Awaken Inspiration

Uninspired. Simply not creative. That's how I've been feeling lately. Drained. I miss picking up my camera and being happy with practically every single random photo.

I took this yesterday, while waiting for Jason to run inside Kroger for milk, in hopes of reviving my love of capturing everyday memories in an artistic fashion.

Suggestions needed.

This is kind of a touchy subject for public forum, but I desperately seek advice.

After a long battle with pull-ups and defiance, Tiegan was finally potty trained. HALLELUJAH!

Or not.

The past week or so, she's been wetting her pants. On purpose. I ask her frequently throughout the day if she has to go, and she always says no. Sometimes I can tell she actually does, and I convince her to try anyway. The magic always happens when I convince her to try.

That slowly turned into me making her try after she puts up a fight, and finally offering candy/rewards if she at least makes the effort. In between the tries, when I find her wet, she claims she was "too busy" with whatever she was doing (playing with toys, etc) to get up and go. If I ask her why she did it, her answer is always "because I wanted to."

If she is too wrapped up in her toys to make the effort to get up and go to the bathroom, then my first instinct tells me to take away the toys. But I don't want to shame her. This is only at home. In public, she's a champ. Not one accident in public, ever.

My creativity is fleeting these days. I'm not such a fun mommy lately (hopefully that side of me returns with the sunshine). I'm all out of ideas for how to encourage her. I'm 90% sure it's just laziness. She still asks to wear pull-ups, which of course I refuse, no matter how many teeny-tiny panties that means I have to wash.

Help?

Puffball.

The thing I have been dreading... it has started to happen.

I'm getting puffy.

Despite an extremely healthy diet (when I actually feel like eating, which is rare), keeping up my exercise, and generally trying to stay as healthy as possible... I am starting to see the tell-tale signs of pre-eclampsia.

I have gained 10 lbs. in the past week and a half. And it's NOT from pigging out like last time, I can guarantee that. My appetite has been almost non existent. Yesterday I was able to have a slice of spinach quiche. All day. That has been the norm. I usually have to force food down my own throat just because - obviously - Sofia needs nutrition.

I have been enjoying my new, thick, long fingernails (one of my favorite things about pregnancy). Having long fingernails makes my hands feel more.... I dunno, dainty. Past few days, though, I feel more clumsy with my hands than ever. My new wedding band is leaving a dent in my finger.

My socks are leaving indents in my ankles. Mom felt my legs yesterday, and said I'm definitely retaining water. I can't stand up for very long, because my puffy feet feel like they're going to pop.

It's not as visible at this point as it was towards the end last time...


I guess looking back on this photo, it doesn't look that bad - but check out my sock indents. And look at my left foot. I have pretty high arches, and you can see they were filled in. The rest of my body was pretty much the same way.

Lately, I've also been feeling numbness/tingling in my hands, legs & feet... and even weird places like the tip of my nose and in my mouth & lips. The puffiness alone is frustrating, because I have been doing SO GREAT the past couple months. I've only been slowing down just recently, but for a while I had my hopes up about staying in shape this pregnancy and not feeling like a total balloon.

If I hit my goal mark for weight gain this time, I only have 7 more lbs. to go. Yikes. Any suggestions for how to deal with this?

an Idol so soon?

We have an additional Gordon Ramsay fan in the house.

I'm the first. Normally, I wouldn't like him all that much. If Hell's Kitchen were all I saw of him, I'd get awfully sick of the yelling and dramatics. Thank goodness for BBC America. It seems that BBC's presentation of Kitchen Nightmares is much less edited for drama's sake than when it's on Fox, and much more sincere. I also get to watch The F Word, which is a great show. It's not just a bunch of Gordon Ramsay pacing about and yelling at his kitchen staff. There are guest spots, interviews, contests, and even clips of Chef at home being playful and sweet with his family. I don't see him as a mean guy who just goes around yelling and cussing at people. He just gives a crap about good, quality, fresh-prepared food, quality control, and not wasting; whether it's at home or out to eat. We'd all be better off with more people like that.

