weird in the day

Poor Tim, like a humanoid fresh from the womb, has got his mornings, days, and nights all mixed up. This due to finals- and PhD-application-imposed sleep deprivation.

Today, after a hasty last read-through, we rushed his paper to the English Department Office with minutes to go before closing time. On the return trip, Tim noticed a young girl, age 10 maybe, walking outside. For reasons unbeknownst to anyone, he smiled and waved.

The poor girl looked as if she didn't know how to respond and gave a shy, indeterminate wave in response. You can betcha Tim sure felt like a creeper.

our new baby

No, silly, this post is not to introduce you to our real baby (still gestating). This is way better.

Introducing Blender Baby:

I've been posting about blenders for a while now (like this one time approximately 2.5 years ago). If  I did one of those word clouds for this blog, it might have blender and Hanson on there pretty large, which is weird. Anyway, I think this is blender number four or five in our household. But thanks to the generous birthday/Christmas/birthday again gift from parentals, we'll go several years yet without having another blender baby.

I have expressed my doubts about the superiority of these machines, but a seven-year warranty is pretty nifty. AND THEY ARE SO COOL!!! Have you seen the demonstrations at Costco and the like? I could watch for hours. Our first Vitamix blend was devoted to our classic smoothie, and it was the smoothest darn smoothie we've ever made. We've also been making hot chocolate in the machine instead of the Cocoa Latte/Cocomotion because if you leave the blender on for a while, the stuff gets hot (!!!!).

We pretty much can't get enough. Please let us know if you have suggestions for things to blend.

MMMHop

This isn't the first time Hanson has made an appearance on this blog. Remember this?

Well, our favorite trio is going strong in their music-making pursuits, as previously mentioned, but THAT'S NOT ALL. They're also going to release a trademark alcohol: MMMHop. Nice play on their headlining hit, right? Not.

Pumpkin

We carved pumpkins about a month too late this year. But that's okay, because they looked nice sitting out on our doorstep for their tenure. It occurred to me when they were there that it was strange to use food as porch decorations, but then I thought of those plastic grapes and whatnot people sometimes put on their tables or wherever, and I felt better.

I actually didn't carve anything even though we got two sizeable squashes. This is because I'm afraid of knives lately (pregnancy clumsiness is a verifiable phenomenon— I've cut myself a lot). But Tim's carving was a beauty.

After the gleeful and violent attack ended, we cleaned out the insides like civilized folk. I made pumpkin puree and am going to roast the seeds in a minute.

Before I do that, though, I have to think about this question: What am I going to do with all this puree? Anybody want some?

Happy Thanksgiving!

his new look

Last night we went to Whole Foods and Tim got complimented on his new shades by a male stranger. Score.

Later, another customer standing near me greeted me. When I asked "How are you?" in return, he said earnestly "I'm happy." Both of these incidental interactions might have happened because we were at Whole Foods. Just a thought.

No really, it's a boy.

I hear the error rate for determining male gender in fetuses is a little lower than for determining female gender (which makes sense), so I wasn't exactly doubting, but I had another ultrasound today and got that confirmed. Just in case anyone was wondering.

It's a . . .

 

It seems like this might be the only time posting pictures of someone's genitalia online is acceptable (Something about it being an ultrasound picture makes it okay, right?), so I better take advantage while I have the chance! We showed this picture to Tim's mom last night after we found out and she couldn't stop making hilarious comments about Baby's "woo hoo."

Congratulations to the winners who left comments (Rach, Hilary, Marci, Heather, Rachel, Margaret, April, Holly)! I will contact you individually for mailing addresses: this prize is the real deal.

Also, a couple of other guesses deserve mention:

Jon: "You will give birth to a genderless child. Think Ken doll."
Cole : "Eunuch" (guessed via Facebook)

As Tim astutely points out, Cole is technically correct. And I might have considered Jon's guess if the sonographer had been unable to determine the sex. It gave us a good laugh, though.

Tim himself is disappointed about not winning a prize, but we're excited to meet this little guy.

P.S. In case you were wondering, normally I wouldn't have found out Baby's gender for a few more weeks, but I'm participating in this study called NuMom2B. It's fun because they do three ultrasounds as part of the study, and I don't have to pay for them. :)

Baby Rowan! and Gender Contest

It has been a while since I have contributed to this blog, but upon noticing that all of Amanda's recent posts have depicted me exclusively as delirious and incoherent, I felt compelled to write something in order to demonstrate that I actually am not insane and/or creepy most of the time.

And I have great news! Amanda is pregnant! We are having a baby and are very excited, especially since chances are high that this will be the cutest baby the world has ever seen.

