"You hardly ate anything..."

Let me start this by saying I love my mom. I'm grateful to AND for her. So, while anyone who knows me (and maybe a few who don't) might think this is yet another rant of me picking on my well-intentioned mum, let me say: it isn't. She just HAPPENS to be the one who said this phrase to me at lunch today.

Maybe it's because I'm in my second trimester of pregnancy... or maybe it's because she's my mum and that's what moms do... whatever the real reason, I looked at her plate, still mostly full from the double-layer of Chinese food she'd mounded on it at the local buffet place (two eggrolls, two terryaki chicken strips, two of this, two of that)... and I was amazed at the standards to which Americans stuff their gobs.

Both my husband and my mum LOVE Chinese food. I like it, just not as much as they do, plus being pregnant kinda changes your appreciation (and tolerance) of a lot of things. But I suggested Chinese as the only time they get it is when the three of us go together and that's not very often. Anyway, I had a plateful of food (single layer, thank you very much), taking a tiny bit of this and that, plus a little bit of salad (I can't get enough salad, even at a Chinese Buffet restaurant, hehe). When I was done, I did have quite a bit left-over on my plate, but there was a definite difference from when I started! I wasn't going to force myself to clean my plate if my stomach didn't have the room for it all.

So then out comes the above comment from my mom that just kinda boggled my brain. I'm not perfect. Don't let me sound like I am, that I eat only single portion sizes and measure everything, never once letting junk food pass my lips. *laugh* I have my favorites that I chow down on and I DO eat junk food... but overall I'm a fairly healthy eater. Looking around the restaurant tables showed me dozens of others with full plates who may have even said the same thing as my mom. So how did we as Americans get to this point? Most of us are "the other kind" of "healthy eater," being very overweight and not finding anything wrong with how many of us have heart issues or diabetes.

Without going on further, let me just say it staggers my mind. Still now, almost 9 hours later, obvious by the fact I turned on my computer just to write about it, it's floating around in my head.

Let's end this with a few good notes. Last week, I had my first second-trimester ultrasound. *sing song* Do you see what I seeee....?

Squidge LOOKS like a baby! Hubby and I keep being giddy at each other by out-of-nowhere saying, "Squidge has a face!!" Each ultrasound is a hint MORE exciting than the previous and each time we're astounded, not believing that could be possible. :)

Mother Nature celebrated Winter Solstice yesterday with a heck of a Nor'Easter, dropping a ton of snow on us. My husband, who temporarily is working night shift, came home this morning having to trudge thigh-deep through the snow to get up our road to get the snowblower. *chuckle* He had fun. No, really! He even snow-blowed me a big ol' heart shape in the back yard. (Do I have a sweet guy or what?!)

A crafter's life is a sad one. It's an addiction, really, one that usually only the spouses of said addicts want to cure. *giggle* Yah, I've got a new hobby. At least I think I do. I'm knitting! I finished an afghan for my husband a few weeks ago (and it's practically like a child's "Wooby" -- he uses it ALL THE TIME -- yay!!) and last night I made my first hat!


It's a little too big on me. As soon as I proudly showed off my handiwork to my hubby, though, it found its new home. :) He wore it to town today and I felt all wonderful both at how much he loves it and the compliments my mom gave it! Plus, at the store, he picked out another yarn color for me to knit him a second one. ;)

I hope whatever you do or don't celebrate, everyone has a wonderful and safe end of December. Remember to carry your holiday spirit throughout the whole of the next year. Being nice and having fun shouldn't be limited to one day of the year. It certainly isn't in this house and I hope it's not in yours. So smile -- or I'll throw a snowball atcha!! ;)

ZZzzZzzz.......

Ahh, the first trimester... and the things no one tells you about until AFTER you've experienced them. Fortunately, the morning sickness (which was really from 3PM - 10PM) didn't last long and my marriage survived the weeks of PMS-like cramps & mood swings that followed suit (*chants* I love my husband, I love my husband...). But now... oh my gawd... I'm freakin' TIRED all the time. I'm getting so far behind in everything. Housework I'm not stressing over so much (which is weird for me), because A) my hubby's been a dearheart, helping me out a LOT and B) if it doesn't get done today, it'll be there tomorrow, right? The main thing I am worrying over, though, is that quilt I was commissioned to do. I think I'm officially late this week. I just haven't had the energy to work on it as much as I normally would, so I'm feeling really bad about the whole situation. It's for a close friend and he's said not to worry about it, but I do. I know there's no way he can understand HOW TIRED I am... but at the same time, I said I'd get it done (and he IS paying me for it)... so... meh...

