Preparations for Baby #2

Yesterday was my due date, which obviously came and went with no squishy baby to show for it. Normal? Of course.

While I'm not sure if I've technically "nested" (except the day I decided to vacuum out my car perhaps), we have done some stuff to prepare for our newest family member.

1. Getting the nursery ready (even though we won't use it for a few months)

Cora is staying in her room, and our office has turned into a nursery/office for now. We'll get the desk out of there when the need arises.

The empty space in the center bottom is where her name will go!

2. Getting Cora's room decorated
I had been meaning to do this since, um, August, when I repainted her room and decided on a coral and navy blue color scheme. So it was about time, but I knew we would switch some furniture out and rearrange so I let it sit.

 I made the 'artwork' with some art canvases covered in fabric. Then I cut shapes out of some other fabric and used fabric glue to attach. Easy project (although my stapler was not very good, and I ended up bringing home my work stapler to finish it. A staple gun is the best option, but the staples in ours were too big and stuck out too far.)

I think I still want to add some navy blue curtains to the window, and then we'll call it mostly done.

3. Buying new pajama pants
When I was pregnant with Cora, I had a short "pregnancy vs. x" series on the blog, with topics like Pregnancy vs. Habitat for Humanity and Pregnancy vs. A Music Festival. Well, this time around, pregnancy didn't stand in my way much. However, if I had to pick something to remember, it would be "Pregnancy vs. Pajama Pants."

I have ripped--the the point of needing to throw out--not just one, but TWO of my favorite pairs of pajama pants. They're the Old Navy lightweight cotton ones that I've had for YEARS, and they were the only pjs that still fit on my expanding bottom. The first pair didn't make it through the second trimester due to my own clumsiness in trying to put them on and stepping my foot right into the crotch part. On Wednesday, my second pair broke (also in the crotch) when I was cleaning up the house and squatting down to pick stuff up. I went to Old Navy on Friday and bought another pair (a size up, ugh). I even tried them on, which I don't recommend to any 40-weeks pregnant lady, like ever.

My newest pair. May they last as long as the old ones.

4. "Practicing" labor
Ugh. We thought I was in labor the day before I was due. Steady contractions all day long, but they were very mild. They never got more intense. I went to work the whole day and timed them with an app on my phone. Everyone was excited for me and was hoping to hear good news soon. My mother-in-law drove up to stay with us, expecting that she would be taking care of Cora while we were at the hospital.  But it never progressed to anything more than mild contractions.

I slept a bit, then woke up a bit nauseous on Friday morning (my due date) and decided not to go into work. Then it all just stopped. No more contractions, no more labor. I guess I ended up taking a "mental health day." I was mad. I felt like I was letting everyone down. And I was tired of getting texts from anyone and everyone about 'how was I doing, do you need anything?' (I think a lot of this was due to lack of sleep. Although I still don't want the bothersome texts.) I got hit by the one-two punch of prodromal labor, and I'm not a fan.

5. Looking at pretty nursing-friendly dresses online

Isn't this gorgeous? I still can't figure out if it's my size (it's a one-off listing on Ebay), and I have no desire to jump through the hoops for a return, so I'm refraining. But darnit, it's so pretty.

This dress on Amazon is also on my list.

6. Zumba and cartwheels
I think I've started to become a legend at Zumba, what with showing up the day after my due date for class. But I had so much energy this morning, and probably sweat harder than I had in the past 2 months.

40 weeks, 1 day, after sweating it out at Zumba Toning class!

I also did 2 cartwheels after the Tuesday class (during week 39), and it, uh, kinda hurt. As evidenced in this video:



Well, that's pretty much all the preparations we have made (aside from a half-packed hospital bag). Baby can come out now if she wants!

Reasons for Distraction

I have a lot of things on my mind, so this is just a brain dump and a life update. A lot of ish has happened in my life since the last time I really let you in to this mess, so brace yourselves.

The first thing was that a high school classmate of mine who I was pretty good friends with my senior year passed away. We had gone our separate ways in the past ten years, but we kept up on Facebook and I at least knew a little about some of his recent health issues. His death sorta punched me in the gut. I kept looking at my own kid thinking that his parents never thought they would be burying their child on his 29th birthday.

