2020 vision

Do you remember when blogs were all the rage? It seemed like everyone had one. Now I don’t follow a single person’s blog- honestly I’m not even sure if my friends still have them?!? I don’t even remember what the addresses were.

Also do you remember when I had a life outside of my husband and child? I think of all the things I used to do- black belt in tae kwon do, writing classes, Friday night dinners at fancy restaurants, shows I see to see. Walks along the lake. Movies. Just sitting in a dark theater and losing myself to a story for a few hours.

I miss that. The only thing I’ve kept is my Wednesday night volleyball games. It is the only thing that makes me feel like me- like nikki Becker the person, not Nikki Becker the mom or Nikki Becker the wife. Don’t get me wrong, I love being a mom and a wife, but I want to be more than just that. I feel like I’ve lost part of myself along the way. The part that made me awesome.

So this coming year is going to be a year of reclamation. Finding my magic. Glowing.

It isn’t going to be easy. Bad habits are hard to change. Some of the things that I need to get rid of are things that I enjoy but that aren’t helping me to lead a better life. So no more playing games on my phone. No more logging into Facebook multiple times a day. Instead I’m going to meditate (I’ve done 82 days in a row so far, my longest streak by far!) and read books and listen to my MasterClass app and learn new information so that I have interesting things to talk about instead of just relaying what teddy has been up to lately.

Also, I’m going to fucking learn to cook. It’s about time and it is embarrassing not being a better cook.

If you're happy and you know it...

When did we become such wimps? Such complainers?

I'm reading a book called Pachinko which is about a bunch of Koreans who live in Japan and are treated horribly. It is set all throughout the 20th century- starting in 1907 or so and I have just gotten past World War II. Their lives were so hard.  Though it isn't just a hard life for them, it is a hard life for everyone. They had to work nonstop and had next to nothing.

So why is it that nowadays we have so much more, and work a lot less and have all these modern day conveniences and are even more unhappy?

Honestly, I don't think we are actually unhappier than they were. I think the difference is that they just accepted being miserable as part of their existence and we think we should be/ deserve to be happy.

My theory is that we actually ARE happier on whole, but we want to be happy ALL the time which just isn't going to happen. Happiness is just a feeling and it comes and goes just like anger, jealousy, sadness, etc.

So if we use being miserable as our baseline then we will appreciate our moments of happiness more. But if we use pure joy and happiness as our baseline we will be upset every time it slips back down to miserableness. 

not speedy enough for sarah

A girl I went to high school with and played soccer with growing up passed away this morning. She was diagnosed with ALS six years ago and has steadily declined through the years. To say that she was my friend is a bit of an overstatement- we were acquaintances but she was always very nice. I do believe that she is the one who taught me and Mindy what blow jobs were during our high school chemistry lab our sophomore year of high school. Yes, it's true, I didn't learn what a blow job was until my sophomore year of high school. Oh, to return to that level of innocence!

I hadn't talked to Sarah in years but I followed her very well written blog (speed4sarah.com) which I really enjoyed. And I had heard last week that she had taken a turn for the worse and so have been thinking about her a ton.

What would you do if you knew you were dying soon? Travel? Engage in high risk behaviors like sky diving? Reach out to everyone you cared about and let them know you loved them?

I can't even imagine what it was like for Sarah knowing that her life was coming to an end, but with her declining health (wheelchair, electronic voice box, breathing tubes) she didn't even get to go out in a blaze of glory.

I can't stop thinking about her and her family.

What would I do if I had a week to live?
I'd take Mike and Teddy (and a nanny to help watch Teddy) and go to someplace really beautiful in nature. I want someplace with trees and mountains and a lake with waves. And I would do shrooms or acid. I don't do them now because I don't want to mess with my health, but if I only had a week to live you bet your ass I would be doing them!

I probably would write some love letters to the people I care about but I feel like for the most part the people that I care about know that I care about them so there isn't some rush to say it for the last time. It would be nice to see them again though so maybe I would throw a big party too?

Is there anything that you've always wanted to do but haven't done yet?

There are a lot of places that I would love to travel to still but on the whole, as I sit here, I'm realizing that I have done a lot of the things I wanted to in life. That's crazy. This started out as a sad and depressing blog post but it is ending with me actually feeling pretty good about my life.

Becoming An Adult

I'm back.

To say it's been a while is a bit of an understatement. Last time I posted I was pregnant and now I have a two and a half year old! Things have obviously changed a lot for me but that's not what this post is about. This post is about becoming an adult.

