39 Weeks

Well, I'm still here and still pregnant. About 2 weeks ago I was on a "get-this-baby-out-of-me-NOW" wave, but that has settled down and I'm enjoying maternity leave (HELLO long-lost home and craft projects) and spending time with Matt before we become a family of 3.

The anxiety of "ANYDAY NOW!" is starting to wear on me a bit, but I'm trying not to think about it manically.

So here we go, hopefully this will be my last Baby Bean entry and I'll be able to move Baby DMC entries :D !

How far along? 39 Weeks

Total Weight Gain: (+32) since pre-pregnancy. I have no idea where this weight has gone, and what a joy it is to think of losing it again ;).

Maternity Clothes? I'm almost exclusively wearing strapless sun dresses since the temperatures have moved up into the 90s around here. However, my pre-pregnancy shirts seem to fit better, DMC has dropped and my belly now has a different shape to it.

Stretch Marks? Still none. Amazed.

Sleep? Pretty good. Matt and I are trying to sleep as much as humanly possible these last couple weeks.

Best Moment This Week: Two things. 1) MATERNITY LEAVE! and 2) Coming to peace with the fact that this is almost over and we get to meet our little boy VERY soon!

Movement: Very strong pushes and rolls. Since he's down in my pelvis he's putting a lot of pressure on my bladder and I've got some pain in my hips.

Food Cravings: Cravings seem to be letting up. However, still some small cravings for Carbs. I could eat waffles for every meal! I am really hungry all the time, and being home all day does not fair well with that!

Gender: BOY

Labor Signs: Very crampy at nights. Last night was the first time I was having consistent contractions - about every 30 minutes for 4 hours. As of 37 weeks, I am/was 50% effaced.

Belly Button - In or Out? In - but looks different due to the change in my belly shape from the dropping.

What I miss: RAW SUSHI... I am seriously making Matt stop on the way home from the hospital. I don't care if it's 10am.

What I am looking forward to: Meeting our little guy any moment now.

Weekly Wisdom: Something about the end of pregnancy makes even sane people a little crazy. I've been getting phone calls and texts all week from family members asking "Baby news?" Mind you, this is close family, like my mom and MIL. I was tempted to tell my mom the other day "OH YEAH, I've been in labor for 6 hours, I just forgot to call you." Seriously people, you WILL be notified, I promise. Until then stop, you're contributing to the anxiety.

Milestones: 1 week to due date, all systems are ready for GO!

Pregnancy has been making me even more domestic that I am on a regular basis. Hand-Sewn Burpies AND Sour-Cream Lemon Poundcake from scratch? I could get used to this.

Dinner at Chez Persimmon

I had an urge to make dinner a little extra gourmet last night. I picked up some saffron CHEAP at Trader Joes a couple months ago, and was looking for a non-Paella recipe to use it in. Enter Mussels in Saffron and White Wine Broth. Wine? Saffron? Mussels? YES PLEASE


Making the broth. The house smelled sooooo yummy

I also splurged for the Heirloom Tomatoes & fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano and made a simple salad with olive oil, basil, and chives.



Bought some flowers and set the table outside


Nevermind that it was still 92 degrees at 7pm....

Couldn't wait to dive in!


Fuzzy photos due to iPhone+low light, but don't let that fool you. This was A+ good

And, I now get to look at the flowers every day. I love white roses!

How To Write a Catch-up Post in 5 Minutes

So. Busy. This. Week.

I've had so many interesting things going on the last couple weeks to blog about, but I haven't found the brainpower and/or time to do it.

For example, I could have told you about how AWESOME the bread turned out, and how DELICIOUS it was slathered with the roasted-tomato puree and fresh Parmesan.



I could also talk about how my trip over to knitpicks.com for some Bare Sock Yarn ended up yielding me some new stash.





Or maybe about my experience of finally learning how to shoot 2 of the 4 guns that currently reside in our house.



Of course there is also my completed Elemental Boatneck, and how I'm not digging the way it fits me but is perfect for my sister.



There was also the incident where I nearly died laughing upon picking up Viva from her first trip to the groomer in 2 years. Bows on a cat? Really?



Finally there was the newest installment of the Shi-Bui Sock Project that Lisa and I have had in progress since July [See Ravelry for previous installments]



But again, I don't have the time or the brainpower. Maybe next week.

What I Did On My Furlough Day

These humble tomatoes...



became...



which will be consumed once this...



has been baked in the morning.

(OK, I also did laundry, folded an EXISTING pile of laundry that was 3 times bigger than me, grocery shopped, & knit)

An FO to share tomorrow.

