We've been checking out a bunch of baby-related books from the library recently. This past week, I read The Diaper-Free Baby, which is about elimination communication. The basic premise is that babies are born with an awareness of their need to pee/poop, and an ability to communicate that need to parents (albeit subtly at first). Typically, we train them to go in a diaper, and then a few years later, we have to retrain them not to go in their diaper. Theoretically, if you follow the EC approach, they will communicate with you when they need to go, so you can have them use a potty from the start instead of using diapers.

When I first heard about EC a few years ago, I thought it sounded pretty crazy (and stressful--like do you have to spend all your time watching the baby, always poised to rush them to a toilet?), but after reading the book, I think it seems pretty reasonable. The nice thing is that there's no need to go cold turkey; you can just go diaper-free a few hours a week if you want. If it means fewer diapers to clean up, it seems worth a try. Of course, I say that now, before the baby's born. Trying EC might fall by the wayside when we're actually in the midst of figuring out how to care for a baby. But the nice thing is that you can start at any point, so we don't have to worry about it right away if it seems overwhelming.

In other news, I bought this cute giraffe, made by local crafter ScissorStitch, at Union Rose. This is the kind of thing that I would normally see and say "I can make that!" and not buy it, and also never end up making it. But this was reasonably priced, and I figured I have enough crafting projects to do, so I just bought it. It makes me happy :)

Since I was traveling last week, I don't have much in the way of food pictures to share, but we did get in a couple of meals before I left.

1. Tomato sauce with butter and onions. This was easy and tasty, as promised. I definitely plan on making it again.

2. Vegetarian baked beans (from Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook) and golden northern cornbread. The beans turned out really good, probably because of all the yummy butter and sugar that went into them. The only downside was that for the first 8 or so hours of cooking, the house smelled like cooking beans, which is not the most pleasant aroma. But the end product was worth it.

3. I had some heavy cream left over from various meals, so I used it to make hot fudge sauce (recipe from Dorie Greenspan's Baking). It hardens when you put it on ice cream, which is my favorite part about hot fudge sauce. Yum!

In other food news, I'm a little worried about the Little Blue Waffle Wagon. They've disappeared from their spot on Division Street! I know they had cut back their hours for winter, but this seems a little extreme. Are they gone for good? I hope not! In the meantime, I'm comforting myself with waffles from the nearby Waffle Window. Not a bad alternative!

He makes me laugh :) Real post and picture to come in a few days when I'm back home...

The bigger paint companies have all sorts of fun online tools for choosing paint colors, but I'm having enough trouble choosing between Yolo's 85 colors--I don't need hundreds more to choose from! Although Sherwin-Williams' iPhone app does sound cool.

My top five Yolo colors in no particular order:

Nourish 01:

Aspire 03:

Thrive 02:

Water 02:

Dream 04:

Yolo's website recommends blues, greens, and neutrals for bedrooms, and there is the anecdote about the color yellow making babies cry, so maybe we'll just stick with yellow accents instead of painting the walls yellow. I think that could be nice!

• The baby book says the baby can hear at this point, and to celebrate, we took him to a Builders and the Butchers show at The Woods. Okay, so the timing was just a coincidence. He could definitely feel and/or hear the music--he moved around a lot more than usual. I hope it was because he was enjoying the music and not because it was too loud.

  The book also says the baby can sense light, and if we shine a flashlight on my belly, the baby might move to get away from the light. That seems kind of mean, but I'm tempted to try it anyway. Maybe if we get really bored this weekend...

• I had my first charlie horse of the pregnancy yesterday morning. Woo! Apart from that, I'm still sleeping pretty well. Thank you, Snoogle!

• This morning we went in for the monthly checkup and for a quick ultrasound redo, to try and get some better pictures of the baby's heart, since it was hard to see two weeks ago. Unfortunately, the little goober was in the exact same position that he was in at the last ultrasound (sideways), so the ultrasound tech didn't have much luck getting better pictures (also, no cute profile pictures to be had, though we did get to see the baby yawning, which was fun). She assured us that the heart looks fine; she just needed better pictures to send for routine analysis. It's not clear if we'll need to come in again.

  Also, I forgot to mention that at the ultrasound two weeks ago, the tech noted that my placenta was low (placenta previa). I didn't think much of it at the time because she mentioned it so casually, but she commented on it again this time, as did my doctor. It looked like the placenta had moved up and off of the cervix a little, compared to two weeks ago, so it will probably resolve itself, but I may need to go in for another ultrasound at 32 weeks just to check on its location. I figure it's not worth worrying about at this point, since there's nothing I can do to change it. I haven't had any bleeding, so that's good.

• Last weekend, Patrick checked out the used crib a little more closely, and some of the slats on the drop side were loose, which made us nervous. He used wood glue to make everything tight again, but we were feeling generally uneasy about the used crib issue, so we decided just to give in and buy a new crib after all. (Not sure what to do with the used crib--it's hard to find anyplace that will take crib donations, because of liability issues. I was thinking I could make some sort of crib slat art with it, or use the sides to display quilts or something)

  We narrowed our options down to three cribs: the Pacific Rim Arts and Crafts crib, the Ikea Gulliver, and the Land of Nod Straight-Up crib. We liked the Pacific Rim and Land of Nod cribs because they're made in the US out of solid wood. Taking shipping into account, they're approximately the same price. On the other side of the price spectrum, the Gulliver is also mostly wood and has gotten pretty good reviews in Baby Bargains.

  We made a trip out to Beaverton to see the Pacific Rim crib on display at Segal's, and we both liked how sturdy it was. I like the color and style of the Land of Nod crib better, but we decided to go with the Pacific Rim crib because it's made in Eugene from local maple, using non-toxic finishes, etc. It just seemed like if we're going to use the resources to generate a new crib, we might as well support local craftspeople while we're at it. Plus it seems sturdy enough to last through multiple kids (assuming we have more). We ended up ordering the fixed-side version from Go Natural Baby, since they have free shipping. Now we just wait 6-8 weeks for it to arrive!

  I hope the baby likes his crib! The funny thing is that the plan right now is to have him co-sleep in our room (in an Arm's Reach bassinet or similar) for the first 6 months and then transition to the crib, so he might not actually spend much time in the crib for a while. But I have no idea how things will actually work out, and it seems like he'll end up in the crib sooner or later. Who knows...

• We've been thinking about nursery decoration (okay, that's mostly my department--Patrick is busy making sure all of our pressing home repairs are done in a timely manner). I think I want to go with yellow, brown, and gray, inspired by these two photos by Elizabeth Soule.

  

  I think the general feeling I'm gravitating toward is cozy forest--woodland creatures, wool blankets, etc. Pretty stereotypically Portland, I suppose :) The picture below has a collection of some of the things that will be in the nursery. I think the Pendleton blanket at the top of the picture fits pretty well. We bought the brown tulip print fabric in the middle to make into a Roman shade for the nursery window, and the four fabrics at the bottom are for crib sheets. I mostly picked them because I liked the fabric, not because they fit in with the grand plan. The three on the left are flannel for winter; I need to pick out a few more fun cotton prints for summertime.

  

  We decided to forego an expensive rocker/glider, since we're getting an expensive crib. Instead, we'll try using our existing Poang and ottoman in the nursery (I've seen quite a few people online recommend the Poang for nursing, though I'm worried I won't be able to heave myself out of it while holding a baby). I'm thinking of re-covering the Poang, but I haven't found the right fabric yet. It's possible I'm overcommitting myself with all of these sewing projects...

  Our goal is to choose the paint color for the nursery walls this weekend. I'm thinking light yellow, but I'm not sold on that. Any suggestions?

Foodwise, none of our meals has really impressed me this week. At least the desserts were good!

1. Pasta with walnuts, caramelized onions, and ricotta salata - This was okay, but I probably wouldn't make it again. Maybe it would have been better with the recommended whole grain penne (we used fresh pasta from our farmers' market instead). It seemed a little cheese-heavy, and not saucy enough.

2. Artichoke, leek, and fontina frittata with whole grain sourdough waffles (from Dorie Greenspan's Waffles) - The frittata was pretty good (it probably would have been just as good without the bacon, by the way), but not super exciting. The waffles were yeasted, which meant they were light and crispy, but they also got cold really quickly. They were nice, but I think we prefer non-yeasted waffles (which is weird, because a lot of people love yeasted waffles!).

3. Halibut and sweet potato chowder - This was better on the second day after the flavors had blended a little. We used half the amount of halibut called for (halibut is expensive!), and it was still plenty fishy. I liked the twist of using sweet potatoes in the chowder, but I don't think I'd make this particular recipe again (a common theme for this week).

4. Pumpkin custard (from Rustic Fruit Desserts) - This was pretty labor-intensive (because you make vanilla shortbread cookies to use as the crust), but it was tasty! The vanilla shortbread dough was crumbly and kind of frustrating to work with, but the cookies tasted good. The custard was nice and smooth and tasted just like pumpkin pie (not too surprising). Yum! I think given the amount of work involved, it would have been easier to just bake a pumpkin pie. I do like things in ramekins though!

5. Chewy almond cookie + ganache sandwiches (old-fashioned almond cookie recipe from Paris Sweets) - I had some egg whites to use up, and this recipe seemed like a good candidate. I made one batch using the standard recipe, and a second batch using the cocoa powder and cinnamon variation mentioned in the book. I liked the original almond cookies the best, but both types were yummy with ganache in the middle. Kind of like macarons, but not quite. The sandwiches ended up a little too tall to eat daintily, but they were still good. I figured the almonds and egg whites provided some protein, so they weren't the unhealthiest cookies ever!

