new ultrasound date

alright, our new ultrasound date is april 10 at 12:30 p.m. we are going to take Princess this time.

the little bambino better start cooperating.

kara suggested that we start a pool on whether it's a boy or a girl. so far the votes are:

GIRL

beale

kara

debbie

dan

Princess (she originally thought it was a boy, but in the last two weeks has decided she wants a sister, so now she thinks it's a girl)

BOY

paula (my secretary)

grandma p

carriestrawberry

jen taylor

post your votes or email me and i'll update as we go.

it's a.....

"?" a big fat "?" i'm going to start calling the baby "kris" or one of those other androgynous names. suggestions?

today we went for our 16-week (aka FIND OUT THE SEX) ultrasound. the baby had its back turned to us the ENTIRE TIME and would NOT turn around. the doctor was like, "well, i can't see anything, which could mean it's a girl, but really i think it means that i just can't see anything." and last time i went in (at 12 weeks) he saw a flash of something that made him think it was a boy.

so really, we have no clue. ARGH. i was so frustrated i almost cried.

we'll try again in two weeks when i go for my "abnormalities" ultrasound at st. francis where they do a high-powered, ultra-sensitive ultrasound to make sure the organs are forming correctly. other than that, my spina bifida/other defects test came back negative/clear, my weight gain is on the average-to-low end, and the baby is growing at the right rate and appears perfectly healthy as far as we can tell. so thank god for that. or vishnu. whatever.

but ARGH!!! this little act of defiance better not become a trend, kiddo.

f l a t

last night on the way home, as i crossed the river bridge outside of downtown, i hit a big pothole and the frame of the car went *BAM!* i thought, "ouch! that was bad!" but i chalked it up to the 2+ inches of rain we'd received in the last 18 hours and the way that heavy rains like to wash out the temporary gravel filling from every pothole in town (which-as most of ya'll know-occur roughly every seven feet).

by the time i got halfway home, i heard a noise loud enough to cause me to turn down the radio (KMOD was playing CCR - "Born On The Bayou" - of course i had it turned up too loud - DOOT doot doot doot doot doot...). so i changed lanes, exited and parked on the access road to the new target/belk/lowe's/supermega superstore superpaved superparkinglot that they've recently seen fit to destroy some more bucolic pasture land to build.

i get of out of my car in the cold, rainy dusk, and sure enough: big. fat. flat. tire.

luckily i was not too far from home and J was there in no time to render assistance, my knight in a shining white ford F250. he had it changed within ten minutes. god, i love him. the last time i had a flat tire was sometime in 2000, i was in OKC (where i can't find anything but penn square mall and bricktown) with jeremy, and we were equally helpless. i mean, i could change a tire in a pinch, but it was raining, and i was wearing heels. i'm rationalizing. whatever.

anyway, i go to the tire place first thing this morning to get the flat patched because i'm rolling around on a donut, which is not safe what with all the renegade potholes and all. i'm sitting in the lobby at 8am, bleary-eyed and reading an article in Outdoor Magazine about professional blood trackers (in case i ever lose my deer, of course) (also, ew) and BAM! i jumped so much i dropped the magazine. i immediately knew what it was. there goes my tire. i hope it ain't kilt no one (that's the Outdoor Magazine talking).

luckily everyone was fine, except for the tire, which was a goner. it being time to replace the tires anyway, and in the interest of even tread wear, we are now the proud owners of four shiny new tires.

most exciting investment this year? yes. most exciting investment this year.

irish stew and more

here is a picture of the irish stew that i made for dinner tonight.

the glass of guinness belonged to J. if any of the pregnancy police are reading this, rest assured that i borrowed it for illustrative purposes only. and if you read all the way to the end of this post, i will reward you with the recipe, which i pretty much made up on the spot based upon a very overly complicated recipe and what would cook really quickly, because really, who has time to simmer an irish stew for four hours on a monday night? but it turned out GREAT.

