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Three (3!) Things Thursday

Nov 3rd, 2011
by gazelle.
3 comments

1. The other day, I went down to the freezer to get a pizza for dinner (I am all about lazy cooking now that I’ve started my final project for my Master’s). I opened it up and something wasn’t right. I picked up a package of ground beef to move it, and my fingers squished right in. And blood spurted right out. The freezer was not on! We have no idea HOW it became unplugged, and how long it was in that state. Neither of us had accessed the freezer for a few days. All the stuff on top was thawed out and drippy (including my planned pizza). So much meat that had to be tossed. BUT – everything in the bottom half of the freezer was still frozen solid, including a couple chickens, a bunch of Colin, and all my raw milk. I was really sad, though.

 

2. For my final project, I had to turn in a work schedule. And, because I am insane, I already mostly had one. The next 7 weeks of my life are fully scheduled. I do have “leisure time” built in, but it is pretty ridiculous. My first real assignment is due tonight, and involves “picking a topic.” A few months ago, I knew exactly what my topic was – and that topic is still pretty interesting to me. However, with all the recent job changes, that topic is no longer relevant to my current career, and I am wondering if I should change the topic. Unfortunately, that’s where my wondering stops – it does not go on to wonder if I should change my topic to “very specific topic on which I could find several excellent references in just an hour of searching, but not something that’s been done to death.” Unfortunate, right?

 

3. As you may remember, I totally agonized over what I was going to be for Halloween. I’m pregnant enough that none my original costume choices fit, but not so pregnant that I could be a “pregnant” anything & get away with it. The architect had a monk constume left over from years ago (actually, that’s what he was wearing the first Halloween we were dating, 9 years ago – we didn’t spend the holiday together, but I did stop by to see him on my way home from work before heading out to Scary-oke at the Whaler in Venice with my at-the-time roomie Dr. M.). So – I headed to a costume shop and picked up a nun costume. I did have to stuff my costume to make it funnier – but I think it worked:

(Photo credit: Sarah!)

 

Happy Thursday!

 

Gratitude Journal

November 3, 2011: I am grateful that I have a good job that is challenging & interesting, if not necessarily catering to my life interests. I have the opportunity for professional development (weekly leadership seminar today!), have a decent salary, good health insurance, and a bunch of people who are excited for my pregnancy and not at all worried about my maternity leave (in fact, they’ve told me to not even THINK about being available in May – i.e. budget season – and that they’d get through it without me, as long as I do all the prep work before I leave…)

November 2, 2011: I am grateful for the architect, who is simply wonderful. He picks up the household slack when I’m busy with schoolwork, brings me chicken fingers on his way home from work, and is simply the most wonderful husband I could ask for…

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy

 

November 2011 Goals

Nov 1st, 2011
by gazelle.
16 comments

And, of course, the October recap….

October 2011 Goals

  1. Finish the bathroom by 10/29/11. We can do it!  All supplies are purchased! I can paint like a mad woman! And make sandwiches for the architect while he tiles. (I am not allowed to tile due to my propensity to say, “eh, fuck it! That’s good enough!”) I am excellent construction support staff. – FAIL! But we are so very close!  We should be done by Thanksgiving.
  2. Get the rain garden outlined, dug, and partially planted. – FAIL! I have decided to hold off on this project for now.
  3. Finish summer garden/start fall garden. – Partial SUCCESS! The summer garden is done, and the plans are complete for the next phase…just need to execute said plans.
  4. Remove all extraneous computer crap from the house. Like the printer that doesn’t work. And the CRT monitor that weighs 375 lbs. And the 50 (approximate count) PCs (both laptop & desktop) that are just sitting around doing nothing. NOTHING! Except gathering dust. – FAIL! But, there is progress in that we have now determined which things need to go. I just need to wait for an electronics recycling day to happen so I can be all environmentally responsible.
  5. Finish my very last class of my Master’s program with an “A” before starting the final project phase. – SUCCESS! Class is done, A was achieved, terminal project is now in progress
  6. Throw the ass-kicking-est 2nd Annual Halloween bash ever! YAY for Halloween!  We will have a howling good time! – SUCCESS! I think, anyways – I had a good time.

October Training Goals

I have them! My gym membership expires this month, and I will not be renewing it. So, I want to spend more time outdoors. Running, jumping, biking, hiking, etc. I have been slacking on yoga lately, too, and need to make that a regular practice again.

