February 2008 Archives

Without fail, around 2:00 pm every day I get a major craving for cookies. This means that every day I get to go down and bother Aubrey at her desk: Do you have cookies? Where are the cookies? Why hasn't that baker who sometimes brings free cookies to us brought us any free cookies? So can you call him or what?

Aubrey usually responds that no, she doesn't have any fresh baked cookies in her desk, but why don't I bring some Girl Scout cookies to work and then I'd have them when I want them. And I'm all: Girl Scout cookies! Yes! Do you have any of those?

The problem is that in the early mornings when I am packing up food, cookies sound disgusting. I look at the boxes of Girl Scout cookies and think, I should bring some to work. Then I feel like puking and can't bring myself to even look at them, much less touch them and put them into baggies. I think: There is no way I will ever want those cookies today. Blech.

Then 2:00 rolls around and all I can do is mourn the cookies sitting useless in my kitchen at home. It's a sad cycle.

Remember last year when I realized Denver loves to write thank you notes? I got another one yesterday. From Nordstrom. Specifically from the dude at the Kiehl's cosmetics counter thanking me for purchasing some hair serum. He really hoped I liked it. No no, thank YOU, Kiehl's cosmetics counter dude. Thank YOU.

It might reach 70 here on Saturday, which means it's officially on the way to spring. It also may snow on Sunday, which means spring is a relative term in Denver.

Thanks for all the nice wishes! It feels good to be able to talk about being pregnant; I think not writing about it on blog was part of the three month hiatus. Who can concentrate on hilarious reality television when all you can really think about is not puking every time you check your spam folder and have to read another spam recipe link on top of your messages.

I am just now getting back on good terms with food, which is great because I like food and being held hostage by powerful nausea is no way to properly nourish your body or enjoy going out with friends. J and I hit up Whole Foods over the weekend and we stopped in the yogurt section. We often buy Stonyfield Farms brand because it's made with pectin instead of gelatin, gelatin not being vegetarian-friendly. I don't normally go for gimmicky food stuffs geared at a particular demographic, but this did catch my attention:

First of all: "YoMommy"? Hahahahaha! But upon further examination, it contains folic acid and vitamin D and DHA and it was on sale, so hey, why not? I sat down the next day to eat some and after the first bite--which tasted fine--I happened to turn the container around to look at the ingredients. Let's take a look:

OUR FAMILY RECIPE: CULTURED PASTEURIZED ORGANIC LOW FAT MILK, NATURALLY MILLED ORGANIC SUGAR, ORGANIC RASPBERRIES, FISH OIL (ANCHOVY OIL, SARDINE OIL, TILAPIA FISH GELATIN: A NATURAL SOURCE OF DHA), PECTIN, ORGANIC BLACK CURRANT JUICE CONCENTRATE (FOR COLOR), NATURAL FLAVOR, VITAMIN D3, FOLIC ACID. CONTAINS OUR EXCLUSIVE BLEND OF SIX LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES INCLUDING L. ACIDOPHILUS, BIFIDUS, L. CASEI AND L. RHAMNOSUS.

Fish oil! Lots of fish oil! For those of you keeping track, this would make they yogurt decidedly non-vegetarian. At first I was just baffled. But then I got mad. Who puts fish oil in fruit yogurt? Especially yogurt that is usually catering to vegetarians concerned about something like gelatin. They should more clearly indicate on the label that the DHA their promoting comes from fish (there is vegetarian algae-derived sources of DHA), but then again, why would they? Would you pick up a blueberry yogurt that advertised it was now made with additional fish oil?

Let me tell you: thinking about fish yogurt is the last thing you want to be doing when you're just getting over first trimester nausea.

At many people's request, I finally took and loaded up pictures of the new house. I'd been avoiding it mostly because everything is still in disarray and it's hard to show off and apologize at the same time. But I know if my friend in another state bought a home, I'd be drooling to look at pictures, and of course wouldn't care that their basement was filled with miscellaneous boxes and that their bedroom, while painted, was still looking very...sparse. So, with all that in mind, here's the new house! A full set can be seen here.

Here's the front:

And the big ol' backyard:

The living room:

Dining room area:

Some of the kitchen:

Bedroom, starring Pinky:

Office, where I'm writing this right this very minute:

And here's one of my favorite rooms:

In about six months, this room will belong to a baby. Our baby, to be exact. Hopefully, we'll get a crib and junk by then, because apparently boxes aren't proper sleeping surfaces for kids.

If you want the full walking tour (a little under four minutes), you can see it here. (UPDATE: the video's now public; I think it defaulted to private, but we're all good now.)

The thing with owning a house is there is so much more to remember. We leave lights on in the basement, I forget to turn off the car port light and porch light in the morning. We now have regular trash and recycling days and have to remember to bring the cans to the curb at the right time. I'm terrified of the first heating bill we'll get, so we have to constantly remember to make sure the heat is turned down sufficiently at night. Also, I'm pretty sure there was some electrical thing we are supposed to get done soon, and we still have to replace one of the doors in the house, and put in a vent for the dryer, and figure out what to do about the half-put-down contact paper in the kitchen cabinets and the old person smell in the bathroom cabinets.

I'm sure we'll get everything done eventually and we'll find a routine that works, but in the meantime, I feel a little like I'm taking a test I didn't study very hard for.

In dessert news, you know what is super delicious? Banana splits. You have to do it right, with Neapolitan ice cream, drizzled sauces, jimmies and/or nuts, whip cream and a cherry. But let me tell you: it's worth the effort.

The big news is: we're homeowners! After a few weeks of looking, we hit on a ranch style house built in 1956 that we fell in love with. I'll admit I had a brief flirtation with another smaller house that had a completely updated, stainless steel fancy kitchen, but I came to my senses.

It turned out that the one we picked was a single-owner home which, considering it was built 52-years ago, is a pretty big deal. The owner kept everything in really good condition and did some clean-up and updates throughout the house before putting it on the market. These included ripping up some ugly (or so we've heard) carpeting to reveal beautiful original wood floors. Bonus!

I'd like to do updates on the kitchen and bathrooms eventually, but they're not hard on the eyes in the meantime. Not like some houses we looked at that had bright green toilets and pink bathroom tile, or a carpeted kitchen with a bizarre "futuristic" 50s stove that had the four burners all in a row. We have a big old basement that's not quite finished, which makes it perfect for, say, roller skating or bocce ball. The yard is absolutely huge. Like bigger than two New York apartments put together. A friend has a big movie screen and a projector, so we're envisioning lots of summer movie nights.

Upon unpacking, we found:

* an old kitchen message board with cartoons and notes from the 70s
* a door that had been taken down with height marks and notes for children and grandchildren starting in 1961

At the closing, we met the owner, who was a very sweet old man. Turns out he actually picked the plans out for the house (from a book at the library) and had it built. He said he only regretted not having the builder take out the door that comes off the living room because, as he later realized, in the plans that door was only there to lead to a swimming pool.

He married his high school sweetheart and must have bought that house when he was only a kid. His wife recently passed away and he moved out only because he couldn't stand to be in the house any longer without her.

So now J and I are starting a new life here and I couldn't be happier. We're spending the weekends painting and rearranging and basically marveling at what to do with so much space.

New York might have the tastiest bakeries, the best orange tofu dish in the world, and a burning pulse you won't find anywhere else. But in Denver, we finally found a home.

Hey there! I'm thinking of bringing this thing back from the dead. There are lots of exciting things happening, so maybe I can pry myself out of this blogging malaise. I hate to make promises that I can't keep, so let's just keep this thing, y'know, casual for now. I miss you guys!