Last evening, I flipped the TV to one of my other favorite shows which just happens to be on BBC: Top Gear. And a certain somebody just happened to have a guest spot on that particular episode. I didn't think Tiegan was paying attention, but much to my surprise, she gasped...

"MOMMY! Is that Chef Ramsay?"
"Yes it is... how did you know that?"
"I like him." (with a sheepish grin and giggle)
"Oh you do, huh? Why's that?"
"I dunno... he's just... he has blonde hair like mine." (still with the silly grin)

So, in summary, my 3 year old daughter has a crush on Gordon Ramsay. That's not a bad thing, right? I mean... at least they bleep out the bad words on TV.

Hubby Appreciation Day

I hope you don't mind, but I would just like to take a moment to show my appreciation for my husband.

We use the stumbleupon toolbar, which provides great entertainment - or at least a tolerable way to get through a bout of boredom. We often "stumble" items to each other (there's a "send to" button on the toolbar, in which you can enter anyone's email address. It will send the recipient a link to the page you've "stumbled" across).

I often check my email in the mornings to find 2 or 3 pages from Jason. Usually they are jokes or funny videos & I always enjoy them because we have such similar taste. This morning, I was pleasantly surprised. He had sent me the link to a clothing website I'd never seen before.

Knowing Jason, he normally would have thought "ugh - fashion - I don't care." And went on his merry way. However, he must have noticed something about me that most people don't catch onto. He must have noticed how I was ogling over this website the other day. Or maybe he sees how I'm constantly adding things to my forever21 wishlist. Or maybe not. Either way... he saw this fashion site, and instead of just ignoring it and moving on, he thought of me.

And it's actually pretty cool. I like about 90% of the stuff on it. So, I thought I would share it with you. www.shopplasticland.com.

Think I'm vain if you like, but sometimes I feel like I can't fully express myself because I can't afford to dress the way I dream I would. It's just nice that Jason sees what I like, even though I wear jeans & t-shirts most of the time. Props. :)



Pretty neat stuff eh?

great day.

This is where I have been spending a lot of my time.

The view from the end of our dock. Jealous?

We went for a walk today. A bit on the nippy side, but the sun came out & we couldn't resist.

Tiegan was maxin' relaxin' with her feet up in the wagon. Don't you love that spring jacket? My mom got it for her. I think she said it was at Target.

T's new favorite thing:
She looks at things... examines... touches. When I ask what she's doing (for instance, when she was pulling apart her gummy bear and getting all sticky, instead of eating it), she says "I'm observing it."

Things like this make me smile, and I'm reminded that I'm doing a good job.

Earth Hour

A little less than a year ago millions of people all around the world made a bold statement of concern about climate change by doing something quite simple - turning off their lights for one hour. Earth Hour.

Last year during Earth Hour 2008, more than 50 million people in more then 400 cities around the world turned off their lights to demonstrate their commitment to joining this global movement to encourage the world the world to take action.

On Saturday March 28th at 8:30 p.m. Earth Hour 2009 will take place.

Earth Hour started 3 years ago in Sydney, Australia. Earth Hour happens once a year for one hour, it is a chance for us (people) to act globally and speak up for the earth. Last year 36 million Americans participated in Earth Hour and turned their lights out for one hour.

I would encourage everyone to take a few minutes and check out the following web site(s) www.earthhour.org or www.earthhourus.org . The web sites offer activities for your students, community, family, and businesses. Help spread the word and become one of millions who participate in this years Earth Hour.

{Thanks Nicole!}

Surfing Squirrels

I wish I had intriguing things to write about lately.

Honestly, the most interesting story I have right now is about how I saw a tiny wave breaking on the lake and made a joke that small animals could go surfing out there. And I imagined a squirrel on a surfboard.

Yes, I am really that lame.

Seeing Red

OK, here comes the part of pregnancy where I start to get all whiny.

SYKE!!

