January, 2009

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Taking Up Another Person’s Blog Challenge

Monday, January 26th, 2009

In the toolbar section to the right you will see a category for other blogs I like to read.  If you click on Biblical Womanhood today, she’s started a new challenge and I think I’m going to take part in it.   And she’s got a pretty easy cleaning/decluttering task to attend to this week and it goes along with my plans to get my house more organized before the baby arrives.  This week she has challenged folks to clear out all garbage from the entire house.  Since I’ve been down with a nasty cold for a week, my house actually needs to have this done so the timing is great.  Then she says to scan each room for quick stuff we find that can be given away, sold or is a maybe item to get rid of.

All that sounds easy enough and I’ll feel like I’m making headway toward getting the house completely cleaned and organized.  The sun was shining in brightly through our open curtains over the weekend and I got to see just how many cobweb/dust bunnies had accumulated in corners and on the ceiling since this past fall.  These things tend to sneak up on a person.

It is still January and there is still tons of snow on the ground with more to come, but it’s time I get busy on some Spring Cleaning chores.

Posted in Homemaking & Recipes | 3 Responses »

Second-Hand Kids Stuff Might Be Okay Afterall

Saturday, January 24th, 2009

Back on January 5, I wrote about how items meant for use by children under the age of 12 were now going to have to be individually tested for lead and certified prior to sale.  The law is to take effect Feb 10, 2009.  It looked like small & home-based children’s clothing, diaper and toy makers were about to be put out of business.  And it looked like thrift and second-hand stores were going to be effected too.

Well, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has now issued several press releases (specifically, this one is informative) clarifying their position, the law and potential targets for enforcement.  WHEW!  You all know how the government can be vague and these press releases are not exactly perfect examples of clarity, but they make me breathe a bit easier.

Here’s my nutshell version after reading the press releases.  If you are a giant toy manufacturer producing products in third-world countries ya gotta get your junk tested for lead and other harmful chemicals.  If you are a second-hand resellers, you need to pay attention to the CPSC’s website and try not to sell junk for kids that has been recalled.  But of course, the wording is such that if you make a product meant for children under 12 after 2/10/09 you could, potentially, but it’s very unlikely, be called upon to produce evidence your products are safe for use by children under 12.

So I feel better about my chances of being able to purchase second-hand clothes for my kiddo.  And maybe some nice toys possibly even made here in the USA!

I don’t think my concern over this law is completely dismissed yet so I might say something about it again.

Posted in Baby Related Stuff, News | 1 Response »

So I Bought a Pie

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

I cheated (see entry below) and bought a Sara Lee frozen apple pie, it was on sale.  So I think we are going to have pot pies for dinner with a salad (the salad is so that I don’t totally feel like we are eating bad calories).  And there ya go! I’ve celebrated National Pie Day!

I’m on husband-ordered rest today.  I developed a cold on Sunday that has also turned into a mild fever for the past two days so my dear hubbie has ordered rest.  So I’m resting…I’m just using my fingers to type right now!

Okay, all this talk of pies and more pies is making me hungry.  Time for lunch!!  Oh, speaking of food,  I’ve discovered that a pregnant brain is a crazy thing.  Last night I was making dinner and it was actually starting to repulse me, but by the time it was being pulled from the oven, I was starving and it looked good.  Now that I think about it, generally looking at food makes me kind of grossed out nowadays, but then I’m starving and eat like normal.  So all food is yucky until I’m hungry.  Kinda crazy, if you ask me.

Posted in Homemaking & Recipes, Marriage/Married Life, Pregnancy | No Responses »

National Pie Day

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

I’ve read on another’s blog that January 23, 2009 has been designated (by whoever it is that designates these things) as National Pie Day.  I’m not usually one for celebrating all the little odds and ends designated days out there, but who can’t wrap their minds around a day for PIE???

Since I could probably live happily for some time on apple pie, I think I will just have to participate in celebrating pie on Friday.  Hmmm, now that I’m thinkin’…I could easily come up with pie for breakfast, dinner and dessert that day!  Dinner is easy…pot pies.  Breakfast though, I’ll have to look some things up and see what I come up with.  And dessert, that’s a no brainer, APPLE PIE!!!

I suppose I could use this opportunity to hone my pie crust making skills, since I don’t have any, but I will probably cheat and buy one of those Pillsbury pre-made refrigerated pie crusts.  Pie crust scares me.  I have made maybe two pie crusts from scratch and they were both awful.  At the very least, Dave & I will eat some previously frozen Mrs. Smith’s apple pie for dessert on Friday evening!