Amanda is now approximately 16 weeks along (and still often as nauseated as ever, poor girl) and this week she will have an ultrasound that will likely tell us whether we are having a girl or a boy. Of course, I have been saying for months now with utter confidence that we are having a girl, but Amanda places more trust in the ultrasound, a soulless machine, than in me, her faithful husband.

Ultrasound image at approximately 11 weeks

Which brings us to this blog post's titular contest (I realize that calling it a "gender contest" is not completely accurate, but using the more accurate word "sex" was perhaps way more inappropriate). We are inviting all our readers to predict whether our impending child is a boy or a girl.

But that's not all! The first ten respondents to predict correctly will win a prize! We haven't determined what that prize will be yet but rest assured that it will be something to make neighbors jealous. To submit your prediction, post a comment below!

Winners (oh, and the baby's sex) will be announced Friday. Good luck!

it's that time of year

There was a coupon at Costco for this hot cocoa mix, so of course we had to get it. We take our hot cocoa seriously around here. One of the few kitchen appliances we own is a Cocoa Latte. You might say that buying a mix for hot cocoa is sort of excessive because you can easily make hot cocoa from scratch (and cocoa from scratch is a pretty good way to go), but novelty and coupon savings called.

And we're quite pleased. We purchased the 56-serving container on October 15 (four days ago!) and it's approximately halfway gone.

Pathetic? Maybe slightly.

brief exchange

Tim: Oh, look, hair!
Amanda: Where?
Tim: Just in the food. But that's okay. I like your hair, and I don't feel threatened by it.

weird in the night

This is a picture of my husband, the insomniac, on our wedding day (almost exactly two and half years ago, which is nice).

Oh hey, Tim, how's it going?

The past six weeks or so, Tim hasn't been sleeping too well. He's had a hard time falling asleep, and sometimes he wakes up and can't fall back asleep. These persistent symptoms of insomnia have plagued him and disrupted his normal daytime functioning, poor kid, so much so that he visited the doctor. (On a side note, I approved this utilization of healthcare services because we've purchased insurance for two years without him using it.)

The doctor gave him some advice about sleep hygiene and (now we come to the point of the post) a prescription for Ambien.

Ambien does weird things to people, apparently. The side effects may include driving, eating, talking on the phone, having sex, etc., all without remembering anything the next morning. Mostly, though, Tim has experienced motor and movement problems. Also, I think he might be having what some would call hallucinations (another known side effect).

Here are a few examples:

Thursday: Tim takes pill when we are out using an office copier. He disappears for a while without saying anything. Upon returning, he looks at me with a dazed expression and says, "I may or may not just have turned off a lot of equipment." We left right about then. I'm really sorry to all those who were confused about why their printers weren't working today as a result.

Tuesday: Lengthy and detailed description of several dreamscapes while lying awake (?) in bed. "I'm standing on a road in a mountain . . . there are rocks . . . you're standing next to me, but your hair is black . . ."

He also kept saying, "I'm dreaming right now, but I'm awake."

Monday: Philosophical ruminations on the essence of love. "Do you think our love is still the same thing even though it's changed?"

Ambien has definitely helped Tim to sleep through the night. We'll soon see if he returns back to normal after the prescription (enough to last for a week) runs out after tonight.

weird in the morning, episode 5

Tim: Do you want to ride in the tire?

Amanda: Did you make a tire swing?

Tim: No, but I found a big tire and we could ride it down the hill.

weird in the morning, episode 4

Tim just rolled over and said to me, "Do you know that on old ships, it's the ropes that keep the mast from tipping over?"

Vinto Pizzeria

Last night Tim and I tried a new restaurant in Salt Lake with his dad and step-mom called Vinto Pizzeria. Tim ordered the "Giovanni" pizza, which appears on the menu  with the following ingredient list: Prosciutto di Parma, seasonal fruit, arugula, fontina, fresh herbs, shaved parmigiano-reggiano.

What does "seasonal fruit" mean? We had the same question. The pizza came with thin slices of nothing other than cantaloupe melon. It was good.

Also, we tried a variety of their gelato and sorbetto (guilt-free): green apple and dark chocolate sorbetto; strawberry, mint chocolate chip, basil, and ginger gelato.

We appreciated most of these strange flavor combinations.

the end

Our sugar fast is officially over as of today, but I'll be honest: we've been acting like it's been over for a while now. At least now, though, I don't have to feel as guilty about it. We're not about to go crazy on the sugar thing, but we're not going to avoid it so much. For example, I've reignited my love affair with homemade strawberry jam. Yummmmmm.

