Lessons To Learn

I had been feeling really defeated lately about school… I left my job as a school counselor after the 2008-2009 school year to go back to school full-time.  I want to get my RD so that I can specialize in nutrition counseling.  However, this new career goal meant a lot of prerequisite course work to build up my science background.  Fortunately for me, I have a wonderfully supportive husband and family.  I have taken 3 semesters of science classes now and have only one left to go before I can apply to the dietetics program I want to enroll in in January.

(You can only apply in January, so I either apply this January to begin in the fall of 2011 or apply the following January and not be able to start until the fall of 2012!) 

What’s the problem?  Biochemistry is not an easy class and I have to take it in the fall when I will be having a baby and learning how to be a mom…all while getting no sleep.  I can deal with stress, and I can deal with hormones, and I can deal with no sleep.  But I can’t deal with all three and still be a happy person.  Figuring in the time I would miss from class when the baby is born, I just didn’t know how I could handle the course, the application process and the learning curve that comes with being a new mom.

So I wrote to my program advisor.  Of course, they can’t make exceptions.  I must take Biochemistry before I can apply in January

. 

But…there is an on-line Biochemistry option available!  I can begin it in August, work at my own pace, and even take a break in October when Baby G arrives!  This is the answer I needed.  There are no set deadlines.  I plug along with the work and the only requirement is that I complete the final before my application is due in January.  I am thrilled!  I worked so hard to get my science background squared away so that I could apply to this program.  But I absolutely do not want to sacrifice those first precious months with my son being more stressed out or stretched thin than I need to be.  This is my answer!

That’s my good news for today!    Now its back to Anatomy and Physiology work.  Today: The circulatory system!

I will leave you with the latest belly shot.  At 30 weeks, I am rounder than ever!

Baby G should be about 3 pounds now.  And boy do I feel it!  My belly feels so heavy and my organs don’t know where to go!  I think my intestines must be up around my diaphragm right now!  And speaking of my diaphragm…Baby G has ventured high enough that he leaves me out of breath sometimes.  And he likes to tickle my ribs.

The discomfort is definitely setting in and sleep comes only in fits and starts.  Everyone says to sleep now before the baby comes because you won’t get any sleep after he arrives.  Ha!  I wish I could sleep!  I was in bed at 9:30 last night and got up at 7…but I probably got about 4 hours of broken up sleep in that time. 

And while I am ranting… the third trimester has left my face more broken out than I can remember it ever being!  I know bad acne…As an adult, it was so bad that I was on Accutane a few years ago!  This is worse. 

There isn’t much I can do about it so I slather on the makeup, catch sleep when I can, and try to focus on how amazing it is when he dances around inside of me (taking out a rib or two in the process!). 

It really is amazing to feel him move.  My laptop is propped on a pillow on my belly right now and it is bouncing around as I type.  I love that part of being pregnant and I will miss that special connection that only I have with him when he is no longer inside of me.  I just hope to have a couple of ribs left with all is said an done! 

On Sunday night we had our first dinner guests at our new home! We were excited to show off the new house to our friends, but also excited to use our newest toy! 

Last week we got a brand new grill from Dave’s parents (it was a generous wedding gift, delayed because we didn’t have a yard to grill in until now!).  Dave spent 2 nights putting it together…that’s after two nights of assembling my beast of an elliptical machine!  Poor guy! 

As this was the grill’s maiden voyage, we were a little nervous about whether or not it would work.  So I planned dinner accordingly…In other words, I chose a dinner that I could easily make in the oven if need be.   

It sure looked pretty…but would it work?!

After filling myself up on my mom’s mango salsa the weekend before, I was craving more and decided to give it a whirl myself.  I figured fish was the type of thing that could easily move to the oven should our shiny new grill fail us. 

Mango salsa sounds wonderful to me, but just the word “salsa” has Dave running for cover!  So I knew my “salsa” would have to be sweeter than spicy.  Every recipe I saw had this kind of pepper or that kind of spice.  So I came up with my own…

• 1 mango, diced
• 1 peach, diced
• 2 Tbs chopped ginger
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 3 chopped scallions (red onion would not have gone over well with Dave)
• 1 sweet bell pepper (again, sweet, rather than spicy)
• small handful of chopped fresh basil
• 1/4 cup lime juice

I mixed together the first 6 ingredients and then mixed in the lime juice and basil to taste.  I think a touch of soy sauce might have been interesting too, but I didn’t go there (Dave won’t eat soy sauce with sushi, so he wouldn’t like it in his fish either, I would imagine).

