Eating paint and peppers

So, the title of this post is not a reference to my pregnancy induced pica, as you will see. This past weekend I went up to Oakland to see Brandy's new house and celebrate Amelia's 3rd birthday (yay!), making this the fourth consecutive year I have gotten to spend time with Amelia on her birthday. Sadly, I took my camera but no photos - she was awfully cute though! I guess you'll have to take my word for it. Anyway, Lonnie had brought chocolate cake with chocolate icing and after Amelia blew out the candles, they passed it out. I had taken one bite and noticed that a drop of icing appeared to have fallen on my pants. Bummer since it's not like I have an infinite supply of maternity clothes. But you can't let the chocolate go to waste, so I swiped it and licked it off my finger. And made what must have been a terrible face because a couple of people started staring at me. It tasted so bitter and I was making the face while I contemplated the fact that a kid's birthday cake had used such unrefined cacao. Then I realized that Yasha had just been closing the lids on a couple of cans of chocolate colored paint behind me. Ugh! Other than that the party was really fun. Everyone who has spent any time with Amelia knows she's just wild about trucks and cars and trains, so it's very easy and fun to find appropriate presents for her. Chris managed to find a matchbox Tesla roadster and we also got her one of those wooden train tracks that most of her cars happen to fit on as well. And some candy bracelets because I always loved those as a kid. I think the candy has actually gotten tastier on them, as a bonus.

On Sunday, after running a zillion errands and taking some naps and stuff, we had a BBQ for some friends of Chris's living in the area. Looking in the garden before the bbq, I noticed that I had a rather large zucchini, so I harvested it (yay!) and we grilled it up to go in the burritos. I can't say it tasted amazing or anything, but it tasted like zucchini, so I'm happy with that. And we actually found a use for it, which is by no means guaranteed with zucchinis. In addition I decided it was time to try a pepper, so we picked one of our Fooled You peppers. Just in case they'd gotten the seeds mixed up I made Chris try it first and he reported that, indeed, it tastes just like a jalapeno, except it never gets around to the part where it burns your mouth. Very interesting. I don't normally eat jalapenos straight, so all I can report was that it tasted pretty much like a raw green pepper. I guess we'll make some mild salsa with it. Or serve it up next to carrot sticks or something. Anyway, I was very very excited to get to eat my first veggies!

Yosemite with Jill and Wolfgang

I promised I would write about the extreme fun we had this past weekend. I was finally able to convince my dear friend Jill to come visit me in California. In trying to plan the best things to visit while she was here I decided she needed to see Yosemite. When she mentioned this to her husband he asked to be allowed to come too so we made it a two couple trip up. We drove up on Friday night and stayed in Curry Village. On Saturday we did a really nice hike to the base of Yosemite falls, including bouldering up to the pool at the very base. They were having a heat wave so we spent the afternoon rafting in the cool water. The next day we had intended to hike to the base of Vernal Falls, but when we got there I was feeling so great and Wolfgang really wanted to keep going, so we ended up going all the way to the top of the falls. This is along a trail that’s so steep they put in stairs. As I was partway down, an out-of-breath woman coming up looked at me and said incredulously, “You’re having a baby!!” I wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or chastised. Anyway, J&W loved the hike so I was able to stop feeling bad about dragging them on such a long drive. Yosemite really is amazing though.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend though was just getting to spend time with an old friend. Jill and I have changed a lot since high school but we seem to have changed in the same exact ways. We have similar hobbies (different ones from high school), similar viewpoints on food (again, different from H.S.) and even practically the same purse fer cryin’ out loud. We also married rather similar guys, which was nice because they got along great the whole weekend – compatible traveling companions is by no means guaranteed, so it’s nice to find!

Unfortunately I don’t have photos from the weekend. I never bothered with a camera because I’ve taken many pictures there before and it’s tough to take good ones. Also, it was really smoky there because of all the fires in the area so they would have turned out rather crummy. If J&W post any I’ll be sure to steal them and post them here. :-)

Single word meme tag

Annie has tagged me...
Rules: You must answer the questions using only one word. Then tag four others.