• After moping around for a day or so, feeling kind of sad that the little girl I was imagining wouldn't be making an appearance (at least not this time around), I got over it and got on board with having a boy. I think having a son will be great! It helped that Susan brought over some adorable little boy clothes that she picked up at Children's Exchange (on the left in the picture below). The little red shoes make me especially happy :)

• Speaking of clothes, I've been trying not to go too crazy buying baby stuff, but there have been a few purchases I've felt compelled to make. I picked up some sweet German baby bunny slippers at Mamas n' Papas back in December (my first baby purchase), and then I bought a pair of corduroy overalls at Vintage Pink. And most recently, we made our first purchase of new baby clothes--an awesome pair of Hatley footie pajamas on sale at Black Wagon. How could we resist that bear print?

  

• We also made our first foray into buying a piece of baby furniture--we picked up a used crib and mattress from Baby to Baby this past weekend. It's a pretty standard crib. The only thing is that it's a drop-side crib, and we didn't read up on the risks associated with used drop-side cribs until after we'd bought it (I figured it was just a risk of pinched fingers, but it's a little more serious than that), and now we're second-guessing whether we should use the crib. Patrick's going to assemble it and check to see if there's any sign of a gap between the mattress and drop side. On the plus side, we can definitely use the mattress even if we don't use the crib, so we won't be out too much money either way.

  Edited 1/22: I spoke too soon. Apparently buying used crib mattresses is not recommended because of sanitary issues (or possibly because of a fungus that reacts with fire retardants in the mattress to create toxic gases, though that theory seems a little less mainstream). Oh, but also, new mattresses are bad because of off-gassing. Man, there's no end of things to worry about regarding babies! That's it, our child is going to sleep in a dresser drawer lined with a scratchy old wool blanket ;)

• Finding out that we're having a boy got us working on narrowing down our list of names. We're currently putting together lists of our top 10-15 names from the master list of ~130 names (plus anything else that catches our fancy), and then we'll compare to see if we have any overlap between the two lists. Fun! The Baby Name Wizard Name Voyager has come in handy in figuring out which names are trendy right now (like most other parents to be, I don't want a name that's too trendy, but I have a feeling that my taste in names is just like that of other parents-to-be in SE Portland). Plus it's just cool seeing how names have changed in popularity over time.

In non-baby news, we finished a house-related project that I've been working on since August! I sewed a Roman shade for our bedroom using hardware and directions from Terrell Designs (so helpful!), and Patrick took care of hanging it up. Even though it took me six months to finish the project, it really wasn't that hard to do; I just kept putting it off. I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it looks so much nicer than the spare bed sheet we were using as a curtain before.

We've got another shade pretty close to finished for the stairwell window, but that one is on hold because we may end up replacing the window (it's old and leaky and maybe a little rotten on the outside). I'm also gearing up to make a shade for the nursery. I'd better get going on that before too long!

And then there's the food. I'm still putting my second trimester energy to good use in the kitchen. It's good to be back! All recipes are from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone unless otherwise noted.

1. Quinoa chowder with scallions and feta. This sounded intriguing, but it turned out kind of boring. It could be that it was too light and brothy for a mid-winter soup. Maybe worth a remake in spring or summer.

2. Rice cooked in black bean broth (with 2 cups of cooked black beans added along with the broth), topped with scallions, queso fresco, tortilla chips, and our pickled roasted peppers. I wasn't a big fan of the pickled peppers, but everything else was great! It was like a burrito in a bowl.

3. Mushrooms and tofu in hoisin sauce on soba noodles, with lightly steamed shredded carrots and cabbage. This stir-fry included diced tomatoes, which made it kind of unorthodox, but it wasn't bad. The flavor was nice, actually. I'd make it again.

4. Bun-bun noodles with spicy peanut sauce (recipe from Morning Food), garnished with carrots, peanuts, lime wedges, and green onion. We had a little stir-fried baby bok choy on the side. The noodles were very easy to put together (and we had all the ingredients in our pantry). Definitely comfort food--probably not very healthy, but I'd happily down another bowlful.

5. Pepper-crusted tuna with oven fries and lemon spinach (I used tilapia instead of tuna steaks). Real Simple tends to stress me out more often than it simplifies my life, but this recipe actually was really simple! It yielded a well-rounded, tasty meal that only took about 45 minutes to put together (with 20 minutes of downtime in the middle). Cool! It reminded me that we should eat more fish--it's so easy to prepare.

6. This past weekend, I baked a batch of classic chocolate chip cookies (from Cookies and Brownies) for a bake sale to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. The first sheetful came out underbaked and structurally unsound, so I kept them for personal consumption. The cookies turned out really well. I actually liked the underbaked ones the best, so that worked out well. Man, looking at that picture makes me want more chocolate chip cookies!

7. Last night, I baked a batch of lemon poppy seed muffins (from Baking) to use up some leftover sour cream. I added a little bit of plum-amaretto jam in the middle as a little surprise. The muffins turned out super moist and tasty. Next time I'd actually omit the jam surprise--the muffins are perfect just as they are. I took particular joy in making these muffins because one of my favorite baking-related activities is rubbing lemon zest into sugar. It smells so nice!

We actually had a little false start related to the ultrasound--we showed up at the doctor's office on Wednesday, and they told us to come back today. Turns out I'd written down the appointment date wrong. Bummer! At least I was only off by a day, so we didn't have to wait too much longer to find out.

The baby was in a funny position, so the tech had a hard time getting a good profile shot. We're actually going to go in for another ultrasound in two weeks (mainly to get some more pictures of the heart, since it was hard to see, given the baby's position), so maybe we'll get some clearer overall baby pictures then. We also have a picture showing pretty clearly that it's a boy, but I figured I didn't need to share that with the whole Internet :)

The tech didn't have a lot to say other than remarking on how cute the baby was (I'm sure she always says that) and how hard he was making her job by being in the wrong position. But everything seemed fine, based on what she said and what we could see. The baby has all the right internal organs and the right number of limbs, which is a good start :)

My two favorite parts of the ultrasound (apart from having the question of boy vs. girl answered) were seeing the baby's little spine and arm and leg bones (it's just reassuring that our baby has a skeleton, I guess) and simultaneously feeling the baby kick and seeing him move around on the ultrasound. Pretty cool!

So yeah, a boy! Not what I was expecting, but I'm sure having a son will be awesome. I guess ruffly pink dresses are probably out, but I think I can still have some fun with his wardrobe. Definitely lots of stripes and zig zags, and plenty of hats and jackets with ears. And maybe I can sneak in some floral prints. This is Portland after all; I think I can get away with a little bending of baby gender roles :)

I think the toughest boy-related decision we'll need to make (at this point in time) is whether or not to circumcise. If it were just a religious thing, it would be an easy choice, since we're not religious. But since it's also a cultural thing, it's more complicated. I think we're leaning toward not circumcising, but there are definitely arguments for both sides.

For some reason, knowing the baby's sex kind of drove home the fact that this baby is going to grow up to be an adult someday, and we need to figure out how to raise this little guy so that he fits in and is able to make friends, but still make sure that he's sensitive and caring and feels comfortable being whoever he wants to be. I hope we do a good job and are able to raise a good man, whatever that means. I think we can do it :)

Some other highlights from week 19:

• The belly continues to grow, which is great! My belly button won't be an innie for much longer :)

• This past weekend, I dropped off my deposit for the hypnobirthing class, and in exchange I got this book, which I read over the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised by how well reasoned it seemed. And there were no healing stones mentioned in the book (maybe those are an in-class bonus).

  The basic idea is that standard, non-complicated labor is painful because women are afraid. The author--who is a woman, by the way--offered some historical reasons for this, plus there's just general social exposure to scary birth stories, especially now that we have all these online pregnancy forums to read! This fear triggers the fight, flight, or freeze instinct, which diverts blood away from non-essential muscles, including the uterus. As a consequence, the muscles of the lower uterus tense up and strain against the muscles of the upper uterus during contractions, which results in pain and prolongs labor, since the cervix can't thin and open as effectively. If the woman is relaxed, the upper and lower uterine muscles work together, contractions don't hurt (there's still pressure, just not pain), and labor tends to be faster. So the hypnobirthing approach is to reach a relaxed state via a combination of self-hypnosis (breathing and visualization) and massage. Even though you're super relaxed, you remain lucid and can interact with people as needed.

  So I have no idea if any of this is true, but it seems reasonable, at least. I'm willing to try it. It requires daily relaxation practice (starting after we've taken the classes), so that the self-hypnosis cues work quickly and automatically when they're triggered during labor. It'll be interesting to see if self-hypnosis actually works for me. It's totally outside my scientist comfort zone to do this kind of thing, but if it works, that would be awesome!

Our house has been pretty chaotic for the past few days, because we had almost all of our plumbing re-piped. The pipes that were there when we bought the house were aging galvanized steel, so we decided to be proactive and replace them with plastic (PEX) pipe before the baby comes. And conveniently enough, our house's 28-year-old water heater started leaking this weekend, so we had the plumber replace it with an energy-efficient heat pump water heater while he was doing the other work. We knew the water heater would have to be replaced pretty soon after we bought the house, since it was so old. I'm just glad it didn't catastrophically fail and flood our basement in the middle of the night! Anyway, not a cheap week for us, but it's definitely good to get all this squared away now.

