What a way to end things!

HOORAY!!!!

All the more sweet because it was against the U.S.!

I screamed so loud I made Kate cry. Well, she is American after all.

Austin Day 3

After lunch yesterday, I sat outside and knit and drank tea until I felt my cheeks tingling from the sun. The mirror told me that I had just enough pinkness to make me feel like I'd been on holiday. While Kate was napping, I took control of Owen so that Beth could have a good nap.

In the end, everyone had a good nap - Beth, Kate and Owen and they were all ready to head out for barbecue at Rudy's.

Can I just say that the only thing that I really must do when I'm in Austin is go out for proper barbecue? If I do that, everything else is just gravy.

I hadn't been to Rudy's before (they have 3 locations here). I'm pretty sold on Salt Lick but Rudy's, I was told, was really laid back, cafeteria style, with picnic tables and lots of room to run outside. Also, great brisket, nice and fatty.

It was all true. It was really good. I think it was the best brisket I've had, really juicy turkey, and decent ribs and sauce. Salt Lick's are better. However, I did get an "original" Dr. Pepper made just up the road with cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup - thus the "original recipe." It came in a cheeky little glass bottle too.

The rest of the evening was spent watching the Canadian men kick ass in curling. What a great way to end the day. And in a minute we'll be watching the Canadian men (hopefully) do the same in hockey. Oh Canada!

Of course, the continuing gorgeous weather may call me outside again for a tea party with occasional breaks to check the score.

Austin Day 2

While snow covered most of Ontario yesterday, the weather in Austin was beautiful, especially since I started the day with a delicious black bean, egg, cheese and bacon taco with salsa from a new place that Beth recently discovered. I hope to have one more of them before I leave, this time with Chorizo sausage and maybe some avacado.

Kate had preschool yesterday morning so Beth and I did some grocery shopping at my favourite Austin grocery store: Central Market. I bought some dried chilies to take home with me.

During Kate's afternoon nap yesterday I took the dog for a walk to the Intermural Fields, what I refer to as the parrot colony (there is a large colony of parrots who live there) but by the time I reached the fields, the weather had changed to windy and cold and me without a coat. Westley and I headed home and drank tea for a while.

Two of Beth's friends, Howard and Laura Sue who I think are great, brought over some great pizza and we watched the Canadian women curl to the silver. The Swedes were playing better so I wasn't surprised. I hope the men play better today.

The day ended with lemon puff pie made by yours truly. In other words, my day had book-ends of great food.

The weather is gorgeous this morning on Day 3. I've already played in the sandbox with Kate and we'll be going to the park soon. I want to be outside as much as I can today.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Austin Day 1, part 1

It is only part-way through the day but I have some time to sit and write so I thought I'd give an update on my trip to Austin thus far.

When I checked my flight status yesterday for my flight from Buffalo to Atlanta I found out that everything going in and out of Atlanta was delayed due to weather, although when I checked the weather in Atlanta it was sunny and cool, so colour me confused. John and I decided to head to the airport in Buffalo to find out what was happening.

In the end my flight out of Buffalo was only delayed an hour but my flight out of Atlanta was delayed by 2 hours so I had the pleasure of sitting in the airport in Atlanta for 4 hours. If you were there and you saw a rotund woman reading and yawning and ripping out a day's worth of knitting, yeah, that was me.

I arrived in Austin finally around 8:45, luckily I had a great sleep last night and awoke refreshed and ready to entertain my niece, Kate.

We've played a lot, we went to their play group this morning, had lunch, made brownies, and played in the backyard. After Kate was in bed for her nap, I reknit the sweater I was working on while drinking tea in the spring sun WITH NO COAT OR MITTS OR TOQUE ON.

I love Austin.

Back home we have about 15 cm of snow. Here, the sun is warm, it's about 15 degrees celcius and I have no plans to leave for at least a week so BRING ON THE SUN.

Time to head back out there while I can.

Heading to the snowy (?) south

Right after school today we're all headed to St. Catharines so that tomorrow morning I can catch a flight from Buffalo to Austin. I'm excited to get there although three things have put a minor damper on my excitement:

1. I can't stream CTV Olympic coverage there. Only available to Canadian IP addresses. I'm hoping my tech-saavy brother-in-law can find a way by this because I do not want to have to watch NBC coverage and I am just way too into curling to miss out. (That was not sarcasm by the way.)