But then. Then I wanted to see what this friend has written in my yearbook, and while I was looking for that, I chanced upon his senior 'ad,' where parents and siblings wrote him happy thoughts and wishes upon graduation. It was through that I learned he was a 'miracle baby' and had almost died when he was born. I guess these things just don't come up between two healthy seventeen-year-olds attending the Homecoming dance together. That ad changed my whole perspective. His parents instead were probably celebrating that they got 29 years with this miracle and got to watch him be a normal kid and hit all of those milestones that may have never happened. Although I am sure they are still grieving as well. Life (and death) is complicated. I've now started getting more annoyed at people who whine about gray hair or wrinkles or other parts of the aging process. Because all of that minor stuff still beats the alternative.

As for the rest of my time, I had mentioned doing Screen-Free Week in a modified way. Well, we did it, although I probably wouldn't call it a success by any means. We did head outside a lot more, and I didn't have any screens on while Cora was awake.

I had picked Tuesday to be my completely screen-free day. As Tuesday chugged along, I was getting so much accomplished I began thinking, "Hey I should do this more often!"  I decided to give bread-baking a try and spent all morning mixing, kneading, rolling, and letting this thing rise twice. When I opened the oven to check the bread I had spent the greater part of my morning on, my newly-walking daughter came out of nowhere, and she put her two open palms flat against the open oven door.

Parenting fail. Kitchen safety fail. Fail fail fail. That whole afternoon is now a blur of tears, wailing, and calling the pediatrician in a panic. I now know which local hospital has a burn center at it and can give you exact directions on which hallway to take. My child had to wear a sock over her bandaged hand for a week, and the other (better) hand was slathered in aloe and re-wrapped after every meal. (Just call me Dr. Mom. Sigh.) She has mostly recovered now, but the hands still haven't fully healed if you look at them. Luckily, she's been (mostly) her same high-spirited self though.

To make matters worse, that bread I made wasn't even very good. However, Cora seemed to like it. (Is that the opposite of biting the hand that feeds you? Feeding from the hand that bit you?) I think I'll stick to buying honey wheat bread from now on. Seriously.

Don't be fooled. Just buy bread at the store and save yourself a trip to the  burn center.

There were some other screwballs that got thrown at me that week, like some fraudulent charges on our credit card, losing the title to my car, and the beginnings of toddler picky eating habits (and the related meltdowns). I feel like someone's out to get me. But I ain't gonna let him in.

So on a happier note from all of that, my attentions last week were diverted by house-hunting online and my husband's 30th birthday celebration. I made the best-tasting cake I've ever made (homemade triple layer devil's food with a dark chocolate frosting --both from America's Test Kitchen cookbook), and an enchilada feast that got taken over to Grandma's for a celebration dinner.

I have also been running again and signed up for a Color Me Rad 5K in August. B doesn't understand why people pay to run when I can just go outside and run a 5K right now. (But but but I want to get blasted with colors!)

In other health-related news, I have been taking a free online course called Child Nutrition and Cooking through coursera.org, and so far, so good. Very minimal time involved, and it's pushing me to cook new things and add more vegetables into our meals. Sometimes this gal just needs a syllabus and assessments (grades) to get on track. I'm such a nerd.

Ratatouille I made for my first class assignment

I Didn't

I didn't vote. And I'm not proud about that. I actually missed it due to something known as PPP. Piss poor planning.

I'm still a resident of Virginia, even though I haven't set foot in the state in two years. We moved to Indiana after the cut-off to register (and I still need to become an official resident). I missed the deadline to get my absentee ballot because I was too busy with . . . life.

The weird thing is that I'm not 100% sure who I would have voted for anyway. I'm Catholic, but I don't believe in single-issue voting, so I jump around a bit. And as for Virginia local elections, I'm very very out of the loop, so I didn't even want to vote on those. I'm actually more in tune with a referendum about charter schools down in Georgia since I have so many educator friends and family members back home. B voted early the week we hung out in his hometown since his residency has remained there the entire time he spent in the Navy. He won't tell me which presidential candidate he voted for, and that's fine. My parents never told me which way they voted when I was growing up, but I figured it out after a while.