The plumbing is pretty much done (just a few loose ends to tie up after our city inspection tomorrow), and then we just have to have a plaster man close up the six holes that were cut in our stairwell wall and kitchen ceiling as part of the plumbing work (Patrick cut three of the holes over the weekend to save us a little money, and it looked like pretty exhausting work). We're actually thinking about leaving the holes open for a while longer, since we might get some rewiring work done within the next few months, and they could make that work easier. (The rewiring is another item that has been on our house to-do list since we bought it, and we're finally being spurred into action by the impending baby arrival). I'm sure we'll get used to having holes in our walls pretty quickly, but it might be unnerving for visitors!

Also, check out our new laundry sink! Patrick found it for free a couple blocks from our house a few months ago, and the plumber installed it in the basement for us and restored the faucet, since it was broken. Now Patrick has a place to wash his grimy bike hands and paint brushes and stuff. I like it!

I wanted to put in a good word for our plumber--Craig Anderson. He was very friendly and knowledgeable, and all of his guys were friendly and worked hard to get the job done on time. We definitely recommend him if you're looking for a plumber in the Portland area.

Also, I don't think I ever mentioned that our porch work is done. It was finished a while ago (back in October), but we never got around to taking after pictures because the rainy season started right at the same time. I'm sure we'll be able to enjoy our porches more once spring and summer are here! Maybe I'll post pictures then...

We also had our basement wall parge coating redone a week or two ago. That was noisy, smelly work, but it's good to have it out of the way.

We could go on like this for a long time (our housework to-do list is pretty long, since the house is 104 years old), but I think we've almost finished all of the big ticket items, and the rest can probably wait a few years.

The lack of reliable water for the past few days kind of put a damper on weekday cooking, but we made some good stuff during the weekend. We're still having fun exploring Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone--all of the following dishes are from there unless otherwise noted.

1. Spicy stir-fried tofu with coconut rice. This was my least favorite recipe this week. There was nothing wrong with it, but it wasn't super exciting. I think my main problem with it is that one of the spices that we used was kind of gritty, which made the texture of the dish unpleasant. Maybe I would have liked it better if we'd used finer spices. The coconut rice was good though.

2. Our breakfast on Saturday was buttermilk pancakes with caramelized bananas and hazelnuts. I made some modifications to the basic buttermilk pancake recipe in the book--instead of buttermilk, I used a combination of 1% milk, cottage cheese, and 1/2T lemon juice (since that's what we had on hand), which actually worked just fine. I also added chopped hazelnuts to the pancake batter, and then I mixed the banana slices with a little vanilla sugar, put those on the griddle first, and then covered them with the batter. Very nice!

3. For weekend lunch, we had golden tofu with quick peanut sauce, leftover coconut rice, and carrots with hijiki. The tofu with peanut sauce was awesome, especially considering how easy it was to make (apart from the oil splattering everywhere when I fried the tofu). The carrots with hijiki were a little too sea-vegetabley for me (never thought I'd say that--I love sea vegetables!). Next time I'd use more carrots and less hijiki.

4. Cabbage and mushroom galette with yeasted tart dough. This was yummy but not super filling. It needed some side dishes to be filling enough for dinner. I'd definitely make it again though. The yeast dough came together surprisingly quickly.

5. All-bean chili. I made this in kind of a hurry during our plumbing adventures, and it turned out watery and bland. I think part of the problem was that the pot I used was too big, which meant that when I covered the beans with 4 inches of water, it ended up being too much water. All was not lost though--I drained the beans and used them to make nachos (chips, cheese, beans, sour cream, and green onions). Yay, nachos for dinner!

6. I also made a little something from Dorie Greenspan--World Peace cookies (or Korova cookies, depending on which cookbook you use). These are among my favorite cookies, and they're pretty simple to make. I want more!

Here are some highlights from week 18:

• The baby is moving more frequently and more emphatically. I was able to feel movement from the outside a few days ago, but Patrick was asleep. The timing worked out last night, and Patrick got to feel the baby kick for the first time. I'm glad :) It's so weirdly awesome that there's a little person inside of me! For the most part, the kicking isn't uncomfortable (yet).
• After reading more about hypnobirthing (including this account from a local couple, plus some of the stories here), we've decided to sign up for the hypnobirthing class at Zenana. I think there are some elements that will be a little out there for us (sounds like there may be healing stones involved?), but it seems like it the relaxation techniques taught in class can be useful in reducing pain even if you don't go in for the whole kit and caboodle. I guess we'll find out!
• I've definitely been feeling much more pregnant this week, what with the baby moving and the belly getting bigger. Oh, and my appetite and energy are definitely back, which is great. The second trimester is way better than the first trimester, no contest!

The return of the appetite conveniently coincided with having the week before New Years off, which meant I did some real meal planning and spent a good amount of time in the kitchen. Fun! Patrick recently bought Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison, and we're really happy with it so far! Everything we've made in the last week has been from this cookbook, and it has all turned out nicely. (We took a break from home cooking on New Year's Eve and went to Bar Avignon for the second year in a row. Good stuff!)

1. Butterflies with chickpeas (recipe): This was tasty and super fast to make (using canned chickpeas).

2. Lentil minestrone and walnut bread (soup recipe): The soup was really good--nice and clean tasting. I made my own vegetable stock as suggested in the book (hey, when you have the week off of work, why not make your own stock?), and I think it really improved both this soup and the next one. The walnut bread, though good, was not exactly what I was hoping for. The quest continues!

3. Turnip soup with gruyere croutons: The soup was sweet and mild, and the cheesy breads made it special.

4. Spinach tortellini with walnuts, parsley, and pecorino: With all the free time on my hands, I got ambitious and decided to buy a hand-cranked pasta machine and make some filled pasta! (I rationalized the purchase by telling myself that maybe when the baby's older, we'll have monthly pasta nights! Probably not very realistic, but you never know) The pasta took longer to make than I'd expected (almost 3 hours total, and it required some pasta cranking help from Patrick), but it turned out well. Definitely a special occasion dish.

5. Millet and chickpea pilaf with saffron and tomatoes (recipe): Not quite as yellow as it looks in the picture. This was not fancy at all, just nice and comforting. I made the chickpeas from scratch, and they did taste better than chickpeas from a can. The cookbook said I could freeze the extra cooked chickpeas; I'm interested to see if they're just as good after freezing and thawing.

6. For lunches this week, I made a batch of smoky black bean spread, which turned into quesadillas with smoky black bean spread and salsa (recipe). The salsa was homemade, and it was pretty mediocre (essentially sweetened tomato sauce with a few onions thrown in), but even that couldn't ruin these quesadillas. Yum! The black bean spread by itself is pretty good, but the addition of cheese definitely improves the situation.

With the return of my appetite, I've been needing more than three meals a day, so I've added in a mid-morning and mid-afternoon snack. This week, I've alternated between microwave oatmeal (did you know you can make a single serving of yummy oatmeal from Bob's Red Mill thick-cut rolled oats in the microwave in about 5 minutes? The recipe is on the back of the bag. Awesome!) and smoothies.

My smoothie recipe of the moment is: 1 banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, 1/4c lowfat cottage cheese, 1 scoop vanilla ice cream, 1T wheat germ, and 1/2c fruit juice (I'm using V8 Splash tropical blend because we had some leftover from my most recent cold). Blend it all up with a stick blender, and you're good to go! I figure it has some fruit and protein, so adding a little ice cream isn't so bad :)

Ooh, and I wanted to show you a shirt I bought from Sue Bradbury (made in Portland!). Contrary to what my expression in the picture below might suggest, I'm really happy with it--it's soft and cute, and it should be wearable as maternity clothing for a while longer (and as non-maternity clothing after that). But I'm most looking forward to wearing it right after the baby's born, when apparently I will still look 6 months pregnant. This should provide excellent camouflage.

P.S. We had a crazy good dessert at Belly Timber last night before trivia. It was a parfait with layers of chocolate, peanut butter, and salted caramel. Normally I opt for lighter, fruit-based desserts, but this really hit the spot. Yum!

Having been together for 11 years and married for 4 years, Patrick and I have been talking about starting a family for a couple years now. We were considering it seriously back in mid-2008, before we moved to Portland, and then we put it on hold while we got settled here. We figured that aiming to get pregnant in mid- to late-2009 would be ideal. Based on some big work deadlines I had scheduled for late 2009, it seemed like I wouldn't want to give birth until 2010, so September looked like a good time to start trying to get pregnant (early summer seems like a nice time to have a baby). I even wrote it in my planner so I wouldn't forget. Yes, I'm a big dork :)

I started reading What to Expect When You're Expecting this past summer (full of eye-roll-worthy writing, but also pretty informative), and based on information in the pregnancy preparation chapter, I started taking prenatal vitamins about 2 months before I planned to get pregnant. Patrick and I spent a long time staring at all the vitamin options at the grocery store and trying to figure out which we should buy, and we ended up going with the Rainbow Light Complete Prenatal System vitamins. They're big and expensive and you have to take six a day, but they've been really gentle on my stomach, so I'm happy. I'm also taking an omega 3 supplement for kicks.

I went in for a pre-pregnancy exam in August (which turned out to be unnecessary; the doctor just told me what I already knew from reading books), and Patrick and I sat down and talked about the pros and cons of having a baby and decided we were ready to start trying, and that was that--September was go time!

