Even though it rained off and on, the sun did peek through fairly often. That combined with my first visit to IKEA marked my official truce called with the Pacific Northwest. We are now friends again. I'm not packing up and leaving Denver or anything, but I probably shouldn't think about the waffle cart too much for fear that I will rationalize a $200 plane ticket in the near future just to jam one more waffle in my mouth. I'm pregnant and prone to irrational behavior! If I go missing, you'll know where to look.

Every morning while I eat my cereal, I tune into a little television. I used to exclusively watch the news, flipping between several stations, but during a rare all-commercial moment, I skipped around and found "A Baby Story" on TLC. Now guess what I watch for ten minutes every day? The timing of it is such that I usually get to watch the actual birth. Maybe you would think this is a bad choice for breakfast viewing, but whatever. It's all TLC'd and junk so it's pretty non-graphic. Anyway, I think if I watch an average of 5 births a week until I have to give birth, it will dull my reaction to it when it actually happens. Like somehow watching birth stories will count as some sort of actual experience. You do get a good sampling of stories: cesareans, natural births, water births, epidurals. This helps you learn things, like water births look pretty relaxing, and you can sleep through labor on an epidural, and at some point all the women declare that they don't want to do this anymore.

The one thing I have definitely decided on is that people who have their birth stories filmed for national television are cra-zy. At this point, I'm not even sure I want a camera in room, much less a video camera, and MUCH LESS a film crew. So see, I'm learning things about myself already.

Sorry for the birthing tangent. Here is a wonderful picture of a Cap'n Crunch Voodoo Doughnut to clear your head:

It's no waffle cart waffle, but still pretty wonderful.

I have the bella band but it starts look a little bulky there once the pants are completely unbuttoned and unzipped. I know, I know, Gap, Old Navy, Target, blah blah blah. But the truth is, those stores have their off times even when you're not restricted to a tiny area in the corner. So if you scope them all out and don't find anything, there's not really a nice Banana Republic or Anthropologie to run to. There are lots on Ebay and Craigslist, and I'm getting some borrowed stuff, but it doesn't mean everything actually fits right or is exactly your style. Not to mention your body's a little different every time you go to put something on.

I guess this is part of the sacrifices one makes. It's not enough to carry a baby around in your guts for nine months, you gotta do it in a puffy smock with bow. Ha ha.

* * *

Listening to radio
J: Is he saying "shorty" or "Shirley"?

Liz: What? "Shorty"!

J: Who's Shorty?

Liz: You've never heard "shorty" before? It's slang for a girl. It's mentioned in like every hip hop song. How have you never noticed this?

J: I don't know.

Liz: In like every hip hop song this radio station plays.

*pause*

Liz: You've heard it before. What about that awful Shaggy cover of "Angel" that they played nonstop for years. Shorty, you're my angel, you're my darling angel... You know that song.

J: Yeah. I guess I thought they were saying "Shirley."

It was a weird time for me. I tried too hard to fit in with some people and didn't try hard enough to relate to others. I wrote really bad poetry. I went on snowy winter backpacking trips. I went to frat parties. I worked in the coffee shop. I tried to audit a philosophy class. I wrote a bunch of incoherent nonsense about Ulysses for my senior thesis (though I thought it was brilliant at the time). Colorado born and bred, the constant cloudiness and rain there felt overly oppressive. I felt miserable most of the time, though it was punctuated by moments of happiness. I only have a couple friends I still keep in touch with from there.

Every so often, I'd hop in the car and head down to Portland to visit Willow, where I'd get to absorb her own, very different, college experience. No less angsty, but much more hippy.

The whole experience was in stark contrast to my time on the east coast, where I immediately felt in place. I spent the hardest years of my life so far there between 9-11 and trying to find a good job while living off pennies, yet it somehow immediately resonated differently with me. And Denver, well, Denver's home.

I'm looking forward to starting fresh with the Northwest, washing it free of all the bad connotations from the past and seeing it again with new eyes. Everything is different now anyway. No one's in college, Willow has her own home and job and friends there. I'll be visiting to share in something happy and already established instead of running away from something uncomfortable.