It came out perfect!  Very refreshing.  The entire bowl was consumed among the 4 of us (yes, even Dave had some!)!  I paired it with grilled cod fillets.  I think salmon is my favorite with mango salsa, but cod is what was on sale this week. 

Not only did the salsa turn out, but the grill worked wonderfully as well.  Good job Dave!  He grilled the fish on aluminum foil and grilled some corn as well.  I had also picked up some fresh rolls from Whole Foods (as luck would have it, our new house is only a mile from Whole Foods!).  They were wonderful and a perfect excuse to have some gluten!

It was such a fun night!  We always have such fun when we get together with Ryan and Carrie.  Dave and Ryan go way back to their days at Georgetown together.  But I feel like I have known them just as long.  Sunday was extra special because they also brought the newest addition to their family over to our house.  This is Mackenzie…and I am in love!! 

She is 3 or 4 pounds of shear energy!  She is just a puppy, but as a miniature daschund, she will stay puppy-like.  Next summer is the year of the dog…I want my own Mackenzie!

Good friends, good food, an adorable puppy, and…

Kimball Farms!

It turns out, we live only about 5 minutes from one of the best ice cream spots in the area!  The ice cream in Dave’s hand is a small!  I love an ice cream joint that is generous with their servings.  Especially since I’ve been pregnant, there is no limit to the amount of ice cream I can eat!

A great night all around.  This grill will be getting quite a workout this summer! 

I can’t believe I am still catching up on the goings-on from the weekend before last.  This past weekend was really productive and had a bit of fun thrown in too.  But that will have to wait for another day because I still haven’t caught you up on my first baby shower. 

My mom is the greatest and is throwing Baby G 2 showers!  One will be in August, and I hope some of my blogger friends will be able to attend.  That shower is falling in August because that is when my mother-in-law and sister-in-law can come out to the east coast.  I am so excited to see them… having them both at my shower, being able to show them our new house, being able to get their input on the nursery…it means so much. 

Unfortunately, my family’s reunion was in July, so many of the people in my family who I would have wanted at my shower would not be here for the August party.   Not a problem for my mom…she’ll just throw 2 parties! 

I showed you the great fun we had at our annual lobster bake.  And the following day was equally fun for me.  Granted, I had to take a 2 hour Anatomy and Physiology exam on-line that afternoon….but the rest of the evening was lovely. 

My mom made quite a spread…

One the menu was piles of roasted vegetables, and quinoa-mango salad…

Then there was one of my favorite dishes that she makes…baked salmon with mango salsa!

There was also piles and piles of fresh fruit and watermelon

Unfortunately, by the time dessert was served, my camera was packed away for our trip back to Boston.  But it was delicious…apple pie, blackberry pie, and carrot cake (which she bought just for me   )

The party itself was a gift in and of itself.  We have a big, wonderful family that, like many families, is spread out all over the country.  So it was wonderful to share another evening with everyone….including a handful of family members I had never met before! 

But everyone wants to know about the presents…

Baby G made out quite well.

I won’t detail everything we got that evening because so much of it is nursery-related.  I want to show it all to you when the nursery is complete. But we did walk away with some of the major necessities…a car seat, a stroller frame, a pack n’ play, bedding…

Not to mention the tons and tons of clothes we have been sent from my generous sister-in-law.  Her twin boys are outgrowing their first year of clothes just in time for Baby G.  This is one baby who is not in need of any more clothes!  Thanks Lisa (and Will and Oliver)!

It was a really fun evening and I feel so lucky to have such a generous family, all of whom are so excited to meet this little boy. 

My mom did a fabulous job and I am so grateful to her.  She also inspired the meal we cooked up this past weekend for our first dinner party.  But that will have to wait until tomorrow…

Do you have family that lives far away?  How do you bridge that distance?

With all of my computer troubles, I never got to share with you all of the fun we had last weekend!  Every summer, my Aunt Maggie hosts our annual family reunion….in the form of a giant lobster bake!  This was the 13th summer and I still look forward to it just as much as I did when the tradition began! 