2. It's snowing in Austin today. I had planned on no boots, no mitts, no toque. I still plan on no boots but I'm bringing mitts and toque because I refuse to be cold in the mornings. I hear it will still be warmish in the afternoons. Maybe a sheltered spot in the sun will allow me to take off my coat.

3. John's back is wreaking havoc. He's walking all crooked. I feel a little bad for him - I'd have more sympathy if he'd take my (and my chiropractor's advice) and go and see my chiro or his sister who is a massage therapist but he's stubborn. Real stubborn. And not to be hyper-critical but what is up with people who complain about ailments but don't follow sensible advice or try all the options to make the pain period way, way shorter? I honestly don't understand it and that is when my sympathy flies out the window at about 100 kms/hr. However I do feel bad that the girls don't have their dad totally on his game. Hopefully he'll have a miraculous recovery. (Guilted into going to the chiropractor yet, John?)

On the up side:

• bbq
• warm sunshine
• snow that will not be around by the time I get there in contrast to here when we have about 15 cm on the ground right now and more on its way
• only 1 kid that I will be catering to
• sort-of a working vacation
• on an airplane BY MYSELF for 5 hours each way - reading, knitting or whatever I want to do with no one asking me for anything!
  

An aunt again!

My sister gave birth to her baby boy this morning at 9 a.m. His name is Owen and he weighed 8 lbs 3 oz. Hooray! I get to meet him in less than a week when I fly to Austin, without any children with me this time (!), and enjoy him, Kate, and the Austin weather.

What's Cooking Wednesday

A couple of weeks ago I made soup for supper; I made a soup for supper that was so good that we couldn't stop talking about it for the following two days and we ate every last drop of the leftovers and then the day after that I wished there was more left for me to have for lunch.

The soup was Mulligatawny. I've had the soup in Indian restaurants before but never made it myself. Man, was I missing out! This soup is now going to appear on my "regulars" list. Of course, Hope wouldn't eat it but John, Emily and I triple-loved it!

Mulligatawny Soup

(This recipe is pulled from the old grey Canadian Living Cookbook but I made some delicious modifications so I'm including those all in the recipe below.)

1/4 cup flour
3 chicken breast halves, bone-in
2 tbsp veg oil
4 carrots cut in thin slices
1 large or 2 small parsnips, diced
2 onions, chopped
2 stalks celery in thin slices
2 apples, diced (use ones that keep their shape - not Macs)
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric
pinch nutmeg
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup coconut milk
salt and pepper
1 cup hot cooked rice
chopped fresh cilantro and fresh wedges of lime

1. Place flour in plastic bag; shake chicken breasts in flour to coat. Reserve remaining flour.
2. Heat oil in large saucepan; brown chicken on all sides. Remove chicken and set aside.
3. Add carrots, parsnips, onion, celery, apples, curry, turmeric, nutmeg to pan; cook, stirring, over med-high heat until coated with fat in pan. Reduce heat to low; cover and cook, stirring often, for 10 minutes. Sprinkle with reserved flour; cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Gradually stir in stock.
4. Return chicken to pot and bring to boil; reduce heat, cover and simmer for 1 hour or until chicken is tender, sitring occasionally. Remove chicken; cut meat into bite-size pieces, discarding bones and return to soup.
5. Stir in coconut milk and season with salt and pepper. Heat again gently but do not boil (to avoid milk curdling). Place large spoonful of rice in bottom of each bowl. Ladle soup on top. Top with fresh cilantro and squeeze of lime (essential!).


I might make this again tomorrow night!

Eight random things

1. Tomorrow morning very early we leave for a weekend at my dad's in Gravenhurst. Our weekend should be chalk full of tobogganing (I have finally learned to spell that without spell check. Queen of the spelling bee!), skating, eating and watching a real t.v.... with real cable! Sometimes I feel like a pioneer. Those are the kinds of sacrifices we make around here, she says, as she types away on her rocking iMac.

