Early Halloween

So okay, another weird fact about the area I live... they do trick-or-treating early around here. And at a mandated time. And for only for kids 12 and under (in certain towns). It's an interesting rule that we learned about since we moved here. The local towns mandate a specific times for trick or treating. And in our town specifically, if Halloween falls on a weekday, then they mandate that trick-or-treating is moved to the Saturday before Halloween, and during the daylight hours.

So yesterday was our "Halloween" or trick-or-treating day, from 1-4. I just think it's strange, and kinda lame. I mean I know it's all about safety and keeping it not "on a school night", but it still takes a little bit of fun out of Halloween. When we were kids, we waited until dark on Halloween and trick-or-treated until our hearts content... and ON Halloween. It just doesn't seem as fun to do it early. And then mandating the ages? That's lame too.

Oh well. Mr. H2O and I joked that our future children will be lucky to go trick-or-treating twice... once early our town, and then we can go to Grandma and Grandpa's on Halloween. Twice the fun, Twice the candy.

Here are the pumpkins that I took time to carve in time for "early Halloween".

My little pumpkin - it says "boo"



My Big pumpkin - says Happy Halloween, but it dried up a little and the words got messed up


After I took these pictures, I promptly tripped on the front step coming back in. Yep... I am graceful. The camera is fine, my knee and ankle are not.

House Updates

Back in September, Mr. H2O was told by his job to "work from home" for a couple weeks. It's a long story, but basically they needed the lab that he works in for some testing, and for safety reasons he couldn't be there. So he got to "work from home" or basically catch up on his Maury watching and household projects and get paid for it. It was originally for 2 weeks, but 2 weeks turned into 3 weeks and then almost a month. Now I love my husband to death, but having him home all that time threw me off and I was looking forward to when he went back.

In that time though, he did manage to get our front yard projects done, which included finishing the building of the garden wall and the battle for control of the front lawn. So I've decided to post up some pictures of the H2O house lately since I haven't really shown it off in awhile. Not a drastic change but it looks a lot nicer now. And you can see some of my outdoor fall decor too.

Before (June '07)


After (October '07)


Side Garden Area Before


Side Garden Area After


Other side Garden Area Before


Other side Garden Area After


My new Japanese Laceleaf Maple


Front Door in June '07


Front Door with some of my fall decor Oct '07


That's what we have for now. And it is amazing, the front lawn is looking so green right now. It was a battle for Mr. H2O but we managed to grow the new seed and get rid of most of the crabgrass. We are planning on putting in a shade tree in the front lawn at some point.
I would show pictures of the back, but it is pretty embarrassing. It is all weeds and overgrown crabgrass right now and looks absolutely terrible. It is such a big and odd shaped lot and a complete blank canvas. Mr. H2O is insisting that we wait until we have a "master plan" before we do anything back there. I just want it to look... well, just not terrible like it is now.

Horray for Fall!

I cannot beleive that September is here already! Where did the summer go? Though it still feels like summer here. But at least we haven't had to use air conditioning in almost a week.

But one of my favorite times of year is here. I love the fall! I love fall colors, fall smells, fall decorating. And best of all, I am excited for football!

Eight years ago, you would have never heard me say such a thing, but I really do love football. This is all Mr. H2O's doing of course, but I don't mind. I refused to become a "football widow" and decided I was going to learn and enjoy it as much as my husband. And when fall rolls around in the H2O house, we are all abuzz about our Yahoo Sports Football pick-em (I've beaten Mr. H2O 3 years in a row now), we excitedly make our football picks, and Philadelphia Eagles become priority #1.

Mr. H2O has been an Eagle fan since birth practically. I married into it, but I don't mind. Last December 25th, in our house you would have no idea that it was anything other than Eagle's game day... Christmas dinner was put on hold until 9:30pm. The Eagles/Dallas game was way more important of course. I think that was a situation that happened region-wide. This is the first time in my life that have ever lived close to a "football city", and Philadelphia and about a 50 mile radius surrounding it, lives and dies by this football team. I grew up near Seattle, and what did we have? The Seahawks. For the most part they were always terrible, and nobody really gave a crap about them.

