Teacher Anonymous

Christmas in June

2009-06-24T08:23:00.001-07:00

I recently received a package from my sister-in-law. The box was so battered, it felt almost like a stuffed animal. Inside, though, was the best thing a pregnant lady could ask for: hand me downs! The box was stuffed to the gills with baby clothes.

I feel so much more prepared now. At the very least, the baby will have clothes. Now I just need a crib, some diapers...

Speaking of the baby (what else do I do these days?), she's recently learned how to hit both sides of my uterus at once. So now I get hit simultaneously on opposite sides of my stomach. She's also figured out how to turn around in there, which means I get kicked on the opposite side from normal, something I find quite disconcerting.

I think my hopes of a sedate little child like R have now gone out the window. This one is probably going to need a leash.

Working through the backlog

2009-06-11T22:27:00.000-07:00

Of late, R and I have been trying to get things done. I think it is the looming presence of our impending loss of free time, but all of the sudden we've been very productive. He's been finishing up games he hadn't finished, we've finally got some pictures on the wall, and I've been doing my best to go through my collection of saved recipes. A couple of nights ago we decided to have pot stickers for dinner, so I decided to look for an appropriately flavored side, eventually settling on superlative sesame noodles.

"What are you making?"
"Sesame noodles."
"So, what do they actually taste like? They always call them something completely different from the predominant flavor."
"I think these might actually taste like sesame. Crazy number of sesame products in there."

Indeed, the noodles did taste of sesame. They were also pleasantly spicy, though I think I might have put in a slight bit more hot chili oil than was strictly required. In any case, they were good unadorned as a side (well, I had a little cucumber on mine), and I imagine they would also make a fine main dish. Definitely glad I kept this recipe around.

In other news, friends of mine from my college band had a baby yesterday. Given that I learned about a couple more on the way when they announced the birth, that will bring it up to six babies from band alumni this year. Apparently it was time to start breeding.

Making myself look stereotypical

2009-06-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

I've been eating a lot of pickles lately, but it is not because I'm a crazy pregnant lady. No, I'm placing the blame squarely on the blogosphere for this one. All the fresh vegetables of spring seem to turn food bloggers minds (and stomachs) toward briney vegetables. It's either that or the fact that I've started reading the blogs of Deb and David Lebovitz, two seriously pickle-crazy people. In any case, I've been driving R crazy lately by making the house stink of vinegar, but the results have been seriously delicious.

I suppose I can foist some of the blame on Deb, seeing as two of the three recipes I've made have come from her blog. I've made pickled carrot sticks twice now, once with white wine vinegar and once with cider vinegar. I think I like them a little bit better with the white vinegar, but they're really tasty either way. Since you don't cook the carrots, they retain a nice crunch. (Actually, now that I think of it, none of the recipes call for cooking the vegetables, so they're all crunchy and delicious.) I picked up some peas while at the store yesterday so that I would be able to make picked sugar snap peas, and they certainly have not disappointed. As suggested, they're definitely ready to be eaten after only a day of soaking in brine.

I did get to take advantage of the whole "pregnant women eat crazy food" mythos when I brought a container of quick pickled radishes to work. While delicious, I didn't realized quite how pungent they were, and so for a half hour after I ate the radishes I got to hear anyone who walked by wonder what the horrible smell was. Apparently the combination of ginger and vinegar reminds some people of decomposition, so, while I was excused from blame due to my pregnant status (unlike the time I microwaved salmon), the boss lady still Febrezed my office.

New talents

2009-06-06T19:54:00.001-07:00

I've discovered something both awesome and gross. When I try to puff out my belly, it no longer changed much in size, however my belly button pops out.

The advantages of having a husband

2009-05-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

R to the rescue!

Look at how my belly dwarfs that doorknob. I'm huge!

I need to clean my bathroom mirror...

2009-05-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

What follows is a slide show of my failing to take a good picture of my belly in the bathroom mirror.

I suck.

Second ultrasound photos

2009-05-22T17:08:00.001-07:00

It's only been, what, two and a half weeks since the ultrasound? I'm calling these semi-timely.

Here we've got the head (over there on the bottom left, for those of you who aren't good at interpreting ultrasound images). I think she might be grabbing her chin and, if so, she totally got that from me.

A lovely spine. These pictures didn't scan quite as clearly as I would have liked (or maybe it is just that the print-outs suck). Her spine really came out well in the ultrasound. Like a string of pearls.