For those of you who have never had the pleasure of going to a real lobster bake, I’ll show you how its done.    First, there is the fire pit, lined with rocks.  The rocks are there to capture the heat from the fire.  Here are the men tending the fire (what is it when men and fire???)…

The picture looks blurry, but it is really the heat coming off of the fire.  Its important to keep control over it.  The first year, we scorched the trees up above!  So the hose is never far away.

When the fires dies down after several hours, then the food goes on.  This part has to happen really fast so the heat isn’t lost.  First, everyone runs to grab handfuls of seaweed.  This year, it was my aunt and my cousin who swam out to collect it.  You need a lot of it to cover the hot rocks. 

Then the trays with the food are stacked on top.  The potatoes go on the bottom…we learned this one the hard way when year after year, the potatoes never got done!  Closer to the bottom, they are closer to the heat.  Then the corn…

Then the lobsters and steamers (for those of you not from New England, steamers are clams)…

After all of the food is on, it is all covered with a wet, cloth tarp.  Wet, because we learned early on that dry will catch fire.  Cloth, because we also learned early on that a plastic tarp in immediate contact with the heat, will melt! 

Then the plastic tarp goes on top, where it won’t melt because of the wet cloth beneath it.  

Then all of the heat is sealed in by putting rocks all along the perimeter.  Anywhere you see steam escaping, a rock is placed to trap it in.

This whole process happens in about 5 minutes. 

About an hour later…the tarp comes off, and dinner is served!

There was the years when the potatoes were still crunchy.  There was the one year, where the lobsters weren’t cooked through… But I must say, everyone has this down pat now.  Everything was steamed to perfection this year! 

Only a real man can wear a lobster bib and feel secure! 

It was delicious!  A big huge thank you to my Aunt Maggie and Uncle Paul who pulled off another successful bake! 

Our weekend fun continued on Monday when my mom hosted a dinner/baby shower at her house.  I’ll share the food and the loot we received in my next post.  For now, I will just say how grateful I am to my generous family and to my unbelievable mom who threw an amazing shower for me… and is gearing up to do it again in August. 

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law (Hi Jan and Lisa!) will be visiting, so my mom is throwing another shower at our new house!  I am hoping some of my favorite Boston bloggers will be able to join us.  Beyond the celebration for Baby G, I am excited to have some of you local folks over to see our new home! 

I love family traditions and I feel lucky that we have so many.  What are your favorite summer traditions?

I’m back on-line and back to blogging!  I’ve had such a busy week, with stories to tell, but no computer to blog from!  Having an on-line class when your computer dies is also a bit tricky. 

I now have a new Dell.  A real switch for me, since I’ve been a life long Mac user.  When the hard drive on my Mac died, after 6 good years, it made more sense to get a new computer than to replace parts on such an “old” machine.  (Amazing how 6 years is a long time when it comes to technology!)  I have no complaints with Macs and would have gotten another, but they are really pricey, and with a new house, a new baby, and all of the related expenses, I was happy to find a PC that is cheaper, but also got great reviews. 

A bonus to having a PC….I finally get to see what all the fuss is about with Windows Live Writer.  I am experimenting and hopefully, this will post successfully. 

Here’s my new toy

There have been lots of new toys in the last week!  Baby G is making out well!  In addition to a family shower, where we got lots of fun baby gear, our nursery furniture also arrived!  We are going to paint the room, so everything will need to be covered, but I am enjoying just looking at the new crib, dresser and changer!  I am so grateful to my parents for giving us such a generous gift!  Thanks Mom and Dad!

I can’t wait to see it all come together!  We officially have 11 weeks (maybe less!) to make it all come together!  I am 29+ weeks now and my belly is growing!  I already feel like my tummy is stretched to capacity, which scares me because I know Baby G is going to do most of his growing in the next several weeks.  He’s already so much stronger.  His kicks can take my breath away sometimes!  Here’s where I am right now…

In other, non-baby-related new, I got another new toy this week!  When we bought a house I said I really wanted to put together a home gym.  With a baby on the way, it will be much harder to make it to the gym.  And I feel like I workout enough that buying cardio equipment will pay for itself in the money I save in monthly gym fees. 

