Comfort Foods

Comfort foods are an odd thing. I'm always facinated by what people eat to make themselves feel better (and why!). Boyfriend dumped you? That's a pint of ice cream and a cry on the sofa with the girls. Sad in winter? Hot cocoa. Foot gnawed off by green mice? well... I don't think that one has ever come up.

I always think I don't have comfort foods. I'm not really a comfort eating person. But then every so often I get a craving for my Special Sammich. It's only usually once or twice a year, but when I get it I *have* to make it. Nom!

Quick background - all through high school I ate packed lunches. Nan made me 4 ham sammiches every day, and I ate them every day. The once or twice she wasn't in a sammich making capacity, I had to make my own... and I made the Special Sammich. It's a fearsome beast, designed to keep lesser mortals (and most other things) at bay, and I *loves* it.

Prepare as follows (in the style of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster recipe from HHGTG).

Take two slices of brown, wholemeal bread. Relish those seeds, those tasty little morsels, as you relish the stars in the night sky. Each one is a hope and a dream.

Add some thickly sliced cheddar cheese. Delicious cheese, made of old pressed milk. No need for butter or spread to make the ingredients stick to the bread, the cheese sticks firmly out of love for the seeds and fear of the next ingredient...

Slice an onion. More usually half an onion. This adds the essential vegetable component that all sammiches need, and the bite represents the fear that people feel at the very mention of this delectable delicacy. Opinions vary about the best onions, I'm partial to white onions to offset the dark orange of the cheese against the brown bread.

Finally, sprinkle with a little salt, in memory of those who will neger get the chance to sample this fine delicacy. People from long ago. Salt miners. Aliens. Salt mining aliens from long ago. You get the idea.

Add another two slices of bread to cover, press down *firmly* and cut into halves. Eat, relishing the delicious crunch and the wonderful smoothness. Mock the looks of disgust on your schoolmate/flatmate/significant other's faces. They can't withstand the awesome that is the Special Sammich... few can. To beat it is to experience it completely and grok it in fullness.

It's a magical experience, and it's my comfort food :)

A most curious place...

I'm in the nursery! *runs around screaming very quietly*

Bam's asleep, so I'm sat through in the baby's room cleaning baby stuff, moving things, and generally goofing around. Foobar (my awesome WinAmp replacement) has decided to play Adiemus for a while, and I'm feeling oddly *creative*. Bam wants us to paint the nursery (probably pink), but I've been struck recently by a lot of interesting wall designs. There's a couple of companies that send me e-catalogs (the only one I can remember offhand is Tatouage Designs), and I love the idea of a nice mural instead of painting the whole room one flat colour. I always wanted a mural in my room when I was small, or a Trompe L'oiel window - Bella gives me the excuse to make it happen!

So I look around the room, and I listen to Adiemus, and I think... "Gee, I used to paint. I used to paint itty bitty teeny tiny things. Why couldn't we design and paint a mural?". I picture a black tree with long branches, either in the corner or behind the crib, with pegs to hang things off, and little accents which she'll appreciate as she's older. I picture the branches extending across the ceiling, and it being decorated with white christmas tree lights. I picture white flowers (or photographs and notes) stuck along the branches in Spring as a surprise ("Look Bella, your tree flowered!). I picture all sorts of things, and it all looks so cool!

Of course, we've already started piling stuff in the nursery, so it's going to be a pain moving it, and we'd need to cover carpets etc... and we don't have any of the original paint so any mistakes are going to have to be worked in... and it's sometimes hard finding time... and we'd have to let the smell die down... and... and... and... it'll probably never happen, but I'll work on it :) Even if I end up running around with a sharpie or something! I remember seeing an awesome technique with a slide and a projector - project the image on the wall, trace it then paint it. I wonder if I could adapt that with some printer acetates and a torch...

We visited the OB today for one of our regular monthly appointments and the results of the ultrasound. Everything is progressing fine as expected and Bella is a happy, active baby. Doc had to run off to a delivery, so we cut the appointment short and covered just the essentials - with things going fine there's not much to worry about anyway. We did have a laugh in the waiting room. It was a BUSY day at the OB today and both Mom and Bam remarked on it. I whispered to Bam that it was mainly newbies so it'd go quick, she was confused so I told her "count the bumps" - half the women in there weren't showing at all!. She had to pass that onto Mom, and we had a quick giggle in the corner. Newbie appointments go way fast when there isn't a bump to deal with!