First thing that's gotta come first is my health, though. I'm sleeping as much as I can, taking it easy and not doing anything stressful to my body. I've hopefully only got three more weeks of restriction (and exhaustion), then I'm hoping to be back to normal.

It's not often I can make my husband giggle, nor introduce him to something of which he's not aware. Well, tonight I was able to do both and get him in a giddy mood before sending him off to work. Instead of taking his time getting ready for work, we ended up spending time together, playing a game a little longer than we should have -- we miss each other!! Doing so, however, gave him only 20 minutes to get showered & dressed AND eat dinner. And what was for dinner? No clue -- I hadn't thought that far! *laugh* I shooed him to the shower and took a peek in the fridge. Garlic bagels... spagetti sauce... ham steak... cheese... voila, bagel pizzas!! Five minutes to get them ready and five minutes in the oven gave us a super speedy and fairly nutritious dinner. He'd never had them before and thought they were going to be horrible, but bite number one proved him wrong and set him into a fit of giggles that lasted the whole ten minutes of dinner. And, I didn't send my man off to work on an empty stomach. Yay!!

Hurrah and congratulations, Barack Obama and Joe Biden!! Whew whew!!

Happy Autumn Equinox!

What a lovely way for Mother Nature to celebrate my favorite holiday: the sun is shining, but there's a slight crisp to the air and a gentle breeze blowing through the leaves that are starting their yearly wardrobe change. I started the day by harvesting from the garden. The carrots were ready to be pulled, as were handfuls of green beans and a few lemon cucumbers -- YUM!

We had an early celebration this past Friday, by going to our favorite fair, the Common Ground Fair. It's THE state's biggest and bestest agricultural fair. The weather that day was gorgeous, too, and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I'd been stashing a bit of money here and there, leading up to the day, so we were able to buy things we'd had our hearts set-on for years past without any feelings of budget-guilt. I bought myself a pair of hand carders, a drop spindle and a bag of gorgeous Romney wool. Hubby bought two American Chestnut trees which are now planted in the front field. Plus we stuffed ourselves with organic goodness: loaded sausage dogs, french fries and strawberry shortcakes -- again, YUM!! It was a fantastic day.












The latest pear-cookery comes in the form of cookies! Using this recipe makes a gently-sweet pear oatmeal cookie. The recipe says it makes 4 1/2 dozen cookies, but my batch made almost 7 dozen! I definitely have to make them bigger next time... having them mouth-pop-in-able is toooo much temptation to keep eating them!

*sings* Look for the... pear necessities...

Yes, yes, I'll admit that's a bit of a b@st@rdization of a Disney song, but I get bouncy and singy when I'm cooking... and I am kinda corny, so that's what came from my mouth while I was mixing up a new recipe for pear bread. After two weeks of "plumming it," making everything I could think of from the explosion of plums my mum's tree had, it's nice being able to switch to something new. Now the pears are ripe and I'm on the hunt for new pear recipes!

Yesterday I started the pear-fest with a pear bread recipe I found at allrecipes.com. Of course, I ALWAYS change recipes, according to our likes and dislikes, allergies and so forth, so the link is to the recipe I started with, but here it is with my changes:

INGREDIENTS:
3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 T cinnamon

1/2 c vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 c sugar
2 t vanilla extract
2 ripe bananas
2 c pear puree

2 c peeled, chopped pears

(Suggestion: Because it takes a little while longer than dumping ingredients into a bowl, I suggest preparing the pears first.)

-- Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt & cinnamon in bowl.
-- In separate bowl, mix oil, eggs, sugar, vanilla, bananas and pear puree.
-- Hand-stir chopped pears into wet mix, then add wet mix to dry, stirring until just mixed.
-- Grease & flour TWO 8x5x3 loaf pans and add batter.
-- Bake in preheated 325 degree F oven for 1 hour & 15 minutes. Cool before removing from pans.



It's a super yummy, light tasting, moist bread, very similar to a banana bread (even had I not added bananas *chuckle*). Next time (and there WILL be a next time!), I think I'll lessen the oil just a touch more, only use one banana, and add another cup of puree, to give it a little boost on the pear flavor. As soon as the loaves were cooled, I wrapped the second for the freezer -- keeping temptation at bay -- but oooh wasn't this one yummy to dig into!