New Starts and Spring Veggies

Hey-O, peeps! Happy Tuesday! What are you all up to today? Have you guys started looking around for what you might get your mother for Mother's Day? It's in less than two weeks, and for once I've acted early and gotten my mom a six-month subscription to Birchbox. My mom loves trying new beauty products, so basically I'm setting her up with a "crack" dealer so she can discover new products to which she will become addicted. I'm such a good daughter.

Speaking of new products, I purchased some new running shoes yesterday. You guys like?

This is my second pair of Nike shoes, which I didn't used to buy for running since, let's face it, if you're a runner you're probably wearing Asics or Mizuno or Brooks--not Nike. But I bought these because I wanted a pair of really comfy shoes--that also happened to be kinda cute--to wear to my new job at the Humane Society! Yes! I'm not going to be unemployed all summer! I got the job for which I applied recently, and start training in two weeks. I'll be working thirty hours per week, probably Thursday-Saturday, so I'll need some shoes that give my feet, legs, and back a bit of a break. It's not that I'll be standing or walking the whole time, but since my feet, legs, and back seem to get sore now that I'm knocked up I figured I better be prepared.

My job title is "Adoption Specialist," which just means that I'm like an animal adoption counselor and facilitator. Obviously I've never done the job before and am thus unsure about how much I'll like/love it, but it is nice to know that I'll be making some money and being somewhat useful in the months before I give birth and right after. Hopefully by Spring semester 2014 I'll be able to pick up a few lit/writing classes at CU Boulder or a local community college too. Or, maybe I'll just decide to be a stay at home mom and spend my days googling new products for my baby.

Lastly, asparagus is really tasty right now.

You should get some and roast it with olive oil, s + p, and lemon juice. It's good, though apparently not as good as the white asparagus they eat more frequently in Europe and in France especially. Read all about it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/dining/white-asparagus-frances-spring-treat.html

Mine looks prettier.

*Have you ever had white asparagus? What's it like?

Weekend Shorty

Yah, photo shorty if you will, since this pre-momma is dragging ass and ready to cease brain functioning. The weekend was full, though, so here are the highlights!

First up: my first trip to the annual Boulder Farmer's Market.

(I wasn't the only one who went this weekend for the first time either.) I went by myself after a class at my gym and before I volunteered for a Humane Society gala event. I looked at the locally grown produce, but really, I went for lunch. See?

That's a spicy corn tamale with pinto beans and green chili. It was, in case you can't tell from the picture,  pretty delicious.

I also had the top off of this banana blueberry muffin:

I ate all this while sitting in the grass and enjoying the seventy-degree temperatures. It was pretty nice. We're getting more snow this week, by the way. If you don't hear from me on Thursday (the day after the snow storm is supposed to arrive), then you'll know why.

View from the Coors Events Center, where I went next to volunteer for the Humane Society:

The other big event that happened this weekend was that David and I went down to Greenwood Village, Colorado to babysit his niece and nephew for the night while their parents are in Hawaii. We drove down on Sunday and spent the afternoon at a park, playing basketball and, OK, I admit it, sitting in the shade and reading Call the Midwife on my iPhone. What?? My feet hurt from standing too much at the Humane Society gala, so I took full advantage of some time in the shade on a reclining patio chair.

David, however, was forced to climb a tree in order to get our rogue volleyball.

After the park, we headed to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant, where we (apparently) ordered everything on the menu.

Chinese food isn't usually my most favorite, but the tofu and broccoli dish I had really hit the spot last night. Actually, I should clarify that. I actually love Chinese food, if by "Chinese Food" you mean greasy fried rice or deep fried tofu. But I can't usually bring myself to order those things and so I guess Chinese food ends up getting a bad rap in my book. Talk about race discrimination, geez.

*What do you order at a Chinese restaurant?

BBQ and Booze

People! It's almost (f-ing) May! Am I the only one who was totally duped by all the blizzards and snowstorms into thinking that it was still very much winter? It's probably a good thing that I didn't notice it was almost May, since I would've been even more pissed that it was blizzarding last week.