2. It's been almost a year since my hard drive died and I lost all my photos going back to Christmas 2006 (let this be further warning to you to back up on a reliable source. Reliable source does not equal an antiquated external hard drive, fyi.). As of next week, I'll have finally finished collecting all the photos I can from my Kodak Gallery albums and this blog. (I do realize that this should have taken me about 1 week and not 1 year but I make procrastination a sport.) I did send out a plea for help to my family members and friends begging for photos of the kids that they had. One person - Pam, friend extraordinaire - actually lived up to her promise. Ahem. Family, you suck. And I'm coming for you.

3. My poor skates, after 4 years of poor treatment by me, have been declared by a skate-sharpening expert as "irreparable." I'm going to try them out this weekend regardless and probably curse them up and down. At least it gives me something to blame my poor skating on.

4. I'm addicted to Farmville. I've got it bad people. Real bad.

5. Can someone please explain to me why Arnold Schwarzenegger is running the Olympic torch into Vancouver? Seriously, I've gone over it six ways by Sunday (I love throwing in old cliches just to keep you on your toes and also because I truly love them) and I'm still at a loss. Yet another reason why the Olympics lost my interest years and years ago. I still plan to watch the luge and all the other crazy sports I can lay my hands on this weekend. I'll just plug my nose for all the icky parts.

6. Ontario Today had a phone-in today about Valentines Day: love it or hate it? I realized that I'm totally in the middle. Which makes me completely apathetic. Which I once heard is worse that hating something because it is completely devoid of emotion. That pretty much sums up my feelings on Valentines Day. John and I don't celebrate it. We just don't see the point when we tell each other how we feel every day and do lots of special things throughout the year (okay, less now that there are kids, but still). However, it's hard to ignore it all when you have a kid in school who is inundated with all things valentinian for the week leading up to the big day. Emily actually thinks this is a major holiday. Like Christmas. She may end up hunting down cupid herself when she opens her crappy Kinderegg and homemade card from me. Or not. Could go either way.

7. I made red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing today to get in the spirit for the girls. And my verdict is: red velvet looks cool but is kind of boring. Also, buttercream still rules as the best icing of all time unless it's for a carrot cake. Still, a worthy experiment.

8. I think we're going to New York City with the kids in April for a long weekend and let me just say: HOLY HELL AM I EXCITED. Yes, I'll be 7.5 months pregnant. But I'll be with two little kids so I figure we'll walk at the same pace and keep up the same level of whining so it should all work out.

Given that this is Lunar New Year, I figure 8 is a good number to end on. Happy weekend, whatever you are celebrating!

My newest favourite baking website

If you triple love to bake like I do and you grew up in Canada or have made the right decision and chosen to move here (heh) then you HAVE to check out this website: Joy of Baking. It is a website full of beautiful photography, awesome recipes and very Canadian at that (lemon curd, scones, Nanaimo bars.... love it).

I'm going to make the red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese icing for this weekend to share with those I love (particularly myself).

Upchuck

Hope woke up crying loudly last night around 10:30, just after I'd turned off my light. I wen upstairs to find her gripping her tummy. I had a sense of what was coming and luckily had the wherewithal to lift her out of her bed before her stomach contents flew all over her bed. They hit the floor instead.

The poor girl had continuing and painful stomach cramps which led to more time over a bucket and a sleepover with me in our bed while John camped out upstairs. The heaving continued until 2:00 a.m. when she finally went to sleep for good ( due to the help of a Gravol suppository). Poor John also had his own stomach issues in the night but by then I was getting some much needed sleep.

I sure hope Emily and I don't fall to this today.


-- Post From My iPhone

TGIF

This has a been (another) busy week around casa VT. I'm not even entirely sure of what makes it feel so busy. Granted, I returned from Ottawa on Monday and hit the ground running right after that.

On Tuesday morning, Hope and I grocery shopped, cleaned, got skates sharpened. Tuesday afternoon, I tidied and cooked while Hope was in preschool and then whisked the kids and I off to the chiropractor. I was in desperate need of an adjustment after driving five hours to Ottawa and five hours back with only a two stops each way (and those were short). My hips and back were protesting loudly.