My Favorite Furniture

Table sold by the neighbors who lived above us. The ones that left in the night.  (Place mats included!): $50

Couch owned by my grandparents who now live in a rest home and therefore don't need their furniture: $0

Smoke-filled chair and ottoman purchased at DI in Tooele, Christmas 2010 (It no longer smells smoky!): $15

These are my favorite because of how they were acquired, of course.

Lactating Alien

A couple of posts ago I wrote: "I looked like a lactating alien." I would be lying if I didn't admit that I sort of thought that would merit a comment.

A post about driving, brought to you by Google Maps Street View

The intersection on 200 S and State Street in downtown Salt Lake is confusing.

Tim and I were driving there a couple of weeks ago. Imagine that we are that grey SUV in this Google Maps Street View photo; that's where we were. (P.S. Remember how we saw that sweet Street View car? New-found appreciation.) See how there's a divided lane there next to the SUV?

That divided lane merges with 200 South pretty close to the intersection with State Street. When it does, there is a "No Right Turn" sign.

But then you get to the intersection and see this sign. And you don't realize that you have two lanes now to the right of you, because they're separated by a divider.

So you turn right onto State Street.

And then you get a ticket.

(As you are being pulled over, you see someone else pulled over in the exact same spot, presumably for the same offense. When you drive around the block, you see at least three other people getting pulled over, too. Quota to fill, anyone?)

Just shy of two weeks later, you get online to pay the ticket (YOU MUST PAY OR APPEAR WITHIN 14 CALENDAR DAYS, the ticket says). The system says your citation number cannot be found. So you try looking it up by your license plate number. Nothing.

Then you call the phone number listed on the ticket and get connected to an automated "interactive voice response system" and struggle to talk to a computer. Your citation number still can't be found. They disconnect you. You call another number and talk to a real person who directs you to different department, where you talk to a different real person, who says the ticket number is not in the system.

"You just have to keep calling," she says. "Try again on Friday."

"But that's after 14 calendar days," you say.

"If there is a delinquent fine, tell them you talked to me," she adds.

Salt Lake City Justice Court, you suck.

Real Soccer Game

We had great fun at the Real game last night.

Here's crappy cell phone picture evidence:

They played FC Dallas and won 2-0. There were some pretty exciting plays. Soccer is an exciting sport to watch, even for me.

july forf

I'm not too big on patriotic displays or pyrotechnic ones (fireworks? boring) usually, but we still had a good Independence Day. And certainly we both appreciated the day off work.

We hiked Adams Canyon, which I'm sure I've done many, many times before, but didn't remember being so long and rocky toward the end. But to the end we went! We had our picture taken at the top by some friendly fellow hikers.

We are wearing matchy cut-off shorts, isn't that cute?

I had this red bandanna thing that I got wet and put around my neck for cooling purposes. The darn thing totally dripped and stained my shirt awkwardly. As a result, I looked like a lactating alien. But that didn't stop us from going straight from there to a barbecue attended by a bunch of people we didn't know. (We did know a few important folks, though, and they are nice folks.)

At the barbecue, I ate nearly three chocolate chip cookies. Month 2 of the sugar fast is apparently going real swimmingly, just like Month 1. This is the first time I've indulged like that though. GIVE ME A BREAK.

Shasta (not soda)

So about two weeks ago, Tim and I went to Sacramento so he could mountaineer on Shasta with his dear friend Darren (DFD).

Here is a video of Tim glissading down the mountain:

I like the end and Tim's sideways visage of unadulterated thrill:

While he was ascending Shasta (which is actually not too near Sacramento), I hung out with this cute little girl:

Usually babies are scary but Lilli just might be the most chilled out baby I have ever met. She was never really fussy, didn't cry, stayed up late, slept in, etc. And it was crazy. But the kind of crazy I can get behind.

Also, Tim acquired raccoon eyes!

All in all, it was a short but pleasant visit.

wednesday night dance party

This video is 25 percent its original size. 25 percent might still be too much.

I tried the Bernie, which my friend Rachel mentioned on her blog today. It was awkward. Also, I'm awkward. (Why is my mouth open like the whole time? No one knows.)

Tim has the smooth moves.

time-lapse climbing

The pictures from this are old (winter 2008) but I just made the video with the help of Picasa. It's mildly interesting. Enjoy!

no-sugar day 13

One unanticipated restriction of the no-sugar diet is that we can't really go out to eat, which is probably a good thing. But we haven't been as strict as we maybe should be, and last week we bought some food from a restaurant that almost definitely uses refined sugar. No question about it. Most restaurants probably do (refined sugar, meet sauce), and unless you have access to ingredient lists, which aren't usually made available in restaurants (why not, anyway?), then you can feign ignorance.