I've always hated politics anyway. I don't make it a habit of griping about those in office, and when other people start bashing a candidate I generally remain stone-faced and silent. There have been a few ads or reports on television that I have hollered about to B--mostly because of the overly dramatic propaganda cinema and sound clips taken out of context--but he is the only one who gets to hear it. Now that I didn't exercise my right to vote, it's definitely not my right at all to complain. Not until the next election, and I promise I will be voting here in Indiana for that.

I hope you weren't like me. I hope you did your civic duty and voted. As for myself, I think I'll go to bed early tonight.

adventures in champagne cake

I have a quest. It might even turn into a lifelong quest, but I'm hoping it doesn't.  See, my husband and I had an amazing wedding cake.  And not just amazing in its decoration, but amazing in its taste.  Speaking of husband, he just looked over my shoulder and saw what I wrote and called it "a little dramatic."  It's the best cake I've ever had, so I'm allowed to be dramatic.

The cake even kept so well in my parents' freezer that after a year, I was still in love with it. Yeah, most people HATE their year-old wedding cake, but I was begging for more.  Obviously, I need to figure out how to make it.

The cake: champagne cake with strawberry mousse filling (and buttercream icing).  Here's a picture of it after a year of freezing and then thawing.

It was actually even better the next day--it somehow got fluffier.

I decided that I'd try to make it for our anniversary this year.  I asked around on a few message boards and got a whopping ZERO responses.  So much for that.  I found a recipe that sounded decent and committed to it.  It included both the cake recipe and the strawberry mousse recipe.

The night before our anniversary, I made the frosting from my Wilton books, so that was easy.  Then I decided to tackle the mousse.  The mousse recipe had a few jobs in it that I'd never done before.  The first was whipping heavy cream.  I have a handheld electric mixer (no room in this tiny kitchen for a fancy stand one), and whipped the cream like a pro.  I was feeling pretty confident at this point.

Then I had to separate eggs and whip the whites.  I didn't do any research on this, and the recipe was just very bare-bones about it.  I've never separated eggs before, but I do have a tool for that.  It fit nicely over a cup, so I just kept adding them to the cup.  The yolk broke on the fourth one (out of six), so I now learned why this method is a bad idea.  (Pro tip: dump each egg white into the bowl right after you separate it.)  I couldn't get all of the yolk out, so I just moved on.  Once I got my 6, I tried to use my whisk attachment for the mixer to whip them.  Twenty minutes later, I still didn't have stiff peaks.  I've sorta watched my mom make meringue before, so I knew something was wrong.  But it was past bedtime at this point, so I said screw it.  And so I mixed my soft-peaked egg whites into the rest of it.

The result?

That's a 5-quart bowl, about 4/5 full of runny mousse.

The next day, when I tried to put it between my cake layers.  Major FAIL.

Even if I'd gotten it all right, I'm pretty sure this recipe would have still made at least eight times the amount of mousse needed.  There was a frosting recipe included too, and I'm glad I stuck with the one I already knew.

The good news is that the next day, when I actually made the cake layers, the recipe called for another six egg whites whipped to stiff peaks again.  I was definitely not gonna screw this up a second time!  I turned to YouTube and found an informative video about doing it by hand.  I decided that was the way to go.  Of course, I had already done a full workout that morning, including dumbbell activities, but I didn't let that stop me.  Boy, was it another workout!  I had to take a few breaks.  But in less than 5 minutes, I had my stiff peaks!

Then I had to open a champagne bottle for the first time by myself.  There were directions on the bottle that made me think this thing just might go everywhere, even though it was a screw-top Wal-Mart variety champagne.  The sink was full of cake stuff, plus I'd rather not have to clean the floor if it came to it.  After giving it a bit of thought, I decided to do it outside on the patio.  That was a good call, since it ran all down the bottle.  We'll call that a success.

All in all, the cake did NOT turn out anything like our wedding cake (which is also why I refuse to link to the recipe here).  The cake was way more dense--almost like a pound cake.  And the mousse obviously didn't pan out, but the taste wasn't even that great.  I shouldn't be eating raw egg whites anyway, so maybe that's a good thing?

At least those Wilton classes I took last year paid off!

The decorating was the best part.

We're still eating it, but I'm definitely on the hunt for a better recipe to try next year!

