Summer Weekend and Sugar Gliders

Good morning, friends! It's Friday! And here in Colorado it looks like it will be a really pretty and summery weekend, filled with the smell of cut grass and lots of recreational baseball games.

I took this picture a few weekends ago when I was still pretty worried that it was going to snow again. Luckily, it hasn't, though it is supposed to get a bit rainy here next week.

I wish I could say I had lots of plans for my three-day weekend, but part of me wants to minimize plans so I can get lots of rest before next week's long work week. We do already have some plans, though, including dinner tonight with David's aunt and cousin and a lunch tomorrow with our neighbors and our friends David and Christine.

Before dinner tonight, however, I'm going to my regular bootcamp class, followed by an OB appointment at 11:30. I'll post a picture of this soon, but I've really "popped" in the last few weeks. I'm nearly twenty one weeks pregnant, and it's really starting to get obvious. Actually, a lady at the gym asked when I'm due yesterday, which is the first time a stranger has risked asking that question:-)

I still can't believe I'm pregnant, even though I have lots of evidence that I am, including this most recent ultrasound picture:

Apparently our daughter is quite round, both in the mid-section and in the head. Lucky for me--I like plump babies with big round heads. Let's just hope it doesn't get too big or too round before she makes her exit from my...errr, before she makes her debut.

And finally, before I sign off and get my things ready for the gym, just a reminder that there is a very good chance that you won't hear from me until next Friday. Again, sorry about that. I just really doubt I'll have the energy to post after working ten hour days. I'm working on getting the wi-fi password for my work so I could maybe post on my lunch break, but so far that has been unsuccessful.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a great weekend, filled with cut grass, burger cook outs, and oatmeal raisin cookie crumb... (Yum!)

*Is it weird that I think it's weird that I'll basically be carrying around my future daughter in my abdomen all summer? I mean, she's not a zygote anymore--she's moving around, drinking amniotic fluid, hiccuping, swallowing--and she's just going to hang out in my belly all summer. It's like I have a built-in anatomical "purse" in which I can carry her around.

On another note, have you all heard of sugar gliders? If not, check them out here: http://www.sugargliderinfo.org. They are basically small flying marsupials. You can have them for pets, even, though some municipalities make them illegal. I like to ponder how much Haruki would enjoy having a flying marsupial around the house...

Thank Goodness It's Thursday?

So for many of you this may not be true, but I sure am glad it's Thursday. For this week and next Thursday is "my Friday," and I really can't express how much more relaxed I am tonight knowing that I'm off from work tomorrow and not in a mad rush to eat, relax, and get things ready for work tomorrow. I really need to send a present to my Dad for working in a job he hated for twenty years just so he could help support us. I truly don't know if I could work in a job that I didn't like, for forty hours a week, for any lengthy amount of time. I know I'd be a more miserable person.

That being said, and now that I've finished my first week of work at the Humane Society, I already feel glad and lucky to be working for such a stellar institution. The people are great, the benefactors of my labor are totally deserving, and it does make long hours or tedious tasks much more palatable. Talk to me next week, however, after I've worked ten hours a day for four days in a row. Heh. Barring a freakish increase in energy between now and then I think you all might have to do without me for those four days. Sorry. I know you'll pull through somehow though:-)

I have a feeling that meals next week will look a lot like this:

Yah. That's toast with olive oil and salt, plus refried beans covered in this:

Super creative and well-rounded, right? 

Speaking of meals, guess who I ate lunch to this afternoon? These guys:

That's two chickens in there in case you can't see them both. The reddish one is obstructing the little white one underneath. They made excellent lunchtime companions.

*With whom did you eat lunch today?

Cherry Vanilla Almond Goodness

New product alert, people! Look what I found:

In case you're too challenged (or likely uninterested) in reading the fine print, that's cherry vanilla almond butter! Yah! It looks like this in the jar:

And, as you might imagine, it's pretty tasty! It just has regular ingredients too--almonds, sea salt, vanilla extract, cherries, etc. No added sugar or added crap in general. It tastes pretty good out of the jar, but recently I've taken to eating it on bananas before I work out at six a.m. this week.

