Pervy Insects a.k.a. Honey Get the Kerosene

Our house is under attack. I noticed there were a lot of ants in back but didn't think much of it because there's always quite a few ants out there. Last year we put tanglefoot around the base of the orange tree to help end a weird insect cycle: orange tree draws aphids which produce honeydew on the leaves which draws ants. Honeydew grows sooty mold, oranges always look covered in some nasty gook. You can break the cycle by preventing the ants from reaching the honeydew: other insects eat the aphids once they're not protected by the ants, and the honeydew and sooty mold goes away. The tanglefoot is a nice solution because it only kills a few of them and, deprived of their food source, the ants go away. Well, this year the ants were getting to be a pain because they're living in my garden box and when I water they go nuts and crawl all over me making my skin crawl basically all the time thinking there's ants on me. So I replaced the breached tanglefoot barriers and put out some poison bait thinking I'd kill a bunch of them just so they don't go bonkers looking for something to eat when deprived of their food source.

Well, I guess I didn't kill enough of them. I was taking down my hair this evening when the skin on my feet started to crawl and I realized I was standing in a giant ant highway and they were crawling all over me. I started making panicked noises, scaring poor Chris in the other room, until I could calm down and say I was fine while frantically brushing off ants. And what were the ants after in our dressing room? My underwear. Uh... what is up with that??? I have no idea what they can be thinking. These are ants that usually go for sugar water. Gross. Ugh. I hope I can sleep tonight.

The title of the post comes from a story Chris and I heard somewhere about people who were visiting Africa and heard the ant invasion was coming and carried their bed outside, put all four legs in buckets of kerosene, held tight to the dog, and let the ants go past. I'm thinking of putting our bed legs in kerosene just so I can feel safe at night... what if the ants decide to go direct to the source??!? Aaaaaccckk....

Snack time

So, it's 5am on Friday morning and I'm wide awake. This is not unusual - for me or for a pregnant person in general. My body's way of preparing for early morning feedings? Anyway, it has started happening this week that I wake up very early in the morning and am so hungry I just lay there thinking about what food I'm going to eat when I get up in the morning until I realize it's stupid and get up and have a snack. I'm not too slow of a learner though - on Monday morning I lay there for 45 minutes. Today, only about 5. My weapon of choice? Plain Mediterranean style yogurt (very thick) with honey. So delicious.

Yesterday we had an ultrasound that showed my placenta has moved up - yay(?) a c-section will not be mandatory. It also showed that the baby is definitely definitely a girl and that she has long legs and a big head. Guess she's probably ours after all. I don't have any pictures but she wasn't very photogenic yesterday - she's gotten so big that we only see slices and the way she was laying they were boring slices. Like, through the torso so we could see her stomach and spinal cord.

Ok, I should probably try to sleep a couple more hours. It's not too bad though - I went to bed really early last night because it was too hot in the house for anything else.

Baby photos

Here's some photos I thought y'all might enjoy. First me, in my 27 1/2 weeks pregnant glory.

Next, Dottie modeling the adorable sweater I made for her from a kit that I bought when she was only a twinkle in her mommy's eye.

This weekend I took Isaac to the vet (eye infection - he's fine), slept a lot, hosted a BBQ for bookclub in honor of Aimee being in town, and hung out with Brandy today in Oakland. Also this weekend we got word that Ab had her baby, making her the first of a clot of people all having babies around the same time. Congrats Ab & Dave!

Random stuff

I saw this post today on the Craftzine and thought I'd mention to those considering gifts for little Dottie that I love handmade things. Either handmade by you or by someone else, both are nice. That link mentions Etsy which is this kind of online mall for people who make things by hand. It's a little intimidating how much they have to offer, but if you have something specific in mind there's sure to be someone who makes it there and you can search for people who are making stuff near where you live too so you can patronize local artists. I guess this site is good for buying things for me too if you're not sure what to get me for a present sometime. I love photography and interesting prints and actually practically everything I've ever seen on Etsy. :-)

In other news I finished the tulip sweater for Dottie and it's about the cutest thing I've ever knitted. I'll post photos soon. I've started picking my first full size tomatoes from the garden - they're on the small side though. I think this is because I was completely unwilling to prune the tomato plants so they're growing a million small tomatoes instead of any monsters. I think that's all my news... except Chris is getting really really close to done with his thesis. He's been suffering through not even going out for dinner all this week to help him get things done and staying up really late. It's going to be so exciting when he's done!!!

Tomato Toast

I promised Jen that I would post this, my favorite tomato recipe of all time, for her to enjoy her new tomatoes with. This recipe actually comes from a Spanish gentleman who I dated for a number of years. He didn't cook many different things, but the ones he did were amazing. Him and his whole family ate tomato toasts as a breakfast food - Chris and I usually have it for lunch. In fact, Chris now calls tomato season "tomato toast season" in honor of this easy easy recipe.

Ingredients:
Crusty bread - anything pre-sliced will never do. French bread, baguettes, sourdough, ciabatta are all great. It should be plain though (no rye or wheat or anything like that)
High quality tomatoes - the better the tomato the better the toast
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt

How to make it:
First off, toast the bread. I usually take my ciabatta roll, slice it in half, and then toast it until it's only slightly brown. Now, take a sharp knife and make a bunch of cross hatches in the cut side of the bread - this is to let the olive oil seep in better. Now drizzle olive oil all over the bread - I don't recommend a light touch with the oil - the more oil the more better! Now slice your tomato - for a medium size tomato I usually do 6 constant thickness slices. Don't let too much of the juice escape. Now pile the tomatoes onto the toast and use your hands to squish them hard into the bread. This is an important step! It really gets the bread a bit juicy. This also smooshes down the bread - these crusty breads can really be pointy and hurt your mouth to eat, especially after toasting. Finally, salt liberally and eat. Have napkins handy.