But seriously though... I have the feeling I'm getting to the point where I'm just a little sick of the braxton hicks, the kicks & blows wayyyy down low, and getting tired after being active for less than an hour. Oh yeah - did I mention I can barely put on my own socks now? I can't help but laugh at myself grunting and stretching just to reach my feet - Jason certainly does. ;)

In other news, mom's birthday is in a few weeks and I want to make her a special treat. Without giving anything away, I think I'd like to do a variation of something she always made for me in place of birthday cake.... something I always loved and appreciated.

It was nice to have something different, and I will always remember it as sort of our special thing.

Lake House Bedroom

As you may have already found, I like to "faux shop." That means I like to add things to my online wish lists like crazy, but I rarely get the chance to actually fulfill these dreams or collect the items I covet online. I suffered from a bit of boredom this morning and put together a collage of things that I would use to furnish/decorate my bedroom (which is currently a mishmash of hand-me-down furniture and... well, nothing else). My tastes change quite often, but I think this bedroom would be very simple/tranquil and would make me happy for a long time. Maybe I'll actually work toward building this style.

Next up: the rest of the house.

The Bettie

I have been keeping my eye out for a retro halter-style one piece swimsuit for ages now that summer wear has been out in the stores for a while now. I thought that since vintage retro is making its way back into the scene, a halter/boyshort style one-piece swimsuit would pop up on the grid somewhere. I love this style (I think it's timeless - it will always be flattering), AND it would help cover up my post-baby butt and hips... at least for this summer.

I just wanted to let you all know that I found this vintage-style resource... and although some of the items can be a little pin-up skanky, they have some ULTRA cute Bettie Page style swimsuits. This is the one I'll be saving up for...

Savings Can

Tiegan and I had a little project last week. I'm always promising her arts & crafts time, but I never seem to follow through. Either I don't feel like cleaning up the subsequent mess, or I just don't have the energy to keep an eye on her when it comes to glitter, glue, etc.

Well, we finally did something. It's not exceptionally pretty, but it's genuinely Tiegan's. And that's what I love about it.

We took an old coffee can, cut a slit in the rubber lid, and covered the can itself in construction paper. I wrote "Tiegan's Savings" on it in block letters, and gave her markers & told her to go crazy drawing on it. She loves saving money, so I told her that any coins she finds lying around the house, she's allowed to keep for herself. (Sometimes I purposely "drop" a few coins on the floor for her to find -- wont' be doing this when Sofia starts crawling!) We also give her a dollar here and there, once in a while, for really good behavior or simply proud moments. She has the option to put it in her savings, or spend it at the store. Lately she's been wanting to save. That a girl!

For Your Eyes Only

Yesterday I spent a couple hours re-reading old handwritten journals. Well, not SO old. I can only find notebooks from the time Tiegan was born until now. I've been writing in them as long as I can remember, but I haven't kept them all, apparently. What about you? Do you keep handwritten journals outside of your blogs, for your eyes only?

It certainly reminded me that I need to lighten up a little bit, and take life less seriously. For the past 3 years, I've seemed to write only when I was upset about something - hopefully that's the case and I wasn't always that irritable.

Now, I'm trying to write about more everyday things. When I look back on these journals in 50 years, I want to remember how the air smelled to me on a certain day, or how the air felt on my skin. Those are the memories I'd rather keep. If you have journals, what do you write about?

Belly Series

At 25 weeks pregnant, is it too late to start doing this project?



How cute!!!

She did it again

Well, "I gone and done it," as they say.

Yesterday I decided it was time to freshen up my hair color. I couldn't decide between strawberry blonde and dark ash blonde. My shopping bag ended up with 3 boxes of color - 1 platinum blonde (to take all the color out so I'd be starting fresh & even), 1 dark ash blonde, and 1 dark strawberry blonde. I'd use the platinum to basically erase my palette, and start over with either the strawberry or ash.

Apparently my hair didn't take very well to the max platinum and only decided to lighten a level or so... and look what I ended up with - strawberry blonde! (I think it goes well with my super ghostly pale skin, don't you?) Next step: eyebrow pencil. Yikes.