And, yes, there is indeed a human being in there. We've got a couple more photos, but I'm not going to show them to you. One was supposedly a face picture, but really is a cross-section of her scull and looks like a creepy death's head. The other picture is what I might delicately call an upskirt shot, and although some people feel comfortable posting such things on the internet, I am apparently not one of them. We're saving that picture for blackmail purposes.

half asleep = crazy hallucinations

2009-05-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

So, in the middle of the night I woke up and saw something on R's bedside table. I told him to look over there, at which point in time he told me to stay in bed and that he would take care of it. He left the room, only to return slightly confused, as he had been heading to the office to check whether it was 1:30 am or 1:30 pm. I suppose it was probably the best reaction I could have hoped for, as I had been pointing out the crab-spider hybrid that had been crouching menacingly next to our alarm clock.

Not patient enough for baking

2009-05-20T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well, it might not be the end all and be all of pizza crust recipes (or maybe it is just that I didn't let the dough rise completely), but I definitely made a nice little pizza for dinner last night (and ate it in a timely fashion). Considering the fact that R put in a request for pizza the last time I was up at my mother's house (umm... several years ago), it was high time, and I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner.

Go make some pizza.

I could also jump really high, for some reason

2009-05-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

I think I've been spending too much time lurking on Facebook lately, as last night I dreamed I was back in my high school band. All of my old classmates were there.

So long, Betty Crocker

2009-05-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

It was the carrot cake that did it.

"What the? This thing doesn't have actual carrots in it. It's got got carrot flavored pieces."
"Really? What are they?"
"Umm... flour, sugar, carrot powder, coloring... other stuff."
"Maybe we should start making our own cakes."
"I doubt it's too hard. We should probably finish the stuff in boxes first, though."
"Of course. We just won't buy any more."

So, there you have it. No more cakes in boxes for me. Tubs of frosting, however, are necessary for the periodic graham cracker and frosting sandwich, so they'll probably stick around.

The fine art of knowing one's audience

2009-05-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

I made mustard for Mother's Day. An odd gift, one might think, but it was happily received by my grandmother and step-mom. They like condiments.

After my spices came in the mail (three cheers for cheap bulk spices online), I realized I had enough of each ingredients to double the recipe. As the grainy deli-style mustard recipe was supposed to make a cup and a half, and I was giving gifts of it to two people, I thought that would be a good way to ensure that I had some left over for myself. I'm not entirely sure what happened, as I followed the recipe precisely, but I wound up getting triple the amount of mustard by doubling the recipe. Delicious, yes, but now I've got a ridiculous amount in the fridge. It's a good thing condiments last forever.

Still no pictures

2009-05-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

I promise there will be photos in the near future, but apparently I forgot that all the post-ultrasound phone calls I needed to make would take up the entire evening. As for last night... well, REI was having a sale and we needed hammocks. Last time we went camping our friend brought along a couple and they were awesome. They making lounging around the campsite so much more desirable.

Anyway, the ultrasound. We're having a girl! A healthy, very wiggly little girl. Seriously, it looked like she was swimming throughout the scan. After one particularly hearty kick, the sonographer asked if I felt it, at which point in time I finally realized what it feels like when the baby is kicking. Everyone else, my doctor included, seems to think it feels like butterflies, but no. It feels like nothing so much as a tiny foot kicking your innards. All those pangs I thought were muscle twitches? They were actually the baby wailing away at my innards. Now that I know what I'm looking for, it turns out that she kicks a lot. So, as I said, I'm having a very wiggly baby.

Slow and lazy

2009-05-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

I could lie, and say the reason I haven't posted is because nothing is going on, but that simply isn't true. I've been thinking about what to post, but I've been very slothful of late and never got any further than that.

The boss lady at my office bought me slippers. Apparently all the other office ladies have them, and she didn't want me to feel excluded. They're really comfortable, and I still can't believe I get to wear them around the office.

My pregnancy definitely seems to be the major source of entertainment for several ladies around the office. They inquire about my health frequently, pregnancy stories are common, and everyone coos over my growing belly. One of the ladies even gave me some parenting books she had lying around the house, which was really nice of her.

R's little sister got engaged. We're all thrilled, since the guy is very nice and we like him. As R was the one on the phone with her, I didn't get to ask what the ring looked like, but I'm totally planning on asking the next time we talk. Other people's relationships can be so exciting.

