"Assuage your liberal guilt"

[jordanna]

The title to this blog is in quotes, because it is lifted from an email that Kendra sent me. For those of you who didn't get it, she found a fantastic website that allows individuals to buy very reasonably priced carbon offsets for their daily lives (3$ a month for a small car). The hardest part of this pregnancy has been an almost paralyzing fear that I am bringing a child into a world that is doomed to chaos and destruction sooner than we think. I recognize that this is an extreme reaction, but at the same time if people (specifically Americans) don't wake up to the impact of their daily lives soon we are headed for trouble. As Ty tells me to get me to stop freaking out and delivering stress hormones to his baby, the best we can do is stay in education and try to live our lives as sustainably as possible. When I have more time (HA!) I want to add a 'Frugal Hippy' section to our website, detailing the affordable green strategies and products we have found. Anyway, check this site out as it has positive social and environmental impacts:

http://www.nativeenergy.com/

p.s. It is 10:30 and both my second breakfast and my lunch are gone.

Yet another IKEA experience

[jordanna]

We had a long weekend, culminating in assembling very nice tall closets in our office. Ty was at the state wrestling tournament in phoenix from thursday through saturday. I had a teaching seminar all day saturday, and took off for phoenix afterwards to meet him at IKEA. Why are we taking time out of our insanely busy remodel schedule to drive to IKEA? Because we have cats.

Once upon a time, we brewed 5 gallons of a nice IPA. This nice IPA was aging in our spare room, where all the tools and extra boxes of stuff live. We have many unpacked boxes, because what is the point of unpacking a box if you have no where for the contents to go? Enter cats. One of the furry buggers opened the spigot on our beer bucket and drained 2.5 gallons before we realized what was happening. Consequently we had a lake of beer in our spare room, busily soaking into all of our boxes. We had to promptly unpack everything, and our house has been a complete disaster ever since. We are starting the baby's room (read as the spare room where all the crap is) this week, so we need homes for all this stuff. Therefore, we found ourselves in IKEA on a saturday night, buying a closet and all the other random goodies that go along with an IKEA trip (an extra coffee press for Rodeo Days, cotton rugs, bedroom lamps, wooden blinds, and really tasty non-alcoholic sparkling beverages). Those of you who are coming down for Rodeo Days in two weeks, prepare to be amazed at our organizational capacity.

And sometimes we disagree

[jordanna]

I have heard that consuming your own placenta can help with post-partum depression. I think that the retching resulting from consumption of my placenta would also place me in a funk, so I am thinking that there is NO WAY IN HELL I am eating that thing (provided a huge famine doesn't hit tucson in the next 10 weeks). My husband, however, is borderline obsessed with the idea, and keeps trying to talk me into letting him eat it. Today I got this from him:

Placenta Pizza:
Grind placenta. Saute in 2 tbl. olive oil with 4 garlic cloves, then add 1/4 tsp. fennel, 1/4 tsp. pepper, 1/4 tsp. paprika, 1/4 tsp. salt, 1/2 tsp. oregano, 1/4 tsp. thyme, and 1/4 cup of wine. Allow to stand for 30 minutes, then use with your favorite home made pizza recipe. It's a fine placenta sausage topping.

I honestly can't tell if he is serious, or just trying to mess with me.

Apparently I've still got it

[jordanna]

Somebody at my work just asked me if I knew what we were having. When I told her it was a boy, she said, "I knew it". She told me that in her culture, if a woman gets prettier during pregnancy she is carrying a boy. If it is a girl, the woman will look bad because the baby is stealing her beauty. I had never heard of this, but I greatly appreciated the complement!