So have a Happy National Pie Day on Friday!!

Posted in Homemaking & Recipes | 2 Responses »

First Anniversary of My Grandmother’s Passing

Monday, January 19th, 2009

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my mother’s mom’s death.  It is hard to believe she is gone sometimes.  And I will very much miss introducing our baby to that wonderful woman.  This morning Dave & I had a mass said for her so we got up early and went to church.  Attending a daily mass is a wonderful way to start the day, I’m just too lazy to get myself to church at 7:30AM every morning.  Grandma went to daily mass for a huge chunk of her life, I should really try to honor her memory and start that habit someday as well.

Posted in Catholicism, News | No Responses »

Dave is in Winter Wonderland

Monday, January 19th, 2009

We have had a very snowy weekend, the bitter cold has left us and that creates Dave’s favorite weather.  We received about a foot of snow since yesterday so he’s happy as a clam outside and playing working with his snow blower.   He’s just funny about snow, he LOVES it.  I must say this particular snow storm left us with an absolutely beautiful scene outside.  All the trees are beautifully covered with a few inches of snow, the pines particularly are bogged down with snow.  The pines make the mountain sides really spectacular right now.  Maybe later when we are out and about I’ll take some photos and upload them here.

Yesterday we did some work in the maple sugar shack putting up trim along the inside walls and started to make a platform where the tank of sap will sit in order to drip sap into the evaporator while its boiling.  I’ll take pictures of the whole process when it is sugaring season, right now we’re just doing all the prep work.  Today, with Dave’s dad’s help, we’re hanging some of the tubing that runs between trees and collects the sap.  We won’t actually be tapping the trees for several more weeks.  The temperatures must get below freezing at night, but to 40+ during the day so that the sap will run in the trees.  There is a short window of about 6-8 weeks during which you can collect sap to make syrup and we’ll be entering that time period about the end of February.  In the meantime, we’ve got tons of work to do in order to tap 250+ trees.

Posted in Maple Syrup, Marriage/Married Life | No Responses »

Ordered Some Special New Clothes!!

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Guess what I did?  I “went” maternity clothes shopping.  I don’t need anything yet, but I had a gift card to JCPenny’s from my parents and they had a sale online.  I found two cute short-sleeved shirts and a pair of pants to buy.  Since it’s going to be summer when I’ll need these clothes the most, I thought getting 5 short-sleeved shirts, one pair of pants, one pair of shorts and a skirt would probably be really the only maternity stuff I need.  My mom has offered to make a few shirts for me so I might only need to purchase a pair of shorts and a skirt to be all set.

Right now, I can’t even tell I’m pregnant, really.  When I wear some pants, the waist band now feels uncomfortable to me.  But the baby is still really low in the abdomen, barely over the top of the pelvic bone.   I have to wait 5-7 more weeks before I’ll be able to feel the baby moving.

It was so fun looking for maternity stuff though!  I had to wait THIRTY-SIX YEARS to finally get to do that, but I guess it was worth the wait!  Oh, you know what they call women over 35 giving birth…women of “advanced maternity age”, ARGH!  What a stinky moniker.   But you know what the medical term use to be for us gals having our first baby after 35…Elderly Primigravida.  Thank goodness that term went out of fashion! 

Posted in Pregnancy | No Responses »

It’s a Cold One Today

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

-12 degrees Celsius outside right now.  Don’t ask me what that is in Fahrenheit though (somewhere in the mid 20s???).  Dave is trained in meteorology and those guys do everything in Celsius.  So all our thermometers around this place are Celsius, but I know enough to know that -12 is pretty chilly in either C or F!

I’m under the impression that my dear friends in IL are having an even colder time of things.  IL has that bitter, body piercing, windy, cold.  Oh, and that wind that would whip around those buildings downtown in Peoria…argh!

Dave is at the dentist this morning and I’m saying prayers for him.  He really doesn’t care for dentists so he has to force himself to go.  Poor guy.  And he’s got a worrisome tooth today too.

I’m puttering right now as an avoidance technique.  I need to go to the grocery store this morning before Bible Study at 1PM, but I’m all nice and cozy wrapped up in a sweater and blanket.  Zipping out into that cold outside just doesn’t sound as enticing as sitting here and being cozy.