On Tuesday night Emily went skating, on real skates (previous to this year she had bob skates) for the first time with her Sparks troop. I went with her for moral support and physical support. I held her hand while she shuffled her way a couple of times around the outdoor rink. Her attitude was great. Suprisingly great. In fact, the reason I've waited this long to get her on skates (unlike most Canadians whose kids seem to all be skating reasonably well by Emily's age) is that Emily gets EXTREMELY frustrated when she doesn't excel at something the first time she tries it. And then she gives up or declares that she's never trying X activity again or has a full melt-down. I decided she needed some emotional maturity to tackle skating, which is, along with swimming, not intuitive at all and pretty hard to master. So, she was the only kid in her troop (save 1) who hadn't tried it before. She was slightly annoyed that everyone else could skate but her but I promised her that with practice she'd be whizzing around too (in a couple of years). Next year skating lessons may be on the agenda as I won't be much help with a stroller attached to my hands.

Wednesday morning I took the girls out to buy the supplies for making their valentines. On Wednesday afternoon I looked after our wee friend Leah (hereafter known as WFL). We did our usual play dough, snacks and then the valentine construction. Last year I bought valentines for Emily to give out. This year after seeing the pretty creations in Family Fun Magazine, I decided we'd make our own. It definitely isn't the most cost-effective route but it was so much more fun and the results are beautiful. Here is what Emily made:


I cut out all the pieces (she cut the leaves), she punched the holes and did all the writing and then I put them together. It was a really fun activity for the two of us. We were an assembly line of valentines.

Thursday was a regular Thursday. Today we looked after WFL again and had a play date this afternoon. Tonight we ended with a great dinner with friends here at home. I whipped up pad thai and the kids played and played and played and now it's the end of the day and week and we're all whipped.

I hope next week will be a little less frenzied. It's not really looking like it though.

However, having done all that I did manage to clean the house... something that hasn't happened in way too long.

You know, I've also gotta say that I'm annoyed now that twice in the past two weeks I've posted these "this was my week" posts. Really, who wants to read that? But I figure, this is all you're going to get at the end of a week like this. Coherent thoughts aren't firing right now and dammit, this is my blog and drivel is the flavour of the day.

At some point I'll post something more meaningful and much more interesting. For now, enjoy the drivel.

A whirlwind tour of the nation's capital

I'm back after my longish weekend in Ottawa, sans kids or husband. It was fun but fast and tiring. I accomplished everything I set out to do. I also came home with an aching back after driving there and back on my own, with my pregnant belly sitting leisurely on my hips and lower back for five hours each way.

I spent most of my weekend with my good friend Meredith who, although she refused to let me eat until 10:00 pm on Friday, still gets the big kudos for letting me drag her around all weekend looking for our things in storage, in our basement and then helping me to buy a fridge.

We found almost all of the baby stuff I was looking for save for half of the baby monitor set and my Ergo baby carrier. Clearly I found these near the end of our move and just shoved them in unmarked boxes somewhere.

I'm very happy with the fridge I got. It is decidedly larger than the previous antique that is dying a slow death in our kitchen in Ottawa. The new one is 20 cubic feet, very suitable for a family of 5 (!) but still able to fit in the space we have available, standard freezer on top and Energy Star so we should see a nice drop in the hydro bill after the existing energy-sucking beast is removed.

I ate my fill of shawarma on the weekend, spent some nice time with my brother-in-law and his wife (I never know what to call her - she isn't really my sister-in-law then is she? I just call her Cibele). I had dinner with Pam and Jim and kids and sat around talking until my contact lenses were begging to be removed and I also visited the knitting store that I really like. Not to mention that I bought a new battery for the car and had Meredith's husband, Ron, and Meredith's dad install it for me. I'm good like that.

To top the weekend off, on Monday I visited the new T&T Supermarket - a monster Asian grocery store recently opened near our house - and swooned over everything. I will be shopping there frequently in the years to come. From there I went to our school and registered Hope and Emily for the fall. Emily's teacher from last year (and Hope's for the coming year) Mrs. B, gave me a big hug and told me how much she missed us all and how excited she is that we're coming back. I got a similar reception from Mme C, Emily's French teacher. Now that's a school where I want to hang my hat. It's a wonderful example of what a community school is all about.

I really love Ottawa and I'm glad we're going back at the end of the summer. I miss our house, I miss our friends, I miss the school and our neighbourhood. I miss the entirety of what Ottawa is - the people enmass, the draw people have to be outside no matter the weather, the canal, the buildings, just the placeness of it.