On top of that, somebody tried to pick me up at the bus stop last week:
Random Guy (RG): Hey, do you need a ride?
Me: No thanks, my bus will be here momentarily.
RG: Where are you going?
Me: Home
RG: Are you sure?
Me: Yes, but thank you.
RG: Do I look that bad?
Me: (pulling aside my bulky coat and patting the belly) Nope, I'm already taken.
RG: Is that a five dollar bill on the ground?
Me: No, it's a bus transfer
RG: Kay, thanks (drives off)

Coming to terms with reality

[jordanna]

I just hired a handyman to come to the house tomorrow. I have decided that at 6 months pregnant, I have no business being on a ladder scraping popcorn off my bedroom ceiling (an activity which made my back scream when I weighed 30 lbs less than I do now). It is a little disheartening, as it is the first time we have had to hire somebody (aside from the electrician we paid to upgrade our service, clearly a job for a professional).

155 lbs and Still Rising!!

[ty]

For the first time in her life Jordanna has broken the glass ceiling that divides those of us whose weight resides above 12^2 and those plebians who live out their mundane existences at or below 11^2.

For months now I have been promising a deluge of pictures from various exciting adventures including but not limited to: walshy visit, bathroom remodel, the blizzard of aught 7 and my pregnant wife. I am both pleased to announce that a few pictures will make it into this post and chagrined to admit that there are almost 800 pictures that will not because I forgot the password to our website. Um...yeah. I'm working on that. Anyway, without further ado...


Here is our "master" bathroom just a few short weeks ago. It's called the master bathroom because with a little practice you can "master" the technique of leaning your head against the wall while you poop thereby allowing yourself to fall asleep on the toilet. Sweet.

Here you can clearly see how solidly the previous shower pan was constructed. It took me an hour with an angle grinder, cold chisel, and a 3lb sledge to break it up into pieces I could barely move.
Full propers should be given here to Zak who hauled his butt out to Tucson to work like a dog for 5 days straight. Having had very little experience with home remodeling his "can-do" attitude and lack of "screw this" demeanor was a sharp counterpoint to Tyson's rennovation-weary work ethic. Hence, a great deal of work was actually completed.

The aforementioned work completed. This is the 7th step (out of 42) in laying a new shower pan. There's something in this picture worth mentioning to the uninitiated. Pay particular attention to the gray plastic membrane rising out of the concrete on the far side of the pan. This plastic sucked. The book Zak and I followed while building this pan (heretofore referred to as The Bible) stressed on no less than 4 occasions that you should use Elastomeric Caulk when joining two pieces of that plastic membrane together. So that's what we did. Why? Because that's what the freaking book said. I don't put in shower pan liners for a living. Not even as a hobby. That's why I buy books by people who DO do it for a living. Of course it didn't work at all, not even a little. So what's the first thing my Dad said when I called him for my thrice-daily check in? "Elastomeric caulk?!? No, no. Don't use that. That's bad. " Um...its already buried 2.75" deep in rapidly curing concrete Dad. How bad is bad?

Things eventually worked out OK with the membrane (because seriously, were we going to jackhammer out a 3x4 concrete pan?) and we continued with our ill-advised shower installation.


When two people remodel a house together there are bound to be some disagreements regarding various style decisions. I was of the opinion that the grout color should be a subdued grayish shade. JD was more in favor of the reddish brown you see in the photo. We took our argument to the tile supply company and as neutral arbitraters they collectively laughed at me and my grout choice. Seriously. One guy brought over his pal and together they mocked my color sense. It was the best.


With the shower tiling grouted my job was to lay the floor tile. Never again will I tile with anything less than 17" tiles. It was wonderful. The entire floor was only 16 tiles. Notice the sexy diagonal. Oooooh, aaaaah. Diagonal.

The bathroom as it stands now.


This last Sunday night Tucson was "blanketed" by what is known hereabouts as the Blizzard of Aught Seven. To be fair nobody else uses the phrase Aught but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be coming back into common parlance. I love the term Aught. For all my life it's belonged to super old people who could use it in phrases like "Back in Aught Four we fought the Kaiser to a standstill using nothing but our skivvies and movable type." I say we Take It Back!!

Anyway, this pathetic amount of snow actually caused schools to be cancelled Monday. It's like living in Foster/Gloster.