I had been using the fertility awareness method as a means of birth control since mid-2006, so I already knew when I'd be ovulating and all that good stuff (Taking Charge of Your Fertility is a great resource for this--I really enjoy knowing what's going on in my body at any given time, and it's such a reasonable scientific approach!). I figured despite knowing exactly when I was ovulating, it would still take a few months to conceive, but we were pleasantly surprised (and a little freaked out) to find out that we'd gotten it on the first try!

Since I was tracking my basal temperatures, I knew when I didn't see the typical drop in temperature 12 days following ovulation that something was up, but I didn't want to get my hopes up too soon. I happened to be in California that week for work, so I had to wait a whole week to get back to Portland and buy a pregnancy test to find out if I was really pregnant (I didn't want to take the test in my hotel room by myself; I wanted Patrick to be there too!). Right after Patrick picked me up from the airport, we drove to Walgreens and bought a test (only one; not a whole shelf-full like in the movies). The next morning, I took the test, and it was positive. Holy crap!

This was about 5 weeks into the pregnancy (using the wacky counting method where you get to count the 2 weeks before you even got pregnant), and my first OB appointment wasn't until 8 weeks. Waiting was kind of excruciating. I wanted some sort of confirmation that I was pregnant beyond a plus sign on a stick!

Morning sickness kicked in around week 5, with general yucky feelings, lack of appetite, and a bad taste in my mouth. Oh, and sometimes there was excessive salivation, which is kind of unnerving. Those symptoms stuck around until about week 14. I hadn't realized it before I got pregnant, but that's a long time to feel crappy! But I think it was pretty mild morning sickness (no vomiting; phew!), so I consider myself lucky. I ate crackers a lot at first, but then those started making me feel sick (I think because I associated them with feeling sick), so I had to move on to other mild foods, like oatmeal. I ate a lot of salad in the first trimester, because it was the only thing that I could bring myself to eat, and as a consequence, I ended up losing about 7 pounds compared to my pre-pregnancy weight. I'm putting that weight back on now, not to worry.

At week 8, we went to the OB, where they gave me all sorts of brochures and ran some blood tests and--the best part--did an ultrasound. The baby looked like a little frog at that point, but we got to hear its heartbeat and see the corresponding flutter on the ultrasound, and suddenly it was real--I was really pregnant! That was a pretty amazing moment :)

We opted for the First Trimester Screening, which meant we got a bonus ultrasound at week 12. The baby looked much more baby-like at this point, and the ultrasound tech even got a picture of it waving at us (we'll pretend that's what it was doing, at least). The screening results were good, which was reassuring.

I started sleeping on my side around 12 weeks, since stomach sleeping is out, as is back sleeping (so many things to worry about!). I picked up a Snoogle at our neighborhood consignment store early on, and although it's kind of cumbersome (especially when I need to get out of bed), it definitely makes sleeping on my side more comfortable.

My morning sickness mostly went away around Thanksgiving (13 weeks), though I came down with a cold soon after, followed by another cold a few weeks later, so I wasn't really at full appetite/energy levels until about a week ago. It was kind of disconcerting when the morning sickness went away, because I suddenly didn't have any day-to-day tangible proof that there was a baby in there, and it had been a few weeks since my last ultrasound. It made me unreasonably nervous. I'd keep sticking out my belly in front of the mirror, looking for signs that I was pregnant.

Things got more reassuring about a week ago (around 17 weeks), when I started feeling the baby move! (This is also known as "quickening." I wanted to go rent Highlander to celebrate, but it was checked out at our neighborhood video store. Bummer) I first felt it when I was lying in bed a little over a week ago. It's hard to describe--it was like a little pop or tickle on the inside of my belly. The day that we flew back from California, we got Lebanese food (Ya Hala, yum!) and went to a movie (Whip It at the Academy), and something about that really riled the baby up, because I felt it move four or five times that day! It has calmed down since then, but I usually feel it move once or twice a day (most often at mealtimes), which is really reassuring. I'm excited for when it gets strong enough that Patrick can feel it on the outside.

We're lucky to have two great maternity/baby consignment stores within walking distance of our house (as well as additional stores around Portland). Although it was a little early, I picked up a few maternity pieces at Piccolina before I left for California in mid-December, and I was glad I did. I splurged on some used Citizens of Humanity maternity jeans, and I have been so happy to have them, because they fit really nicely and give me plenty of belly room.

Speaking of belly, here are a couple of pictures. When I was in my first trimester funk, I didn't take any pictures, because I figured that everybody has seen plenty of pregnant bellies. But now that I'm feeling more energetic, I've decided to start documenting the pregnancy in pictures. I think I'll enjoy having them.

14. 3 weeks

15.4 weeks

17.6 weeks

(I'm sticking my belly out as far as it will go in that last picture; I don't think I normally look quite that big)

We went in for our monthly checkup a few days ago, and we got to hear the heartbeat again, which was nice. I'm really looking forward to our appointment in two weeks, when we get our third ultrasound and get to find out if it's a boy or a girl. It will have been 2 months since our last ultrasound, and I'm excited to see how the baby has grown (but I don't want a 3D ultrasound--those pictures creep me out for some reason).

We had considered waiting until birth to find out the sex of the baby, but I've found that I'm operating under the assumption that it's a girl (partly based on the timing of conception, but also just on my own unintentional bias, I think), so if it's a boy, I want time to change my assumptions. Either a boy or a girl would be awesome, of course; I think I just have a tendency to imagine our child as a girl because most of the babies and little kids I've been around have been girls. Raising a boy is kind of a mystery to me, since I didn't have any brothers, but Patrick has plenty of experience with boy stuff, and I'm sure we can figure things out either way :)

As far as names go, I've been keeping a running list of possible names for the past few years, but we haven't made much progress narrowing it down yet. There's also the question of what to do about our last names, since neither of us changed our names when we got married (and our names are too long to hyphenate comfortably). I had originally suggested that we give the baby my last name if it's a girl and Patrick's last name if it's a boy, but that would probably be too confusing. I think we'll go the least-confusing route and use Patrick's last name for all children. At least it's easier to spell than mine :)

We're planning on turning the room next to ours into a nursery, but we haven't done any work on it yet. Over the past week, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on Ohdeedoh, which is simultaneously inspiring and stressful. Too much to think about! And as one commenter said, in retrospect she should have spent less time perfecting her nursery and more time learning about how to take care of a baby! So I'm trying not to get too caught up in nursery madness. The baby won't care what it looks like (but I would like to create a nice space, since the rest of our house was kind of decorated on the fly as we unpacked in 2008). I'm also hoping that we can get a lot of our baby stuff at our local consignment stores, rather than buying new. I think we can do it!

Speaking of learning how to take care of a baby, I checked out The Happiest Baby on the Block from the library and read it over Christmas break. Dr. Karp has some interesting theories, and it sounds like a lot of parents have found his method useful. I've put a hold on the Happiest Baby DVD at the library, since I think seeing the 5 S's in action will be helpful. I have no idea if this is something that we'll actually need to know, but it seems good to learn about it now, rather than after we've got a colicky baby in the house.

Oh, and I've just started reading about natural childbirth techniques. At the moment, my feeling is that it would be nice if I can give birth without drugs, but since I have no idea what labor is like, I'm not going to rule out an epidural as an option. But I would like to take a class in pain management. Lamaze seems reasonable (that's what my mom used when she had me), or there's something called hypnobirthing, which sounds kind of iffy based on the name (hypnotoad!), but when I asked my OB about it, she said she's seen women have success with it. I don't know, I need to read more about it.

It's funny how many things there are to think about related to having a baby. I feel like I shouldn't spend my time obsessing about all of this, but I'm not sure what is important and what can be ignored. And I'm sure all of my careful planning will go out the window when it comes time to actually have the baby. I'll definitely need to learn to be more easygoing. Being organized and planning ahead might work for us now, but it probably won't work once we have a child. That'll be an interesting change for me :)

While I'm writing, I also wanted to say how lucky I feel that this has all gone so smoothly so far. I'm really grateful that we were able to conceive so quickly and that my morning sickness was relatively mild. I know not everybody has been so lucky. Here's hoping that things continue to go well!

Okay, I think that's everything I wanted to say for now. I expect that my posts will be baby-centric for a long time to come, though hopefully I'll still have time for baking and crafts and all that good stuff. Now that my energy is back, I'm definitely enjoying spending time in the kitchen again. That's a relief. It was weird not wanting anything to do with food!

• We made new friends and managed to see many of them regularly thanks to our weekly trivia night get togethers. I feel so lucky to have made friends in Portland. It was one of my biggest worries about moving somewhere where we didn't know many people (especially since we're both kind of introverted), and we ended up meeting a group of really great people who seem to enjoy our company. Phew! I'm hoping to organize more social gatherings this year. It's something I mean to do every year, and it never really happens. Maybe this will be the year :)

• Excited about finally having a yard of our own, we made a pretty ambitious garden plan and stuck to it, for the most part. Our main problem was actually harvesting everything that we grew in a timely manner. Most of the lettuce we planted bolted before we could eat it, because we were too busy eating lettuce from our CSA box. We'll probably skip the CSA this year and rely on our farmers' market to fill the gaps in our garden.

• I took up running with the help of the couch-to-5k plan (with lots of support from Patrick and Star) and completed a couple organized 5k runs. It was kind of mind-blowing, since I totally didn't see myself as a runner (I still don't), but I actually started enjoying it! I pretty much stopped running after my 8k run in October, but now that I know I'm capable of it, I'm hoping to be able to start up again next year when the weather's nicer.