and here you will see a picture of the rosemary plant that i bought to use to make tea. it's huge. rosemary's not a bad cooking herb, either. great for roasting meat. also, i like to use it in spicy roasted nuts at christmastime. i had planned to buy a much smaller plant, but i walked into wild-oats-soon-to-be-whole-foods and right there at the entrance was a big display of christmas-tree-shaped rosemary plants leftover from the holidays, on sale. it doesn't get any easier than that.

and here you will see a picture of the menthol crystals that i got at the peace of mind bookstore on saturday. they look like something very, very illegal, but i assure you, they're not. this one-ounce bag cost about four dollars. you can click on the pictures for larger views.

and finally, here you will see how the menthol crystals work. you take a tiny little piece and put it into a mug of steaming water, and then you inhale the steam aromatherapy-like. it's like vicks vapo-rub times ten billion. it's amazing what it does to clear up your sinuses.

bonus points to anyone who can identify the mug. without googling it.

now, for the recipe.

Super-Quick-Like Irish Stew

1 package ready-made roast beef (see picture)

1/2 large white onion, chopped

4-5 large carrots, roughly chopped

2-3 large potatoes, roughly chopped

1 individual-serving-size bottle red wine (see picture, except that's obviously not a red wine)

1/2 of a can of Guinness

1 small can tomato paste

1 can beef broth

a big glass of hot water

1 big pinch sugar

1 tablespoon dried thyme

2 dashes ground sage

5-6 big dashes worchestershire

1 clove garlic, smashed and diced

salt & pepper to taste

okay. big stock pot. pour in the can of beef broth and a big glass of hot water and get it boiling on high. then peel the carrots and potatoes, chop them up, and throw them in and get them cooking. follow with the onion and garlic. once it's boiling, reduce heat to medium-high.

add the little bottle of red wine (i used merlot) and the half can of Guinness. then add the spices and worchestershire and the tomato paste. (the original recipe called for only two tablespoons of tomato paste [along with a bunch of other obscure ingredients and time-consuming tasks, including cooking the beef in butter and simmering for hours on end. i mean really, do you think the rural irish were garnishing their soup with chopped fresh parsley and ground coriander?], but then what do you do with the rest of the can? i use tomato paste like once a month, so to use it two tablespoons at a time is a huge waste of the rest of the can. so i throw it all in.)

bring back up to a boil and then add the whole package of beef, gravy included, and simmer until it reduces by an inch or two (about 10 minutes - long enough to make some biscuits and get them in the oven. as you can tell, cooking is far from an exact science with me). speaking of which, the original recipe called for a bay leaf, too, but i was out. so you could throw one or two of those in there, if you were so inclined. oh, and also add some salt and pepper.

serve with irish soda bread and a mug of Guinness. or, if you're pregnant, organic apple juice.

thou shalt not covet

or something like that. whatever. pregnant women should be exempt from that one. i'm coveting a lot of things lately.

<-----like that, for instance. 

i took that picture me very self in a very rural pub in county tipperary. i ate shephard's pie and the waitress flirted with J. 

but happy saint patrick's day! and a warm irish welcome to J's newest nephew, cooper, who was proudly welcomed into the world early this warm, rainy spring morning. 

and since i can't celebrate the day in an appropriate manner, here's a look back at this time last year, when jake and i were galavanting around southern ireland with some of my family, trying to drive on the correct side of the road and singing in the pubs and daring each other to try the blood pudding. St. Patrick's Day '07

sigh.

the weekend update

gatsby is really getting into baby planning mode. he's all for it. here he has found a cozy resting place inside a shopping bag full of new maternity clothes.

it seems like most of my posts about gatsby involve him finding a cozy resting place. for that matter, it seems like i probably post about gatsby too much. but for now, he's my bay-bee!

i'm STILL SICK. i can not get over this head cold, and it's giving me terrible migraines. wednesday i thought i was getting better, but in the last 48 hours it's moved from my head to my chest, which now aches with every deep cough. i'm sure the nurse at my o.b.'s office is fed up with me. "are you SURE there is nothing else i can take for this headache??" *hint hint PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND MERCIFUL IN THE WORLD TELL ME I CAN TAKE AN IMITREX* but no. she finally called me in a z-pack when the gunk in my chest turned green. TMI.  whatev.