The next month is going to bring a lot of changes, moreso than July did. My mom is moving, her last day at her job was today! Nan goes off for surgery (shoulder and foot)! We reach viability (woot!) and move closer to the third trimester! We were remarking yesterday how time seems to have caught up again - it seems only a few days ago we were celebrating July 4 and the ultrasound, now we're moving into August!

Basiiiiiil!

Imagine the title spoken (shrieked!) by Prunella Scales from Fawlty Towers. Thanks :)

Having had a quiet day, and being as it's starting to get silly, I decided to harvest the Basil we've been growing. There was quite a lot... probably about half a carrier bag full! Took about 10 minutes to trim the plants down neatly, then another 20 mins or so to pluck all the leaves and put the stems aside... then a few minutes to wash... then 2 hours to dry it all! Gah!

Bam looked out a nice Pesto recipe, so we've got a jar of homemade pesto in the fridge now, and 2 quart freezer bags full of basil leaves in the freezer, and a nice bundle of leftover leaves and stems which I'm trying to dry. We'll see how that works in a week or so (then I'll proclaim it a failure and throw it out, but it's worth a try!).

Yesterday we went over to Mom's for a barbecue - Americans grill a lot! In the UK we have grills built into our ovens, so we can grill inside... I guess it makes more sense when it rains all the time! We cooked some chicken and nommed it - Bam's an awesome cook :) Bella was active all evening, so we took some timeout to let Mom see if she could feel her moving. She did, and she was way excited! It was awesome :)

We're kinda bummed at the moment that we're missing out on Comicon, but it's seriously too far away - the other side of the country! With baby things going on we couldn't go anyway, and we're scheduled to miss KolCon in September too. C'est la vie - at least we'll have an interesting toy to take/show off/threaten people with next year!

She KICKED me!

Well, it was more likely a punch knowing how she was arranged at the ultrasound, but today I *finally* felt baby moving! Bam's been feeling her squirm around for a while, but every time I put my hand on her belly, the baby instantly went still.

I'm hoping it still works when she's born! *waaah!* *waaah!* *poke* *silence* :D

It's the little things that make me a happy bunny. Speaking of which, we had a bunny in our front garden-ish yesterday. He watched us walk up the path, then down the road... and then casually ambled back into the woods.

I remarked to Bam, that's the bunny we could be saving with Geiko. She was amused. It's the little things :P

In other interesting news, Today was Reiki II day. I learned more (which seemed all oddly familiar), I drew funny shapes, I played with my new bear, and now I've got another pretty Reiki certificate. Reiki is awesome stuff, and I can *feel* the difference with my new attunement. I'm looking forward to the next one now (in another month or so, I've practice to do first). Baby greatly enjoys Reiki, it's one of the reasons she goes so totally still when I touch Bam's tummy. Catface also greatly enjoys Reiki (although she might just enjoy being petted, she's a very social cat). The plants are enjoying their Reiki - our little cucumbers have 4 leaves now and the pepper plant is growing more fruit!

I'm a big fan of Reiki, can you tell?

That Darned Cat!

We've sort of unofficially adopted the street stray, Catface, after her owners apparently kicked her out at the start of spring. She's a lovely old cat, best guess at age is about 12, and she's easy to look after, but with the pregnancy and her being an outdoor cat she's currently banished to the Outside.

She disapproves of this.

However, she's not *too* disapproving. Her food (kibbles) gets put out on the windowledge to stop bugs getting to it (unsuccessfully), she always has water, and when there's leftover scraps I usually manage to sneak them out to her without Bam noticing. Or she just turns a blind eye, I don't really know. Catface repays this by guarding the house when I go out and Bam doesn't. Literally, she'll sit guard at the front door and wait for me to 'relieve' her. It's sweet.

She's also brought us a mouse, once (apparently the neighbours saw her carrying a squirrel about a month ago, she didn't bring that to the house, phew!), she likes to lay in the little patch we call the garden, and has to occasionally be chased out of the planter trough with the baby cucumbers in. She's a good cat really, but she likes to push the boundaries at times.

