What I should have written about this week

I don't know what it's been, but I've had a hard time motivating myself to write. I've been very, VERY hungry lately, my mind feels like it's left the building most of the time, and goodness I get so tired. So I'll give you an abbreviated version of all the post I should have written.

Monday
Hallelujah our sprinkler system is installed and working! Sure we have a Frankenstein yard right now (part of front yard pictured), but it should be ok by next year. It was a choice between this and a second car and we both chose this. With drought conditions and water restrictions we just couldn't keep up last year. Our yard is so big and our 6-hose-and-horribly-inadequate- sprinkler-heads-from- Walmart-system was just not up to the task. Our back yard was looking mighty sad and the weed situation was out of control because of it. We wanted to make sure our front yard didn't follow suit.

Tuesday
I had my first ultra sound! The baby is so cute. It has 10 fingers, two eyes, a healthy developing brain, knobby little knees, two legs, two arms, and a strong heart beat. This ultra sound was just to make sure everything looked normal and was on the right track. I had what appeared to be a fibroid, but the placenta wasn't on top of it, so the doctor said she wasn't even slightly concerned. I hope she's right! Matt couldn't come so I got to video tape it and let him see later that night. I'm only at week 13 so I didn't find out the sex of the baby yet. From crown to rump it was 6.5 cm. Approximately the size of a jumbo shrimp.

Also, I made an awesome chicken tortilla soup for dinner. This is a big accomplishment for me since I have been having a streak of bad, bad soup experiences. I think the key for me is to never make a crockpot soup.

Wednesday
Even once-semi-professional cooks have off days. And when I mean off, I mean off. Despite the fact that I was eating something almost every hour I was STARVING the whole day. When dinner rolled around, I was to the breaking point. We didn't have great food to work with, but I decided I'd steam some cauliflower and make a lemon pasta with artichoke hearts and olives.

Things started out fine. I put my steamer basket in my pot, chopped up the cauliflower and added it to the pot, put the lid on, and turned the pot on high. Anyone catch what I was missing? I sure didn't. After a few minutes I heard a "pop". The bottom of them pan was lopsided. I was so tired and hungry I still didn't catch on to what was going on. Then the bottom of the pot turned BRIGHT RED and it was melting down onto our burner. I still didn't know why this was happening, but I pulled it off the burner and made Matt come look at it. "Why is this bright red?!" "You didn't put water in it!" I pulled off the lid and immediately put water in to cool it off. The water was instantly at a rolling/spitting boil the pan was so hot. A horrible chemical smell permeated our kitchen and our cauliflower was ruined. I was super tired and hungry so I continued to make the pasta despite Matt's warnings that I shouldn't be in the kitchen with the chemical fumes.

I don't generally care for pasta anyway, and it was completely unsatisfying that night. I was still hungry after eating and we were out of vegetables. By about 10 pm I went back into the kitchen and started crying because it was so dirty, I'd ruined our only little saucepan, I was tired and hungry, and I'd made no headway on finding a hotel for our trip. Matt helped me clean up, and I continued to cry for awhile. I got over it after awhile.

Thursday
This day was fairly uneventful, though I had some trouble breathing. Matt thinks it was from the pot chemicals the night before. Probably.

Friday
TGIF! I don't even know what we did, but man I was ready for the week to be over and the weekend to start!!! Oh yes. I figured out where we're staying on our trip. We originally thought we'd stay at a hotel in Chester, PA since it was HALF THE PRICE of anything in Philadelphia boundaries and it was only about 15 min. out. But I started looking for reviews and it was horrible. People said they found dried blood and semen in their rooms, the location was in a rough part of town, and one reviewer even said their sister was killed there! So, we opted to not stay there. The place we booked didn't have SUPER great reviews, but it was nothing too bad, and it was just under $100/night. Man hotels are expensive!

Saturday
Matt was gone from 7am-9pm for youth conference. I had a nice jog, using my cool new birthday mp3 player. I had to stop a couple of times because the hunger pains were out of control!!! After I got back and fed this ravenous little baby, I began getting our garden in planting order. We're a bit worried since we're planting a little late. We couldn't do it until our sprinkler system was put in so they wouldn't ruin anything. I thought we had already bought our seeds, but we hadn't and Matt had the car. (That's when the second car would have come in handy! Doh!) So all I could really do was prep the rows. It's looking good and hopefully tomorrow evening I can get some seeds planted. I'm thinking onions, cucumbers, zucchini, herbs (basil, oregano, cilantro), bell peppers, green beans, and tomatoes to start. I may try a watermelon, cantaloupe, and/or pumpkin. I've heard these take up a lot of room, so I'll have to see how much space we have after I plant the others.