birthdays and other stuff

First things first - happy birthday to my amazing and wonderful and (many other really good adjectives) husband, Jim!!! I cannot express in words how grateful I am to have you as my partner in this life. God has blessed me SO much through you!!

new home bliss
We've been in our new place for over a month now and we're really loving it! I've already lost count of the number of times Jim and Eli have been to the pool. I've joined them a couple times, but I have to be careful. My pale Irish-ness could cause me to spontaneously combust if exposed to too much sunlight at once.

I have been really enjoying the gym, though. I've been able to exercise muscles I'm pretty sure my body forgot existed. The only challenge is that, with Jim occasionally traveling, I have to use a DVD or the like to workout when he's gone, since I obviously can't leave Eli. The last one I attempted was a Jillian Michaels cardio DVD. I'm not going to lie. I used the easiest workout and was pretty convinced I was having a heart attack afterwards. Who knew she hated me so much?

And on a related note, it is virtually impossible to do jumping jacks within ten feet of a sleeping toddler and not wake him up. Not that I didn't welcome the chance to stop that sadistic woman's death-workout...

retro joy
It took about nine months, but I finally have my great-grandmother's 1938 Zenith console radio all cleaned up, put together and working with a newly re-coned speaker and a few other new parts. All I have left to do now is get it refinished and the missing vertical slats on the front fabricated and attached. I actually already have an estimate for all that, but it will have to wait a bit. I have the full photo-documentation of the restoration so far on my facebook, but here are a few pics:

Here's a photo I found online of what is is supposed to look like:


It was in pretty bad (and gross) shape when I first got it at Christmas:




Here it is all cleaned up, repaired, working perfectly, and with many new parts:


Hopefully I can get it completed soon. Meanwhile, I'm really enjoying using it. I turn it on, listen to the crackle of the glass tubes heating up, sit back and enjoy. It's like I'm living a scene right out of the 40's :)