Moving On

As the saying goes, "all good things must come to an end" and such is the case with our house-sitting arrangement in Newton. As many of you may know, Michelle and I are going to be renting an apartment next year in Sharon. It's a little farther away from work/school/friends in the Brookline area, but you get more bang for your buck in Sharon and the community has been extremely welcoming. The apartment is also conveniently only about 10 minutes from my parents house in Canton giving us easy access to both the swimming pool and babysitting help.

For those interested, our new address is:

63 Pond Street
Apartment #13
Sharon, Ma 02067

We'll get a new home phone number as well, but we aren't sure what it is yet. I'll let you know as soon as we hear.

As Innovative as a Rock

In today's Boston Globe, Boston Mayor Menino was quotes as saying:
"We need different, more innovative tools to manage costs and diversify revenues at the local level"
In appreciation of a bill passed by the Massachusetts senate which allows cities and towns to increase the tax rate on hotel rooms and restaurant meals.

Having completed my first year of the MBA program at Babson I can confidently say that a tax increase may be a tool to increase revenue, but it's certainly not innovative (or creative for that matter).

Perhaps somebody should tell that to the Massachusetts state legislature (who voted to raise the sales tax 1.25% and lifted the sales tax exemption on alcohol).

Ask and Ye Shall Receive

I'm in the process of writing a report at work, and in order to do the literature review, I needed 8 books from the library. I had asked this morning if any undergraduate research assistants were available to get them for me, but as of 2:00 this afternoon, no undergraduates had materialized. Then, just as I was whining to my office-mates that I was too pregnant to schlepp 8 books by myself, an undergraduate walked in the door and said, "Hi! I heard you wanted someone to go to the library for you."

It was awesome.

I Could Be Governor

In case you couldn't tell from the picture below (the one outside of Grauman's Chinese Theater) I am contrasting the size of Arnold Schwarzenegger's hands and feet. If you look closely you can notice that his hands are a good deal larget than mine (no surprise there) but his feet match up with my size 8.5's!

Next Year in...Hollywood?

Adam and I went to Los Angeles for the first half of Passover this year. We had a lovely time staying with our good friends Suzanne and Marcus in Pico-Robertson, L.A.'s most Jewish neighborhood. And we managed to fit in a little touring amongst all the holiday and Shabbat festivities.

At the La Brea Tar Pits, with friends Mike and Yael from Jerusalem, who were also enjoying Passover in L.A.:

Resting with Mickey Mouse on Hollywood Boulevard:

Outside Grauman's Chinese Theater:

I would like to put in a good word for Shilo's kosher steakhouse, where we had a really excellent dinner last Saturday night. Why can't Boston have a kosher steakhouse like that?

Twitter What?

Many of you may have noticed that most of the recent posting on this site has come courtesy of Michelle. Ok, maybe that's been true for a long long time. But in the last month or two, my inactivity on the blog hasn't meant that I'm not posting anything online. Where, you may ask, am I posting then? To my twitter account of course.

I've been aware of twitter for several years, but only recently decided to join up. From now on, if you want to know what's going on in my day-to-day life you can either follow me on twitter, or check the new box in the top right of this blog. It will always show my last 5 posts. You can also see a longer history of my "tweets" by visiting www.twitter.com/adamshain (you don't need to sign up).

Enjoy!

Plans Take Shape

Pregnancy brings with it many surprises, among them the infamous "nesting instinct," which can kick in as early as the fifth month of pregnancy. The nesting instinct motivates expectant mothers to clean and organize their homes in preparation for the baby. It can be funny to watch this instinct at work -- I remember one of my friends dusting high shelves like a maniac when she was close to delivery.

For someone like me, already slightly compulsive about neatness and organization, it's difficult to tell whether I am experiencing this nesting instinct or just my usual drive to bring order to the chaos. But I've definitely been feeling wholly, irrationally unsettled about the fact that Adam and I didn't know where we would be living next year. So I'm happy to report that we finally have an answer!

We will be staying with Adam's parents for ten weeks this summer while the family for whom we're house-sitting is back in their house; but they will be returning to India, and we will be returning to their house, in August. So I won't have a nursery where I can stencil ducks onto the walls, but as people keep reminding me, the baby won't care about that. And I feel much better having everything settled, with actual moving dates. Hooray for house-sitting!

I love craigslist!

Adam and I bought a crib today!

We found it on craigslist. A single-child family in Winchester bought it several years ago at Boston Baby (now defunct) and kept it in beautiful condition. It's a sleigh crib by Pali, a higher-end baby furniture manufacturer that we would never have considered at retail prices. Solid hardwood with a lovely cherry finish. The best part? The crib, plus a good crib mattress by Colgate, cost us less than half of what they would have cost new!

Double Trouble

I threw my first baby shower last Sunday, for my good friend Lauren, who is exactly 10 weeks further along in her pregnancy than I. I did a bunny theme, with bunny ears, bunny prizes and carrot cake. We played silly baby shower games, like "Celebrity Baby Names" and "Nursery Rhyme-Down", and we ooh-ed and ahh-ed over the cute baby gifts.

It was lots of fun, although there's a part of me that can't quite believe we've reached a place where maternity leave policies, life insurance and the relative benefits of cloth versus disposable diapers are normal topics of conversation.

Baby Bump

Conventional wisdom holds that you should never assume a woman is pregnant based on her body shape. After all, if you comment on a non-existent pregnancy, you could really insult someone. But over the past few weeks, strangers have started asking about my baby. And since it's so obvious, I thought I would post a photo of the bump for all of you who don't see me regularly!