I have definitely been better about working out in October now that I’m not quite as tired.  Not at the level I’d like to be at, but better than September!  Go me!

November 2011 Goals

  1. Survive the first 4.5 weeks of my terminal project without going crazy.
  2. Make lefse! With her! We will have so much fun.
  3. For reals, get the garlic in the ground & build the cloche
  4. Visit the daycare that looked awesome on paper (or, the computer screen, rather) and beg them to take my as-yet-unborn child
  5. List one thing I am thankful for every day (thanks for the inspiration, Alisa!)

 

November 2011 Training Goals

Since I am pregnant, this is harder than usual, but my goal is to work out a minimum of 3 times/week; 30 minutes/time. I had a decent start last night with a trainer ride, although I wasn’t able to hit 30 minutes due to the extreme discomfort of my bike shorts which apparently are not baby bump accommodating. (Why do I never spell accommodating right on the first try? WHY?!?) Any suggestions for bike short comfort? I really don’t want to shell out bike short money for something that I’ll wear for a maximum of 5ish months (I’m pretty sure that biking will not be the first exercise I’ll get back to after giving birth…just a feeling I have). (Also, 5 months? Seriously? That’s it?  ACK!)

I already have a swim date for Wednesday evening, and yoga plans for Friday afternoon, and will try to run on Thursday and/or Sunday….I am hoping to convince the architect to start doing weekly long walks with me on a weekend day. I’m pretty sure I’ll be mostly walking my half marathon, and want to start getting some serious distance on my feet.

 

Gratitude Journal

November 1, 2011:  I am grateful for my (so far, knock on wood) easy and wonderful pregnancy

Photo Essay Monday

Oct 24th, 2011
by gazelle.
2 comments

Not too much of a photo essay for this last weekend. Nothing I did was particularly photo-worthy.

Friday, I ended up at work for waaaaaaaaay too long (especially since it was my day off). The rest of the day was spent finalizing my final paper for my very last regular course for graduate school. All done! (And, I got an A in that class! Go, me!)

Saturday was kind of a lazy day. The kind of day I thought I deserved after finishing 19 courses in just over 2 years and getting to within 17 weeks of qualifying for my Master’s Degree. I mean, I took a cat to the vet (at 8 AM!) and had a movement therapy appointment (my SI area is killing me), and then I lazed the rest of the day.

The architect, however, did not have a lazy day. Instead, he finished tiling the shower area & grouted 80% of the same area (the other 20% needs to wait for a week, since that was the part he’d finished tiling that same day):

IMAG0634

This photo makes it look really orange, which is weird. BUT – it’s not. The tiles are white with black grout.

Sunday was a bit busier….eventually. I did some last minute Halloween shopping. Apparently the week before Halloween is not an ideal time to do that, as most of the stores had mostly switched over to Christmas decorations. I did get some good stuff, though. I am, however, still sans costume. The pregnancy costumes are all for people who are really pregnant. Painting my belly at this point would look stupid, and I’m not pregnant enough to pull of pregnant nun. I tried on some plus-sized stuff, but that was all too big, and the regular sized costumes don’t fit in the boobs and are super tight across the mid-section.  I think I’m pretty much decided to go as this:

three gold stars if you get the reference

I am super excited to get all my decorations up and have an awesomely spooktacular party this weekend, though!

Lazy Bones!

 

After getting through all that stuff (and picking up another pair of sweet maternity jeans), I decided I needed some healthy snacks. I have been loving bran muffins lately, and spending $2/muffin (they are humungous) from the hospital coffee shops at least once/week. I thought I could probably make my own for much less than that. And so I did. And, because the architect hates bran muffins, I made him some blueberry muffins.

IMAG0636

(There were a dozen of each – this photo was after I put most in the freezer for safe keeping.)

And now – back at work. I was looking forward to a week off school, but our syllabus for the Capstone project was released today, and I think that although school doesn’t technically start until next Monday, it would be in my best interest to only be on half-vacation this week. In addition, Thursday I start my weekly Leadership Foundation course (it runs through 12/15) that I was nominated to attend through work, so I’ll be in the office one less day, which means more work on the days that I am in……oh well – the price of success or something, right?

Happy week!