Plus, we're being taken to Voodoo Doughnuts. Things tend to turn out okay when there are human-head sized donuts around.

socks
slippers
pajama bottoms
tissues
large sytrofoam cube
Giant blue stuffed elephant
open mini box of Nerds

As promised, a pic of the chess set cake:

I have to guess it's pregnancy related, but I am having the most disturbing set of dreams lately. They range from the the mildly upsetting (gulping down diet coke and being unable to stop) to really gory (participating in a killing rampage). I've been consuming only the most mild of reading material before bed (New Yorker profiles, US Weekly, baby development books), so can't really imagine where it's all coming from. I mean except as the manifestation of fear and anxiety about growing a baby and all. But still. Shouldn't I just be having those "I gave birth to a chicken!" dreams?

I made J a chess set cake, with molded chocolate chess pieces and everything. It was one of those things that seemed like an excellent idea at the time and then morphed into The Biggest Project Ever. (I have pics, but haven't loaded them yet; hold tight.) I think the end project was worth it, because then I immediately started getting ideas for other types of theme cakes. Monopoly board! Scrabble! Sometimes I think I just think up super-involved projects just to test my insanity. You'll know I've lost it for real if I ever start molding little red houses.

Overheard at the mall at the Swarovski crystal stand:

"Of course we don't have the full line here, since this is just a kiosk."

Overheard at Sam's Club:

"None of my other kids would use one, so when my youngest girl was born I made her carry around that blanket everywhere. She finally gave it up when she was seven, though. I just thought it was so cute!"

I got to hear the baby's heartbeat again, which is totally thrilling. I'm just looking kinda pudgy these days, not really preggo yet, so I'm understandably excited every time there's a confirmation of a real live baby in there, rather than just too many cookies and cream ice cream cones. We'll go to our first ultrasound on April 14th, where we'll hopefully find out if we're having a little Hurkey Jobson or Lobo Steel. Very exciting.

Okay, I can't get the beef panties from ANTM out of my head. Beef panties! Aside from being repulsive in every possible way, those panties cannot be sanitary. Do you think they got to wear some sort of protective, beef-juice-repelling swimsuit bottoms or something underneath? I'm going to go with yes, if only so I can go through my day without actually shuddering into a million pieces.

We searched for awhile on the internet, and while looking up Snickers bar recipes I suddenly had a flash of memory that I'd eaten this before. It didn't sound familiar to J at all, but a call home to my my mom confirmed that not only had I eaten it before, but that we had made it one Christmas. I asked if she still had the recipe and while rummaging around she mentioned she thought she'd gotten it from me. Well!

This is exactly what gmail is perfect for. A quick search turned up an email I sent my mom in 2006 with a link to this recipe. Funny how things come full circle.

We doubled the top layer, though I don't think it needed it in the end. Just a caution that natural peanut butters won't work well in this recipe; you need the gross stuff with the hydrogenated oils in it. I suppose I should also warn you that this tends to make people go crazy. They will a) not believe you made it, b) insist it is the best stuff they've ever put in their mouths, and c) curse you while going back for fourths.

*Despite there being much talk of promised cherry pies, none materialized.

Me: Excuse me, we were just at another store and they called here to have you hold some fabric for us. Where do we go to get that?

Sales Lady: At the cut table.

Me: Okay, thanks.

[take a number (seriously!) and wait at cut table for 20 minutes]

Cut Table Lady: Number 14!

Me: Hi, we were just at another store and they called here to have you hold some fabric for us.

CTL: Huh. Really? I don't have anything here. Hold on a minute.

[calls to original Sales Lady]

Hey! Are you holding some fabric for someone over there?

Sales Lady: Yes.

CTL: She'll help you over there.

Me [to Sales Lady]: Y'know, I asked you where to go and you had me wait in line at that table for 20 minutes.

Sales Lady: . . .

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.

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.

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.)

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.