Speaking of six a.m., who knew that one of the benefits of being awake at five thirty a.m. was the total absence of any traffic? It's been a revelation, seriously. It is a little spooky to drive around what feels like a ghost town though. And don't think, for a second, that I'll keep getting up at five a.m. just so I can drive to the gym without traffic.

In other news, I'm working all day today and then meeting some friends at the Boulder Farmer's Market for dinner. It's actually a kind of party, since my friend Adam is turning thirty today and wanted to get his friends together for some food and commiseration. Thirty is, after all, not that bad when you actually hit it, but does get progressively more horrible when you realize that thirty was just a jumping off point for 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, etc.--all of which suck ass.

How's that for positivity?!! I hope youz all have a good day!

*What age did/do you expect to hate the most?

P.S. Happy Birthday, Adam!

Animal Teachin'

So. People. It's Tuesday. And Day 3 of my first training week at the Humane Society. I.Am.Beat. I don't think I mentioned this last week, but I'm afraid my posts this week may--OK, definitely will--be slightly abbreviated due to the long hours. Next week is even worse, too, since instead of working from 9 a.m.-6 p.m. I will be working from 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Whew! So, the moral of the story is please bear with me for the next two weeks. I swear I'll pay you back with lots of pictures of puppies.

So, tonight's brief post will be a compendium of some of the things that I've learned this week during my training to become an adoption counselor.

1) Guinea pigs, hamsters, and gerbils are _not_ the same thing. Whaaaaat???! I know, right?

2) Birds can become so agitated that they literally give themselves heart attacks and die. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel a lot better about the anxiety highs that I experience.

3) When cats are declawed, it is the human equivalent of amputating the fingers at the top joint. This is due to cat anatomy and often declawing the cat can lead to lifelong arthritis problems and even litter box issues.

4) Cats have sweat glands in their paws and on the sides of their faces, which is why they might either scratch things or rubs their faces on them as a way of marking their scent on them.

5) A kitten needs to be socialized early, i.e. before 16 weeks of age, or it will likely remain unsocialized for its entire life. Kittens learn so much before that time, but after it, even with intense behavioral therapy, they are unable to learn the proper socialization habits that would allow them to live successfully with other animals and humans.

Things I've learned about myself during training:

1) Maybe cats aren't so bad.

2) But still, I'm really glad that Haruki is not a cat.

3) My child will never own a rodent or small mammal.

4) Sitting down for several hours or standing still in the same spot for several hours is a $%^$# when you're pregnant.

5) The typical work week and work day is truly barbaric. We should all revolt and demand a workday that includes six, rather than eight or nine, hours. I mean, you barely get home in time to get ready for the next day! WTF?

*What have you learned at your job recently?

Weekend Fly-By

Heya friends! This is going to be a quick photo bomb. My apologies, but today was my second day of training for my new job. I woke up at five a.m., have just gotten home and eaten dinner, and it's already eight p.m. GAH! How do 9-5ers do it? No wonder most of us are slightly depressed and/or a little overweight. I'd quit going to the gym too if it meant that I had to workout every day at six a.m. or seven p.m. after getting off work at six p.m.

Um, anyway.

I made banana bread with blueberries in it:

I got flowers from my mom and dad for graduating:

(I'll post a pic or two of graduation once I get some photos from my dad.)

I treated myself to some of the cake that we got for my graduation pizza dinner. It was from the same bakery that did our wedding cake, and it was soooo good. Do yourself a favor if you live in the Boulder/Denver area and go get the carrot cake from Tee and Cakes.

Seriously. The whole carrot cake box smelled like cinnamon, and that chocolate cake had candied pretzels and peanut butter buttercream. So dreamy.