It was kind of desperate, as most of our eating out situations seem. (And desperate times-->desperate measures, right?) Rarely do we PLAN to go out. But sometimes we neglect to plan anything else and as a result of dire starvation and time constraints, or sometimes peer pressure, we break down in the face of, in this case, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.

I guess in the vein of full disclosure I should also confess that we ate at Cafe Rio on Saturday due to the spontaneous invitation of a friend who we were transporting from the airport. It would've been rude to say no.

In some ways we've been willfully ignorant. I can safely say that we haven't purchased any groceries that include refined sugar, but we may have freely sampled sugary items when they've been presented to us (other people offering us bits of food, samples at Costco, BYU chocolate milk at the end of a Welfare Square tour . . . actually, that last one didn't involve ignorance in the least, but it was drunk by Tim anyway). We've also used some existing items that don't comply with regulation here and there.

So basically things are going . . . well.

sugar fast

Today is day one of our 60-day sugar challenge: avoid refined and added sugars entirely (with a few predefined exceptions).

Though the health benefits of naturally occurring sugars vs. commercially processed sugars are somewhat debatable, avoiding them as much as possible is going to reduce our sugar intake overall drastically, which seems like a good thing. And while sugar itself isn't all bad, it is responsible for lots of empty and unnecessary calories. We did inventory of our current holdings and were a little shocked at how many items that we didn't expect to contained added sugars. (Canned beans?) Also, sugar is often concentrated alongside fatty-fatty foods. (That's double fatty foods, if you didn't know, and I just now made it up.)

In our marriage, I've learned that Tim has little restraint when it comes to sweets. I'm just chuckling to myself as I recall how quickly he recently ate almost an entire carton of ice cream single-handedly. (That sentence seems overly burdened by adverbs.) So when it comes to these little "diets" (remember when we went vegan in March?), Tim is glad to have a reason to just say no.

Anyway, here's to a summer of not eating ice cream (normally a daily occurrence in summertime for me)! I'm kind of excited. And Meredith is benevolently joining us again. She went vegan with us in March as well, which probably wasn't her favorite thing ever. But she's trying to get on the healthier eating habits train, so she's being a sport.

If you're interested in our delineation between acceptable and unacceptable sugars, please see below.

not okay sugars

white sugar

brown sugar

(high fructose) corn syrup

(commercially refined) sucrose, fructose, glucose, maltose, lactose, galactose, cane syrup, corn syrup, corn sugar, invert sugar, dextrose

okay sugars

maple syrup

honey

brown rice syrup

barley malt syrup

fruit juice (no added sugar)

molasses

cane juice/sucanat

agave nectar

MMMBop

Moments ago, I searched for "MMMBop" on Google and watched the music video. I have some distinct memories of watching this music video on VH1, probably, when I was about 10 or 11. The cave bit was the thing I remember most from the video.

Tim walked over and the following conversation ensued:

Tim: I wonder what these kids are doing now.

me: I think they're still making music.

Tim: As Hanson?

[pause]

Tim: That's good they're still making music. They didn't let puberty dog 'em!

Now he is reading the article on Wikipedia about them.

Then:

Now:

anniversary no. 2

Has it really been two years already? Weird.

We went to J Dawgs in Provo. I introduced Tim to J Dawgs almost three years ago. We went during a lunch break at work. That first time, Tim asked me if he should get the special sauce, and I was like "Get whatever you want," so he didn't get the special sauce and didn't understand the hype surrounding J Dawgs. I'm not sure why I didn't say something like "Well, it wouldn't really be J Dawgs if you didn't get the special sauce." He's since discovered what makes a J Dawg. Duh. Now every time we go to Provo (not often) he wants one.

We were also going to visit some of our other haunts in the Provo area (e.g., that one place in Provo Canyon where he wooed me by singing with his guitar and I "jumped" on him), but the weather was bad. So we went to Costco and ate samples instead.

Happy anniversary, us. It was a good day!

film

Tim is in a film class this semester in which he is required to watch the likes of the following:

Birth of a Nation

Modern Times

Vertigo

The Searchers

Imitation of Life

Night of the Living Dead

Blade Runner

Precious

Avatar

I watched Blade Runner with him last weekend and I

just

did

not

get

it.

In fact, this feeling of confusion and general distaste has been my response to most of the movies that I watched with Tim for this class. I pretty much hate them all. Too bad.

