pre-triplets
I just got a box of old photos scanned, so I can now share pictures from the olden days of FILM. I know, you’re so excited, right?
Well, now I can blog about the best six months of my youth…May to November 1997. While I could write for days about it, I won’t torment you that much. But I do want to share a little. For posterity.
To give you some background…I was supposed to graduate from college in 1997, but because I was a bit of a slacker, I still had a few semesters left. I decided to take a semester off and move to Seattle for a little while. My brother and his wife lived there, and I loved visiting. I bought my plane tickets and was looking into apartments and jobs while two of my best friends, Kristina and Anne, were making plans for their own sojourn to London and Europe. They were going to work for a while, through an organization called BUNAC. They would get work visas, and would live and work just like any other British person.
One day, my Brit-pop-obsessed self thought, “why am I going to Seattle, when I could go to LONDON? Home of my favorite musicians?” and I pretty much decided then and there that I’d be joining Kristina and Anne.
So on May 26th(ish, it was a long time ago, after all), 1997, we all hopped on a plane to London. (And can you imagine? Kristina’s mom probably watched us leave from the gate. We didn’t have to take our shoes off! Olden days indeed.)
Okay, I won’t talk about how jet-lagged we were and all that stuff, because that would make this post literally a bajillion words long. Pictures, instead. Isn’t that the point?
We lived in a cute, tiny basement flat in Kensington, very close to Kensington Palace. We lived there when Princess Diana died. Very surreal.
We drank a lot of beer and smoked a lot of cigarettes (don’t worry none of us has smoked for a long time)
Kristina and I went to an outdoor music festival and got locked out of our flat and had to sleep on the steps.
For our last couple of months, we lived in a different flat in Marble Arch with our friend Marianne. We spent many long evenings playing cards and drinking cheap beer from the liquor store across the street.
And we had a bit of crush on Tony Blair.
Oh, shoot. These pictures don’t convey what an amazing summer and autumn that was. We worked random jobs (I temped at an architecture firm, a boxing magazine, and a charity for the blind, among many other things) and spent many, many, many evenings in pubs. We would meet for lunch in a park off Oxford Street, hungover more often than not.
Good times.
Wow. Ten years.
As of today, I have been blogging for ten years. (It also happens to be my dad’s birthday. He’d be 73 this year. Crazy. But not the point.)
I started out back when blogging software wasn’t readily available. Maybe it was, I’m not sure. I just kept everything in HTML files, but I’ve been working on transferring them to WordPress so you can read them in all their glory.
In April 2001, I was 26 years old, overweight, completely out of shape, and smoked a pack a day. I decided it was time for a change.
If you know me, you know I like to do things big. One baby? No way, let’s do three. So I wasn’t going to start by walking, I was going to go right into running. And that’s what I did. Obviously, I wasn’t very fast, nor could I go very far, but it helped. And to keep myself from quitting (like I’d done so many times before), I signed up for the 2002 London Marathon in April of the following year. Sending in the deposit ensured that I had to do it. I roped my friend Chris to doing the marathon with me, as an even greater incentive.
So that’s what I did. I quit smoking, started running, and finished the marathon a year later. Sure, I was passed by a one-legged guy at the end. I never said I was fast!
Who could have guessed that ten years later, I’d still be blogging?
10 years, 2100+ posts, two marathons, a million page views,
No Emily yet…but soon! Jenny’s at the hospital now getting induced. I won’t be able to post until I get home from work, so everyone, keep your fingers crossed that this isn’t a loooonnnng labor, and that by the time I get home from work, I have something to write about!
Okay, okay, I know, lame. I’ve been lame. I’m sorry! But I had to post today, if only to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE! 2 years old today! woo hoo!
Of course, I’d really like to be talking and sharing about Emily, but she hasn’t yet made her appearance. Soon, I hope. TODAY would be awesome, don’t you think? Fingers crossed!
Didn’t do a whole lot this weekend. We’re leaving for San Francisco and Monterey on Thursday evening, so I had some design work to catch up on. I’ve been so busy with it, it’s great! But doesn’t leave a lot of free time in the evenings and on weekends.