And yet I was so happy to pull into our Waterloo driveway yesterday and hug the three people inside the house. I missed them so much. Home is wherever they are.

Goodbye old lady

The fridge at our house in Ottawa is as old as the house itself: circa 1988. When we moved into the house the fridge leaked onto the floor continuously. The previous owners in their clear handy prowess had a tea towel stuffed under the veggie drawer to soak up the liquid.

I was determined to save the fridge so I went to the most reliable source of fridge repair information: the Internet.

My friend the Internet said we should flush the hose at the back. My previously-not-handy husband took care of it in minutes. The fridge worked perfectly after that.

Until just before Christmas this year, that is.

Our tenants told us the fridge was leaking. They flushed the hose and it bought us a few weeks. This week the leaking started again and it seems to be finding any fridge orifice it can to make its way onto our sensitive cork floor.

Our awesome tenant tried a few ideas to nurse our senior appliance back from the brink but despite all efforts, she cannot be saved.

And so I'll be going fridge shopping very soon and spending money we were hoping to keep from our tax return but these things can't be helped when you have 20 year old appliances in your house.

At least we'll be going back to Ottawa to a shiny new appliance (fit for a family of five if my bargaining skills are good enough to get me a good price on something bigger).


-- Post From My iPhone

The week at a glance

I only have a few minutes before the kids come tumbling down the stairs asking to watch a show (which requires me to give up my computer given we don't have a t.v.). I've been conspicuously silent this week although I have a number of posts circling in my mind. You probably see where this is headed: the dreaded bullet post.

Maybe a short paragraph post instead.

________________

And this is all I had written before I was pulled away from the computer yet again for God knows what reason. And now it is two days later and it has been over a week since I last posted. I'm not really complaining per se. That is the reality of parenthood and we all know it. To be more specific, that is the reality of parenthood WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE A T.V. TO DISTRACT YOUR KIDS WHILE YOU BLOG.

So, here is the week that just went by.... at a glance:

- spent Sunday night at Omi's in St. Catharines. John and I had a date night. Saw Avatar. Possibly the coolest movie I HAVE EVER SEEN and that even includes Lucas.

- had 20 week ultrasound on Monday. This baby likes to shake it, shake it. Everything seemed okay to my untrained eyes and the technician gave me no reason to think otherwise although her kind is very good at being stonefaced and unreadable.

- got notice on Tuesday that Emily's Sparks troup will be going skating in two weeks. I'm slightly concerned as Emily has never skated on anything but bob skates and we all know those don't come close to resembling real skates. And so, I am wasting way too much time thinking about how to get her new-to-her skates sharpened when the line-ups for sharpening seem to all be at least 30 minutes and I never have that much time available to stand in line. And also thinking way too much about the high probability that my child will come back from the night in question missing teeth and with multiple lacerations and scarred for life in regards to skating. And yes, I plan to get her on the ice before the night in question but we all know that it takes about, um, 30 years before one is truly comfortable on skates unless you are one of those freakish 5-year-olds, which Emily is not, who skates circles around me on the Rideau Canal let's not talk about that.

- This week, Wednesday, January 20, marked the five year mark since my mum died. It's a miserable day in the year and I am now at the point that I'm not interested in writing a post about it and prefer to not blog at all on that day because I'm now feeling like I'm repeating what I've said in previous years. I miss her. So terribly that most times I think about how much I miss her I start to well up and that just isn't a fun way to spend my time nor does it do anything to make me feel better. I much prefer to just remember her, which I do throughout every day in tiny moments or little things the girls do or ask about or that I laugh about or do myself. I will say this though: five years does nothing to dull the pain of that kind of loss.

- Emily's reading is still blowing my mind. She keeps choosing "more challenging" books to bring home and kicks the shite out of them. Her brain continues to wow me.

- Today, Friday, I looked after my girls and a friend's daughter, who is 4, for the whole day (for moola too!). I made 4 batches of play dough which amused them for a long time, then there were puzzles and colouring and crafts, cupcake baking, lunch, a lengthy trip to the Waterloo Children's Museum (which included the totally amazing exhibit Our Body: The Universe Within - very similar to Bodyworks - where once-live human specimens are used to show the different systems at work within our bodies) and then home to decorate cupcakes. It was a doozy of a day but I'm not that tired somehow. Go figure.

