Belly Laughs

I recently read Jenny McCarthy's "Belly Laughs" in one sitting.  Now it's not a lengthy saga, but she pretty much wrote the best book about pregnancy that I've come across.  Funny, and oh so true.  

Pregnancy is accompanied by a veracious hunger that I could not fully explain. Even though I may have eaten an entire pizza less than an hour earlier It feels like I haven't eaten in days.  She describes getting to a restaurant with this feeling and asking for bread: 

"Minutes felt like hours, my eyes filled with tears and I begged my husband to go get some bread from the kitchen."

If I don't get something instantaneously I get crazy.  My poor husband has been on the receiving end of crazy on too many occasions.  

On to my next book, "The girl who played with fire"  Just a light read.  I'm sure it will inspire some interesting pregnancy fueled dreams.

A Late Christmas Present

December 1 I turned 30 and my husband and I were flying to California to celebrate.   Our flight was in the evening and I planned on picking him up after work. Silly me put my suitcases in my car when I went to work in a rough neighborhood.  I got a nice present when someone broke my car window and dug through my suitcases.  Luckily the only thing missing were my two cameras and they were insured.  So I left work, got my window fixed and we flew off to Cali for a wonderful long weekend.

This did leave me without a camera through the holidays.  My new camera is here and we've been upgraded!  The model I'd been using a Cannon Rebel for about 3 years was outdated so I went with the Rebel T3i.  It's all shiny and new!

Now I just need to relearn what all these buttons do and figure out the new HD video feature. 

When it comes to my camera, I've taken a class but by no means consider myself anything more then amateur.  I'm hoping new camera will inspire me to remember all the things i learned in that class and get up to 80% of functionality.

So this means more visually interesting posts to come!

Meat Pie A La Lu

We finally have snow in Chicago (& northwest Indiana too)!   On a day like today comfort food is a necessity.  So I'm making a meat pie!  According to my mom this was one of my favorites growing up.  Today I could sit down and eat the entire thing.

What's in it:
1 lb Ground Beef (I have used ground turkey before, however, beef makes a tastier pie)

1 medium Onion
1 minced Clove of Garlic
1 grated large Carrot
1/2-2/3 cup Chopped Celery

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2-2/3 cup grate Parmesan Cheese (Could experiment with different cheeses)
Salt
Peper
Pinch of Red Pepper
Pinch of Oregano, Cumin & Marjoram
1-3 tablespoons Milk (Optional)

Pie Crust

How to:

• Lightly brown the meat.
• Add onions, garlic, celery and carrots.  Cook slightly

• Add Soup, Cheese & Seasonings (Have fun with the seasonings!  This  is always a little different and delicious!)
• Thin with milk if necessary.
• Put pie crust in a casserole & add in mixture.

• Back at 350 for 30-40 minutes until crust is desired shade of brown.

Then try not to eat it all!

Enjoy!

Sarah

(Sorry about the photos,  I am without a proper camera and had to go with poorly lit Iphone pics.  New camera will be ready this weekend!)

It's only been three days!

My long and luxurious winter break ended Monday.  Being a school psychologist I follow the school calendar, which means spring, summer and winter break.  It's wonderful!  


In the two weeks I was off I:

• Spent the holidays with family.

• Watched countless episodes of Law & Order.  My favorites are back from the first seasons.    The 90's outfits and ADA Robbinette's flat top make me smile.
• Enjoyed a sober new years with entertainment provided by my best friends and twister.

• Pinned baby nurseries and bathroom renovation ideas like a mad women.

• Attempted to get back to running and got in the pool.

• Started cleaning out babies room and found some entertaining artifacts from my husband's past.

• Ate entirely too much delicious food.

So when Monday rolled around I was feeling fresh and relaxed...this lasted all of 10 minutes being back at work.

This year I work at 5 different schools, one school a day.  A big part of my job is evaluating students who may be eligible for special education services.  So far in 2012 I've complete 4 in 3 days.  Possibly some kind of assessing speed record?  

Although I've gotten a lot done I've left every day exhausted and worn out.  Counting down the days till the next break.

We're expecting

 Enough hints yesterday?  Today is 18 weeks, June 8th seems like it will be here very quickly.

At this point doctor's appointments  last all of 30 seconds.  My doctor asks how I feel, I list off some general pregnancy symptoms, he finds the baby's heartbeat and then poof we are out the door.  Although these appointments are short, it is incredibly reassuring to hear the babies heartbeat and know that he/she is doing well in there.  

Another upside of our visit, I was cheered for gaining wait.  This is a new experience! My doctor applauded me for "Finally gaining some weight!"  Guess all of the holiday gorging paid off!

Yesterday when I was figuring out what to tittle this blog, I felt the same anxiety that I get when thinking about naming Baby.

We're in the let's talk about baby names stage and are coming up with all sorts of opitions.  Coming up with ludacris ideas is fun. (Would we really take my dad's advice and name the baby Hortence or Hugeo Hornblower???) It's when realistic options are talked about I get nervous.  

This name will be around for a long time.  For baby it's for life, for blog hopefully we'll make the year.  How will baby's name look on their diploma? What about nicknames?

Putting a name out there to people can also be tough. When we tell people what names we are thinking about, because they always ask, I suppose I anticipate the negative reaction.  

So trying to put a tittle on this page I headed to thesaurus.com.  All of the good, read: normal, names are taken at this stage of the game so I went with synonyms.   

There are a lot of changes going on in my life right now, but they are for the most part exciting and I'm feeling pretty jovial.

New year, New goals

I have to start off by tooting my own horn; in 2011 I actually accomplished my New Year’s resolution (well at least 90% of it).  As 2010 came to a close my sister decided we should run a half marathon together. At that point I hadn’t run further then a 5k and it had been a long time since I’d done that.  

So as I got into training I decided if I was going to do one half, I could do another and I resolved to run a race a month during 2012.  Here we are 12 months and 11 races*, including 2 half marathons, later. Now what??

This year’s resolutions: 

• Have a healthy baby & be a healthy mom.
• Get back to “fighting weight” after the baby’s born in June.
• Run another distance race (10-13k) before the year is out.
• Document it on the internet.

As a School Psychologist I do a lot of writing.  While it can be tedious to write report after report, I enjoy writing about the kids I see.  I’ve also started writing newsletters for the staff I work with.  As I move into the unknown future of becoming a mom, I’d like to keep writing, even if it’s about diapers rather than statistically significant score variables.

So here goes nothing!