In other news, I accidentally ate brie cheese last night and didn't die! David and I had a good time at our friend's bbq. He made Mark Bittman's veggie burgers and while I didn't take pictures, they were tasty! That brings me to my next point, which is about bbqs in general. I mean barbecues, as in, grills. We do not have a grill, largely because vegetarians don't tend to need a bbq grill in the same way that meat eaters do. I've been thinking about getting one recently though, mostly so we could grill veggies and veggie burgers and maybe even have meat eaters over. So, do you have a grill? For what do you use it?

Since today is Friday I went to bootcamp this morning. Sigh. I'm tired. I had an energy-boosting lunch though, so that's good. I had superfood salad from Whole Foods:

And sweet-chili tofu:

I also tried a new-to-me beverage.

I'm not usually a fan of beverages that say "10 Calories!!!" on the label, since that usually means they have some artificial crap in them. But this is just seltzer water with lime juice and raspberry puree. And it's quite refreshing!

And now, my friends, I'm going to lay on the couch, look up random crap on the internet, read a mediocre book (for book club), and just generally veg out on this lovely Friday afternoon. Tonight we're going to a party in Denver, so me and this baby need some rest beforehand.

*On a related note to that last paragraph, what would going out socially be like for you if you couldn't drink alcohol? Would you look forward to it less, or would you be just as excited or interested in going to parties? What would you drink instead?

Thursday Haps

So it's Thursday and it's not snowing. Wow. So many reasons to be grateful, right? When I woke up this morning this little bird was perched outside my door, so I decided to be positive all day long.

Sadly, David said something that irritated me this morning, so instead I'm going to make today a day where I say things that are positive, but with a sarcastic or bitter tone. Sounds fun, right? Kind of like having a craft project all day long, only less decorative than a knitted sweater or a hand-painted picture frame.

I'm getting ready to go to a class at my gym and, as usual, my Thursday schedule is a bit full and a bit uncertain. I always have my shift at the Humane Society on Thursdays, though I never know exactly what time until late in the morning. Also, there is a lecture in my department this afternoon that I should go to. And finally, David and I have been invited to have a veggie burger bbq at a friend's house this evening, so I figured I better get my blog on before departing for a longish day.

I don't really have much to report, except that David and I are trying out all the new baby stuff that we got at the consignment sale last weekend.

This is David making sure that our baby swing works properly.

So far it's all fun and jokes about how much time baby is going to spend in there so I can watch all my fav TV shows and read novels. I suspect it might be less funny come fall... But really, it's actually quite sweet--the little thing at the top plays soothing sounds and music and rotates little stuffed toys. Who wouldn't want to sleep and/or spend all day in there (quietly).

Heh.

*Does your partner think it is okay to wear Crocs just because s/he is indoors?

Geek on Holiday

Now that I've finished the final corrections for my dissertation I'm basically free to do whatever I want every day. It's strange. I keep feeling like I have something--some project--that I ought to be working, but...nope! As I mentioned before, I did interview for a part-time position at the humane society, about which I'm waiting to hear back. Until then, I'm just soaking up the lack of responsibility and getting excited for graduation, which is on May 10.

Today was a good example of this. I went to my usual bootcamp class, and then showered. Then I dropped off some jeans (my first pair of maternity jeans) to be hemmed. After that I went to lunch at Native Foods, where I drank a refreshing glass of their watermelon fresca.

I'm not sure exactly what this is, but it tastes like watermelon juice--not very sweet and with a strong watermelon flavor.

For lunch, I had a small side salad and the saigon rolls:

Sadly, I did not eat the sprouts on that salad because apparently they are a high risk e.coli food that, if given the chance, will wreak havoc on me and my little "bun." I'm unconvinced by some of the hysteria surrounding what pregnant women eat, but maybe because I was raised Catholic I still follow the rules.

After lunch I really did up the relaxation day and went to see the movie 42.

After that, I went across town to Michael's, where I was on a mission to get frames for some artwork that was sent to me by my blog friend, Joanna of Midwestern Bite! Unfortunately, Joanna, I forgot to look and see what size the pictures are. Crafting fail! I did, however, look nostalgically at the threads that I used to use for making friendship bracelets.

