I caved

I promised myself I wouldn’t…but I did.

Sorry Luke…I know you liked me having my own domain.

I spent the better part of my work morning on it (that in itself deserves a little recognition, no?)

Find us here:

itsourlot.blogspot.com

*blogging still kind of bores me, so we’ll see how often this gets updated.

Whatever, this blog is dying anyway

So this picture wont be around for long, which is good because Luke asked if I was on drugs when he saw the red eyes. They’ll probably go away when I get Lasik. So, another 43 years perhaps?

I think the shadow of the flash helps exaggerate the bump, or pudge, whichever you prefer. Considering that kid is made up of 83% shake, 9% costco muffins, and 8% of my recent fruit addiction, I think its well earned.

So far this pregnancy:
An extreme lack of energy = no desire to exercise.
Craving potatoes like there’s no tomorrow and too lazy to actually act upon those cravings (except for yesterday when I had to take my bicycle to the store to buy potatoes which I HAD to have for dinner).
As of the last few days lots of gas and always when Luke is in the vicinity.
Nightly bathroom runs 2-3 hours after falling asleep. Really annoying. Might invest in diapers around month 7.
Waking up in the middle of the night with killer hunger pains 2-3 times a week, which I ignore.
Pretty certain the morning sickness has subsided because brushing my teeth no longer leads me to dry heaving and I can have fruit smoothies again for breakfast without bringing them back up. Always a plus.

So I haven’t yet decided what to do about the blog. I’m actually pretty bored with it, but I’m getting a lot of requests to keep it up so people know whats going on with that expanding belly. I’ll let you know when I decide.

Public Service Announcement

My domain expires sometime this month…and there’s a 97% probability that I won’t renew it.

…

So if this blog is gone within the next 15-30 days…don’t be alarmed.

If I switch to blogspot…don’t be alarmed.

If I quit blogging…don’t be alarmed.

Consider yourself warned

Shake makin’

When my dad was growing up in Anchorage, AK his parents built a hotel. I have a few vague memories of the hotel…I remember playing hide and seek with my siblings and cousins, I remember the front desk was a window display which held lots of candy (my favorite being the big huge gumballs that came in a package). I remember doing handstands in the lobby, and I remember a pool that was shut down because someone drowned in it. That could have been my siblings trying to scare me, its hard to say.  What I don’t remember is the restaurant in the hotel,  but I heard it pumped out a lot of pancakes back in the day. I can only assume it also pumped out a lot of shakes…because the one piece of hotel my grandma kept after selling it (at least that I know of) was the shake maker:

This beauty was produced in the 40’s and it’s working just as good now as it did then.
Tonight Luke and I made some shakes, and they were delightful.

Do you know what else I like? How a little piece of my grandma’s legacy is in my kitchen.

Heaven in a pot

Another of my favorite ways to eat zucchini:

Zucchini Soup
1 large can of tomato sauce
1/2-1 whole onion
1 large can of tomato sauce can of water
Noodles
Zucchini
Salt & pepper
Sugar
Italian seasoning

Chop up onion and brown in pan. Turn up heat and add tomato sauce and water. This is where you have to wing it (but it’s super easy so give it a try!) Add a lot of italian seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Also add a little bit of sugar (I added just under 1/4 cup for this big pot). Once you’ve reached your flavoring liking, add noodles (not the whole bag) and chopped zucchini. Cook until noodles and zucchini are soft.

The noodles will soak up a lot of your soup, so if it looks too runny at first don’t fret. I actually had to add another small can of tomato sauce and a lot of water to get mine back into a soup.  You can also brown hamburger with your onion, but I prefer no meat in this soup.

(recipe compliment of my mom…which is why there are no real measurements!)

Winging it

In case you think we’re all talk and no do (which is completely understandable) please recognize the fact that sometimes we follow through with our ideas.

Even if it means deciding Friday morning where to go camping.

Even if it means you only reserve a spot at  high noon-ish on Friday afternoon.

And you’re scouring your cupboards at 5 pm on Friday trying to come up with a menu for two days.

And you get to your spot by 8 pm.