• We cut back on the amount of meat we eat at home, not because of any strong moral convictions, but because it seems healthier for us and better for the planet (fewer resources used to make vegetables vs. meat). My biggest accomplishment on that front was no longer buying lunch meat for sandwiches (though Patches was not happy to lose her daily turkey snack!). I still eat meat when we go out, though Patrick is pretty good about sticking with vegetarian options at restaurants. I'm not sure if we're going to become vegetarians in the future (I do love those cured meats!), but it's not out of the question. It just seems so much easier to live this way in Portland than in the Bay Area. I'm not sure why.

• I worked up the courage to try canning, and I generated all sorts of jams and pickles during the summer. That was fun, if a little exhausting. Now that it's winter, we need to get to work enjoying all that summer bounty. I would have liked to have done some apple preserving too (apple butter or applesauce), but it just didn't happen this year.

Plus we spent a good amount of time enjoying Portland and our lives in general. We're still really happy that we moved here. It was a good choice :)

There's one more big thing that happened in 2009 that I haven't told you about yet. I'm pregnant! (I know, you were probably totally expecting that after last year's post) The baby is due on June 3, and we'll find out if it's a boy or a girl in a few weeks. We're really excited :)

I have a lot to say about being pregnant, but I'll save that for a separate post. Hopefully I'll be posting more frequently now that I can talk about baby stuff. It has been hard keeping quiet for so long, but we wanted to keep it a secret until we could tell our families in person at Christmas.

I did a little knitting for our two youngest sisters. I made Patrick's sister Meg a buttony hat out of super-soft Mirasol yarn and this pattern. Because the band was done in seed stitch, it doesn't really hug the head as well as ribbing, but I'm still happy with how the hat turned out, and Meg seemed to like it too. (More info on Ravelry)

I made my sister, Lianna, some stripey gray mitts out of Malabrigo. They were pretty quick to make, and they're nice and cozy. I'm tempted to make myself a pair too. (More info on Ravelry)

I also did some embroidery a few weeks ago, which is a rare occurrence for me. Lee recently started selling connect-the-dots stitch sets (great idea!), and she gave Star and me some unicorn canvases to play with. It was such a fun little project, and it was great seeing the unicorn emerge as the embroidery progressed. I embellished mine with some French knot roses.

Right now, Lee is selling the connect-the-dots sets in two themes (with five designs per theme)--cryptozoology and craft tools--and it sounds like she'll be coming out with more themes soon. Fun!

Like I said in the last post, I didn't do any Christmas-specific baking this year, but I did make some mini cupcakes to celebrate Star's birthday in early December (using the recipe for yellow cupcakes with simple chocolate frosting in The New Best Recipe).

And then I had sour cream leftover from the cupcake baking, so I made a batch of the apple streusel cinnamon swirl cupcakes from Cupcakes!, but I used the same yellow cake recipe from The New Best Recipe that I used for Star's cupcakes. They turned out really nicely--like little moist coffee cakes.

Yesterday, I had some ricotta to use up, so I made the fluted polenta ricotta cake from Dorie Greenspan's Baking (plus some mini cakes, since my tart pan was too small). I like the general idea, but the only honey we have in the house is this really strong stuff from the farmers' market (it tastes almost like eucalyptus to me, but I think it's linden honey), and it overpowered the cake's flavor. So I'd like to try it again with milder honey.

And that brings us to today. For breakfast, I made our traditional Dutch babies (recipe here), but I used eggnog instead of milk. Yum! I also made tangerine-vanilla spritzers (tangerine juice, vanilla sugar, and club soda) since we didn't have any orange juice. It was a nice way to start the year!

We had a nice, quiet Thanksgiving this year. Lee and Pete came over for dinner, and then Susan, Pearl, and Andrew joined us for dessert. Here's the menu:

• Roast crisped-skin turkey with giblet pan gravy
• Mashed potatoes and vegan gravy from Lee and Pete (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Simple cranberry sauce
• Golden-crusted brussels sprouts (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Pear and chanterelle bread stuffing, vegetarianized (no pancetta, veggie stock instead of turkey stock) and using pre-dried stuffing mix from Little T (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Soft dinner rolls from Little T (Patrick got up early on Thanksgiving and stood in line with some other roll-lovers to make sure we got some before they ran out)
• Chocolate-bourbon pecan pie from Susan (photo by Lee)
  
  
• Damn fine apple pie (using my go-to recipe from In the Sweet Kitchen)
• Pumpkin pie using Shuna's pie dough

Earlier in the year, I had reserved a Red Bourbon turkey from Kookoolan Farms, not knowing exactly what our Thanksgiving plans would be. As it turned out, the majority of our guests were vegetarians, so Patrick and I were the only ones eating turkey at dinner (and Andrew nabbed some turkey leftovers for sandwiches the next day). Because of that, I ended up preparing the turkey a day in advance, which made our dinner preparation much more relaxed. Because I roasted the turkey in advance, I was able to make turkey stock from the carcass and use that to make the turkey gravy. The gravy actually took the longest to make of all of our dishes, but it was very tasty.

Everything turned out great. I was really happy with our Kookoolan turkey--it was tasty, and I knew that it was treated well throughout its life. I think the only recipe we wouldn't make again is the stuffing, because it used a lot of butter, and it didn't knock our socks off.

Even though I got the smallest turkey possible, we still had plenty of turkey left for sandwiches, turkey soup (made with a combination of leftover turkey stock and leftover gravy), and treats for Patches. And we ended up with a great assortment of pie leftovers, which we enjoyed for our post-Thanksgiving breakfast (and beyond). Yum!

I'm glad we were able to spend Thanksgiving with friends. It was a nice way to celebrate!

Anyway, this seems like a good time to catch up on a few of the posts I've been meaning to write. First up: our anniversary trip to Vancouver!

A few months ago, we decided to go on a quick vacation to celebrate our fourth wedding anniversary. The original plan was to rent a cabin in Montana in early October (it seemed like a good place to get away and enjoy nature), but I had a huge project going on at work, so we decided to put off our trip until mid-November. And since Montana in mid-November sounded like it might be a little chilly, we decided to take a trip to Canada instead. Based on this article in Sunset, we ended up spending three nights at Rockwater Secret Cove Resort (on the Sunshine Coast) and had some time to check out Vancouver as well. Patrick planned the whole trip, and it was great!

We drove up to Vancouver from Portland on a rainy Thursday, and apart from a long wait to cross the border, it was a nice drive. This was the first time either of us had been to Canada, so it was exciting crossing the border!

We had decided to spend a night in Vancouver before going to Rockwater Secret Cove, and Patrick found us a very nice hotel downtown--L'Hermitage. After checking in, we walked down Robson Street (Vancouver's big shopping street) and had dinner at Kintaro Ramen, one of three ramen places that we wanted to try while we were in town (we ended up making it to all three, and the ramen at Kintaro was my favorite--really nice noodles).

The next morning, we needed Canadian coins for our parking meter, so we headed to a Starbucks near the hotel. Although Vancouver felt a lot like Portland, there were some small differences that reminded us we were in Canada--like when Patrick asked for his change in singles (so he could pay the meter), the barista looked confused and then asked if he wanted loonies or toonies. Anyway, we got it all sorted out, paid the meter, and headed to breakfast.

My small contribution to our vacation was finding a good place for breakfast while in Vancouver, and I chose Medina--they serve tiny waffles with all sorts of awesome sauces! We were tempted to have an all-waffle breakfast, but instead we got one waffle apiece and supplemented with healthier fare (yogurt, fruit, and granola). It was a good breakfast, and the waffles didn't disappoint. I had the milk chocolate lavender sauce with my waffle, and Patrick had the fig orange marmalade. Yum!

Before I forget--at a couple cafes in Vancouver, I noticed a drink called the London Fog--earl grey tea, steamed milk, and vanilla syrup. I didn't have a chance to try one while we were there, but it sounds like just my kind of drink! I'll have to see if I can get a coffee shop in Portland to make one.

After breakfast, we explored Stanley Park for a few hours. It was a chilly day, but it was still a nice way to spend a few hours. Vancouver is a pretty city!

For lunch, we had ramen once again, this time at Benkei Noodle Shop (Portland is ramen-deficient; we had to eat our fill while we had the chance!). This turned out to be Patrick's favorite ramen of the trip.

Bellies full, we headed across the Lions Gate Bridge and drove to Horseshoe Bay (enjoying the beautiful scenery along the way), to catch the ferry to the Sunshine Coast. This was our first time taking our car on a ferry, and it was pretty cool! The ferry was well-outfitted with a full cafeteria, and the 40-minute ride was just long enough to enjoy the scenery without getting bored.

The ferry disembarked at Langdale, and we drove along the coast to Sechelt, the town nearest to Rockwater Secret Cove. We had a fine dinner at The Old Boot and then continued on to the resort.

Rockwater Secret Cove Resort turned out to be pretty awesome. We splurged and reserved a tenthouse suite, which reminded me of the yurts at Treebones, but even nicer (in-yurt bathrooms--excellent!).

The Rockwater tenthouses had all sorts of great amenities--heated floors, super comfy beds, cute little fireplaces, and huge tubs with jets and light shows and stuff. All that luxury plunked down in the middle of beautiful natural scenery (one of the days we even saw a deer hanging out right next to the boardwalk!). It turned out to be a great place to just get away from everything and relax.