When do you really become an adult? I think it's different for each person. For some it's when they graduate college, or get their first job, live on their own for the first time, pay their own bills, buy their first car or house, get married, have a child, or have their parents die.

I've done a lot of those things and still didn't feel like an adult. I felt like I was "faking it." Or that the whole thing is just a big lie and you never really feel like an adult.

But I've changed my mind. Today is my first day as an adult because I DECIDED that I am now officially an adult. It only took 39 years.

Obviously it is just a mental shift but I also cleaned my back stairs.

What? How is that related? I've been meaning to wash my back stairs since I moved into my apartment. But when I moved in here I was six months pregnant and it just wasn't going to happen. I'm the only person who goes down the treacherously steep back stairs (once or twice a week to do the laundry) so it wasn't a pressing issue but it always bothered me just a little bit.

These are the dirty before pictures:

I can give you excuses but I just didn't wash them. And didn't wash them. And didn't wash them. And it hung over my head bothering me just a little tiny bit all the time.


Basically the stairs were the physical representation of my laziness and lack of motivation and inability to control my own life.


But I washed them today. Why? Because I'm an adult.

2015 in review

Well, helllllloooooo!

Long time no write.

You know how on Facebook everyone's lives look perfect? Well, here on the blog, we know better. We know that Nikki is a hot mess right now. I just finished finals, which I somehow rocked (go me!) and that was stressful. And now I'm on break so it's just smooth sailing, right? Hahahahahhahahahaha! That's what I say to that. That's also what I say when people say "oh, are you almost done with school?" Ha! No! NO! I wish, but no! I have three more years left. Stop reminding me. It always amazes me how I can hate and love school so much at the same time.

But who cares about that, let's talk about the good stuff...

I own a restaurant.

A mother f'ing restaurant.

And it's a good one too. I mean, I don't eat half the things on the menu because it is sweet breads and walleye crudo and other daring things. But everything there is delicious (or so people say) . And the space is beautiful. And I rarely ever see my husband because he is there nonstop. And I am super stressed out because running/ owning a restaurant is a super fickle/ volatile business.

It's crazy because we've been working on this for YEARS!!! Many, many years and now it finally exists. So that's pretty cool.

And I'm pregnant. After years of trying one finally took. So I'm due in April. So that's pretty cool too. Of course, maybe that's why Mike is at the restaurant so much, running away from his psycho hormonal wife!!! Just kidding. And I haven't cried about an insane irrational thing in like weeks! Go me!

And we are moving. In ten days. And I have to have my apartment packed up by then and Mike isn't around to help and everywhere I look is a messy disaster and it is driving me out of my mind.

So yeah, I'm a train wreck.

Oh, and I'm pisssed at my new landlord. So I asked him if we could move in to the apartment on the 29th of December because it is just sitting there empty and I am going out of town so I won't be here on the 1st of January and he said sure... but he is going to charge me rent for those three days in December! Yeah, Merry Christmas to you too, buddy!

But let's do a gratitude list because there really are a lot of things to be grateful for right now:
1. I'm pregnant!
2. We are going to have a bigger apartment and TWO (count 'em! Two!) bathrooms
3. the restaurant is going pretty well
4. my team won the volleyball championship this year
5. school is still going well
6. we have enough money so that we can pay movers so we don't have to do it all ourselves
7. it's almost Christmas and I get to spend it with my family
8. I saw the new Star Wars and it was awesome and I can't wait to go again!
9. my new landlord is letting me choose the paint colors for the new apartment and I have to pay for the paint but he is having a professional come in and paint the walls
10. I can walk to mike's restaurant from my new apartment
11. I can also walk to Katie and Sara's apartments from my new place!!!!!!! yippee!!!
12. I got my Christmas card out! a bit later than usual this year but still before Christmas!
13. when I do actually get to see Mike things are really great
14. I got to follow Rachel as my intern this semester in the clinic and she was wonderful
15. I'd say that I'm at least halfway done with packing
16. my new kitchen is at least twice the size of my current one!
17. my new neighbors seem nice
18. I have an easy semester next term
19. I'm off from school for the next two weeks
20. My friend Emily is getting married in a few weeks!!!!
21. mike does a good job of keeping our plants alive
22. I really like a lot of the people who work at the restaurant
23. I didn't have to deal with anybody yelling at me today
24. I have all my christmas shopping done except for one person
25. come next month I will be settled in a new apartment and can finally start nesting!