Belly pictures are on the way, as requested. I go in for an ultrasound on Tuesday, so I will probably post them then, along with any other exciting news that comes out of that appointment. Like, say, the gender of the baby.

Changes

2009-04-22T23:06:00.000-07:00

My bellybutton is disappearing.

Well, perhaps that is the wrong word, but it has gotten dramatically shallower over the past couple of weeks. Considering the fact that I'm not quite four months along, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have an outie for several months at the end of this.

Outies are weird.

Nice Things Friday

2009-04-18T18:10:00.000-07:00

Friday was a very nice day.

After bugging the tech guy off and on for about a week, Friday morning he finally came over to try and put the more current version of a program on my computer. I had work to do, but could not access our files with my older version of the program. The tech guy tries to install the program, but it won't run on Windows 2000. So, he disappears into his office, and comes back with a brand new computer. Brand spanking new, with the Windows 7 beta on it. As it turns out, the new monitor they had ordered for me had arrived that morning, so in a short amount of time I wound up with a nice new computer setup. It is all very sleek (and Windows 7 seems pretty cool).

On my way home, I decided to drop by this little grocery store (North Park Produce, for those of you in the area). Ever since we moved, I had been eyeing it pretty every time I drove past, and hearing someone on the radio rave about the freshness and cheapness of the produce finally pushed me to go in. Well, it turns out the store is not as small as it looks on the outside, and the produce section is massive! Everything you could look for, and cheap too. I bought a bunch of radishes, a head of lettuce, two mangos, a pound of beets, and some persian cucumbers for $4.20! I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to go crazy and buy everything, but they had so much cool stuff, like quince, tamarinds, raw almonds, huge stalks of lemongrass, several varieties of cucumber... I could go on and on. I only glanced at the deli and non-perishable sections of the store. R and I will have to go back and explore further next time the fridge is empty.

30-hour onions

2009-04-13T20:27:00.001-07:00

Several mentions of how well caramelized onions freeze had me eyeing the Costco-sized sack of onions in my pantry. San Diego is not exactly known for its cool and dry weather, so leaving all those onions out made me slightly nervous. Follow up these thoughts with an article on dyeing eggs with onion skins, and you can imagine how I spent my Easter morning.

The eggs, dyed using the skins of regular yellow onions, turned a rich terracotta color. I'd be curious to try red onions, as I imagine they would make a nice purple egg. Being the only boiled egg eater in the house, I had one for lunch today and saved one for a later salad, but was inspired to turn the rest into pickled eggs. Throwing together my own pickling spice from scratch was cool and made me very impressed at the spice collection I have acquired. The only thing I didn't have was whole mustard seed.

The onions took forever. I broke out the mandolin (I knew I kept that thing around for a reason) and quickly sliced a pile of onions into extremely thin slices. I then let them cook in the crock pot... and cook... and keep cooking overnight... and keep cooking while I went to work. They were finally done this afternoon, at which point in time I spooned them into the wells of a mini-muffin pan and put it out in the big freezer (I love that thing!). I think I'll be rolling in caramelized onions for a while, so the whole process was probably worth it.

Today my stomach decided that 14 hours was not a long enough time to digest the twice-baked potato I had for my Easter dinner the night before. I know this not only because of the heavy, unsettled feeling of my stomach, but also because a little came up to greet me this morning. Who made hash browns, I thought, confused. I wound up going back home after a couple of hours and sleeping the rest of the morning. Shortly after I woke up, R arrived home with a few groceries and (drum roll, please) Vegemite! I've been looking for the stuff for ages. He totally made my day.

The week's lesson

2009-04-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

I suppose the proper expression is "you learn something new every day," but I really only wound up with one lasting lesson from this week. Considering how unmemorable most weeks tend to be, one lasting, lifetime lesson probably isn't a bad outcome.

This week's lesson: Don't microwave salmon at work.

That probably goes for all fish, but salmon is particularly pungent. R could still smell it upstairs when he got up, hours after I had cooked it. At work, I could hear my boss commenting on it from down the hall, at which point in time I decided to never microwave salmon at work again. He later came into my office in his quest to track down the source of the smell. I fessed up and swore I wouldn't do it again. It was quite embarrassing.

Don't let that one incident fool you, though. The main office of my company is an awesome place to work. I got an Easter basket today!

"Mess with the girl, YOU GET THE HITLER!"