And lastly, we had our twenty-week anatomy scan. We are definitely having a baby, and they confirmed that it will be a girl baby. Who knew that they can actually see little baby labia on an ultrasound? Also, who knew how awkward it could get if your dad came along for the ultrasound and was there to stare at your baby's labia with you? Heh. Cough. Heh.

*What's the best sweet treat you've eaten lately?

Dr. Ruki

The weekend is almost here, friends! If you live anywhere near me that means you're also looking forward to a respite from rain and a weekend filled with sunshine instead of clouds. Like, seriously, will summer finally show up this weekend?

The good news is that the summer fruits are definitely here, though perhaps not completely ripe just yet. Lately I've been eating a lot of strawberries, and most recently I bought cherries and a mini-watermelon.

Those little brownie looking things on the side are Goodbody Bites, which are just slightly healthified brownie pieces. I'm using them to stave off complete sugar binges, and so far it's been working. The bad part about being pregnant is that an upset or full stomach feels eight times worse than it does when you're not pregnant. And my stomach isn't even in my ribcage yet. I can't wait to find out how that affects my eating/appetite.

Ahem. Also of note lately? I went to get my cap and gown and Ph.D. hood yesterday.

It was pretty surreal. I keep trying to tell myself that this is all a big deal, but really I'm just no longer impressed. I suspect I'll be more impressed if I can keep my baby alive for the first year of its life.

Ruki is also not impressed with my new degree, especially since David and I tried to make her wear my cap this morning. Here is David giving her an initial sniff:

Here is Ruki giving it her initial brush off:

And here is Ruki just before she shook the cap off again and then proceeded to run around the house in an effort to avoid the cap.

We are so proud of her!

*Have you abused your pet in any way lately?

P.S. Because tomorrow is graduation day I'm not sure that I'll be able to post. I'll try to pop in if I can, else you'll all just have to imagine how f-ing cool I looked wearing that blue foreskin-like hat in front of all my family and friends.

Car Wrecks and Chinese

So guess what happened to David the other morning?

He got rear-ended by a cement truck. Heh. He's okay so it's okay that I find the cement truck part funny, right? Sadly his poor little Subaru Outback, which is still sitting crumpled in our garage, looks like it will probably be totaled. Boo. Am I the only one who thinks that it really sucks when you get into an accident--especially one that is not your fault--and your car is totaled? This happened to me when I was approximately twenty years old. My car was trusty and reliable though not technically valuable, and instead of getting a check from insurance that represented that reliability, I got a check for two thousand dollars which, as you might know, is a paltry sum to go car shopping with. Sigh. The bad news for us is that if they do total the car we will be forced to get a new car and probably make payments on it. (I don't mean a really "new" car, since we would never buy a brand new car.)

Anyway, it is lucky that David is okay. Haruki was in the car with him at the time and luckily she was in her dog seat belt/harness. Apparently she was pretty shaken up and immediately planted her entire (long and 50 lb.) body into David's lap.

Since it's WIAW I thought I'd also share what I ate for lunch and dinner yesterday.

Lunch:

Yep, that's chicken people. I ate chicken. The more important lesson here is that one should never eat Indian-spiced chicken before working out. (That weird lump in the upper right hand corner is two pieces of potato.)

Dinner:

Last night's dinner was courtesy of our friend Brian, who came over to cook Chinese food for us. He even brought a real wok and a huge butcher's knife! From the left: broccoli with fermented soybeans and garlic (my favorite--sooo good!), cumin tilapia fish with celery, and refreshing salad-y thing of cabbage. With brown rice. It was delicious, and luckily Brian left us with a copy of the recipes that he works from.

On a non-food note, I also wanted to share another mountain photo that I took from the car on the way to the ultrasound appointment yesterday.

Cross your fingers that it stays this pretty (and non-rainy) until my graduation day on Friday!!

*When was the last time you were in a car accident, if ever?