I did borrow Liam, our friend’s kid, to go to Teresa’s work’s family day in the French Quarter. It was fun, and MAN that kid can pack it away. Almost three, and he ate a bowl of jambalaya, half of my snowball, half a hot dog, and maybe that’s it, but he’s little, okay?
Here he is, the snowball thief:
Okay, who’s ready for me to have another neice? ME! Come on, Emily, be born on Monday! What a nice birthday that’d be. 
Boy, I wish I had more exciting things to say. Trip to California in two weeks! Woooo hooo! I can’t wait! And yesterday, I booked our tickets to DC/NYC in July. Yay! That’s going to be THE most exciting trip ever. Ellie, Emily, Morrissey, New York, Dylan’s Candy Bar, lots of paper stores, SEPHORA, Kristina, Evan, Jennifer, Jenny, Rob, Mom. (Not in order of exciting, I swear.)
Okay, must get ready for work now.
Ugh. Just checking in to say I’m sick. Full of snot. Sorry. Tis true.
Okay, now I must go to work. Just didn’t want anyone to think I was neglecting my blog. Ha ha ha! Me, neglect this blog? Never!
Am I crazy?
I just registered for the Baltimore Marathon. October.
Yes. Am crazy.
Just in case anyone is wondering, I haven’t posted lately because I’m boring.
I’ve talked to death about my upcoming trips, and frankly, that’s all that’s on my mind. So I shan’t bore you any longer. I’ll post during or after the trip. That’ll be more fun!
Okay, I did make hamburger buns the other night. That was kind of exciting. A practice run for Kristina’s engagement party.
Happy halfiversary to George and meeee! Woo! Can you believe? Six months!
I do have some cake issues this weekend, though. Because today is our halfiversary, but tomorrow is a going away party for some friends and Sunday is George’s birthday AND Mother’s Day.
I’m making a cake for the party tomorrow (it will serve as George’s birthday cake, we’re actually going to eat it at the pub after the party, because George shares a birthday with one of our friends who is going away.) and then on Sunday we’re going to eat the top layer of our wedding cake. Not today, but Sunday. So my mom can have some. She’s coming in to town! A rare occasion, indeed.
So anyway, lots of cake. Not sure what the dilemma was, now. Ha ha!
(Eating wedding cake now so it doesn’t get stuck in the freezer if we have to evacuate. Yes, we could take the cake with us, but it’s too risky. Plus I just want the dang cake!)
Gosh, I hate to post if it means my pretty countertops are going to be pushed down the page. But alas, it must happen sooner or later. Speaking of my lovely countertops, they should be finished tonight. We’re putting up the strip of wood on the edge, doing some touchups, and voila! All done!
Sadly, there is not much else exciting to report. At least, nothing I can post here. But the roller coaster of fun that will be my life for the rest of the year is about to begin, so I won’t complain about things being quiet for now.
The travel part will be fun, but the fact that two friends are moving away puts a bit of a damper on things. Sucks hardcore is more like it. But what can you do? Life goes on. Things change. Blah blah blah.
So, fun travel. I got some Pittsburgh and DC at the end of this month. And then I have some Ellie time in L.A. at the end of June. And then a few weeks later, it’s Delaware. (I’m pretty sure I’ve never been to Delaware, but I hear it’s very popular for bachelorette parties. Not really, I never heard that, but that’s what we’re doing. Bachelorette party in Delaware! It’s pretty funny when you say it like that, isn’t it? But really it’s on the beach in Delaware, so it’s all good. Except for the bathing-suit part.)
After Delaware, I’ll have a little down time (but maybe we can sneak in a visit to Houston?) and there’s a mini-break with some of my favorite girls to Natchitoches, then the marathon in Baltmore in mid-October, then the biggie – Mexico! And after that (yes, there’s MORE), I’m supposed to be going to Monterrey, California (which, secretly, is the trip I’m most looking forward to. Because there are no bathing suits involved.)
And then in 2007, I have Vegas for Kristina’s bachelorette (it’s no Delaware, but it’ll do) and then South Carolina for her wedding and then we want to go to London next year again, so cross fingers that it works out. (Oh yeah, and Monterrey again. Woo!)
So lots of travel to look forward to. And now I just remembered that I hate flying. Hmm.
My name is Pam, and I live in New Orleans with my husband George and my identical triplet boys Linus, Oliver, and Miles, born in December 2007.