The one problem we ran into was the weather. The first night we got there, it was pretty calm, but the second night it was stormy, and the tent walls flapped around noisily all night, making it really hard to sleep. I was kind of afraid the tent would blow away, it was so loud. Since it was supposed to be stormy the next night as well, Patrick asked if they could move us to a more sheltered tent, and luckily they were able to help us out. So we moved from Tent #60 (which I'm sure would be awesome in the summertime but is a little dicey during stormy weather) to Tent #53, which had a less awesome view but was way more peaceful. Phew!

We mostly just sat around our tent and knitted/read. One of the days, we drove into Sechelt and explored a little. We managed to catch a holiday craft fair, and we visited a cute little store specializing in items made by local artists (of course I can't remember its name now, but it was on Mermaid Street next to a small European market). It turned out to be a nice little town to explore.

The restaurant at the resort was nice. We had breakfast there every morning, and we went there for a fancy dinner the second night we were there. In retrospect, it would have been good to bring some food to keep in the little in-room fridge, since the resort restaurant wasn't cheap, and our only other option was driving into Sechelt for every meal.

I'd definitely recommend Rockwater Secret Cove Resort if you want to splurge on a relaxing vacation in a beautiful setting. They also offer spa services and activities like horseback riding, but we didn't do any of that. Three days was a good length of time for us to stay--by the last day, I was feeling ready to get back into the real world!

On our way back to Portland, we stopped in Vancouver for lunch at the third ramen restaurant of interest--Motomachi Shokudo. The first two ramen restaurants we went to seemed pretty traditional; Motomachi was much hipper and experimental. It was good ramen, just not our favorite of the three. Also, Patrick lost his hat there, which was unfortunate :(

So, that was our trip to Canada! I'd like to go back to Vancouver at some point (maybe on the train) and explore downtown more. It seemed like a fun place to visit.

(Photo by Lee)

Friday, October 23

Camp started on a Friday, with a potluck lunch. After that, we spent some time doing really quick getting-to-know-you activities so we'd have some idea of what kind of music people wanted to make. There were about 30 women there, maybe half of them from Portland, with a good-sized Seattle contingent as well. There was a pretty wide age range, including one mother-daughter pair.

Eventually it was time to form our bands, which was kind of scary. We split ourselves up based on the type of music we wanted to play. The group I initially went to had two vocalists, so I ended up standing in the middle of the room, hoping that there would be other people who had ended up without a band. Luckily, the numbers worked out, and I got matched up with Angela (guitar, from Minneapolis) and Beth (drums, from Seattle). Most of the bands also had a bass player, but there weren't quite enough to go around, and we did fine without one.

After we formed bands, we split up to go to instrument instruction, so we didn't have much time to get to know each other at that point. I headed off to vocal class, with our instructor, Teri, who was great--very supportive. The first class was spent warming up, getting to know the other vocalists (there were nine of us total), and practicing our group song (the vocalists traditionally sing a song at the Sunday morning assembly; ours was Don't You Worry About a Thing).

Following instrument instruction, we had our choice of two workshops--songwriting or sound. I went with songwriting, since I had no idea where to start. The main message I got was that you can write a really simple song with minimal lyrics, and it can still be really catchy. The teacher had volunteers go on stage and form makeshift bands, and then we all worked together to make up lyrics and write a song on the fly.

Next we had band practice, which was split into quiet practice (not actually playing the instruments) and loud practice. We had loud practice first. Beth and Angela familiarized themselves with their instruments, and I worked on writing lyrics. I wasn't really sure what I wanted our song to be about, and neither of them had a strong opinion either. I mentioned that the things I like (cooking, knitting, etc.) don't typically make good songs, but then one of them pointed out that there are some knitting terms that have double meanings, and based on that, I came up with what became our chorus and first verse. We didn't get anywhere on the melody (mostly because we were all kind of lost regarding how to get started), but it was comforting that we at least had some lyrics.

During quiet practice, the three of us walked down the street to MLK Fashion Plaza, where we bought some cheap T-shirts for screen-printing the next day. That store is something else--they had a whole assortment of gold teeth, including a full set of gold vampire teeth! Not the kind of place I typically frequent.

At some point we agreed on our band name, Three-Day Afghans. Angela had mentioned that growing up, she and a friend had decided that if they had a band, they'd call it 7-Day Afghans, based on a book her mom had (possibly this one). Beth and I didn't have any other ideas, so we went with that suggestion, modifying it to Three-Day Afghans, since that's how long ladies rock camp is. It also worked with our song's knitting theme.

We all regrouped for dinner, and then it was time to head home. At this point, I was pretty stressed out, since we had to have a song written by Sunday, and I still didn't really know how to make that happen. It would have been more fun if I'd just relaxed and had faith that things would work out, but that's not really my style :) But of course, things did work out. I should have known!

Saturday, October 24

We started out the morning with breakfast and then headed to instrument instruction again. We spent a little time practicing our group song, and then we spent the rest of the class singing alone in front of the group and having Teri give us suggestions on how to improve. Even singing in front of a group of 9 very supportive women made me nervous, but it turned out fine. And I wasn't the only one who was nervous, which made me feel a lot better.

During lunch, an alumna of Rock and Roll Camp for Girls performed, and she was really good! It's a pretty amazing program, and I'm glad girls in Portland have the opportunity to have such a confidence-boosting experience.

After lunch, we did a fun screen-printing workshop, where we got to design our band logos and print them on T-shirts and paper. Our teacher had lots of good ideas for screen-printing on the cheap, and instead of using photo-emulsion, we blocked the screens by cutting our designs out of contact paper and sticking it to the screens (similar to the Tyvek mailing envelope technique that Josh and Sarah used at their Screenprinting for Change party). I ended up designing our band logo--just a simple knitting graphic. Cutting out all those zig-zags from the contact paper took some time, but luckily there were three of us working on it.

Things really started to turn around and become more fun and less stressful at about this point. We had loud band practice after screen-printing, and we came out of it with a pretty well developed song, which was such a relief! I think the key was that we had some outside guidance. There were a few coaches going around between rehearsal rooms during practices, and we managed to get two of them--Bob and Teri--in our room near the beginning of practice. They really helped us get going.

We came up with a few chords that seemed like they might work, Bob and Angela played them on the guitar over and over again, Beth played drums, and I opened my mouth and sang my lyrics, and it worked! Teri and Bob helped tweak a few notes and gave me some advice on a few things I could do to make it more nuanced (which I promptly forgot, I'm sure), and we were suddenly on our way to having a real song, which was such a relief! We figured out the chorus first, and then the verse came pretty easily after that. Here's some iPhone audio from the beginning of the rehearsal, when we had just started working on the chorus.

* Unraveled - Early Chorus

After a few hours of practice, half of the bands had a showcase run-through on the little stage, just to get some experience being on stage and performing in front of people. It was so fun to see what the other bands had come up with! We had all gone in pretty different directions.

After dinner, there was a great karaoke party, but I was lame and headed home pretty early, because I knew I would be exhausted if I didn't. Probably the right choice, but I bet it would have been fun to stay for the whole party!

Sunday, October 25

We started out the day with breakfast, and then the vocalists performed our group song for everybody else, and then we had a hair and makeup session! I painted my nails, which I haven't done in a long time. And I let Teri give me rockstar hair (teased and sprayed with red hairspray), which was a little crazier than I would normally go with, but I guess that's the point.

We had a couple more hours of loud practice, which we spent tightening up the song and going in to watch the other bands practice. We were feeling pretty confident about our song by the end of practice. Here's an iPhone recording of the full song, right before we stopped for lunch. Considering that we put the whole song together in under 24 hours, I think we did a pretty good job!

* Unraveled - Final Rehearsal

Here are the lyrics (not an autobiographical song, by the way):

Verse 1:
Stitched our lives together / So snug at the seams
Now you push me away / I'm no longer in your dreams
Gauge your feelings for me / The fiber of your love
Are the strands frayed and slipping / Or are they plied strong enough

Chorus:
Don't cast me off / I'm a pearl in the rough
Don't throw me for a loop / You've unraveled me enough

Verse 2:
Seem a little distant / Your indifference needles me
Your comments are abrasive / Can't seem to agree
Have you strayed in your affections / Has someone got her hooks in you
Have we just grown complacent / Are you dying for something new

Originally, we had agreed that it would be more fun to do an upbeat song than a slow, sad song (it is Ladies ROCK Camp, after all), but it just kind of turned out a little slow and sad. At that point, we were just relieved to have a song, so we went with it. I think the chorus breaks it up nicely, with the harder drums and tambourine (playing tambourine is fun!).

At lunch, they set up a microphone, and everybody had a chance to go up and give shout-outs to anybody who had helped them or who they thought was awesome (it was really such a positive, supportive environment. What great women!). Clearly I had not learned my lesson from camp, as I was too shy to go up and talk (as usual), but it was really great hearing what everybody else had to say. One of the awesome guitarists even gave me a shout-out for my creative lyrics. Awww :)

Then we headed to our venue (Satyricon, where Nirvana once played!) to put on a rock show! I was dumb and didn't tell any of our Portland friends about it, even though they would have been totally supportive even if I'd messed up big time. Patrick was there though, which was nice. Here's the stage:

Rock and Roll Camp for Girls knows how to put on a show! They had a raffle, an entertaining MC, and all of the tech stuff was well organized, so we just had to show up on stage and perform (no checking sound levels or tuning or anything). They printed a program with everybody's lyrics, and it just happened to have a picture of a knitting mermaid on it (drawn by Heather McLaughlin, our screen-printing teacher), which seemed like a good sign, giving the theme of our song.