So the next several Sundays (and some Mondays) are occupied with great hits, great catches, lots of yelling (not by me of course) some inevitable heart-break, and some trash talking. Game 1 versus Greenbay is this Sunday.

So I highly recommend that other ladies out there to not fight it. Get into it. And if you have a slightly competetive spirit, join an NFL pick 'em pool with your significant other and see how into football you will get. It's a blast. And some of the players aren't bad to look at either.

And while Eagles are #1 I do secretly root for the Cincinnati Bengals(or Bungles as he affectionately calls them). Many OSU Beaver players have ended up there, and Carson Palmer is HOT.

5:20am Wake Up Call

I was woken up from a deep sleep at 5:20am by our lovely smoke/CO detector alarm. Both Mr. H2O and I nearly jumped out of our skin wondering "what the hell was that?" And I'm not talkin' the small-type "the battery needs changing" beep. I'm talkin' the big loud high pitched horn that you can hear down the block. The weird thing is, it only rang once, and then stopped. Then we heard the occasional chirp every couple minutes.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it at all. Mr. H2O searched the house, found no fire, no smoke, no nothing. And apparently that was not the correct alarm sound for carbon monoxide either, so we were way puzzled. We were then subjected to endless chirping every minute from different smoke detectors throught the house for the next two hours. After switching various "good" batteries around and still no answer, I now have 2 of the upstairs smoke detectors (and there are 5) disconnected and sitting on the floor.

We are still completely puzzled.

What a night to decide to stay up until 1:30am. I am paying for it today.

Baby Rabies - "When it's more than a fever"

I recently added to my blog roll of my favorite blogs (I'll continually add more) a blog called Baby Rabies. It is a condition that not only the writer ther suffers, but I'm afraid I suffer from it too. My main symptoms seem to be extreme impatience for starting to TTC (that's try to conceive to folks that are not down with the baby crazy verbaige) and complete loss of all practical and rational thought at the mere site of the baby department at Target. Not to mention the tunnel vision I have when I see nothing but pregnant women everywhere I go.

While having this last weekend to myself, when I wasn't working I found myself lurking about on the Nest (www.thenest.com - a great message board site) checking out messages from other women ttc or pregnant and drooling over thier pictures of their nurseries all set up. Then I found myself bookmarking my favortie baby sites on the net for future use, picking out my favorite bedding. Ugh, this is more than just a fever. Mr H20 has no idea how bad it is.

Anyway, Baby Rabies is an extremely entertaining blog and I found that I am not the only one that suffers this sickness. I can totally relate to everything she says. Now I need to read up on her tips on how to infect your husband.

I can't I can't, I can't stand losing...

Mr. H2O and I went and to the Police concert last night in Philadelphia. It was the kick assiest!

I think this was probably the first time that we had gone to a concert where both of us were into the band. It was a great time! We danced, we grooved, we sang... Mr. H2O rather loudly... Got a couple dirty "I came to hear Sting, not some random dude in the crowd" type looks from surrounding people, but he didn't care. It was so much fun.

It was the present for each other's respective birthdays and we had fabulous 13th row seats. And they better have been good seats because we paid a pretty penny for them. But we were aweful close. Close enough to notice that Sting was wearing very tight pants.

Yes, their first album may have been released a year before I was born, but I am totally into them. It brought back memories of being really little and my uncle and aunt were grooving to them back in the day.

We were surrounded by people my parent's age and that was definitely apparent when people were leaving all around us before the first encore. WTF? This is the freakin POLICE people! They haven't toured in in 20 years! Must have been passed the bedtime of all those oldtimers.

It was kind of refreshing though to go to a concert and not feel like the oldest person there which has happened a lot lately. I'm now at the old age of 28 after all.

Police concert... Loved it.

From the mouths of babes...

I've seen all those clever questionnaire things when they ask children simple questions and get their own versions of how they think the world works. My aunt used to do this with my brother and I when we were little kids. She would ask us about God and who he is, and what kind of house God lived in, and what God did all day. And I know we must have given the craziest answers.