But we did watch another movie (Sweet Land) last weekend that I really liked. Thank you, Netflix.

frightening

Tim was up in the middle of the night last night as he sometimes is because he can't sleep. This is what he was working on, apparently.

I keep seeing this out of the corner of my eye and thinking someone is there. Freaky. Now that I've documented it sufficiently, it's going down.

mustachioed

Frankenstein chair

Remember this? I just realized that I never blogged about Frankenstein (as we lovingly call it) after surgery. I spent hours stitching the beast. It probably wouldn't have taken so long, except that I'm a terrible seamstress. But this thing is as good as new to us, now. Take a look!

beware!

I guess the "beware the ides of March" means we cheated and had some non-vegan food on or around this time . . .

beware the ides of march

We're vegan for the month of March. And we're halfway through!

ruined again

Poor Tim. Sometimes when I try to feed him, it just doesn't work out.

The good news, though, is that in our new apartment, the smoke detectors seem to have a very high tolerance level. So when smoke was billowing from the oven, no alarms were triggered.

bang it

Today I was chatting with a coworker who is coordinating a project I'm working on. She was chatting with me to set up a due date for one of my edits. The following messages were exchanged after she asked me when I could complete my edit:

me: ummm, probably monday/tuesday sometime?

coworker: Okay :) Lets due [sic] Tuesday COB.

me: ok

me: bang it!!!!!!!!

coworker: bang it?

Errrr . . .

Tim is a champ at accidentally transmitting seemingly inappropriate messages to unsuspecting coworkers. In his defense, he thought his message was going to a friend we both know; he didn't mean anything crass by typing it. And he's kind of embarrassed it went to someone else. But the jury is still out on the meaning of "bang it": benign or raunchy? You decide.

Operation Ring Retrieval

Though he would probably say otherwise, Tim is addicted to playing with his wedding ring.

Behold:

Though I've told him to stop, there must be something irresistible about shiny spinning objects. I guess it is pretty cool and all.

One day while agonizing over finals, Tim could be found productively spinning his ring on the counter in the kitchen.

He looks so happy to be playing with his ring rather than working on yet another 15-page paper (see figure).

Suddenly, disaster strikes when Tim loses control of his ring and it catapults onto the floor from counter 1. After searching on the floor near counter 2 where Tim suspects it landed, he cannot find it. It has disappeared into oblivion! (A lesser person might be tempted to say something like "I told you so" here, but I'm too saintly and wholesome for that.)

"Son of a . . . !!!"

'

As you can see from the picture, Tim is not enjoying himself as much anymore. His ring is lost (and apparently his arms, face, and hair are too (Actually, that was an artist error. I created the second image before the first and decided to add more detail, but was too lazy to go back and replicate the details in the second image.)).

"Wife is going to kill me!" Tim thinks to himself as he explores the area thoroughly. He realizes there is something strange about the format of the kitchen here:

As you can see from the excellently rendered graphic description, there is space between the baseboard and the bottom of the kitchen cabinets. Tim's attempts to put his hand through the space are unsuccessful. He's lucky if he can squeeze his fingers in there past his knuckles. Apparently the ring is irrecoverable.

But Tim will not give up so easily (partially because I won't let him). Operation Ring Retrieval begins. The mission is to recover the ring without noticeable damage to the apartment so as to retain our deposit.

Upon further inspection, Tim discovers that the baseboards are covered by a facade that can be easily removed. There is no choice, of course, but to saw through the baseboard to access the space under the cabinets, get the ring, then replace the facade.

Let the sawing commence.

Notice the gap between the top of the wood and the bottom of the cabinets. It's not just that Tim has fat fingers; obviously it's a small spot. Visibility of all areas under the cabinets was severely limited. The ring remained aloof.

We questioned the wisdom of further damage-inducing ring retrieval attempts. After all, the ring is less valuable than the apartment deposit. Would Operation Ring Retrieval compromise it?

Good thing Meredith came back to town.

Operation Ring Retrieval was given new life when Meredith returned from her Christmas vacation, bringing along her super-human problem-solving capabilities and her new iPhone. She put the iPhone through the hole and recorded video, moving the camera around to reveal the hidden depths that had been invisible to our un-iPhone-aided eyes.

Look! There's the ring!

After cutting a new hole, Tim reached his skinny little hand through it and . . . well, see for yourself:

Operation Ring Retrieval: success! And best of all, after we put the facades back in place, you can't tell we did anything. Here's hoping the landlord never finds out (or finds this blog . . . good thing I'm publicizing this tale on the world-wide-internets, eh?)!