Did anyone but me make bracelets with this stuff? Oh how exciting it was to look at the skeins of colorful threads and think about the possible color combinations!!! I used to cross stitch too, people. I know, pretty hip. Maybe I'll go tell David these little details and see if he regrets marrying such a geek. Geez, if I had only been good at drawing or painting I could've been angsty and geeky in a hot way--like, with paint under my fingernails and hot/cute glasses. Whatever. I was geeky before it was hot. Like geeky un-adulterated. Yah.

*Were you a legitimate geek? (And, let me save you the trouble: if you were on a dance/cheer team then you were _not_ geeky, regardless of whatever your eye wear consisted of.)

Last Snow Storm?

(Fingers crossed.)

Yes, we got more snow yesterday and today. Probably a foot, actually. By now you can guess how I feel about that. The storms keep coming on Monday-Tuesday too, which is bad for me since Tuesday is the only day when David is on campus from 11-8 p.m. This means that either I go with him and stay in town for the entire day, which is exhausting when you're pregnant and have nowhere to go and take a nap, or it means that I take the one car we have that is good in the snow, go to the gym early, get home before David leaves, and spend the rest of the day inside. I've done this for the last four Tuesdays, and it is getting old, people. Nobody likes to be snowed in repeatedly, am I right? Especially in late April, when I should be breaking out my spring and summer dresses.

OK, snow storm rant over. Hopefully this will be the last we all hear of snow. Well, excepting the photos below, which I took when I went to gym early this morning. The roads in town were terrible, I'm guessing because the city and state are literally running out of money to plow since it just keeps snowing.

The only "people" who didn't seem affected by the poor road conditions and late-season snow were these guys:

While that might look like a llama, it's really a deer hanging out with some of its deer friends.

To celebrate another snow day, I cleaned the house. Womp womp. When I clean the house I usually think about my grandmothers and their grandmothers, who cleaned the house, did all the cooking and laundry, and raised like seven kids. WTF??!! Why anyone would want to get married and have kids aroundabouts that time mystifies me. Even more so if you consider that when my great-grandmother was growing up a fair bit of people didn't have indoor plumbing and certainly didn't have the luxury of a washing machine to do all their laundry. I mean, it's not that they didn't own a washing machine, but rather, they hadn't been invented yet.

*What's something that your grandmother or great-grandmother had to do or deal with that impresses you?

Pasta and Parties!

It's a good thing the weekend started off with this:

Since Saturday was my niece's birthday party and I felt compelled to eat some of this:

Wow, right? You should've seen baby chow into that little pink cake. Messy hands won't stop this girl from getting her sugar fix!

FYI, David and I will most definitely not be having an angelic blond baby. My guess is that she will come out with snot and drool already in whatever brown hair she has.

Before going to the birthday shindig in the afternoon, David and I did another kid/baby thing and went to a huge baby consignment sale in East Boulder. I had never been to one before, but basically it's where yuppie Boulderites sell off their expensive baby gear when they're done with it. We got a ton of baby stuff that we needed--all costing much, much less than they would cost new. I haven't mentioned this here, but I don't think that I'll be having a baby shower, so all this stuff is really necessary. You know, since we didn't have a baby swing before getting pregnant. (For Ruki?)

After Saturday's hectic pace I was really looking forward to a relaxing Sunday. First things first: prenatal yoga. This was kind of a big deal for me, since I generally dislike most yoga and am suspicious of anything that is marketed just to pregnant peeps. I took a class at Yo Mama Yoga, and I'd say it was about what I expected, i.e., not much of a workout and a lot more about stretching, visualizing, and breathing. In other words, I would never do this regularly if I weren't knocked up. But, on the off chance that going to prenatal yoga will make this baby magically exit from my body with little to no pain, I'm going to start going once per week. I don't think I could take more than that, so hopefully that's enough.

Sunday afternoon was filled with more resting, followed by a short hike with David and Haruki and then dinner. I had been wanting a bowl of pasta for awhile, so I made some whole wheat spaghetti with roasted zucchini:

I was pretty proud of myself for cooking dinner instead of toasting an english muffin and eating frozen broccoli.

*How recently did you eat cake?