So here's another one of those "kids say the darndest things..." but I thought it was really cute. It made my evening.

Why God made Moms -- BRILLIANT Answers given by 2nd grade school children to the following questions!

Why did God make mothers?
1. She's the only one who knows where the scotch tape is.
2. Mostly to clean the house.
3. To help us out of there when we were getting born.

How did God make mothers?
1. He used dirt, just like for the rest of us.
2. Magic plus super powers and a lot of stirring
3. God made my Mom just the same like he made me. He Just used bigger parts.

What ingredients are mothers made of?
1. God makes mothers out of clouds and angel hair and everything nice in the world and one dab of mean.
2. They had to get their start from men's bones. Then they mostly use string, I think.
Why did God give you your mother & not some other mom?
1. We're related
2. God knew she likes me a lot more than other people's moms like me.

What kind of little girl was your mom?
1. My mom has always been my mom and none of that other stuff.
2. I don't know because I wasn't there, but my guess would be pretty bossy.
3. They say she used to be nice.

What did mom need to know about dad before she married him?
1. His last name.
2. She had to know his background. Like is he a crook? Does he get drunk on beer?
Why did your mom marry your dad?
1. My dad makes the best spaghetti in the world. And my Mom eats a lot.
2. She got too old to do anything else with him.
3. My grandma says that Mom didn't have her thinking cap on.

Who's the boss at your house?
1. Mom doesn't want to be boss, but she has to because dad's such a goof ball.
2. Mom. You can tell by room inspection. She sees the stuff under the bed.
3. I guess Mom is, but only because she has a lot more to do than dad.

What's the difference between moms & dads?
1. Moms work at work and work at home & dads just go to work at work.
2. Moms know how to talk to teachers without scaring them.
3. Dads are taller & stronger, but moms have all the real power 'cause that's who you got to ask if you want to sleep over at your friend's.
4. Moms have magic; they make you feel better without medicine.

What does your mom do in her spare time?
1. Mothers don't do spare time.
2. To hear her tell it, she pays bills all day long.

What would it take to make your mom perfect?
1. On the inside, she's already perfect. Outside, I think some kind of plastic surgery.
2. Diet. You know, her hair. I'd diet, maybe blue.

If you could change one thing about your Mom, what would it be?
1. She has this weird thing about me keeping my room clean. I'd get rid of that.
2. I'd make my Mom smarter. Then she would know it was my sister who did it and not me.
3. I would like for her to get rid of those invisible eyes on the back of her head.

All is calm in H2O Land

Today is a good day. It is sunny and not too hot or humid and I like it that way. And Mr. H2O is out of town on a business trip today so I have plenty of extra time to work today without worrying about what to do for dinner or if all the laundry is done.

Today, I also have a new sense of clarity. Last night, Mr H2O and I turned off all radio, TV, and closed the laptops and just spent time in the quiet talking with no distractions. It was really nice. I think we should do this one night a week, and I recommend it to every married couple.

And we were finally able to talk over the baby issue (my latest obsession) and really TALK about it. And the good thing is now I've been let in on the secret of what will take us from almost to Yes. It makes sense and I am totally ok with it. And now I know what goal and timeline that we are shooting for and I feel so much better. That was the part that was driving me crazy. The unknown staring me in the face and my impatience was getting the better of me.

I feel good and I'm excited. But this is our secret and our lips are sealed. So when are we go to start trying? No one is going to get it out of me. Even Mom. So stop asking.

Married Life of H2O

Just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary! Yeah!

Mr. H2O and I celebrated 3 married years together on Tuesday (the 29th). We went and had a nice quiet dinner at one of my favorite places, Dock's Oyster House in Atlantic City and we practically closed the place down. It was a weekday after Memorial Day weekend an we came in a bit later in the evening, so obviously it was not very busy. But it was nice, we had the place almost to ourselves. I love that restaurant, but it is really only a place we can go for special occasions like that since it's a bit expensive.