i mean, the headcold-with-no-nyquil is one thing, but i'm totally emotionally and physically drained from having what essentially amounts to a five day migraine. my doctor allowed me to take some lortab for the migraine, which makes me loopy and helps me sleep at night (albeit fitfully), but i can only take one every six hours and it wears off in about two, and i'm trying to minimize taking them during the day anyway because even though they're safe, i just. don't. like. taking. medicine. while. i'm. pregnant.

so all of this means i've been getting zero quality sleep. i missed work on monday, and i didn't go back to work after lunch today, which contributes to the stress exponentially. it's so frustrating that i can take painkillers to (attempt to) mask the pain, but i am not allowed to take the one medication (imitrex) that is a non-painkiller and will actually treat the migraine and make it go away. ARGH! i can't even express my frustration after an entire week of bare-minimum functionality and constant pain.

in a desperate attempt for more homeopathic solutions, i have scheduled a prenatal massage for tomorrow morning, and i then am going to try to track down menthol crystals at the Peace of Mind bookstore (for my sinuses) and some rosemary tea at Wild Oats (per my Grandma's suggestion, for the migraines).

anyway, onto happier things.

today while i cooked dinner (glazed pork chops with hot chunky homemade apple sauce, green beans, and twice-baked potatoes - being sick makes me even more obsessive about preservative/chemical/hormone-free home-cooked meals), J took Princess to the recycling center to drop off our recycling for the month. he really wants to teach her about what we're doing and why.

i never thought i'd find another person who shares my passions about environmentally sustainable living, but i have. J's like the recycling police in the house, and i don't mind it a bit. he takes out the trash and he'll see pieces of junk mail that i mindlessly threw in there, or a plastic milk jug, and waves it around. "why did you throw this away! this is recyclable!" it's good to have a reminder, because it's so easy to just junk everything into the kitchen trash like you've been accustomed to doing your whole life. :) it takes practice.

as a visual aid, here is what one month's worth of recyclable materials looks like for our two-and-a-half person household:

these are the recycling bins that we keep in the garage. what you see is sorted into categories (cardboard/office paper, magazines/glossy paper, bags of shredded mail, aluminum/glass, and plastics), ready to be dumped into the recycling bins down the road. also, it occurs to me that there's a color shift in that photo that makes our walls looks like they're painted baby blue. they're not. they're a really unobtrusive pale grey color. i swear.

can you imagine if we had just dumped all of this into the trash this month? it's unbelievable how much perfectly good recyclable material gets sent worthlessly to the landfill. what's even more unbelievable is that recycling is free and people still don't do it.

before we started recycling and composting, our household trash output was one full (sometimes overflowing) industrial-sized city-issued trash bin per week. this amounted to about five-six large trash bags. a week. now we are taking out the trash bin once per MONTH. that's right. about one trash bag a week. four trash bags a month. for the entire house.

for those of you readers who don't recycle, here is your official guilt trip. do it. you have no excuse. as the biggest consumer society in the world, we have a global obligation to mitigate the damage we're doing. just buy a couple of $2 bins at wal-mart and start. it is so easy.

a green st. patrick's day

well, my 2008 st. patrick's day promises to be much tamer than 2007's. this time last year i was getting ready to hop on a plane to dublin. this year i won't even be able to enjoy any green beer. not that natural light with FD&C blue no. 1 and yellow no. 5 was ever a particularly classy choice, anyway.

but for those of you who will (and i hope you'll have a pint for me), here's Slate.com's guide to ecologically responsible drinking.

and for those of you who can't be bothered to follow the link, here's a hint: go with the draft Guinness in a good old-fashioned pint glass.

you can never be too green, especially on st. patrick's day. slainte!

Mom & Stepdad, blarney castle, march 2007