Here it is my friends. The soon-to-be-famous shot of Brian (aka Smoove-B, aka BriBri, aka Brian the Lion) throwing down with Henry to see who has the biggest baby. Turns out Bri does. In theory he should be delivering sometime around March. He's registered in Golden Colorado c/o the Silver Bullet.


This is as of two days ago. JD's belly has grown enormously in the last 2 weeks (see above photo). She is feeling fine and as of her doctor's appt. yesterday all is well.

Sorry it took me so long to put up these pics. Of course there are 790 more that are just as good but the only way to see them is to haul your ass down here. Or you can wait for me to remember my website password. :)

Update

Apparently the marshmallows didn't make him so sick he couldn't stand the sight of them, as he felt perfectly up to polishing off the last half of the bag yesterday. We are bad, bad doggy parents who didn't realize they were still within his grasp. Needless to say we had another night of extended standing and nudging.

We never thought it possible

[jordanna]

Well, it happened. The unthinkable. The amazing. There is a food product on this earth that is capable of defeating our dog. The same dog, mind you, that ate 32 burrito wraps from costco. The dog that consumed 2 dozen of the fattiest cupcakes I have ever made, with nary a twinge of his pancreas. The dog that can eat an entire loaf of bread in the time it takes you to remember you forgot your glasses. Need I mention the entire bag of crystallized ginger?

We got home to a very hyper dog last night. By this, I mean he remained standing for extended periods of time, while wagging his tail and repeatedly nudging us for attention. After commenting on his odd behavior, we went about our business. Lo and behold, a short while later we discover a half eaten bag of marshmallows in his bed. HALF. EATEN. He gave himself such a massive sugar rush, he just couldn't stomach the rest. Out of curiosity we gave him another marshmallow. He immediately snorked it, then spit it onto his bed.

And we shall call him...

[jordanna]

Mr. Twitchy. At least until he exits the uterus. That's right ladies and gentlemen, it is a boy and he moves constantly. This is no less than I deserve, seeing as I fractured three of my mother's ribs in utero. Many apologies that we did not get off our butts and post a holiday letter or send out a formal 'boy!' announcement. As usual, life remained incredibly busy and we grew incredibly lazy during our downtime. The holiday break from housework is officially over though. We are knee deep in a master bath remodel, which was kicked off by Zak and Tyson last week. The last of the yellow linoleum has left our lives (don't worry, we still have yellow asbestos tile!) and we are continuing our amiable argument about the best grout color to tie together the two shades of tile and cherry-esque vanity. I am pretty sure I will win this one, purely because I care more than Tyson does (out with earth, in with cinnamon!). We are accumulating pictures and will post them before the end of January, including new belly shots. Mr. Twitchy has under gone a growth spurt and I am recognizably pregnant to a small percentage of the population now. I just got back from a conference where I got to watch people who know me peripherally from grad school do double-takes as they passed me in the halls. Only two people had the gumption to ask right away. Kindly, I didn't respond with "what baby?". It was tempting, but it turns out I am nice. Who knew?

Holiday Recovery

[jordanna]

Well, we dropped the last of the holiday visitors off at the airport a couple of hours ago. We didn't have any opportunity to feel unsettled this holiday, as family and friends descended on us to keep us company. We had my parents from the 20th until the 29th (the day after my 30th birthday), and the Walshes from Christmas Day until New Years. We couldn't have asked for a more entertaining or loving holiday. We went to Tombstone with my parents, and witnessed some spectacular acting in the re-enactment of the shootout at the Okay Coral, and had lunch at Big Nose Kate's Saloon. Ty has some spectacular video of the robotic recreation that can be found in the original location of the shootout. Mom and Dad logged some time helping us work on the house. Five months after we moved in, our stereo is actually set up and properly balanced! Dad and Tyson also spent 6 hours installing a beautiful birch butcher block shelf to top off the half wall in our kitchen. Between their visit and Justin Maguire's help after Thanksgiving, all but one of the little remaining kitchen projects have been finished. Where would we be without everyone's help?