Oh yeah, and... I cut the hubby's hair last night. All by myself. It was my 2nd time ever cutting a man's hair. Did I do alright? (Sorry about the shirtless-ness... he was COVERED in hair and had to shake everything out.)

Personally, I only let a professional touch my hair, but I don't mind trimming Tiegan's or Jason's myself. And they seem to trust me with a pair of shears. Ladies - what about you? Do you do at-home haircuts or do you prefer to trust your family's hair to a salon?

BP Ramblings

Usually, I like sparkly things. They distract me; I gravitate towards them. (A.D.D. much?)

But NOT when they float around in my vision all day!

I think I'm going to have to ask my OB about this. I'm 23 weeks along now - almost 24 - and have been seeing spots (silvery, sparkly, moving spots) almost constantly for the past few days. I don't think it's a sign of pre-eclampsia quite yet, because I have no swelling anywhere. (Unless you count my fat ass...) However, I did have that excruciating migraine the other day, and have been getting more frequent headaches again lately.

I also know that it could be a sign of low blood pressure. Other signs of low BP are dizziness, lightheadedness, and even fainting. These are all 3 things I have experienced in the past week. Of course I think the fainting (one time) was from an extreme head rush -- I went from lying on the couch for an hour, to rushing up the stairs and didn't take my time getting up. Anyway... I read that your BP rises at the beginning of pregnancy, and falls again to reach its lowest point in the middle of the pregnancy, and rises again toward the end. I'm right around the middle phase, so I guess it wouldn't be completely abnormal if I had low BP. Guess I just have to make sure it's in the safe range, which I will find out at my next appointment!

Sour Cream Banana Bread

The results are in... it's a hit!
(With me, at least. I haven't test driven it on anyone else yet.)

Here's what I did...

1. Get the recipe out. :)


2. Combine sugar, margarine, eggs, and vanilla in mixing bowl.

This is what it will look like. You could use a whisk or electric mixer, but I don't have either of those so I used a fork. Works just fine.


3. Add dry ingredients (flour, salt, soda) to the wet sugar mixture. Don't worry about combining too thoroughly - you don't want to overmix and toughen the dough. You'll be mixing more later when you add the bananas & sour cream.


4. Mash up 1 cup of bananas. That's about 2 whole bananas. I cut up one banana at a time and mashed (again, with a fork) in a separate bowl.


Mashed banana:


4. Add sour cream and bananas to dough. Combine thoroughly without overbeating. (Again, trusty fork is fine).

At the last minute, I realized I hadn't prepared my baking pan yet. It should be baked in a loaf pan, which I soon discovered I didn't even own. How do I not have a standard loaf pan?! I took a chance and decided to try using a 9" round cake pan.


It worked!! Cook time was actually about 5 minutes less than the recipe calls for. That could either be because of the difference in the shape of the pan, or it could just be my oven.

Sour Cream Banana Bread
1/2 c. Margarine or room-temp Butter
1 c. Sugar
2 Eggs
1 tsp. Vanilla
1 1/2 c. All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp. Baking Soda (you can use baking powder, which I did, but you'll need a little extra - almost a tablespoon)
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 cup Mashed Banana
1/2 c. Chopped Nuts (optional - we didn't have any so I didn't bother, but walnuts would be yummy - or chocolate chips!)
1/2 c. Sour Cream (I used runny-ish low-fat sour cream which makes for a fluffier result. If you used the full fat, thicker stuff, you might turn out with a more dense bread. It all depends on your taste.)

Instructions: Grease 1 loaf pan (or 9" round cake pan!). Cream margarine, sugar, eggs, vanilla. Add dry ingredients, then bananas & sour cream. Mix well.
Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 1 hour.

See how insanely simple?! No wonder it turned out. It's foolproof. Feel free to make your own variations of this recipe, but don't forget to share 'em with me!

Here it comes

Banana bread is in the oven!

