I can't imagine ever making that mine.

Our current home is full of boxes and we're slowly packing, but at least we're started. I feel good about that and horribly sad at the same time. This was mine and Mad Dog's first home together. And the place we brought Little Man home too. I'm going to miss it. I wish I had taken more pictures of the place and had more people out. It's a great place and I'm going to miss # 10, but at least we have all our memories and it's love.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Fan Girl

Okay - Mad Dog will totally rag on me when (and if) he reads this, but I'm excited. I'm sure this will sound stupid, but... See I have a MySpace page. I got it to keep in touch with my brothers, but I have added to it over the past few months. If you know about MySpace, just about everyone has a page and anyone for the most part can join anyones page as a friend. I have joined a few big named authors/comic artists, etc. I happen to be friends with Dan Didio, the VP of DC Comics. So after the Con the other day when I came back I posted a comment on his page saying "Thank you for bring DC to Baltimore and making it a great weekend for everyone." I didn't expect anything at all, but I got a comment back! It's not much, but still..."the pleasure of going to the Baltimore con is always mine. Great show, great fans! And DAMN, Camden Yards is one beautiful stadium." Mad Dog has been making fun of me ever since. I just think it's cool that he replied. Mad Dog thinks part of it is my picture on MySpace right now. You be the judge:

It Only Happens When it Rains

I knew that things were going to well for things to continue on course. Since coming back from our "honeymoon" we have had car issues. I shouldn't say issues. It's one issue. It's dead. We'll it runs, but the transmission is shot and would cost $1,800.00 to fix. Things is there is only $2,163.00 left on it. Mad Dog was optimistic and thought we should try to pull the money together and get it fixed, but I don't think so. Seeing no sooner then we put the money into it, it will die a week later for good.

This is the worst time in the world for this all to happen. We need to find a place in 2 weeks and move - with no second car and the issues with the car this is a big issue. Mad Dog's Father has decided to help us out. They are paying off the car for us, so we can make smaller payments to them. Then we're going to try for another car. Don't know how that will go with my credit, but we have to.

On a good note (afraid to write this, in case I jinx it) we found a place this weekend. It's in Worcester - 3 bedroom on the 2nd floor. Mad Dog hasn't seen it yet. He's going on my word that it'll work (fingers-crossed). We have to fill out the application and I'll drop it off Tuesday - guy seems positive about the whole thing. We're going to have to figure out moving, but packing is in full swing in our house. We just need to get rid of some stuff (a lot of stuff).

I'm going to try not to hold my breath about the whole thing and hope for the best on all fronts.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Baltimore or bust!

This past Friday Mad Dog, Little Man and myself headed off for Baltimore for Baltimore Comic-Con 2007. We drove down Friday and settled into our hotel room before driving into Baltimore to find crab cakes or some kind of seafood to satisfy Mad Dog.

Let me say before continuing Little Man was a saint! We couldn't be been blessed with a better child and we love him for it. He was good all the way down, and through out all the events of the weekend - which would be rough for anyone even an adult.

Saturday morning after a slightly rough night with the Baptists that we staying on our floor - keeping all of us up at one point or another, we had breakfast at the hotel and headed into Baltimore for the Con. Little Man dressed in his Robin oneies and brought along Jimmy Olsen and Bats for the day. This was our first official Comic-Con, and we really didn't know what to expect. We were blessed with extra passes from our friend Benn, which allowed us to sell our Saturday tickets which we had previously purchased for a little extra cash. Since we had the baby stroller with all the books we were looking to get signed we were able to forgo the long line to get in once we got our wristbands, and take the elevator down to the convention floor. On Saturday we were lucky enough to slip in 20 minutes early (again thank you Little Man), and just get to get a lay of the land, before the show officially opened. Mad Dog, managed to get Frank Cho's autograph early due to this. Little Man was very good and he flirted with ever artist we met.