I think it's good training for a baby... just with less fur and more poop. And we can't banish Bella outside if she's a pain. Maybe not all that good training :/

It's a baby!

*mumble mumble* busy *mumble* working *mumble* lazy.

One of those three is right. Probably more than one. Possibly all of the above. A bad blogger is me!

Things have been pretty busy recently. Today we had our Big Ultrasound (tm), which consisted of the Tech pointing and clicking lots at the baby, the baby chewing her fingers, filling her bladder, and generally being uncooperative as possible. She didn't stop moving, she shifted at exactly the wrong times, and I think managed to flip completely at least once.

I can see this parenting thing is going to be fun!

Anywhoo, we decided that the baby was British a few weeks ago because she "drives" on the left. Now we've had it confirmed as throught 99% of the ultrasound she refused to uncross her legs. I guess that's really a good thing, and I'm sure I'll be referring to it frequently in the future (around her teenage years no doubt), but we did get one fairly clear shot. Judging by the lack of exterior equipment, we're having a girl!

Of course, we knew this. We've known this for a good few months now. I know she's going to have dark-brown hair (which is likely to get darker as she gets older, unless she dyes it or something). I know she's going to be Trouble. I know she prefers to be called Bella. I know she likes signing, but demands it be done *properly*. I know these things, because I've talked to her and she's talked to me.

I also know she thinks I'm silly about some things, and that she has to be patient and translate stuff from Bella to Dad at times because I simply don't *get* it. But I don't really feel all that special in that regard. We've agreed that I'll do my best to keep up with things, but I barely understand my own generation and hers is going to be worse. C'est la vie.

I'm just glad it's not a football headed, tentacle limbed mutant. Whilst I'm sure there's some epic karma payback for birthing a Great Eldar God, I don't think the world is ready for Cthulhu to awaken and unleash her terrible vengeance... and that goes double for a female version of Stewie. I'm happy she's got the appropriate number of appendages and is healthy!

Baby names and winning ways

Today has been a cleaning day, I'm trying to stay off That Game Which Uses Up All My Time (KoL) and use my energy in productive ways. Since there is tidying to do before visiting people descend on us on Thursday, I'm cleaning. It's not so bad - if I wear my MP3 player I can rock out whilst I do it, and I don't disturb Bam too much if she's napping or whatever. Since the Reiki stuff last weekend I seem to have had a bit more energy so I'm making sure I use it rather than waste it. I've been told to watch out for icky side-effects but if this is the worst thing I've got coming then I'm very pleased! Course, it helps that I've been very much living the Reiki principles for the last 5 years or so, and we eat very healthily anyway.

Today's boggling is at baby names. It might just be because Bam and I are freaking awesome, but we didn't have any problem with baby naming. We thought about it for a few days, Bam vetoed the use of Deadpool, other superheroes and video game characters, and we quickly got our names. One set for a boy, one set for a girl, and one backup set for another girl just incase we had twins. We're not having twins (as far as we know). And they're sensible names! They're not strange, bizarre things like Tamisheena or Gorthomax or something which sounds like it should be a drug or an alien race. Whatever gender our offspring is (we find out in 10 days), it won't have silly initials either. They're good, sensible names that out offspring can be happy with, won't be teased about too much, and both sets shorten nicely.

I can't understand why people have so much problem naming babies. I can see reasons to be careful, I can see names to avoid, but that still leaves a million names to choose from. In a worst case scenario, it's easy to look up a rung or two on your family tree and see what your relatives were called and use that - I'm named after my grand-uncle, my father and my eldest uncle.

As for the winning ways in the title... As well as being a sucker for anything free (Blame the Irish/Scottish blood), I'm a competition whore. If there's something I can enter, I'll enter it. If it needs a tie-breaker, all the better. So long as all I need to do is click and type I can happily enter things all day and all night, for the most pointless of prizes. It's not a bad compulsion, and it's done me pretty well over time - in the last week I've won $5 from Honey Nut Cheerios (thanks, giant bees!) and tonight I won a set of calendars for moms.

We *really* need those calendars!

So, I'll keep entering random things, for random prizes. I've never won a car or a holiday yet, but there's plenty of time and oppertunity! :D