Sunday FOODday

I ate better on Sunday than I have in a long time!

Sunday morning after a wedding my DH, his brother, and my soon-to-be SIL headed to Carousel in Hollywood for some Armenian feasting. And feast we did.


Tabbouleh, Kheyma, Hummus, Baba Ganoush, Cabbage Salad.

I HIGHLY recommend this place if you like middle-eastern food. I seriously cannot wait to head back to LA so we can go again. Sadly, that won't be until December :(

Thoroughly stuffed from lunch we headed home, and upon arriving Matt decided he needed to make a Costco run. Well, we can't go to Costco and NOT get the King Crab Legs.


King Crab grilled with butter, wine, lemon, dill and pepper.

YYYUUUUUMMMMMMMM. And I wasn't even hungry.

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Thanks to the 8 hours in the car to LA and back, I started and got about 30% of the way through a new cardi, Trina.


I really, REALLY adore Jo Sharp Silkroad Aran Tweed.

I'm worried I might be a little short on Brindle, the MC, so I am doing the turned-hems with some leftover yarn from Matt's Cobblestone. I'm knitting the Medium which is a touch to small, so I went up to a size 9 needle and I like the resulting fabric.

An Embarssasingly Long-Overdue FO

That title says it all.



According to Ravelry, I started this thing in May 2008. In other words, it took me 14 months to knit 590 yards of yarn. That's ridiculous, really.

Ballet Camisole by Alexandra Virgiel
Size
38 inch bust
Needle
US 5 / 3.75 mm
US 7 / 4.5 mm
Yarn
Cascade Yarns Pima Tencel
How much?
5.5 skeins = 599.5 yards (548.2m)



As you may remember the knitting on this was pretty quick, it was the finishing that defeated me. Since I was being stubborn, I threw this in a basket for over a year, refusing to try again. Well finally I got my head out of my a*s and finished it.

TA-DA!

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So check out my nice little setup for our dinner party on Saturday. That black&white cloth is from the bargain bin at Forever 21. I bought it as a neckerchief but it was too big, so now it protects my table from that big silver bowl.



One of the perks to being married to a farmer (at least in his youth) is the abundance of fresh fruit we get from his parents this time of year.



Grilled peaches are my new favorite.

Breathing Life Into Dead Ambitions

A couple days ago I got this renewed commitment to finish all these half-completed projects taking up room in my WIP basket.

First up was Glorious Colors Afghan, which (for those of you non-ravelers... DAD) is a giant afghan, that I not-so-intelligently started in June. 2 years ago. And knit one of the three panels before saying ENOUGH to sitting under a blanket in the Fresno summer. I was home sick and had a serious case of the chills, so I figured it was a good as time as ever to start up again. I knit the entire 2nd panel in one day, and now it's 1,000 degrees again and I don't want to touch the 3rd one. At least it was progress.

Next up was the Ballet Camisole that I started last May, knit up in a few days, then through a hissy-fit because I couldn't do the finishing to my liking. It took me awhile, and I'm still not 100% happy, but at least I finished it.



I'm now working on a pair of socks that, thanks to about 30 minutes of searching my blog archive, have a start date sometime back in the fall of 2005. Luckily I remembered the needle size, but I don't know what pattern I used or any other nonsense like that. So I am eyeballing the finished sock and hoping for the best.



I'm also still working on Buttercup, AKA the apparent "it" pattern of Summer 2009.



I was unsure if the neckline was going to be too big so I did the finishing on it and it’s MUCH better. Be sure you pick up the cast on stitches, not the row below, or it will be too big.

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In cooking, I made a delish salad last night I wanted to share.

Marinated Shrimp and Scallop Salad with Capers



Per my usual changes, I cut the oil in half and added more vinegar (we like TANGY in this house), and added some blanched asparagus on the side. YUMMY.

5.14.09

We're enjoying our two weeks of Spring here in Fres-yes. By Sunday it's going to be 103, so we have to enjoy the backyard while it's still relatively cool and everything hasn't shriveled up and died.

Had a nice little outdoor dinner party last night, which was the perfect excuse to heat up some of my grandma's awesome marinara sauce.





Of course, I don't have 4 hours to make the homemade gnocchi like she does, but the Trader Joe's version worked just fine. With a salad and bread, nothing too complicated.

And red wine, of course! This wine we were drinking is still from our wedding. Yup, 15 months ago! I don't think I ever talked about it on here but we (and by we, I mean Matt) built a fridge that could dispense wine from a tap so that we could buy wine in bulk, put it in soda kegs, and be able to avoid the 1/2 drank bottles going to waste. Plus, anything that wasn't finished (oh, about 20 gallons worth!) could live in our backyard and we could enjoy it for months to come. We're finally onto the last soda keg!