Three (3!) Things Thursday

Oct 20th, 2011
by gazelle.
15 comments

1. This has been such a beautiful week; cool, alternating between sun and clouds, crisp fall smells. I love autumn.

 

2. Tomorrow is my last day of my last class for grad school. Last. I mean, I still have my final project, but this is my last class. CRAZY!

 

3. I am having a lot of trouble motivating myself to exercise. Lots. Some of it is definitely pregnancy-related fatigue. Most of it is a combination of shorter days + sheer laziness + my all or nothing mentality. If I can’t exercise an hour+/day for 6 days/week, what’s the point? Also, since I’m getting fat anyways, why bother, right? (And yes, I know I’m not getting fat, I’m growing a human. And yes, I know I shouldn’t care, but you can take your shoulds and *mumble something really c/rude mumble*.) If I’m not dripping in sweat, it’s not worth it, right? WRONG! I just need to remind myself that a 30-45 minute walk, or easy bike, or easy swim, or 3 mile jog is better than nothing.  How do I convince myself of this? Any motivational tips? Anyone want to volunteer to yell at me every day I don’t exercise? (I need a drill sergeant.)

Grad School, Beer & Gardening

Oct 17th, 2011
by gazelle.
3 comments

That was my weekend….

On Saturday, after a brief trip to the farmer’s market and a stop at the Home Brew Exchange, I spent the rest of the day paper writing. It was my second to last paper for my last official class of my Master’s program. The class is over this Friday. And then, a week long break (which I intend to use to make my house spooktacular), followed by 16 weeks of Capstone project. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yay!

Sunday was a busy day….I got up and started brewing. My goal was to make a winter beer – in the style of the winter warmers that are so popular. They’re malty and a little sweet, with some nice spice overtones. I used a little chocolate malt, some vanilla and then added cloves and nutmeg (in addition to several other ingredients). It was my first time making beer all by myself (the architect was on a bike ride), and I’m pretty excited to see how it will turn out!  I’m also hoping it keeps well, since my guess is I won’t be drinking tons of it once it’s ready (we’re bottling the first weekend in November, and it should be ready to drink about 4-6 weeks after that).

Brewmaster

I had someone comment on facebook that they could see a bump, but I think that’s just because my shirt is sticking out due to the weird angle of my stance. I’m not that bumpy yet.

After getting the beer into the fermenter, I went outside to attend to some serious business. A couple of weeks ago, I cleared out garden bed #1 in preparation for its long winter’s nap. Yesterday, I went out to do the same to the largest bed – the 8×24 bed. The bed that was full of tomato plants that I’d been studiously ignoring for 3 weeks.

Guess that happens when you ignore tomatoes for 3 weeks? They rot on the vine. Such a waste. Remind me to never be in my first trimester of pregnancy during harvest season again. Because damn! I had no energy to do anything in September, and the first canning session was so exhausting that imagining the second one was daunting. So daunting in fact, that instead of canning the 5 million tomatoes that I’d planted on purpose so that I could have 5 million jars of tomato products in the basement, I let them rot. That just pisses me off. (At me, obviously.)

ANYWAYS – yesterday I went out to see if there were any at all salvageable. And there were a few. A very, very few. Not even enough to bother canning, though. I cleaned out the garden, removing all the pepper and tomato plants, cutting down some of the dying wildflower stalks, and basically leaving the garden bare (except for a tiny growing broccoli that I found and a really good-looking basil plant that had somehow thrived through neglect).

The architect took the last, tiny tomato bounty, sliced and seasoned them, and then dried them. Delicious.

Pre-drying, obviously.

Now I just need to plant some over-winter stuff (garlic, onions, whatever else strikes me), finish cover cropping, and lay down my straw. It’s unfortunate that my trees that drop leaves happen to be walnut trees, so I need to be careful in using those for compost (since tomatoes, eggplants, asparagus, lilacs, and tons of fruit trees are super sensitive to the juglone found in walnut leaves, hulls, and bark).  Composting for a few months removes the toxicity, but it’s not a good idea to directly apply to the garden. Bummer.

Anyways – hopefully by the end of the month the garden will be ready for winter. I am less confident about getting my rain garden in this year. In theory, it should only be one weekend of work. However, digging a 10×7 (ish) rain garden, putting in the intake & overflow paths, and planting it might not be a one weekend project for me anymore. For some reason, I find myself needing to scale back a bit and take more naps.

Happy week, everyone!

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