Overall, it's been a great three years. Sometimes it feels like longer, but that's because we've been together about 7 years now. We've enjoyed being married and our time as just to two of us. But I think the time of being just the two of us is coming to an end... well at least I hope it is coming to an end... soon.

I of course have total baby fever and it's growing by the day. I've probably had it for the whole 3 years we've been married, but now it is getting unbearable. Now it seems everyone I know has just found out they are pregnant or just had a baby. Don't get me wrong, I am totally thrilled for all of them and so happy that they are starting their families. But I want it to be my turn now, it is time. Mr. H2O is making us wait.

What's the hurry? I'm not in a hurry, it's just time. I've always wanted to be a mom my whole life, and I'm at the perfect point in my life to be able to do that with my home business and our improved money sitution. I'm almost 28, and though a lot would say that I "have plenty of time", I was diagnosed with PCOS and that's a strike against me. I'm worried about what problems that will cause and if we don't start now, as I get older it will be harder to conceive. My grandma always says 90% of the things you worry about never happen... but I'm still gonna worry.

At this point, Mr. H2O says he's at "almost". Now I'm just trying to figure out what takes him from "almost" to "sure let's go for it". In the meantime, I'll just look at all the pictures of my friends and families' babies and nurseries and hope my turn is coming soon.

It's Memorial Day Weekend

So it's Sunday of Memorial day weekend, and it's been a bit of time since I wrote here last. Things are going. I did make it to Onederland, and I finally found a new bathing suit at Kohls for a great deal. But I have been hovering at the same weight over the last few weeks since I kind-of stopped trying.

My business has gotten so busy that I barely have time to do laundry and make dinner, let alone get a work out in. And I've been eating like crap the last couple days and I need to get that in check. It just seems to take so much effort to eat healthy all the time, and if I don't plan ahead and work it all out ahead of time, I don't do as well. But the problem is that I don't have enough time. I feel like my business is running me, instead of me running my business. It is getting me down.

I remarked to Mr. H2O last week that I'm trying really hard to be happy, or that I have been unhappy. Part of it is liking where we live and being used to New Jersey. I like my house, the area is ok, but I guess I am just lonely here. I miss my family, and Jeff's family is great, but they can't sub in totally for my own family. And still don't any friends around here. It's really hard. Another part is the baby issue, which I will get into another time. And the largest reason right now is my business.

At this point my business is running me. I feel like I am drowning in work and I feel guilty when I decide to take an off day. This was not what I envisioned for my business or what I really wanted. And I'm not really sure that I want to grow my business beyond what it is now. It seems that hiring subcontractors and managing them would even be more work. Just getting systems in place to be organized are enough work. I know that Mr. H2O thinks I should grow and do this, and what he wants me to do. But I don't know if I want it. I don't think I ever meant for this to grow beyond my one-woman opperation. I want to have a family. I want to be a Mom. My business was a way to provide income for us by doing what I wanted. And eventually I would pull back when we started our family. I wanted to be a mom to my kids. I don't want to run a virtual staffing agency.

I wanted success for my business, but I never really saw where this could actually take me. Was I afraid of success?

Regardless of all this, I need help. This is where I am at, I have a sucessful business that I cannot give up on and I need to continue to work at it. And most of all, I need an assistant. If not one for my business, one to clean my house and cook meals. I'm tired of feeling like things are out of my control and I am dangerously close to burning out.

A Good Month, But Help Needed

So it's been a month since I've been here last, but I must say it was a pretty good one. The best news is that I have lost a total of 30 lbs now and I have reached "Onderland" (in the 100's). I haven't been there in over 5 years. I couldn't be more thrilled and I am feeling really good about myself. And I can now visually see my results so far which is a first.

So other good news, my business has really taken off in the past couple months and I have reached capacity for clients and have a full practice. It is very exciting and really helps Mr. H2O and I out a lot. All this is really great, but it is causing me some extra stress because I am worrying about getting all my client's hours in, while still taking care of myself and taking care of my husband and house. Well the latter 3 are suffering a bit.