- approaching the car in the parking lot after we left the museum, I asked the kids to all put their hands on the car while I unlocked and put my bag in there, to avoid anyone running into traffic. Emily and our other friend did so. Hope walked face-first into the car at full speed, toppling her over backwards. She cried. A lot. Turns out, she told me later, she was tired so was walking with her eyes closed. AGAIN. This is not the first time she's done this. I'm afraid this kid is going to walk off a pier or a cliff or something simply because she's feeling a bit sleepy. Kind of makes me love her even more though, if that was even possible.

- I'm going yarn shopping tomorrow morning with a friend and with no kids and I'm very excited. All yarn purchased will be for baby things. Very, very excited.

- currently Emily is asleep in my bed, my side, because she couldn't sleep due to continually thinking about Millificent, the witch in Sleeping Beauty. Somehow transferring to our bed resulted in non-Millificent brain activity. And sleep.

And that is my week at a glance.

You capture, I capture

I'm doing something crazy. I'm going to start to (occasionally) participate in You Capture, a weekly photo challenge hosted by I Should be Folding Laundry. I've never done this before, I don't have a fancy camera; heck, I don't even have photo editing software beyond iPhoto (which doesn't count at all).

But, what the heck? I'm just going to jump in.

This week's challenge was Winter.

I wanted to get photos of the cardinals at my new birdfeeder (thanks Dad and Donna!) but I don't have enough zoom ability with my point and shoot to get close enough without scaring the birds away. But, while I was out trying to take that photo, I found a few interesting natural ice sculptures and patterns.

This ice has built up just under our downspout at the front of our house. It seems like an architectural miracle.


And then I found this tucked in behind the other one, just about a foot away.

And finally, as I was walking back inside, I passed our car and found this lovely pattern on the back windshield.

Happy winter everyone! Next week: Love around the house.

What's Cooking Wednesday

Shan made me blush a bit this morning when I read her What's Cooking Wednesday post. I fully agree with her of course that blogging has enriched my life in many ways. The most surprising and important to me is through the friends I've made. I do hope to meet more of them in the future "in real life" and Shan, my bloggy BFF, is at the top of my "to meet" list. Expect me to step up the pressure, sister!

After her post, I couldn't miss participating in WCW this week. I made these cookies this week - not school-lunch friendly but great for at home if you have no nut allergies. These are also great if you have a problem with wheat.

Super easy peanut butter cookies

1cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Mis all ingredients well. Form into 1 tbsp balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Press with fork. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

Recipe notes: these were really delicious and very easy. However the dough is really gooey. I couldn't really roll it in my hands so I just used my fingertips to get it spherical. Also, do not overbake these. They taste charred if even slightly overbaked. I learned that the hard way.

I think I may whip up another batch of these today!


-- Post From My iPhone

Our 40-year-old 5-year-old

Tonight at supper Hope complained about her booster seat. She wants to be able to sit cross-legged at the supper table (?!) and her current seat doesn't allow her to do that. We were going back and forth about it with her explaining that she has to sit there/you shouldn't sit cross-legged at the table/blah blah blah when Emily (who is almost 5 and a half) offered to trade booster seats with her.

"I'll trade with you Hope," she said. "I'm getting tired of this booster seat anyway."

And then, and I'm not exaggerating one little bit, she looked at John and I and WINKED.

She WINKED!

Not only can she now wink, she can wink appropriately like she's pulling one over on someone.

I'll fully admit it.... she scares me.

3$ pants

Yesterday I stopped in at a Kitchener kids' consignment store to get Emily some new pants and look at the maternity clothes selection. There was a sign in the window that said they were having a one-day 50% off sale. What luck! I bought Emily 3 pairs of pants and a shirt. I bought her a snowsuit for next year for $13! And I bought jeans, a skirt and two shirts for myself. The whole bill came to $63. Poor Hope got nothing because her dresser is overflowing with hand-me-downs.

I put on my new jeans this morning. Something didn't feel quite comfortable in the tiny front pocket - that one you're not sure of the purpose of because it's almost impossible to fit your fingers in there.

I jammed my fingers in and...

pulled out a five dollar bill!

Sweet! Thank you, previous owner of these pants. You just dropped the price of my new jeans to $3!