We were up third (out of eight bands), which was good, since we didn't have too long to get nervous, and then we were able to enjoy the second half of the show. We got up there, got all set up (I even remembered to adjust the mic stand to the right height), waited while a little raffle business was attended to, and then it was time to play!

Here's a blurry video Patrick took with our digital camera. There will be a professional video forthcoming at some point, though I'm not sure if it'll be online. Our song will also be on iTunes, which is just insane! Two things I would improve after seeing this video: (1) stage presence, (2) sing the right words! I guess I only flubbed the lyrics twice, which isn't so bad considering how new the song was.

Three-Day Afghans - Unraveled on Vimeo.

You can see me leaning over to high-five Teri at the end. She was up there rocking out during the whole song, which was so great :) Considering that we put this together in about 24 hours, I think we did awesome! I am so impressed that Angela was able to pick up the chords so quickly (like I said above, learning to play guitar scares me!), and check out Beth rocking on the drums during the chorus! I'm proud of my band :)

I think it was during the third chorus that I really realized that I was up there, performing a song to a club full of people. It was just a really exhilarating feeling. The experience was totally worth the initial stress. Here are a few videos of the other bands, who were all great!

* Lyte Bright - The Perfect Girl
* Vega - What Do You Give (What Do You Get?)
* Saddle Soar - Hipster Cowboy
* Dollywould - My Friend the T-Rex
* O-various Artists - Sundog Solara

So yes, Ladies Rock Camp is awesome, and you should totally go if you're a lady :) It's a great, supportive environment where you can try something new, and you get to meet all sorts of wonderful women and support a great cause.

P.S. If you wanted to make a bacon scarf, this would totally be the pattern to use. When I was crocheting the pink and red rows at the beginning, it looked very bacony. Luckily, that effect has gone away since I added more colors.

Back in early October, we went to Kruger's Farm on Sauvie Island to check out their pumpkin patch and corn maze. We actually didn't end up going in the maze, but we walked through the pumpkin patch and ate some yummy cinnamon-sugar mini donuts (no apple cider donuts to be had, but these were nearly as good). Good times :)

Around the same time, Patrick harvested all of our remaining tomatoes from the garden, since it was getting cold. Next year, we need to thin our tomatoes so we have more ripe ones and fewer green ones!

I canned some green tomato jam (not bad, plus I got to use our food mill!) and green tomato relish (aka piccalilli, recipe from the Ball Blue Book), and I still had pounds of tomatoes left over. At that point, I was kind of overwhelmed by the number of tomatoes left, so I asked Patrick to dispose of them on the compost pile when I wasn't around (so I wouldn't have to suffer the guilt of wasting perfectly good food). That was a relief! A little later, we got green tomatoes in our CSA box, and Patrick used them in this enchilada recipe (recommended by Susan), which turned out really well. I definitely want to use this recipe again next fall.

Around the same time, I got it in my head that I needed some muffins, so I made two batches, both from Dorie Greenspan's Baking--great grains muffins and morning glory (carrot spice) muffins. Both turned out well, and they made nice mid-morning snacks spread with some cream cheese. They also both froze well, which is good, since we would have been hard pressed to eat 24 muffins before they went stale.

Back in August, I signed up for Lee's inaugural Quick Knits club shipment. It was so much fun getting my package and finding all the little surprises she had included! I knit up that month's project (a little strappy pouch) in less than a day--nearly instant gratification!

Recently I knit myself a pointy hat (from an old issue of Rebecca) using more of the bulky pink yarn that I used to make my scarflet. It was another quick knitting project--I finished it in under 24 hours. Very satisfying! (also on Ravelry)

Here's a picture of the hat in action, at one of Patrick's recent cyclocross races. Andrew was visiting us for the weekend, and we went and watched Patrick get all muddy and exhausted. I'm proud of him for trying new things! I need to make him a cool ensemble for next year's races...

I do have a few things to tell you about once I have more downtime (like how I formed a band with two women I didn't know, wrote a song, and performed it at a real live Portland venue, all in one weekend! Ladies Rock Camp is awesome!). But for now I'll just point you to Lee's post about our group Halloween costume, where you can at least see some pictures of Patrick and me high-fiving and doing fancy handshakes.

This was probably the easiest Halloween costume I've ever done. Lee and Pete did the bulk of the work, putting together a Waldo costume, and all Patrick and I had to do was be not-Waldos. I threw on some striped tights, and Patrick put on a stocking cap, and that was it. I felt kind of bad for not putting more effort into it, but there was the aforementioned work craziness. Maybe next year we'll try harder. For instance, Patrick reminded me that he was supposed to be Potato Champion for Halloween. If he does that, I should totally be the Whiffies fried pie, since they're neighbors in the same food cart pod. That would be hilarious, though very few people would know what we were. Plus I don't think I'd get much use out of a fried pie costume once Halloween was over.

Okay, more later. Bye!

So, what to tell? Both our front and side porches are currently under construction. We're having the floor of our front porch replaced because the boards were rotting, and we're having our side porch completely rebuilt because it was pulling away from the house and generally rickety. I'll post some before and after pictures once the job's done. Patches seems happy with the progress being made on the front porch so far. Plus we know it will hold at least a cat, so that's encouraging!

This past weekend, Tree came to town to run the Portland Marathon because she's a total badass! Her sister Ashly came down from Seattle and stayed with us, and she brought us cupcakes as a thank-you gift. Yes!

Ashly and I cheered on Tree at the marathon start, and then we did the KP 5-mile run, which went along part of the marathon course. This was the fanciest organized run I've done--there were timing chips for our shoes and live bands (including the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers!) every mile or so, and so many great volunteers! I tried drinking water while running, but that didn't work so well, and I ended up spilling it all over myself instead. And then I felt bad throwing a half-full cup of water on the ground as I ran past the volunteers, but I guess that's how it's done.

About 1.5 miles into our run, we ran past the marathoners, and we got to see Tree again and cheer her on some more! And then after we finished our run and cleaned up, we headed back to the finish line to see Tree one more time. She did a great job! We got there early, so while we were waiting, we cheered on all of the other marathon finishers. Many of them had their names printed on their race numbers, so I got to personalize my cheering a little bit. Some people seemed to appreciate having strangers cheer for them, and some just looked confused or peeved. But they had just run 26 miles, so I was not offended by any dirty looks.

Even though the 5-mile run was a little shorter than what Patrick and I usually do on Sundays, I was extra tired and sore afterward, and I didn't even run that fast! I think it was a little more uphill than our usual route. Plus we clapped and cheered for a full hour after our run. That's grueling work! I don't think I'm cut out for marathon running :)

Incidentally, Patrick didn't do the 5-mile run with us because he was doing his first big cyclocross race! You may recall that we went to a cyclocross event last fall, and I enjoyed all of the food. He went to a few more races in addition to the one I wrote about, and he decided that he'd like to try it out. He bought a cross bike (and sold his track bike, to keep the balance of bikes in the house even), went to a few clinics before the season started, and practiced carrying his bike and falling down in the park near our house. And now he's racing! Unfortunately, I haven't been able to watch him race yet because of various timing/location conflicts, but hopefully I will soon! I'm proud of him for trying something new, even if it means a few extra bruises and scrapes. I want to make him some sort of wacky racing outfit, but he doesn't seem interested :)

The weekend before the marathon and cyclocross excitement, we spent a good amount of time out and about. Patrick dropped me off at Knittn' Kitten for a little while, and I found some great things, including some classy vintage sewing pins and a bias tape maker!

We also got this cute vintage corner bookcase at Portico for cheap. I'm not sure whether I want to paint it a lighter color or leave it as-is.

That night, we biked down to Sellwood via the Springwater Corridor and Oaks Bottom Wildlife Preserve, had dinner at A Cena, and then caught a show at The Woods. If you go to A Cena in the summer you should definitely get the agnolotti (stuffed pasta with sweet corn filling, mascarpone, and lobster). The rest of our dinner was nice but unremarkable, but the agnolotti was super good. We need to get back there next summer (or sooner).

We arrived at The Woods pretty early and grabbed a seat on one of the comfy couches. We bought a goblet of snack mix (which turned out to be a boring pretzel-heavy mix; not Chex mix--a minor disappointment) and watched MBilly, Billygoat, and Frontier Ruckus perform. We hadn't heard of any of them before; I just wanted to take Patrick to The Woods since I enjoyed it so much during MFNW. Billygoat was crazy--it was two guys who had created a very involved animation, which they projected above the stage, and then they played the score to it live on all sorts of wacky instruments. Totally not what I was expecting. They were my favorite act of the night, just because they were so unique.

Seating had really filled up by the time Musee Mecanique took the stage, and I was getting sleepy, so we headed home after one song. Hopefully we'll have another chance to see them perform, since I think I'd like their music. It was a beautiful (if chilly) ride home, under the stars. Oaks Amusement Park looked pretty all lit up.

Okay, enough writing. Back to my blankets and oatmeal!

• We started out easy on Thursday by going to see Hey Marseilles at Ash Street Saloon. There was an accordion, so I was happy. After the performance, we headed over to Dante's to see We Were Promised Jetpacks, but there was a long line full of noisy people, and we decided to just head home at a reasonable hour.