So 2015, quite the year! Lots of changes. Which is scary. Even when they are good changes they are still scary. But it's better than being stuck in the rut / waiting game that we were in for the last few years.

Here's hoping that 2016 calms down a bit! (you know, cuz things always calm down with a newborn! ha!)

a magical vacation

Life can be hard sometimes.

And a little Disney magic can help a lot.

Which is why Mike and I just went on another whirlwind trip to Disney World and Universal Studios down in Florida. There have been some changes since the last time we went- like the new addition to Harry Potter World. And this time we stayed in a pirate themed room. So it wasn't an exact repeat of our last trip.

But did I mention the pirate themed room??!?! I love themes. A lot. Too much probably. But whatever. I also love sweet husbands who will do anything to make their wives happy. Which is how I got Mike to wear matching shirts with me and dress up like a pirate for a photo shoot with me. He pretends to do it just to make me happy but I know he enjoys it. At first he wasn't totally into the matching shirts but then we got about eight thousand compliments on them and he could see how it made people smile and made their day and so he grew to like them and even agreed to wear more matching shirts in the future- but only when we are at Disney. No matching outfits in Chicago.


Here is our amazing pirate themed room. The floor was carpeted but made to look like wood.

We even ran into some old friends. Here is Mike fist bumping Goofy.

You might notice that we are a little wet. We had two lovely days and two days where it just dumped buckets on us. It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for our feet being soaking wet.

The magic more than made up for the rain. We ate at the Sci-fi Drive-in where you ate at tables that looked like cars and there was a screen showing shorts clips from old sci-fi movies and some cartoons. Plus the food was great.

This is Mike standing with the Tower of Terror in the background. I told him to make a "terror face." We sadly did not go on the Tower of Terror because we saved it for last and one side of the ride broke down so the line wait time went from half an hour to well over an hour and we decided it wasn't worth it. Next time! 

This is our new friend Eric. He is the host at Be Our Guest restaurant (the Beauty and the Beast themed restaurant at Magic Kingdom) where sadly we did not have reservations (I did try, they were booked) but they do occasionally take walk-ins. He said that we should just check back every couple of minutes to see if something opens up. Well, I was bound and determined to go there for lunch. So we stood right next to him and literally asked every other minute if something opened. And we watched him turn away so many people who also didn't have reservations (they just started taking reservations a few weeks ago for lunch so it's a new thing.) But we just stood there and kept asking, but were slightly out of the way so that people who did have reservations could make their way in. And we were talking and joking with him. And then this group came up who did NOT have reservations but right at that moment something opened up (he had a iPad in his hands that tells him) and so he told that group that they could go in and I just shouted "Eric! How could you?!" and Mike said that he could see the fireballs coming out of my eyes. So whether it was because enough space opened that he could get us in too, or because he did not want to sit there and deal with me fuming, Eric finally let us in!!!! Yay!

The longest wait in line we had the entire trip was actually for Dumbo. Which I had never been on. It was actually more fun than you would think. And it was a classic.

The pool at our hotel was pretty awesome, and the perfect back drop for some pirate-y pictures. And I love my husband. He makes an amazing pirate.

But we're not the only freaks! There was a girl just randomly taking some mermaid photos on the beach near our room.

Wands at the ready! The new addition to Harry Potter world was worth the trip all by itself!

And butterbeer was just as good as I remembered. I tried all three kinds- hot, regular and frozen. Hot was probably my favorite. 

Luckily Mike was there because he was more adventurous and tried some of the other drinks like the Fishy Green Ale. Here is what they say about it... "Fishy Green Ale This murky pale green drink is certainly a head turner. Don’t be surprised when you get lots of inquisitive looks from fellow guests or when you’re asked “what is that?” as you sip on your specially sized, wide black straw. On its own, the intriguing combination of mint and cinnamon would be enough to make this an interesting drink, but then the component of pearl-sized bubbles bursting with blueberry flavor that rest at the bottom of the cup makes this one of the most unique beverages offered in either Wizarding World. (Note: this is a non-alcoholic beverage.) " 

It was tasty but really sweet so we couldn't finish it, but the little "fish eggs" that you suck up the straw explode in your mouth are really fun. I kept giggling every time I got one. I don't remember the last time I giggled. The trip was worth it for that alone. 

This is me taping the brick to let us get into Diagon Alley. Unfortunately a lot of muggles snuck in too. 