I really want to run again after Baby G arrives.  I miss it so much and have my jogging stroller ready to go.  But in the meantime, I feel lucky I can get a good workout on the elliptical.  So the elliptical was our first purchase (another reason for not springing for the pricier Mac when my computer died!). 

After reading lots of reviews, I decided that Sole was the best brand for the price.  It is the brand that Hilton Hotels use in their hotel gyms, so I figured that if Sole machines can hold up to daily use by multiple people, they can certainly hold up to the daily use of a single person.  At the same time, Sole is not in the price range of Precor or Life Fitness machines that are thousands of dollars! 

Let me tell you….this is a sturdy machine!  We knew the moment it came out of the box in all its many pieces!  I don’t know how Dave did it, but he managed to get the fly wheel into the house.  It is not only heavy, but because the pedals “ellipticate” you can’t get a hold on it without the pedals moving!  But he did it…  And then started in on the “15-20 minute” assembly.  Ha!  After the hours it took to get it all in the house, let’s just say it took more than 20 minutes!  (I am useless in terms of lifting things or getting up and down off the floor, so it was all on him!)  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves…

This is where I stopped taking pictures because the frustration level was reaching its peak! 

3+ hours later…

It is huge!  It definitely feels like a gym-quality machine.  And thanks to the superb assembly job, there is no shaking and no noise.  I watched Regis and Kelly while I “ellipticated” this morning and didn’t have to blast the volume to hear it over the machine. 

In the fall, after Baby G arrives and I can run again, we would like to add a treadmill.  I want to train over the winter so I can run another half next spring, and with Boston winters, a treadmill is necessary for me to do any winter running. 

This post has gotten very long and I am a bit anxious about my first blog entry posting correctly on Windows Live Writer.  So I will tell you about our family reunion and annual lobster bake tomorrow.  I have a lot to learn with this program, but if I can successfully post this, that would be a great start!

Here goes nothing! 

I suddenly dropped off from the blogosphere, didn’t I?!  Well, my computer dies last Thursday.  It was time.  It had a good life.  BUt now I am computerless…a real bummer when you are taking an on-line class!  But I’ve ordered a new one and it should arrive on Wednesday.

This will be interesting for me.  I’ve always had a Mac, but am getting a Dell this time.  I hope I don’t have too much to learn!  I am excited to have more blogging software options though.  Any recommendations for me???

I am blogging quickly from my parent’s house on the Cape. We’ve had a fabulous family reunion weekend with my family, and after one more party today, will be heading back home tonight.  When I get my new computer and am up and running, I will have lots of fun pictures to share.  In the meantime, don’t forget me!

Hope you are all having a great start to the week!  :)  I’m off to take my Anatomy exam while I have computer access.

Thank you all for your enthusiasm for our new house.  We just love it!  I can’t wait to have friends over for cookouts or coffee.  Boston bloggers, I love visitors! 

We are almost completely unpacked, with the exception of hanging pictures and working on Baby G’s nursery.  That’s a good feeling when I think about the state we were in just one week ago today!  I even vacuumed yesterday for the first time.  It feels good to get up all of the dirt that accumulates in the course of a move.  It was not an easy task pulling around that vacuum up and down stairs at 6+ months pregnant.  I think, in the future (or at least for the next 2 1/2 months), I will have to vacuum one floor, then have Dave haul it up the stairs for me and do the second floor another day.

We are settling in just in time for our second anniversary week!  I say “anniversary week” for two reasons:

1. When we got married, it ended up being a week of family and festivities.

2.  This year, our anniversary falls on a Tuesday, and this Tuesday night Dave has a big work function he has to go to.  So he has planned an anniversary surprise for me tomorrow.  I actually guessed what it was and am so excited!  You will have to wait until Monday to hear all about it.  I will just say that it was an incredibly thoughtful gift and one that proves he is listening when I express an interest in something.  I’m a lucky girl! 

Next weekend is also our annual family reunion/lobster bake on the Cape with my family.  That, in itself, is so much fun!  But we also plan to get in a dinner out together to celebrate our anniversary.

I’ll share a few favorite wedding photos with you throughout the week.  We got married on Cape Cod, right on the ocean.  It was my dream wedding, to my dream guy!  Here’s a favorite beach shot.  It’s probably posted on my “about me” page because I think it captures the day so well.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!