The list of firsts I experienced with this cake:

• First time whipping cream to stiff peaks (success!)
• First (and second) time separating eggs
• First and second time whipping egg whites (failure and success)
• First time opening a bottle of champagne (it was a screw top, but still)
• First time baking a cake without using a box of cake mix

Have you had any mousse mishaps?  Or are you on a quest for the perfect recipe for something?

I suck at art

When I was in Georgia the other weekend, my sister and I decided to treat my mom to a late mother's day gift. We took her to one of those "drinking and painting" classes.  My sister had done one about a month earlier and really enjoyed it.  I'd been wanting to do one for a while (I even bought a Groupon to one down here that I still haven't used), so of course I was game.

I was quickly reminded just how much I don't know.  I haven't taken an art class since 5th grade, back when it was a "special."  Okay, I lie.  I actually took a graphic design/layout class my last semester in college.  But we used stock photos and were more concerned with fonts and kerning.

We did this very whimsical "Crazy Daisy" painting.  I changed the colors of my petals no less than ten times because I hadn't made a decision prior to painting (tip for myself next time: be decisive; have a vision).  After we were done painting, we had the option to use puff paint to make our painting even more crazy.  I thought everyone else's puffed paintings looked really cool with the added dimension, so I decided to try my hand at it.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm the most uncoordinated woman alive?  Yeah, that "C" in "C.W." should actually stand for CLUMSY.  That said, once I started doing my puff paint, all hell broke loose on my canvas.  The white paint I was using ran out/malfunctioned, so I picked up another one.  I then promptly DROPPED IT on top of my canvas, right on top of the paint I just put on so it mashed it down (making it not-puffy).  I'm a total perfectionist with my own pursuits, so yes, I started to get emotional about it.  (I also had felt rushed during the entire class, which didn't help.)  This also apparently was a good time for the instructor to take her requisite "class photo," and she made everyone get up on the stage where I was trying to fix my paint, so I was forced to join in.

My mother knows me well, having dealt with (and sometimes been the cause of) my perfectionism for most of my life.  She calmed me down and helped me fix the thing as much as I could.  I liked the way my sister went to town with her paint scribbles, and I thought it might detract from my mess ups but it sorta just made it worse because all the paints were running out at the point, globbing onto my painting.  I guess this one just wasn't in the cards for me.

What's a post about art without some pics though?

I like my sister's the best

 The stem area is where I dropped the tube of paint; it's pretty obvious.

I call my painting: "I got in a fight with puff paint and lost."

 If one good thing came out of this, other than the bonding time with Mom and sis, it's that I now have a pretty sweet artist mark:

If you haven't figured out my full name, here's your rebus.

I'll definitely be trying again at the studio down here, and I'll definitely share that one as well (good or bad).  Too bad I won't have my mommy with me though.

If you want to see some work from an artist with actual talent, check out Aisle to Aloha.  I don't follow a lot of art bloggers, but her stuff is awesome.

the worst thing i ever ate

I know I just posted a week ago about starting to overcome my food pickiness, but last night was a giant step backward.  I was making a new recipe, using my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook (New Tenth Edition).  Betty has essentially been my cooking teacher for the past 5 years, and she has NEVER let me down.  Until now.

I chose to make Rice Noodles with Peanut Sauce (p. 500; also online at their website).  I had all the ingredients and followed the recipe exactly (minus the optional cilantro garnish).  Since I'm picky and not that great of a cook, I find this is the only way I can try a new recipe.  Following recipes as they were written has actually helped me appreciate some of those foods I couldn't tolerate before.  I will disclose that I usually don't taste things as I go because usually they're too hot and I end up just burning my tongue.  I also don't usually know enough to fix something that's gone bad, so I just say screw it.  We only have so many spoons anyway.

What I tried to eat for dinner last night.

After I served it, B and I were sitting there eating, and apparently he was watching me.  He asked, "Why the frowny face tonight?"  I told him that I wasn't really liking the dinner I prepared.  He said it was okay and kept on eating.  If you read the recipe, you'll see that there were red peppers and green onions in this dish.  I had gotten one or two pepper pieces already and didn't really like them (yes, they are actually spicy to me, I decided last night).  I wasn't happy, but managed to eat some of it.  Then I got a bite with the green onion and the red pepper and all the sauce.  Once I put it in my mouth, my taste buds staged a REVOLT.  My eyes starting tearing up and I had to run over to the sink and spit it all out.  I haven't done that since I was a little kid!!  I felt terrible, and tried to shove a bunch of apple slices and animal crackers in my mouth to cleanse my palate.  I ended up having to brush my teeth and scrape my tongue, and the taste still lingered back there.