Make this recipe! I promise you won't regret it!!

Glowing? Glowing?!?!

My sweet (delusional?) sister-in-law claimed that pregnancy has made me glow. Here's what I have to say about that: HA! I have compiled an album of photos proving her delusionality. All of these were taken while I was pregnant and I think serve my point very well. (So I didn't feel so lonely I have posted a few photos of other people, showing they're not glowing either... hehe...) Click below and enjoy.

In other news, today I ate a cucumber and a couple of peppers from the garden. I'd never had a black bell pepper before and I have to say that I wish I'd gotten a red one instead in the seed grab-bag that I planted. The cucumber was very good though - Chris and I both thought it tasted quite a bit like the part of the watermelon near the rind when you haven't quite given up on it being sweet yet and are gnawing on the green part. This is a good thing, in case you couldn't tell - the cucumber was very sweet. It had a tough rind though so peeling it was really non-optional. I also picked a whole lot of basil today and made pesto in my brand spankin' new food processor. I overshot on the garlic and under-shot on the basil, but it was still quite tasty. Finally, I took my remaining monster zuke, ran it through the grater attachment on the food processor, and froze the result ready for making zucchini bread sometime soon.

Finally, I know I've been promising tales of Ocean City forever but I waited so long I forgot what stories I thought I had to tell. Mostly it was just a really relaxing trip. We ate a lot (especially of fried foods), went to the beach a lot and swam in the waves, played with Grant a lot, and slept in late every day. One good story though happened only minutes into arrival in Maryland. My mom and sister picked us up and my sister had printed out directions on how to get to the beach house from the airport. We were teasing her a bit claiming that we wouldn't think it was a real trip to DC if there wasn't utter chaos in the giving of directions (as there was about a year ago). So I announced that at the next intersection I would say go right, and Chris would say go left, for the full experience. Just that moment a sign comes up for an exit and I say "Ma! You need to go right at the next exit!" and Chris pipes up "Oh, yeah, you need to get off but I'm pretty sure it's a left exit!" Note that neither of us had any idea what we were talking about. My sister, annoyed with us for being such brats, failed to notice that actually we were supposed to exit, and my mom ignored both of us and just went straight. As it turned out we were on a highway where you couldn't just get off at the next exit - there wasn't another for miles and then the highway just ended and suddenly we were practically in the middle of DC! Chris and I thought this was hilarious (my sister and mom less so). Personally I thought it might even have been worth whatever extra time was required in the car for us to be completely messed up approximately 15 seconds after I declared I was going to instill chaos. Hehe... sorry Steph! Kinda sorry anyway...

Ocean city photos

I finally got around to posting Ocean City vacation photos. Click the photo above to see more. Stories will have to wait awhile longer...

If you read my blog over a feed reader you might also be interested in adding this link to your reader. At least I think that's the right link. I use the Google feed reader and whenever I see something online I like I can note it. So that link kinda shows the most interesting/funniest things I've seen on the internet. The links show on my blog also, so you can just click the links there.

The best things about being pregnant

Hey all. I've been off on vacation (last week) and sick this week, so I'll be awhile getting around to posting about vacation, but there will be photos! Of a cute baby! (Ok, I know he's not a baby, but he's kinda like one...) And funny stories! But not yet.

While on vacation my mom asked me what my favorite thing about being pregnant was. My mind instantly went to those old guys from the Muppet Show who would say stuff like, "'You know what the best part about this song is?' 'No, what?' 'It's almost over!' 'Ha ha ha'" Then I realized there were actually one or two parts about being pregnant that I liked and my mom thought of a whole bunch more, so in the interest of helping my positive thinking (which needed some serious help this week, what with all the trouble breathing), here's my list of things I like about being pregnant. And if anyone has things they think should be added, I'd love to hear about it.

1. Feeling the baby kicking. Sometimes it creeps me out a little or makes me nauseous when she moves a lot, but mostly I really like knowing she's there. In general I consider pregnancy to be this wretched thing you do to get a baby, so I'm expecting to be more fond of pregnancy when I've got to the end part and see it's worth it. Anyway, yeah. The kicking. There was lots of that on vacation because I sat still a lot and was in the sun. In fact, in Ocean City was the first time I could see the baby move.
   
2. Seeing the baby move in an ultrasound. This was my only proof she was a living thing before the kicking, so it was my favorite until the kicking started.
   
3. Being able to eat whatever I want with no guilt. I've gained quite a bit of weight, but I don't care. I'll diet when it's over. The only way I know not to gain weight is to calorie restrict, which I'm specifically not allowed to do while pregnant. So bring on the cookies! Actually, I try not to eat too much sugar or fat, but mostly that's because too much of that stuff makes me feel sick.
   
4. Not having to carry heavy stuff or stand for long periods of time. I've always hated doing both of these things, and in the case of standing a lot, I have suspected for awhile that it hurts my feet more than the average person. But anyway, no one expects me to do either of these things anymore.
   
5. No period. Periods never bothered me that much, but I can't say I miss them.
   
6. People are really happy and excited for me. It seems like there's a lot of people I know who I've never noticed as being particularly happy or sad but who now are all excited and happy when they talk to me about having kids. So there's more people than usual around me with this extremely positive attitude.
   
7. People are unusually nice to me. People at work who usually never talk to me come and ask me how I'm feeling - I've pretty much decided that I think this is nice, instead of creepy...
   

Ok, that's all I got. Your turn. Tell me good things about being pregnant (not about having kids... I feel certain that one is true).

Freak veggie

Picked this monster this morning. Zucchini bread anyone?