1. Where is your cell phone? Purse
2. Your significant other? Best
3. Your hair? Messy
4. Your mother? Loving
5. Your father? Passed
6. Your favorite thing? Books
7. Your dream last night? Unremembered
8. Your favorite drink? Tea
9. Your dream/goal? Adventure
10. The room you’re in? Cube
11. Your hobby? Knitting
12. Your fear? Death
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Abroad
14. What you’re not? Fearful
15. Muffins? Blueberry
16. One of your wish list items? Veggies
17. Where you grew up? Tennessee
18. The last thing you did? Typed
19. What are you wearing? Maternity
20. Favorite gadget? Baller
21. Your pets? Kitties!
22. Your computer? Mac
23. Your mood? Bored
24. Missing someone? Usually
25. Your car? Garage
26. Something you’re not wearing? Sandals
27. Favorite store? Grocery
28. Like someone? Naturally
29. Your favorite color? Yellow
30. When is the last time you laughed? Hours
31. Last time you cried? Months
32. Last time you sang? Car

Ok. There we go. I refuse to tag others on principle, but I wouldn't hate to see my readers' responses. :)

Expectant

For all those who mocked my garden and called it "pitiful" or "dirt farm," here's a big ol' dose of "you should have been nicer because now you're gonna have to grovel to get any goodies." Here's my backyard babies:

A baby zucchini
A baby cucumber - I think. I've never seen a baby cucumber before and this one isn't that obvious yet...
Baby tomatoes
Baby Fooled You peppers, which are a heatless jalapeno.
Baby bell peppers
Cinnamon basil bush
The basil has very unusual and lovely flowers
Not a baby: our giant jungle tomato tree. We grew this one just the same as all the others but somehow it's a monster.

Coming soon: tales of weekend adventure in Yosemite and San Francisco with Jill and Wolfgang.

I want this!

I want this for Dottie's room. Too bad it's not for sale!!

As seen originally here.

Apricot Jam

Here's the promised documentation from my jam making experience. I never thought I would can again after last year's fiasco, but I couldn't just let all these lovely apricots go to waste.

Last Sunday Chris and picked a bowlful and I found a recipe out of my Ball Blue Book (the bible of canning) and gave it a shot. That particular recipe said that green fruit had pectin in it, so as long as I had some green fruit in the mix then I shouldn't need extra pectin. Well, evidently I didn't have enough green fruit, because that first try turned out as syrup. The next day I went and bought pectin at the grocery store and made up a couple of recipes. Eva had volunteered to come over and help and so we were able to process twice as much jam in the same time, and this jam actually congealed, which was awesome.


Then a friend from work asked for some apricots to try jam making, so I gave her a couple of huge bags... then last night I used up the last of the pectin making jam with some of the higher up apricots - to get these Eva and I had to hold a tarp under the tree while Chris beat the higher branches to get the fruit out. We ended up with a lot more bad fruit that way, but we couldn't have gotten any of those fruits otherwise.

Anyway, in the end we made 17 pints of jam (or syrup) and another two pints unpreserved. There's still more apricots but they're just going to have to be as they are because I'm sick of canning. I hardly ever even eat jam! On the whole this was a better experience than the tomato canning. The tomatoes took forever to peel (you don't have to peel apricots) and I'd never canned before so the preservation process took forever. This time I kind of knew when to start the water boiling for the canning. By the 2nd time canning with Eva we were able to go really quickly - we both knew the process and everything just came together before Chris hardly noticed! It's still tiring though.

In other news my garden has its first tomatoes, which is really exciting. Also, last Wednesday I started feeling the baby kicking me (yay!) and last night Chris felt it too. Finally, the doctor called a couple of nights ago to tell me my placenta is on the low side, which could be really bad if it doesn't move back up (which evidently it does in most cases), so they're going to do another detailed ultrasound in 6 weeks to just check on where it is.

Week 20 Ultrasound photos

For those who are interested, I have more ultrasound photos. I labeled them as best I could - I'm pretty used to looking at ultrasound photos now thanks to work and just getting lots of ultrasounds, but I'm never sure how obvious things will be to other people.