2009-04-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Well, that's going to get some strange search results. Seriously, though, if you haven't watched The Venture Brothers, I highly recommend it. We've been re-watching it of late and strange phrases from the show (such as the one above) keep popping into my head. Makes life interesting.

Oh, I totally forgot to tell you all that there is something new and exciting. There is a bump! It's little, but I've definitely got a little pregnant belly.

Oh... Hi there

2009-04-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

I seemed to have taken a brief, unplanned blog hiatus. We're hitting the end of a six-month project at work, so things have been more than a little hectic as we've been trying to get things done in the time allotted (and not quite succeeding). I wound up working until 7pm last Friday (nearly a 12 hour day), which is somewhat surprising as I have always been opposed to working in one's off-hours.

This afternoon, though, the madness came to a head as we were trying to burn the final product onto DVDs. My outer monologue (too fried for an inner one) went something like this:

"Alrighty, into the writable folder. Now burn... Why aren't you burning? What is the issue?

"Okay, let's try just this one file... Still no? Damn your mother! Why aren't you working?

"Wait, why do you say 'writable CD folder'? Can you not burn DVDs? You have a DVD burner. Here, let's try a new disk... Arg! Why do you hate me! There is no program for burning DVDs, and the boss took the only internet card, so I can't download anything! What are we going to do?

"Aha! My in-laws are back in town! I bet they have a DVD burner. They live in [neighborhood right next to the base]; they're close."

So, in the end, I wound up racing over to my in-laws house and using their DVD burner. Still, far too much stress for someone who had been racing to implement all the last-minute changed and requests and still finish everything for the deadline.

Yesterday, slightly inconveniently as it turns out, I had my first actual visit with my obstetrician. He turned out to be a round, jolly fellow, a bit younger than I was expecting. He whipped out the fetal microphone and found a strong heartbeat exactly where it should be for this stage in gestation (midway between navel and pubic bone), so it seems that the baby is healthy and growing well.

After I commented that I was surprised to be having no morning sickness due to how sick my mother was with me, the nurse's assistant speculated that perhaps it was due to my carrying a boy instead of a girl. Apparently there is some truth to that line of reasoning (see halfway down the article), but the differences are slight. Being my first baby, there really is no way for me to tell. Maybe I'm just very lucky.

Hello, Crazyness

2009-03-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

I've finally hit the point in my pregnancy when my hormone-addled brain is causing me to do strange things. Yesterday, after pouring out some balsamic vinegar for my lunch, I wiped a drop of vinegar off the bottle and tasted it. It was delicious. I took a swing from the bottle. Awesome. After my lunch, I poured some of the vinegar into a sauce dish and brought it with me to sip on as I read some blogs. It was the most delicious thing. I know balsamic vinegar doesn't normally taste like that, but I just couldn't resist drinking it.

After drinking the vinegar, I sent a message to R asking him to stop by CostPlus on his way some from work and pick me up some Vegemite (as I was clearly craving something pungent and savory). He couldn't find the store (they were using a different name), so he wound up stopping at several grocery stores on the way home. No luck on the Vegemite front, though he did find a jar of Captain Toady's Tartar Sauce, something he has been searching for the entire time I've known him, so it wasn't a total loss. Still, I think every guy needs a sent-out-on-a-crazy-errand-by-their-pregnant-wife story. At least it wasn't 2 am Chinese food (yet).

Still, all those events seem somewhat normal compared to my final anecdote. Last night, I had a rather frustrating dream. R and I were getting some food in a food court. He bought a milk shake. I noticed that the shop had rose-flavored ice cream, so I wanted to try a sample. At first, the people behind the counter were very busy. Then, there was a woman manning the register who didn't speak English. I asked her in Spanish, but for some reason she thought I wanted a sample of Gatorade. "What don't you understand about 'quiero probar el helado de rosas?" I said, to no avail. After that, the staff became rude and surly and just started blowing me off. I eventually got so frustrated that I loudly berated their customer service and threw a burrito at them in frustration. Eventually, the manager came out, smoking the stub of a cigar. He proceeded to tell me a long story that didn't really relate to the situation at hand. I got so frustrated that I showed them the timestamp on R's receipt, proving that I had been trying to get the sample for an hour. Finally, they gave me the sample... and it was not very good tasting. I started to tear up in the dream, only to wake up and find myself actually crying uncontrollably. Scared the pants off of R, who was wondering if there was something wrong, as he'd never seen me cry like that before.