And realize you left so fast you forgot matches.

That’s what I call winging it!

And it was a perfect weekend spent in the mountains overlooking the backside of Timp

This laptop is making me angry so please bear with the sideways picutres (for whatever reason it wont load the rotated AND re-saved picture properly)

We also watched the Tour of Utah pass through the canyon

One of the vehicles before the peloton threw us cow bells. I was really excited. Hopefully Luke will be just as excited when I use it to wake him at 5:30 tomorrow to tell him its time to go running. I’m a mean coach!

Some of the 170 riders. It was so neat to watch. There were people from the Tour de France in this race. Apparently this stage is the hardest in the US and is gaining in popularity.

It made Luke want to take up biking in a serious way. It reminded me of how painful my 100 mile ride was I did a few years ago. My bottom side doesn’t need to feel that kind of ache for another 14 years.

We also went to Cascade Springs.

After all that we went back to camp to make dinner before it got dark, which is how we usually roll. Luke started a fire to make some coals for our baked potatoes.

After dinner I made this fire out of hot coals, lots of blowing on said coals, and only three prayers that it would start.

Okay I didn’t pray 3 times but I did make Luke stand back while I showed him my mad fire skilz.

And that was the end of that.

Okay…there were more details like:

-Why you should never put sour cream in a cooler.

-Taking someone with a progressively shrinking bladder camping.

-Wind storms, wind storms, and more wind storms in the middle of the night.

-Two days without a shower. Greasy greasy hair.

I’m reaping what others sow

Luke laughs when I get excited over the smallest things….

This dinner was NO exception. Seriously…corn and fried zucchini on the same plate? I was in HEAVEN.  Just wished we hadn’t bothered with grilling the chicken…there was no room in my stomach for that.

For the worlds best fried zucchini:
Boil zucchini slices until soft
Dip in a beat egg
Dip in crushed saltine crackers
Fry on a hot griddle with plenty of oil and lots of salt and pepper

I might crave this 10 more times this week so if anyone has an over-abundance of zucchini you know where I live.

If I twittered…

It would have gone something like this yesterday:

Luke got a new job today! Woot woot!

Eating at Mimi’s cafe to celebrate the new job. The 2 for 1 coupon only works on 5 dishes. Bummer. At least they are all under $10.

Currently eating the largest serving of mashed potatoes. EVER!

Boxed up the mashed potatoes and left them on the table. And I was SO looking forward to fried mashed potatoes with cheese on top. Seriously been craving those for a good 2 weeks.

Walking through wal-mart to get cookie ingredients. My stomach is so full I’m pushing the cart so I have something to lean on. Luke says the past few days I’ve started walking really slowly. And he’s making me walk to the other side of wal-mart. Is it rude to sit on a bench and tell him to come back and get me when he’s done?

Home now. Direct flight to the couch. Oh my stomach.

Just learned our kid starts hearing at 9 weeks. I’m going mute and letting Luke do all the talking so he can be the one to soothe the baby at 3 am with his voice. He won’t agree to this arrangement.

Okay I finally am getting off the couch to make cookies for tomorrow’s dinner. I’m not always totally lazy.

Cookies in the oven.

Accidentally cleaned the bathroom. Might as well do the rest of the place.

Its 9:30 and I just finished mopping. I didn’t know my tile could look so clean.

**and that is why you are glad I don’t twitter!

Eye for an eye, other news, and about 3 other things

Eye for an eye:

I recently sold Jasmine

in exchange for the purchase of this

(and no that is not a pic I took) But I am hoping to take many pics with it for my postings at CraziBeautifulWomen. I’m excited to own at least one small piece of lighting. For those of you who don’t know…I despise an on-board camera flash. I’m really hoping this makes product photography more enjoyable. Now I’m just trying to figure out what else I can sell so I can purchase one more.