I remember thinking in June that my 30th birthday would be a bit depressing because I would be so far from our Seattle community. I was happily proved wrong. While Jeff and David (our Tucson sunkids who keep us entertained : ) were out of town, we had all of our guests and Tyson organized a suprise party with all the people we know in Tucson. My parents took me out for a lavish lunch and shopping while Ty was working at home (luckily I'm oblivious and didn't catch on to what they were planning). The Walshes went crazy and took us all to a resort the next day for an overnight desert spa birthday extravaganza. I haven't been so spoiled in ages. We had a blast wandering through nature trails and playing in the pool. Abby and Tyson developed some controversial but successful water basketball plays. I also got to play Marco Polo for the first time in fifteen years. The food, crafted by Chef Jamie West, was beyond spectacular. All in all I would call it a successful spa experience.

We sincerely hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and that the new year brings you love and joy.

You can't make this up

[jordanna]

"Will trade Donkey for Gas Golf Cart"

Man, I wish I had a golf cart.

Not exactly what I was looking for

[jordanna]

What amazes me more than this product's existence, is the fact that 3 out of 3 reviewers gave it five stars. It must take a certain kind of person.

Synonyms

[jordanna]

"Maternity pants" and "Welcome to my plumber's crack"

If

[jordanna]

If the baby weighs 1 lb now, what are the other 20.5 for?

That is a first

[jordanna]

I was looking for Tucson farmer's markets and found the following:

Rincon Valley Farmers Market

Open every Saturday, rain or shine, the market offers fresh produce, breads, coffees, teas, plants, tamales, emu oil and salsa. Live entertainment is also provided.

EMU OIL? According to the interweb, it is apparently the latest and greatest in relief of any and all skin ailments. Including hemorrhoids. According to wikipedia it is predominately oleic acid, with some linoleic acids (Omega 3 and 6) thrown in, which would explain the benefits. Personally, I try and avoid rubbing dead birds on my body. Call me squeamish, I'll go for the olive and flax seed oils every time.

Freakin' Brilliant

[jordanna]

Possibly the best thing about my new work location: The University of Arizona library staff will scan and email you articles from their print journals so that you don't have to go there and photocopy it (if you have a valid library account). Saves them wear and tear on their originals, saves paper, and ensures that my butt will continue to take on the shape of my office chair. And, now I will no longer ignore important citations because I am too lazy to go to the library and get them.

I can't wait to play this

[jordanna]

As a warning to anyone who is planning to come visit us, I will probably put you through playing this game once:

http://www.geocities.com/nconner23/bwcards.html

I have yet to try it, but it looks like a blast.

Missed the mark

[jordanna]

If these people really wanted to reduce fear of childbirth, couldn't they have picked a picture of a baby that didn't look like it just came off the set of The Ring?

Because women can't operate a level

[jordanna]

I just found an ad on craigslist entitled "Need more time to FOLD SOCKS?" (the caps were their idea), complete with a hilariously chauvenistic picture.

http://tucson.craigslist.org/sks/243954158.html

Of course, I was as work for three hours today before I discovered my shirt is on inside out, and I'm not even blond.

When you really want a camera

[jordanna]

I drove Ty into work today, and on the way we had two seperate incidents of 'We really need to keep the camera in the car':

1. Christmas carnage arizona style: The minimist desert landscape and the low, flat rooftops here have resulted in the bizzarre popularity of inflatable christmas decorations. It is not uncommon to walk through our neighborhood, hear a blower, round the corner and see a billowing nylon representation of Santa and his reindeer. We had a recent cold snap, and this apparently affected our neighbors setup. We drove by to see the proud waving santa, jolly snowman, and cutsie penguin reduced to post-dorothy wicked witch of the west pools on their roof.

2. We're in slightly different culture now: The license plate holder on the F350-Dually truck in front of us read "Burning Gas & Hauling Ass". Ahhhhh, America.