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I ripped out a few projects that just weren't going to make it, and started another one (that's me - the forever-casting on-er).



Pintuck T, in some Louet Linen from the stash. I just finished the short-row shaping on the bottom (which is genius, btw).

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I also got a new haircut, which I love.



I've come a long way from cutting my own hair in my little studio apartment back in the grad school days!

The Great Yarn Re-Org of 2009

Friday night we had our dinner club, with a "Hawaiian" theme. To be honest, I'm usually really good with all the foodie stuff but was short of ideas on what to bring to this one. Since I didn't think the hosts would appreciate a Slow-cooked Hawaiian Kalua Pig in their backyard, I settled for an old favorite with a new twist. I found this recipe for Sake-Soy Guacamole in one of my Sunset magazines. It was by a Hawaiian chef so that counts, right?

I didn't catch a photo of it but I HIGHLY recommend it. It still has all that avocado-yumminess you expect from Guac, but with a smoother, tangier (is that a word?) taste. Served it with Tarro chips, but I think it would have been really yummy with the veggies suggested as well.

Before the dinner, I spent my Friday afternoon organizing, photographing, and Ravelring (I making up words left and right today!) my entire yarn stash.

BEFORE:




AFTER:





Check out the fruits of my labor over here at Ravelry. I also have about 15 projects lined up with yarn I already have, so let's see how far I can make it into the year without buying yarn.

Saturday the spring cleaning continued into our closets. However the effort was somewhat deterred by a phone call from a friend inviting us up to the lake on their boat. How do you say NO to that?



Katy came along and got to try out her new life vest.





Sunday was Mother's Day and we spent some time visiting with M's mom and Grandma, then headed to my mom's house for dinner. I was in charge of dessert, and brought Mimosa Granita, served with Vanilla Ice Cream & Strawberries. Highly recommended, especially if you live somewhere like the Central Valley and it's already 85 degrees at 8pm.

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In other news, I have been getting a mad, mad itch to start sewing again. My sewing machine has been buried in our spare bedroom but it is actually starting to see the light of day thanks to our weekend clean-up. I've been seeing this top popping up all over blogland and I LOVE it - I could see myself wearing it all summer long. I'm hoping I will have a few hours on my hands this week/end to give it a whirl...

Weekend Eats

Updated 5/11/09 with more photos

This past weekend we were at yet another Giants game at AT&T Park in SF. We were there for an annual outing with my dad's family.



We actually headed up the night before and met some of my sister's friends for dinner at Osha Thai Restaurant, which was BOMB, and some drinks.

The next morning, we took our time walking to the game along the Embarcadero and were finally able to stop at Hidive, a bar we always talk about stopping at but we never do.



We had a round of Bloody Mary's and prayed the rain would stop before first pitch. It did.

Sadly the Giants had a not-so-stellar performance, but we were able to sit in the Club Level for the second half of the game and take in the view.



My dad is 1/2 German, so we decided that this year we would have an an authentic German meal to cap off a day at the ballpark. Schroder's answered the call wonderfully. I'm not going to lie, I was a little hesitant. Most of the German food I am familiar with are the dishes we have at Christmas - German Sausage, Potato Salad, Kuchen, and the liverwurst that my dad special orders and tries to force on us every year.

We started out some Sausage Appetizer Platters, which had a variety of cocktail size Sausages with Kassler Ripchen (Smoked Pork Chops), Potato Pancakes, Herring, Pickles, Head Cheese, Sauerkraut, & Red Cabbage. I really liked the Herring (I might have been the only one at our 1/2 of the table to try it!) and Red Cabbage.

Next up was small plates of German Potato Salad and Cole Slaw, which I devoured. For the main course I had Grilled Salmon with Dill Sauce & boiled potatoes )lots of starches for those Germans!), and I was definitely happy with it. Oh yeah, and then there was the beer.



That's "Bavarian-sized", or 38oz of brew. But alas, this was not the largest beer you could order. Apparently there is something called "The Boot", which is an 80 oz glass in the shape of an actual men's boot. There was a group of kids at the table behind us trying to finish them off, but they finally gave up. THANK GOD, because their random bouts of Karaoke was getting really, really annoying.

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One final foodie-related post from this weekend: Last night we headed to our friends house for Sunday night dinner, and finished off the meal with some 5-Minute Chocolate Cake. Yes really. It had a pretty funky texture - kind of chewy, but hey! It really was cake in 5 minutes! Definitely add some whipped cream.