• On Friday afternoon, I headed over to Doug Fir to see The Builders and the Butchers perform live on KEXP. There weren't that many people there, and I was able to stand right next to the stage. It was great! I'd never seen an electric banjo before--pretty cool (you can kind of see it on the right in the picture below). I also liked that their songs are so awesome that they need two drummers!

  

  Gunny (aka Jon) arrived from Seattle a little later in the day, and we grabbed a quick dinner at SubRosa before catching the bus downtown. Gunny was really excited about seeing Sunny Day Real Estate reunited, so we went to the Crystal Ballroom to see them and The Jealous Sound (another 90's band that hadn't played together in over 10 years). Since I wasn't cool in high school (or college), I hadn't heard of either band. Pretty much everybody else there was super excited to see them and had clearly been awaiting this day for 11-14 years.

  Patrick and I left about halfway through Sunny Day Real Estate's performance so we'd be able to see Viva Voce at Berbati's Pan, but Gunny stayed behind to soak up as much emo reunion music as possible. He really seemed to enjoy it, which was good :) We weren't that familiar with Viva Voce, and their vocals were kind of hard to hear from where we were standing, but I was glad to see them. They played a few songs that I recognized, including Rose City, which I like by default because it's about Portland :)

  After Viva Voce were The Long Winters, who were enjoyable. I like their album cover art, and John Roderick is a funny guy. However, I was really sleepy at that point, since it was past midnight, so I found a chair and tried (unsuccessfully) to keep my eyes open until the show was over. Add to that the fact that I was wearing practical footwear (clogs!) and complaining about how loud it was (despite my earplugs), and I think I am officially too old for MFNW. Ah well.

• On Saturday, we had breakfast at Chaos Cafe (our default neighborhood destination for healthy and delicious vegetarian food) and then headed up to N. Mississippi. I stopped at that garage sale I mentioned earlier, where I bought my very own full-sized ironing board, but no skulls or male mannequins. The ironing board is lumpy and wobbly, but I think with some love I can make it better, plus it was cheap. I definitely want to make a pretty cover for it, and hopefully Patrick can fix the wobbliness.

  

  We stopped in at Mississippi Records, where Gunny spotted the bassist from The Thermals and we picked up AC/DC's Back in Black and a Simon and Garfunkel album, plus the original Star Wars soundtrack for Susan! I forgot to tell you that we bought a used record player at Crossroads a few weeks ago. I'm afraid that buying a record player at this point makes us hipsters. Except that we don't wear day-glo sunglasses or smoke, so that's something. We just thought it might be nice to listen to records, like our families did when we were kids.

  We had a quick lunch at Por Que No, and then I headed down to Sellwood to see a bunch of bands (Langhorne Slim, The Lonely Forest, John Vanderslice, Bobby Bare Jr., The Black Whales, and Port O'Brien) play unplugged sets at The Woods, as part of a free showcase hosted by KEXP and Caffe Vita. I'd never been to The Woods before, but I really liked it! It's an old funeral home that was recently turned into a small music venue. There were lots of nice old comfy couches and chairs and a little kitchenette where you could buy cupcakes, cheese plates, and goblets of Chex mix (those first two items ended up being my dinner, but I didn't have room for Chex mix. Next time!). I grabbed a chair, settled in, and hung out there happily for the next 6 hours. The only thing that would've made it better is if I'd had my knitting and my cat (and my husband!). I'll definitely bring the knitting next time. I don't think it would be out of place.

  There was one guy on a couch next to me who stayed for the whole 6 hours too, but he ended up falling asleep after about 4 hours, and he just slept peacefully in the back, curled up on a couch, while everybody else listened to music. I thought that was nice :)

  

  Langhorne Slim's set was short but good. My favorite performers of the evening were John Vanderslice and Bobby Bare Jr. I'd definitely like to see them perform live again in the future. John Vanderslice just seemed like a genuinely nice guy, plus he sang a song about cannibalism on the moon--how innovative! He said that he lives in San Francisco, but he wishes he'd moved to Portland 5 years ago when he had the chance.

  Bobby Bare Jr. got there late, but he was totally worth the wait. He was an awesome performer, and his steel guitar player looks just like Ken Burns. Bobby Bare Jr. is really into Shel Silverstein--in fact he's working on an album of covers of Shel Silverstein songs. Sounds cool!

  When the show was over (around 9pm), I headed home and went to bed at a totally reasonable hour! I had originally planned to see Langhorne Slim and The Builders and The Butchers at Crystal Ballroom, but that would have been another late night, and I'm not really a fan of the setup at Crystal Ballroom (the three times I've been there, I've ended up in the crowded over-21 corral, smushed against a stair railing, unable to see much of the stage). Since I had seen both bands already that weekend, I decided it wasn't a big deal to miss them.

• On Sunday, I went for a solo run along the Eastbank Esplanade (Patrick and Gunny did go to the Crystal Ballroom show, so they skipped the run in favor of more sleep). Then we had a lovely morning bike ride through Ladd's Addition (perfect weather!) to Juniors, where we had a very nice breakfast.

  Later that day, I headed over to the Hollywood Library with Lee and Star to see Susan, Diane, and Alicia talk about writing craft books--fun and informative!

  

  Patrick saw Gunny off at the train station, and then we finished out the evening with a little Buffy-watching. We actually just finished our second rewatching of the entire series, so I guess now it's time to find a new TV show to watch on DVD. We have a list of contenders. I'd be interested in True Blood, but I don't know if Patrick will go for it. Maybe Deadwood?

P.S. Yesterday, while biking to trivia, I saw a parade of ~10 naked bike riders at SE 26th and Clinton. They were hooting and hollering, and everybody on the sidewalk at SubRosa and Press Club was cheering for them. It was an unexpected and momentarily shocking sight, but it kind of made my day--such a cheery and innocent display of nudity! Portland is the best :)

P.P.S. I got my information packet for Ladies' Rock Camp in the mail today! I don't think I told you, but I signed up for a three-day-long rock immersion camp in late October. It's a fundraiser for the Rock Camp for Girls program, and I'm both nervous and excited about it! I signed up for vocals, but if it goes well, maybe I'll try drums next year. The camp bands will be performing our original songs on Sunday, October 25, from 3-5pm at Satyricon, if anybody wants to come check it out. It'll be like taking Rock Band to the next level!

• Shangri-La, the new Indian place at SE 26th and Clinton appears to have closed (already!). Bummer--we never got to try their full menu! They've scraped the paint off the windows, and they're totally remodeling the interior. I wonder what it will be next...

• We've once again bought wristbands for Musicfest NW, which means it's time to gather our earplugs and bus fare and stay up later than usual. I'm hoping not to catch a cold this year. The acts I'm most excited about seeing are the ones that impressed me last year--Langhorne Slim and The Builders and the Butchers. There are others that we'd like to check out as well, and our friend Gunny is coming into town from Seattle, so I'm sure he'll have some suggestions.

  If you don't want to spend money, you can still see my two favorites (and others) perform for free thanks to KEXP and Caffe Vita. The Builders and the Butchers will be doing a short set at Doug Fir at 2:30 tomorrow, and Langhorne Slim will be doing an unplugged performance at The Woods (a new venue in Sellwood) at 3pm on Saturday. KEXP is the best!

• Other potential activities this weekend: crafty writers at Hollywood Library on Sunday (I'll go if I'm not totally worn out from late night music) and a crazy sounding yard sale (skull collection, male mannequins, and a papasan chair?!). If you go, please leave the ironing board for me--I've been looking for a full-sized ironing board. My tiny travel-sized ironing board isn't cutting it anymore.

• I made a batch of shiro plum and vanilla bean jam last weekend. It was based on the plum-amaretto jam recipe from Small Batch Preserving, but with half a vanilla bean added during cooking. It smelled so good while it was cooking. It tastes nice too, but not as amazing as it smelled.

  
  
  

  Speaking of jam, for lunch last week, I had pseudo quesadillas made with cheddar cheese and peach jam, and they were good!

  

• Another recent made-up lunch that turned out well: a grated carrot salad with balsamic vinaigrette, raisins, feta, basil, and pine nuts.

  

• I've been thinking about getting a food mill for a while, so when I walked by Mirador and saw a slightly used one for 25% off, I bought it and made applesauce with it the very next day (our favorite apple lady is back at our farmers' market, so I had to buy something from her, even though it doesn't quite feel like apple time).

  I used the recipe for caramelized applesauce from Morning Food, and then I specifically ignored the recipe (which said to leave the apples un-mashed) and ran half of the sauce through our food mill. It's tasty, but very thick--more like apple butter. This could be because I milled it, but it could also be because of the types of apples I used. Still good mixed into cottage cheese! Anyway, I like our food mill and am looking forward to using it more in the future!

  
  
  

• I actually made progress on our Roman blinds this weekend, but then I got distracted by life during the week. I just need to sew a little bit more, and then they'll be ready for Patrick to take care of the hardware. Must finish them!

• After over a year, we've finally bought a few houseplants! We went to both Portland Nursery locations and ended up getting a parlor palm (some cats love parlor palms, but Patches is totally uninterested) and a spider plant. I crocheted a little Granny hexagon (using old acrylic yarn and the instructions in Linda's book) to put under the palm so the pot won't scratch our floors.

  
  
  
  
  

  I also bought some ranunculus, crocus, and tulip bulbs to plant around our garden, so we'll have even more exciting flowers next spring!