In other news:

Yesterday we got a letter from the mortgage company saying our mortgage is going up $300 a month staring next month for an entire year. TOTAL AWESOMENESS!! I’m working to sort through the dilemma of how the company managed to let my escrow go that far in the hole. However this could potentially turn into A HUGE BLESSING if I can work out the finer details of a program Obama recently came up with.  Just crossing my fingers that I’ll know more of my options after I fax over the info to my loan officer. If in fact we can’t modify my loan, we’ll either be homeless, selling, or become delinquent in our payments.  Lets hope we can fix the loany-loan…

Now onto the 3 other things:

#1 – My Nikon D70

has recently taken a nose dive into the land of “CHA” errors.  Unfortunately Nikon’s site is blaming it on bad cards which means no recall (which I’ve had before!) I’m slightly skeptical seeing that two different brands of cards died at the same time. I consider this pretty incredible timing with just getting lighting to go with this camera. I wish I could use this as an excuse to get a D90 (oh baby oh baby, I need you, I want you) the only problem is that I’d have to sell a kidney to afford it.

#2 – Handouts

Recently for reason’s beyond my capacity to comprehend it’s like the gates of heaven have opened upon me and Luke. I’m amazed at how aware Heavenly Father is of our needs, and who he sends to provide for us.  Let me give you a few examples: Last weekend while hanging out with friends we came home at 12:30 at night to find a watermelon on our doorstep and a big harmons reusable bag full of TONS of goodies for me. Luke’s parents left the watermelon (bless their hearts) after reading how I’d been in the mood for some.  I’m enjoying every bite of that watermelon! My sister after going to a women’s blogging summer social retreat felt the impression to give me all her goodies from it. I was so excited for the harmon’s bag (its  a color I dont own…and their bags are my favorite!) but when I opened it up and started pulling out stuff…I was amazed. Included was face wash and moisturizer. I just ran out of face wash and I haven’t bought moisturizer in over 6 months because I just couldn’t seem to get myself to spend money on it (oh the joys of being poor!) This was a dream come true! It included lots of lip balm & lip gloss, and some awesome doTerra essentail oils. I am in love with the lemon oil and I sniff it all day long. There were a few other things it included, but I’m amazed. Everything left on my doorstep that night was something just for me, and something I really needed. Also, just tonight Luke’s parents brought over some cookies for us and gave Luke money for his books for next semester. Just this afternoon I was wondering to myself how we were going to handle that expense.  I feel so blessed to be surrounded by so many people who are in tune to be givers of blessings from the Lord.

#3 – Baking

Luke and I are kinda shy.  So this is pretty much the first time most everyone has heard this…

.

Why is it so much easier

.

For me to tell you things

.

Not to your face?

.

Wow I feel so exposed. My secret is no longer a secret. Mark your calendars for March! Ya, no specific date seeing that I’m not trying to get my head wrapped around one day….I’ll let this kid cook as long as needed…even if it means going a couple weeks over due. And in 7 months from now when I’m begging to give birth to a “bowling ball on fire” remind me that I’m trying to keep the due date “open.”

Also for anyone out there who thinks they are going through menopause….if you’re under 55…you’re probably just pregnant.

Anywho–we’re pretty excited…overwhelmed, underwhelmed…and had somewhat the same reaction as the doctor did when he said “wow, that happened fast.” For the record doc, it wasn’t planned…not totally…had we been responsible adults I wouldn’t have had to cancel our Aflac.

Ps…don’t expect this to turn into a pregnancy journal blog. I’ll try to spare you all the hum-drum of those details and what if feels like to vomit a spinach shake. Also–if you need an instant cure for nausea…sniff lemon essential oil. Its AMAZING!

Wow this might have been the longest and most revealing post of my life.

The wonder of Steam-A-Seam and patience

I’ve been working on this for about a month now (okay, I did the initial work in about 2 days….but it took me another 3 weeks to make the bib, and another 2 weeks to mail it…..) So I finally feel safe in posting this without ruining the surprise…seeing that Jill has received it, and the other wont for a few more months (but I’m 158% positive my SIL doesn’t know this blog exists).

Here you have it…presents for my reproducing friend & SIL:

That’s a Daschshund…not a seal

If you want to see the cutest baby ever go to Jill’s blog and meet Rowan for yourself

and its matching bum