The baby showers

This weekend was a baby shower extravaganza! Two showers in two days...yeah, I was tired. But We ended up getting tons of stuff and there was only ONE thing duplicated---a package of receiving blankets. It took me a while to go through everything and figure out what exactly we had but in the end I think this kid will be well dressed up until about 9 months. After that, we're on our own but that's a while from now.


The coolest gift I got? Well, there were a few things I really liked but this one got Kolts vote too.

Yeah, that's right. Air Jordans. Freakin' sweeeeet!

Still kickin'

We're still here. Still pregnant too. But thats alright. I still have a few weeks before my due date so I should really just let it go. But I can't. Time to have a baby. Good news though--the baby dropped yesterday! So another sign points to yes. But it still doesn't mean much at all. It was kind of funny though, because it was my dad and his friend who said something. I woke up and thought the baby was riding kind of low but then I just chalked it up to my want of having this baby yesterday. Then while I was at my parents I happened to be walking outside when my dad and his buddy were out there talking. Soon as my dad came in he was like "You dropped!! Your baby dropped!" So after that it was more or less confirmed. Two outside oppinions, both male too. Sooo yeah. Hopefully I get to go to my baby showers!! hahaha, wouldn't that be funny? My mom said they're throwing it with or without me.

I have my next dr's appointment on Thursday so we'll see what the doc says.

Double Early Retirement

I was planning on working until the end of the month since there really isn't a reason for me not to. It would pass the time, I'd be getting paid, insurance would be no problem....well that's not the case anymore.

Lack of work ended my career earlier than expected. We've been so slow lately and it just hasn't been picking up at all so they said "See ya later!!" Actually, it was much nicer than that and my boss was really sad because she liked me (she really liked me!) :) She did say that if I needed work after the baby and all that I should try back. They might be working again at full steam and at the rate they were losing women to babies, they'll be happy to have someone who knows what they're doing.

After a few phone calls, and some really good timing on legislature for COBRA, I think we're going to be ok on the insurance front. I have at least 5 weeks from monday that I'm covered for and I sent them a check for the whole thing so they should be happy. And after that I might qualify for the new law that says people who are laid off can continue with their current insurance providers until they find new insurance and their co will pay their part of the premium still. There are a few exceptions so its still up in the air if I'll get it, but of course the insurance people were pretty wishy washy on the details. Like they didn't know.....jerks. And the baby will qualify for CHIP so he'll be insured for at least a year.

So that's it. Tomorrow is my last day at the grind-stone. It's been a rough three years. hahahhaa That's all I've worked essentially. Sweet. And who knows, maybe I'll be forced back out of retirement come June. We'll just have to wait and see.

Baby Update

Went to the doctor today....and everything is looking good! The baby is measuring up to snuff and I gained the right amount of weight again. Aaaaaand....



I'm dilated!!! Guess how much?





Do it, Just guess.





Ok, ready??




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THREE CENTIMETERS!!! and I'm 80% effaced which is CrAzY. So I could stay this way for the next three weeks but I think I'll probably only make it two. My doctor said if I go into labor they wouldn't try to stop it at this point. He was pretty impressed. He wasn't expecting it at all. Neither was I so it was a lovely surprise. So if I could make it until at least Sunday...that would be juuuuust about perfect. Then everyone will be in town and yay!!

I'm sure it will end up being that I go past my due date and all this excitement will be for nothing. But I can hope, right?

Randomness

For lack of anything better to blog...

A Recipe!Pineapple Chicken -- this was a dish that Kolt had on the mission and has promised to make it since the day we were married. I finally got tired of waiting (three years is a long time to wait for dinner) so I asked him what I needed to make it. This was his response:

"A can of pineapple, a can of pineapple juice, soy sauce and vinegar. and chicken."

So I went and bought said items. After assembling my ingredients, I asked him how to proceed and he came over to inspect. Apparently I did not buy enough pineapple juice (because a can really means one of those huge costco-variety cans...) How was I supposed to know that?** So I had to improvise. And in the end, he actually said that I did a really good job and perhaps surpassed the goodness of the Philippine version. Yeah, go me!

So this is the gist of the recipe, since I mostly threw stuff together.

chicken breasts--whole or cut up into chunks, whatever you decide
cooked rice
can of pineapple chucks/rings/fresh would be tasty too...anyway, you need some pineapple

sauce:
1 cup of pineapple juice
1 TBS vinegar
2 1/2 ish TBS soy sauce (I ended up adding some towards the end to taste...so not too sure on the exact amount)
A big squirt of honey
and a bunch of brown sugar after the honey just wasn't cutting it.
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Mix it all up until it tastes good, I'm going to add a little spice to it next time to give it a kick.
Then take your chicken and brown it a bit in a frying pan, add the liquid and cover. Let it simmer, covered, for as long as it takes the chicken to cook (and consequently your liquid will thicken a little and start to caramelize). mmmmm. Now, take that can of pineapple and chunk it up (or just buy the dang chunked version) and add it to the chicken/sauce mix and let it warm up.

Serve the whole thing over rice and enjoy the pineappley goodness. Its kind of like sweet-and-sour chicken, and if you choose to put in some cayanne pepper or something that would really make it tastey.

**And in case you were wondering why Kolt wanted a huge can of pineapple juice it's because they would boil a WHOLE chicken in the juice to cook it, add potatoes and carrots (um, yuck?) and then the rest of the soy and vinegar. Almost like a stew. I veto'd the veggies and ended up with something I will make a lot in the future.

grrrrr

my blog is having issues. I think it's the background so if you're reading this, I've changed it. :)

Giant pillow of Awesomeness....

there is no charge for awesomeness....

I had some left-over fabric from the crib bedding and I decided to make pillows. Well, so far only one pillow...but there is still fabric left!! So more to follow. Anyway, I discovered that making bias-tape out of stretchy fabric is pretty stinking hard to do and have it come out right. (not pictured: how my pillow sides ended up being almost two inches off from matching up at the corners....o well). But somehow I was able to jimmy-rig the dang corners and it ended up looking pretty snazzy. It would've worked better had I pinned the pieces together but who would want to do that? It takes all the thrill out of sewing improv-style. Yup, so there you have it. Yet another matchy-matchy thing to go in my nursery. oh man this kid is going to be sleeping in style!!