What I actually ate for dinner last night.

I was so mad at myself.  I was frustrated about being so picky, being a bad cook, and a lousy homemaker.  B told me that I shouldn't cook stuff I don't like (I apparently still hate onions of all types), and that it's really okay to have chicken every night of the week.    He even said he'd eat the leftovers of the offending dish, since he knows I hate to waste food.  Thank God for that man.

Have you had any truly awful cooking or eating experiences?  Also, I would love to hear if anyone actually tries (or has tried) this recipe and likes it.  If so, please tell me what you liked about it!


Note: I'm sure at least a few of you are wondering if I'm pregnant and that was the cause of this event.  I can say for a fact that I am not pregnant right now, as I know my cycle very well and it is way too early for any signs to be happening.

on liking an idea

Have you ever tried something that you really hoped you would like and/or possibly be good at, but then realized that it wasn't as awesome as you had built it up in your mind?

While knocking tasks off my 101 list, I have come across a bit of this.  My Rocky Horror experience definitely qualified.  It sounded great in theory because so many people love it, but it left me just plain grossed out.  In fact, I could hardly watch the "Glee" Rocky Horror episode this past Halloween because of it.  Geocaching was also another adventure that sounded really neat in theory, but in actuality left me supremely frustrated and became the root of a large marital spat.

Unlike me, this guy probably knows what he's doing.

I sort-of crossed another item off my list last weekend by taking a sailing class from MWR on base.  The class was well-taught, and I aced the classroom part (no surprise, as I've always been good at school).  However, once they put me in my own Sunfish sailboat, all of that went out the window and I started panicking.  I somehow managed not to capsize because I remembered to switch sides of the boat when the big ol' boom (sail) was about to smack me in the head.  It wasn't soon after I got the boat in the water that I realized I was actually scared, and at that moment the water just seemed so big and I just felt so small and weak.  It also hit me that I hadn't been in a boat in YEARS (not since canoeing in Girl Scouts over 10 years ago, and it was always in a small lake).

Luckily, for these classes, they have a powerboat out there with people to help.  A teenage boy helper hopped in my boat with me, tried to calm me down, then steered me back on course because I couldn't figure it out.  Unfortunately, he took the reigns for a bit but didn't really teach me much.  Once he left my boat to help one of our capsized classmates, I figured out how to just stall my boat and sit "in irons."  I was able to turn my boat a few times after that, but never got it to steer back on course, probably because I was scared of going too fast.  Honestly, I just ended up going in a small circle and drifting wherever the wind decided I should be.  I ended up way off course again around the time we were finishing, and the power boat ended up hauling me in on a tow.

When I left that class, I was soooo frustrated with myself.  And when I get frustrated with my own inabilities, it's not pretty and often results in a larger crisis of berating myself about not being good at anything.  Sailing was something I had secretly hoped to be good at and enjoy, if anything because it would be easy to take up as a hobby while here in Pensacola.  I also figured I'd be a good fit because I like the water, but maybe in actuality I don't like being in the middle of the water?  But I'm not giving up so easily on this one.  Yes, I hit a wall (figuratively, although if there was one closer I'm sure I would've hit it literally), but maybe it's time to put my big-girl britches on and try again.  B was in the class with me (and did fine in the water), and he said he'll take me out again soon, and maybe I won't panic this time.  Well, I can only hope.

calamaties of our pensacola trip

So I guess the last month of my life couldn't be called an "adventure" if nothing went wrong.  The good thing is that we are both still healthy and still talking to each other.  But here, I will present to you, my dear readers, a list of what went wrong!  Enjoy!