-- Post From My iPhone

Location:Fairway Rd S,Kitchener,Canada

My name is Karen and I love my ever-expanding gut

The lovely Andrea of the Fishbowl posted this very inspiring and funny post about loving her guts. (Can I also just add that even in my pre-pregnancy state I would be soooo jealous of that gut - with or without the washboard?)

So, thinking along the lines of improving my post-Christmas diet as well as the fact that I haven't really written much about this current pregnancy, I thought this would be a prime time to talk about my own eating regime post-holiday as well as show off my pregnant belly.

Right after the last Christmas cookie was eaten (likely by me) I decided to get serious about what I was eating. Breakfast - high in fibre (a la Andrea); I am going to seek out the Bran Buds she mentions but for now I'm having oatmeal with flax seed meal on it, some cinnamon and maple syrup and milk. Yum! Lunch - a favourite salad of mine which I'm starting up again tomorrow: tuna, avacado, green onion, lettuce and a lemon and oil vinaigrette. Double yum! I won't have this everyday but lots of days until I get sick of it. I really want to lay low on the carbs at lunch - hopefully going carb free but high in proteins and veg (but not the heavy meats - fish and eggs and cheese are more to my liking). Supper - whatever is our fancy. I'm not making any changes there. I do plan to lay low on refined sugar from here on in as much as my will power allows going instead with honey or maple syrup when I need a little sweet. So far, not hard. I had my fill over Christmas.

This is the gut I am currently sporting at 19 weeks pregnant:




Formidable, isn't it?

Well endowed for only 19 weeks pregnant. I hate to think what I'll look like at 36 weeks.

Seriously, I'm obviously not re-focussing my eating to trim any pounds obviously. I love my baby belly right now. I just want to eat as healthily as possible for me to keep up my energy and feed this growing baby right.

As many of you know I have a mystery illness (which I still suspect is fibromyalgia but no one professional has been able to tell me yet) and eating well seems to help me through my bad bouts which, until two days ago, had been few and far between during the pregnancy. Right now I'm in the middle of one: severely itchy skin, rashes, extreme fatigue, sore muscles, very sensitive and painful skin (even where there is no rash to see), sore rib tips and solar plexus. All so odd but from experience I know that this too shall pass.

And for me that's where the joy in my suffering comes from. I know it will pass. It's always an adventure to see what I can do to get it to pass more quickly and I know diet and exercise (hah!) and lots and lots of sleep (double hah!) get me through faster.

And with that thought, I'm going to sit on the couch, knit, drink tea and then go to bed.

Should you want to feel good about your own midrif, I suggest staring at the photos above a few more times.

What's Cooking Wednesday

Post-Christmas I'm jonesing for lighter fare: lots of veggies, simple flavours, less meat, no sugar. Tonight I really wanted spaghetti but not with our typical (although declicious and homemade) red sauce. So I pulled out a recipe I made once before and loved. The recipe is Spaghetti al Limone (spaghetti in lemon sauce) from David Rocco's terrific cookbook David Rocco's Dolce Vita (based on his show that I triple love when I actually can see it ie. I'm in front of a t.v. with cable). The recipe is uber-simple but so delicious. I highly recommend you try it when you want simple but not rich but full of flavour.

Spaghetti al Limone

500 g spaghetti
1 clove garlic, for rubbing
2 lemons
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (the higher quality the better)
1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper to taste
fresh flat-leaf parsley if you have it
zest of 1 lemon

Put water on to boil for pasta and add pasta to salted water. Meanwhile, cut garlice clove in half and rub large ceramic or wooden bowl with the garlic. Toss the rest or use it for another recipe (this ensures that you get garlic flavour without the bite of a mouthful of raw garlic).

Squeeze lemon juice from both lemons into your bowl. Use fork to pull out the seeds. Drizzle olive oil in a little at a time while whisking it until it emulsifies. Add Parmesan, salt and pepper. Add parsley and lemon zest. Mix.

Drain pasta and add to bowl immediately. Give it a good mix. The sauce will thicken up from the starchiness of the pasta. Taste and add more Parmesan if you like.

Eat. Bet you won't stop! This recipe is best if you use the best Parmesan, lemons and olive oil you can lay your hands on. Please don't reach for a green can!

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