We only managed one panel, since Little Man sitting still for that long and being quiet for just as long was a lot to ask, bue we did manage to make that panel, the DC Nation panel. Where Mad Dog got to ask several questions and even gave Dan Didio cause to pause and think before answering his first question: Are there any series currently running that are set on another earth, unbeknownst to readers? Didio finally answered No. Later Didio called on Mad Dog again, and by this time a squirming Little Man had fallen asleep and had been sleeping for about 45 minutes, Didio made Mad Dog hold Little Man up, so that the whole DC Nation could see how cute he looked in his Robin oneies. This prompted Didio to make the "following the Ra’s Al Ghul storyline, Chuck Dixon would be returning to write the series. Look for a conversation with Dixon about his return coming later this afternoon." (Newsarama).
I even worked up the nerve to ask a question of Jann Jones regarding the recent release of the Black Canary Wedding Planner - asking to be funny "With the release of the Wedding planner this week, will we be seeing the release of a line of Women of DC Lingerie line?" It got a good laugh!

After a long day of meeting artists and walking around we went back to the hotel for a short bit for some food and a nap (for all), before going back into the city for a Baseball game at Camden Yard. This was Little Man's First Baseball game /Red Sox Game. Yes, the Sox were in Balitmore. We were nervous about him being okay at the park with all the noise and lights after a long day - we got the the park late, and grabbed food and ate before going to find our seats. Little Man loved it. He was giggling and FLIRTING with anyone who would talk to him, which was everyone. He even wore his Red Sox out fit that Uncle Sean & Aunt Tiffany gave him. We we found our seats way up in Left Field, he loved looking around and was laughing at Jimmy Olsen and I while we clapped our hands with the crowd. He was so silly! We didn't stay long for fear of tempting fate - so we stayed for about an hour (if that) in our seats and then made our way down to leave. Before leaving we stopped at Fan Assistance and they gave us a certificate for Little Man to celebrate his first ball game. He fell asleep on the way home after such a long and exciting day. That night the 3 of us snuggled in our King size bed and sleep dreaming of all tomorrow would bring.

Sunday as even longer than Saturday on call counts. We got up and packed up everything into the car, since we were checking out. Had breakfast and got on the road for the Con. This time we weren't so lucky about sneaking in, however we didn't have to wait in line. We just could get on to the floor early - was sat and talked with one for the security people for 10AM. Once in we picked up a few of the autographs we hadn't picked up the day before, like - Mike Mignola . After that we were free to wander until Jim Lee was signing at 2PM. Having said that At I want to say 11ish if we even made it that far, I was walking by the DC booth and noticed a line - I asked an the Fan's said it was the line for Jim Lee's 2pm signing. I found Mad Dog looking through 50 cent comics and told him I was getting in line with Little Man, he thought I was nuts. " You do know how lone that is? " I did, but this was the point of coming - at least one of them. I got in line and we switched off a bit. We were lucky -they cut the line (we were probably in the middle) and when we left Jim Lee had a panel at 3 PM to get to had he still had about 25 people to get through for where they cut it off (he had 5 minutes). Oh did I say he congratulated us on Little Man - who was so good in line - and if we had the stuff (which we weren't greedy) we could have had 15 pieces signed for the 3 of us (he was signing 5 a piece).

After Mr. Lee we headed out. Which we thought was pretty great since we had a 6 hour trip ahead of us. We grabbed food once out of the city, and took off for home. Sadly we weren't that lucky. We hit traffic on the Washington Bridge - Mad Dog's Dad, who he called since it was getting late and wanted us to call when we got home, jinxed us. We didn't make it home until 1AM. Lucky for us we could sleep Monday once we returned the rental car.

This was our first official Family Road Trip! We loved it and are ready planning next year!

Monday, September 3, 2007

Metamorphoses



I think everyone has a different idea of the perfect wedding gift. Mad Dog worked long and hard on the gift he gave me, and most women would probably crinkle their nose at it, but I love it. He gave me an action figure customization kit. It's very cool.

My first custom figure isn't complete, yet. But I'm very excited about her. I started with my custom Lois Lane. I still have to create her skirt, but I managed to get the rest of her done. I even went as far as custom paint under where the skirt will be. She is going to stand next to my customer painted Lex Luthor once she is complete.

The figure I used for the Lois Lane was Sydney Savage from Danger Girl. I had to sand off her belt and all the fabric of her jumpsuit. I then hand painted her, giving her high heel shoes and thigh-highs. She'll have a black or dark blue skirt when I'm finished. I'm looking forward to working on many more custom figures with my new toys. (Sorry the photo isn't clearer!)

Original Sydney Savage Action Figure