• The oil change with a few 'surprises' (of the expensive sort).  I'm sure some of you have had these.  B took his car in before we drove it 900 miles to Pensacola, and apparently it needed new wheel bearings and two new tires. 
• The move date.  I knew it was high-PCS season, but I didn't think it would take a whole month to get the first open move date.  We had to extend our lease out an extra 10 days, and then we found out the owner of our rented condo wants to sell, so it's gonna be shown.  I brushed that off and let them look at it as is.
• The laptop computer.  We took the laptop down to FL, and halfway through our stay at the Navy Lodge, something goes awry with the power.  We ended up finding out it was just the cord.  We ordered a new one from Dell, and got it in the mail yesterday!
• The desktop computer.  When we got back to Virginia, we figured we'd just use the 8-year-old desktop since the laptop was shot.  Well, the keyboard on my trusty old Gateway decided that NOW was a great time to bite the dust.  This did result in a slightly funny Facebook status, but overall it was just frustrating.
• The canceled flight, the Kindle.  His Kindle.  Left on a plane that got into Atlanta at 1am after his first work trip to D.C.  (My mom picked him up and he slept at my parents' house for the night.)  I made some calls, and he is officially Kindle-less now.  :-(  He also can't find his mp3 player, and earlier this year my digital camera got stolen.  We are cursed when it comes to portable electronics.
• The new tire.  Yeah, the one from the oil change... we hit some sort of debris while driving back through Alabama, and there we were on the side of I-65 with a flat tire.  The lugnut-tool-thingamajig somehow stripped out and B couldn't finish changing the spare, so I called AAA.  However, before they made it, a friendly State Trooper came by with a much better tool and helped us out.  The only major casualty from this side-of-the-road debacle was that I stepped in a big bed of ants and I still have the bites on my pinky toe!  Then we stopped in Evergreen, AL, to get yet another brand new 80-thousand mile tire.  Sigh.

Other than all those biggies, the trip was by most accounts, a pretty smooth one.  Seems like we were hit with a lot of "mo' money, mo' problems" kinda issues.  Many worse things could've happened, and I'm glad they didn't!

top 10: why i'm a horrible excuse for a southern belle

I had already planned on writing a Top 10 list for today's post, and come to find out, there's a blog-hop for that. Perfect!

So I spent the first 22 years of my life living in Georgia, then I spent my AmeriCorps year in Jacksonville, FL, now I'm 90 minutes away from the capital of the Confederacy, and soon to be in a part of Florida that, for all intents and purposes, should probably be considered part of Alabama.

But after all of those 26 years spent living beneath the Mason-Dixon Line, here are the Top 10 Reasons I Fail as a True Southerner:

10.  I hate sweet tea.  Actually, I loathe any type of tea.  Also, a true Southerner (with a capital S) wouldn't acknowlege that any other types of tea exist.
9.  My hair is not nearly big enough.
8.  I have never said, "Bless ya heart, sugah".  EVER.
7.  I don't own a cast-iron skillet, and I often cook with margarine (the horror!)
6.  I'm not sure I'd even recognize a magnolia tree, so you probably won't see me settin' under one waiting on my gentleman caller.
5.  I don't 'glisten,' I really do sweat.
4. My accent sucks.  It changes often, usually to the last one I heard.  Perhaps I'll get some southern twang back in Pensacola?
3.  No me gusta grits.
2.  I always forget to address people with "Sir" and "Ma'am"

And the #1 reason I fail as a true Southerner . . .
1.  My parents aren't actually Southerners.  Mom is from central Florida, and Dad is from upstate New York.  As they say, "If the cat had kittens in the oven, ya wouldn't call 'em biscuits."

follow friday

Another Friday, another follow.  And like last week's, this one will keep you laughing on a daily basis.  Part of the Cheezburger Network (you know, of LOLcats fame), Failbook is hands-down my favorite of the failblogs.


Name: Failbook
URL: http://failbook.com
Tagline: Too Funny to Unfriend
Twitter: @failbooking
Facebook Page:  Oddly enough, it does have one-- Failbook

I love love love the FAIL blog, but all of those idiotic parking accidents and oddly-worded church signs and crap newscasting can get a wee bit tiring sometimes.  Sometimes you just need a consistent format and a certain shade of blue to let you know you're not alone.  Luckily for this site, there are a lot of idiots on Facebook, especially since it expanded beyond its former identity as an exclusively collegiate network.  In the past few years, Facebook has become a hot-bed for both grammar-phobic teenagers and oddly enough, their Gen-X parents.  And sometimes the parent comments really make the Fail worth reading.  So, friends, edit your status updates carefully, or you just might find your last name blocked out and your words being shamelessly heckled among all the other imbeciles on Failbook.  Happy Facebooking!