I decided that even though the votes were tied, that the Sour Cream Banana Bread would be the way to go. I was kind of interested in trying the fritters because I've never had them before (although I have had apple fritters... mmmmm), but the Banana Bread was much healthier and will be good for breakfast for a couple days. Not only that; I didn't want to deep fry anything (which is how the fritters are cooked) and stink up my house & clothes. Maybe if it were warmer out & I could open the windows.

So, we'll save the fritters for a warm spring day. They'll be great with vanilla ice cream.

More when the banana bread comes out of the oven!

Reader's Choice: Banana Recipes

OK, readers, I need your input.

Yes, YOU!

I have bananas. I love bananas, but I don't particularly like to eat raw bananas. I want to cook with these bananas before they get overripe and I have to throw away my money. Mmmm, bananas.

I have two recipes that are full of ingredients I already have in my cupboards. Trouble is... I only have enough ingredients for ONE of these two recipes, and I just can't decide. So, I'm going to let you pick. I've placed a poll in the right-side column of my blog.

Whichever recipe wins in the next couple days (or by the time I've decided my bananas have reached peak ripeness for cooking), I will try making for the first time. I'll take photos throughout the process and blog here about the results, sharing the recipe. Let's hope all goes well!

Will you choose...

BANANA FRITTERS...

or...

SOUR CREAM BANANA BREAD?

He Calls it Faux Shopping

I really hope we have some extra cash flow this weekend. There are sooo many great deals on clothes I've been drooling over, and I hope they're not gone before I get my hands on them! We girls of the family are desperately in need of summer wear. Lucky Jason - he gets to stay the same size for the rest of his life, while I will probably continue to yo-yo forever.

First, I want these from Old Navy (I'm pretty sure you can guess which ones are for Tiegan, Sofia and Myself):



I swore I wouldn't get into too many "real" maternity clothes this pregnancy (especially since tunics and leggings are in style), but I can't help myself. The jeans with the elastic waistbands are soooo comfortable - and you can't even see the waistband if your top is long enough, so who cares? I'll just end up passing them along to one of my other thousand pregnant buds when I'm done with them ;)


And how 'bout that Forever21? Love that place! I am constantly finding great tops online that I could still wear while pregnant - and some great comfy post-pregnancy tops too.


OK, obviously I could go on for days! But I would just bore you.

Anyone know of another great place for deals like this?

Memories

After reading Nicole's Post about the photo book she ordered, I was reminded that I once had a grand plan about family photo books. I was going to create a family photo book for every year. I'd save up all our digital photos on my hard drive (backed up, of course) for a whole year, then I'd purge everything and make one giant photo book. Eventually, we will have an encyclopedia set of our lives. So far, I'm behind by... oh... 3 years.

I decided - hey - I don't have much to do today. OK, I don't have anything to do today. I'll grab some old photo CDs and I'll start organizing for a photo book that will contain shots from when Jason and I were dating, informal snaps from our wedding, my pregnancy & Tiegan's birth, and her first year or so. That whole time was a whirlwind for us anyway; it might as well go in 1 book. Then I will feel more caught up.

Going through all those old photos is really kind of emotional. I gotta tell ya, it was a fun trip down memory lane.

Here I am trying on my wedding dress. Can't tell I'm about 4 months pregnant here, can ya?

Jason and his groomsmen at our wedding reception 9-10-05. L-R: Jason, Tim, Chris, and Jason's brother Aaron. They don't look much alike, do they?


Oops, out of order. This one below was actually taken before I was pregnant. I remember this day clearly. It was within the first couple weeks we were dating. Jason and I took both our cars out (he had a Grand Prix, and this is my Celica) for a car "photo shoot". I was just starting to get interested in photography, and he just wanted to take sexy pictures of me with my car. HA. I look more badass than sexy here.


Jason trying to figure out what was wrong with the cold air intake on my Celica. I ended up fixing it myself later with a Q-tip. The sensor was dirty. That truck in the driveway is there because his grandma and her husband were remodeling our kitchen at the time.


The day after our wedding. We were opening all our gifts, and I was trying to look all cute and housewife-ish.

So there you have it... a peek into my past. Perhaps the next post will contain some more interesting photos. Stay tuned!