And now we're back in Chicago. I'm doing laundry. Mike is at work. It's gloomy and rainy. There's always a little bit of that post-vacation letdown. But at least I still have a whole week before I have to go back to school!

eye needling and eye lashes

I survived another semester! Um... school is really hard and it makes me a raving psycho. Mike tells me that I'm not really that bad, but I think he is just lying to me because he is scared of me because I am a raving psycho. He also won't listen to me complain about how hard school is because I keep getting A's. 

I never used to care about grades. What the hell has happened to me? In college all I cared about was getting good enough grades so that I could continue playing soccer. Now I feel this compulsive need to get A's. (And technically I don't think that writing A's is grammatically correct but if I write As it just looks weird. So there you go.) Anywho, I think maybe one of the main differences is that if I messed up speaking French (my college major) nobody got hurt. However, if I mess up sticking someone with needles, that could get hurt so I better study my ass off and make sure I know what I am doing. 

The next few paragraphs are not for the squeamish...

Speaking of getting hurt, we had to needle points around the eye ball the other day. (Don't worry, nobody actually got hurt.) It was the last week of classes, we built up to it and saved it til the end when we were more experienced. But basically the two we did were Stomach 2 and Urinary Bladder 1. Stomach 2 is directly under the eye just below the bone of the eye socket (Stomach 1 is actually even closer to the eye ball but thankfully she didn't make us do that one!) And you pinch up the skin and slide the needle in so that the needle lays flat against the person's (closed) eyelids. That one wasn't actually too bad, but it is really easy to give someone a black eye while doing it, and of course the red head with the fairest skin asked me to be her partner that day. I was sure I was going to give her a shiner, but actually did it just fine! 

The second point was a lot more freaky. So you know the pink part of the inside of your eye? That is called your inner canthus and there is a spot directly above it. And you stick the needle in going directly into the head. You actually have the person close their eyes and you take a finger and hold their eyeball out of the way so that you don't accidentally needle it. Yup. 

So my partner sticks the needle in just a smidge because we are both super nervous. Then the teacher, an old fearless Chinese lady, comes over and says, "Good job, but you can stick it in much further." And the teacher inserted it another half inch or so. And it didn't hurt but I was super freaking out because I could feel a metal needle touching the side of my eyeball!!!!!!!

It was fine but I swore to never have that point needled again! 

So the next week during our final we got assigned partners instead of being able to pick them ourselves. So I got stuck with a woman who is very sweet, but definitely not the best needler in the class. And she did all the points on the body just fine but she got to the face points and I asked her which points she was going to needle so I could prepare myself. She said, "Gall Bladder 2 and Urinary Bladder 2." Which was fine, because those aren't scary points....

And then she starts pinching up the skin under my eye to needle Stomach 2 and I said, "Nope, wrong point." Now, normally I wouldn't cheat and I would let them needle the point and just get it wrong and have points taken off... but I'm not about to let someone needle near my eye if I don't have to, especially when they aren't particularly good at it! 

So then she goes, "Oh right!" and starts putting her finger on my eyeball to move it out of the way, which meant that she was going to needle a different wrong point! I believe I said, "Hell no! You're not needling there." She eventually figured out what the point was that she was supposed to needle. 

And yes, having incompetent people needle you IS the scariest part of going to acupuncture school! 

I've been fairly burnt out, so to motivate myself to get good grades, I bribed myself with eyelash extensions. There was a groupon for them that I could only buy if I got straight A's. I've wanted to try them for years and finally did. 

So I am waiting in the reception area and this girl comes out with stunning lashes and is super happy with them and can't stop staring at them in the mirror there. And then the worker takes me into the back room and she starts working on me. You lay down on a massage table and they put this patch under your eyes that glues your eyes shut. Which was weird at first but you quickly get used to it and wasn't that bad because I knew that if I really tried I would have been able to open them which helped me get over the claustrophobic feeling. 

So the woman says to me, "Your lashes are really thin and fine." And I replied, "I know, that's why I'm here." Duh. But she continued, "I just want you to realize that you aren't going to end up with lashes that look like the girl's who just left. Her lashes were really thick to begin with." Which was super disappointing but actually made me feel a little better. I always just thought I was terrible at applying mascara because I could never get the look my friends did, turns out though that my lashes just suck. 

I'm still super happy with the results though. Unfortunately it is really expensive so I won't be able to do it often, but for big special occasions I will probably splurge again. 

This is me with no make-up. 

This is me with mascara and my lashes curled. 

And this is me with the eye lash extensions! Awesome because it also involves no work at all on my part. Just wake up and go and doesn't smudge or smear!