I am still eating healthy and staying on the diet, but I am not getting as much sleep and I am not getting ANY work outs in lately. And I have gotten REALLY behind my house work with laundry piling up, dishes piling, and I even heard Jeff pick up a broom so it must be bad. I am trying, but I know I can try harder. The biggest thing is that I need to spend less time doing non-billable items early in the day like I normally do and save it for later when I usually hit the wall on "work" type stuff. And I know if I immediately get up and get "dressed to the shoes" that I get a lot more accomplished and it gives me a little more energy. Time to get back to FlyLady.

But even with improving my daily habits and such, I still would like to grow my business a little more and am considering hiring my own assistant. I am just one phonecall away from freaking a little as I don't think I can physically handle another new client and I need to figure out how to remedy this. Michael Russer, well respected real estate speaker/coach had said that there are more Real Estate Professionals out there that need VA's than Virtual Assistants to handle them. I didn't believe him at first, but I am starting to believe him now. I wish I could clone myself, but I guess it's time to begin my assistant or subcontractor search instead of waiting for science.

William Popkes 1939-2007

My father called me Monday and told me my grandfather had passed away earlier in the day Monday morning at the age of 67. It is sad but he was comfortable, not in any pain and knew that we all loved and cared about him.

My grandfathers life was interesting and took lots of twists and turns. He was always full of wisdom and life lessons, and wouldn't hesitate to teach you if you ask. As long as I had known him, he lead a mostly solitary lifestyle, but we would visit him and welcome him in our homes as often as we could. He was not the type that would run and play with us, but he loved us in his way.

Though it is sad to have him gone, there are a few things that I can take and learn from his story. For many years he battled several health problems including type 2 diabetes and congestive heart failure and we often worried about him. This was mostly due to the fact that he did not take the best care of himself by eating mostly take-out and junk-food and we weren't always sure he had his diabetes under control. He also had a very sedintary lifestyle and got to the point where he could not walk 10 feet without being out of breath. This last year, he would spend 23 hours a day in his recliner, and was in and out of hospitals from getting pneumonia or the flu. His body finally lost the battle and he slowly slipped away from us this past weekend.

What I take from this is how important it is to take care of ourselves and our bodies. It is true, our body is a temple and we need to treat it as such. Since diabetes runs in both sides of my family with very close relatives, I want to work my hardest to stave off diabetes and live until a healthy old age. I already had my warning and if I didn't change things, I would be well on my way . I want to see my future kids grow up, run around with my future grandkids and be fit and healthy all the way through.

My grandfather was loved and will be missed very much. He is no longer struggling to live, no longer in pain and is hopefully in a much better place now. All I hope know is that he know that I love him.

Life and Times

So here is the first official post on my personal blog. The direction of this blog will be mostly dictated by my weightloss journey, personal feelings durring the week, and whatever else I feel like. This one will be my fun blog where people can really know what I'm like and how I feel.

So what's my story? Well, the name is Megan, I'm 27 years old, married to Jeff the love of my life, and we live together is beautiful south Jersey. And I'm a big girl. I've always been the "big girl" and have struggled with weight issues most of my life. Last fall I was at my absolute biggest at 228lbs and it started affecting my body. At that time after a battery of tests and bloodwork I was diagnosed with PCOS and my doctor had other concerns and pointed his finger at me saying "I want you to lose weight". With PCOS and knocking on the door to diabetes, I needed to make a change, and it took my doctor to say it to knock some sense into me. So October of 2006 is when I jumped in with both feet and took control of my life and my health.

I joined Weight Watchers in October starting at 228. With a trip to Cancun and the holidays, I stalled a few times, but I reached my 10% goal at the beginning of March. Also in March, I joined the wonderful Spark People (Free Online Diet Plan at SparkPeople.com) to do in conjunction with WW and it has given me an awesome motivational kick. And as of today I am down to 203 and have lost a total of 25lbs! Only about 60lbs more to go.

It's gonna take a while and it won't be easy, but I have to do it. I need to get healthy so we can have a baby. I need to stave off diabetes.

I don't want to be the big girl anymore.



By the way Spark People is one of the greatest tools out there that I have found and recommend this to ANYONE to try it!


Get a Free Online Diet