My cat, Bailey is even all nice and cozy next to me.  I don’t know what this cat is going to do with the arrival of a baby.  I fear there is going to be some serious jealousy and potentially some ill-behavior on the part of the kitty!  Bailey would love it if I just carried him around all day and if no one else existed beyond me.  I’m less worried about the other cat, Riley.  Riley is a cat through and through.  He’ll run and hide if he’s annoyed/afraid/concerned.  And I have no fears that he would ever become crazy around a baby.  Bailey on the other hand…  He never behaves in a predictable manner, even though he’s 14 years old, he’s never predictable.  He’s much more mellow than he was in his early years.  He even allows Dave to hold him for extended periods AND pet him randomly.  Bailey, in his youth, would pretty much have removed Dave’s arm had he tried petting him or heaven forbid hold him, so this is a tremendous improvement in behavior.  I think I’m going to find a recording of babies crying to play randomly throughout the day so he’ll get use to the sound.  And then once we have the baby, maybe I’ll have Dave bring a blanket with the baby’s smell on it back to the house before we arrive so he can at least know the scent.  Somehow I think that would work better on a dog though.  Maybe Bailey will surprise me and be really interested in the baby, not jealous and actually nice.  (Hey, I heard that, you guys that know this cat are laughing right now!)

Well, I’m off to shop.

Posted in Marriage/Married Life, Pregnancy | No Responses »

Trying to Think Ahead, At Least Regarding Meals

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

So I’ve been slightly addicted to watching those baby/pregnancy stories on Discovery Health and TLC in the mornings.  And they’ve got me thinking about thinking ahead.  Since labor & delivery isn’t an utterly controllable setting and you never can tell how exactly you will end up delivering a baby for sure, I should be prepared for whatever outcome will result.  The plan is to be as o’natural as possible about this whole birth, but I also know that a healthy baby, healthy mom is the best outcome, no matter how that has to happen.

I am going to try having, especially food, prepped and frozen well in advance of my due date in July.  When I was sick the other day, it really got me thinking.  Left on his own to produce a dinner means my dear hubbie doesn’t always make the healthiest food choices.  He bought frozen Banquet pot pies for himself for dinner the other day.  Now I also know from tales of his bachelor days he’d make a dinner of those frozen burritos they sell for like 10 for $2.  So I am going to start working on making extra meals to freeze.  We have a huge freezer in the basement that has plenty of space.

I have some good recipes for pretty healthy casseroles that have plenty of veggies & meat so they easily make a meal on their own or with a quick salad.  So I thought I’d line a glass casserole dish with parchment paper, put in the casserole, freeze it solid, then remove it using the parchment paper and slip it into a vacuum sealing food storage bag so it doesn’t get freezer burn.  Then when we need it, we could just open up the bag and slip the casserole back into the glass pan and cook it.  That way I could make lots of those kinds of casseroles and they’d all use the same sized dish.  Plus, since there is parchment paper underneath the casserole it will make clean up after cooking the casserole much easier.

Does that make sense?  Hopefully, at least my mom will be able to come out for a time after the baby arrives and she’ll be really helpful.  So things shouldn’t be too hard, but I think I can make it easier if I just do some good advanced thinking ahead.

Posted in Pregnancy | No Responses »

Whopper Headaches

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009

For the past maybe two weeks I have been experiencing some whopper headaches.  I have sinus issues so I’m use to dealing with the occasional mega-sinus headache, but these new headaches aren’t the same.  They are these horrid things that seem to radiate from the base of my skull and wrap up and around my head even effecting the area behind my ears.

Unfortunately, the pregnancy books all say headaches are a normal and a frequent complaint of pregnancy.  So am I having a normal pregnancy headache or some other kind of headache.  I wish the books described the pain women have felt during these pregnancy headaches so I knew.  I’ve tried to stayed away from all medicines (except my thyroid prescription) during this pregnancy, except for now having taken my sixth dose of Tylenol in 13 weeks.  I feel bad taking even Tylenol, but it sort of takes some of the edge off these headaches.

So for now, I’ve just started tracking when I get them and what I did or did not do to get rid of them.  The midwife was interested in knowing about the headaches, but wasn’t overly concerned…of course, I wasn’t overly concerned and I find that with medical professionals sometimes personal concern makes them concerned.

Posted in Pregnancy | 2 Responses »

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