Still, as my sister-in-law said, at least I'm not throwing things and barricading myself in the bathroom yet.

Catastrophe

2009-03-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

Had you asked me yesterday morning, I would have sworn that the cat was in cahoots with the baby. Several times during the night it woke us up with bizarre yowling. The first time, after a few minutes, I poked my head outside to see if something was wrong, only to be greeted with the usual "Murrrow?" We did our best to ignore subsequent noises, not wanting to encourage the behavior, but still was fleeting.

As it turns out, the cat was just ravenously hungry. She completely blocked the other cat from the food dish after I filled it, and even went back for seconds. I think she might have had a little cold, as she seemed to have gone off her feed the last few days, which had me rather worried (this is the cat that had to be force-fed and racked up several hundred in vet bills last year).

Monday morning's feast also meant that Tuesday night we didn't have a starving cat, and so were able to get a night of uninterrupted sleep. Seeing as we only have 6 more months until regular sleep disturbances, we're doing our best to sleep well while we can.

Babyproofing

2009-03-21T21:17:00.000-07:00

Having had several Pier 1 gift cards sitting in my wallet for a long while, I finally decided to go into the store recently and see what they might have that wasn't too gaudy and awful (or a candle). I wound up purchasing a lovely decorative vase. It was black, with a light blue silhouette of a couple of birds sitting on a branch. I had finally gotten around to taking it out of the bag this afternoon, when I dropped the dang thing. It fell all of three feet onto the carpeted floor, but nevertheless shattered rather fantastically. As disappointing as that was (it was a rather nice looking vase), I'm glad that I did it, rather than the cats or the baby. That thing was clearly not long for this world. Shoddy Peruvian craftsmanship.

What has been going on in my kitchen

2009-03-20T19:29:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my lack of morning sickness, cooking has continued unabated in the A&R household. My mom couldn't keep anything down, let alone cook anything, for about 5 months, followed by a month of exclusive quesadilla consumption. So, needless to say, I consider myself fairly fortunate.

I started the week with one of our favorite occasional treats, beer can chicken. Lucky for me, an empty can of flavored seltzer water filled with herbs, water, and a little splash of cooking wine stands in nicely for the actual beer can, as I would have hated to pour beer down the sink to make the can a little less full.

Part of the reason I roasted the chicken (aside from a strong desire to make stock) was that I wanted to try making spicy cabbage and chicken stir-fry with some of the remaining meat. R's recipe sense was tingling when he saw this recipe, and, indeed, it wasn't quite as good as I was hoping for. It wasn't bad, per se, but it wasn't really that good either. Very mild flavors, not at all helped by the fact that we've developed a high spice tolerance. It was a little better for lunch the next day, but still not something I'm planning on making again.

To make up for always making recipes that only I really like (if even that), I followed up the stir-fry with baked ziti, roughly based on this recipe. Really, though, once you know the basics (meat + sauce + pasta + cheese), it is a pretty flexible dish. It is basically deconstructed lasagna. I wound up using Swiss, cheddar, and Romano cheese (as those were all we had in the house) and adding a little layer of sour cream in the middle of all the pasta. The final dish was delicious, though I will be leaving the sour cream out next time.

Tonight, we try something very new, something R has been looking forward to ever since he sent me this link. Tonight, we make Buffalo chicken wings. It seems simple and delicious, so I think it should be a wild success. I'm very glad for my deep fryer at this moment. Wish me luck!

Edited (9:55pm): Oh, man. The chicken wings were awesome. I wound up cleaning up every last bit of Buffalo sauce from the plate with my finger.

Also, I forgot to tell you about the hash. One of my favorite blog columns, Unexplained Bacon, wrote a how-to article about hash. The, uh, food. Not the drug. Anyway, I decided to give it a shot for breakfast this morning and wound up making a fairly tasty roast chicken hash. The one lesson to take away from it? Don't coarsely dice the potatoes, as it makes cooking take a bit longer than it should (plus it decreases the crispy outside to soft inside ratio in an unfavorable manner).

Pie!

2009-03-15T11:22:00.000-07:00

A slightly belated happy Pi Day to all! By the way, I know it isn't the prettiest looking pie around, but this rustic pear custard pie is really delicious and easy to make. I happened to have picked up a couple of pears at the supermarket, so I wound up having all the ingredients to make it in the cupboard (and I didn't even have to dig out the food processor to make the crust).