We're all still here!

You might not think so based on total absence of blog posts for the first quarter of the year (I think in quarters now at my new job...and I didn't work last weekend for quite possibly the first time EVER, save for my "break" in DC, whaaaat?), but we're all still here kicking it! Here, watch Holden grow up kinda fast...

And I just saw that the poor kid had on long-sleeve stripes for pictures three months in a row...sorry, baby, those Carter's onesies are a wardrobe staple for you. I'll try to mix it up a little bit.

Already ten months old!! He's allllll over the place right now and is SO much fun. Less fun? Constant ear infections that refuse to be solved by every antibiotic known to man, so on Thursday my poor baby has to have a teeny bit of surgery and get ear tubes. As an excessive worrier, I plan on being a little bit of a hot mess come surgery time, but hopefully this will get us on the road to a healthier little guy who doesn't have fluidy goop clogging up his ears.

Lack of blog posts due to general life craziness, but we also added streaming to our Netflix subscription, which caused me to lose hours of my life to things like House of Cards and An Idiot Abroad over the last couple months. Oops. Resolve to not binge-watch everything just because I can.

Happy spring!

So the "every day" thing didn't work out...

...you know, posting every day? optimism and all?...but we're back on track! I got thrown for a bit of a loop on Monday when I officially became a person not obligated to go to work at around 4:30 PM. Whaaaaaaaaat, you say? Well, after going back from maternity leave right into busy season and getting a true reality check in "nope, this is not for me anymore EVER," I worked on finding a new job where I might actually have a life and DID and put in my notice and then found out that notice = leave pretty much right now, so that's that!  And my new gig doesn't kick off until January 5th, soooo...I'm currently not working but still getting paid and it's basically amazeballs.

Totally productive things I've accomplished in the last five days:
 - Finishing up Christmas shopping...mostly
 - Wrapping a chunk of that Christmas shopping into pretty packages
 - Going to the grocery store and buying things that enabled me to cook a real dinner in the form of chicken pot pie
 - Baking banana muffins
 - Baking milk chocolate-dipped hazelnut sandies for the 2014 Cover-to-Cover Project: Holiday Cookies
 - Excessive loads of laundry
 - Successfully shoved approximately 25 pills down Cleo the kitty cat's throat and kept her alive while Momma Dale was out of town

Totally self-indulgent things I've blissfully enjoyed in the last five days:

 - Took myself to the movies at 10:15 in the morning - Mockingjay and a giant bag of popcorn for the win
 - The aforementioned baking is also because I just like to do it
 - Starbucks grande latte pretty much every day
 - Friday lunch with Carolyn with no care about how long we sat and chatted because there was no job to hustle back to

And the ultimate combination of productive/indulgent = EXTRA HOLDEN TIME.  He's still kicking it at daycare for a chunk of the day so he can maintain some kind of routine while I run around, but I've been picking him up early and enjoying every extra minute I can steal with this sweet baby. They allllll say it, but of course he's growing up too fast.

And the ULTIMATE indulgence that hasn't happened and just won't...sleeping in. I have a baby now, so that's just not in the cards, and for those of you who really know me, you know how I am about sleep.

Ummmm...I could get used to this. Which is dangerous. But I'm also excited about my new work path, and so I'm going to soak up every minute of the next three weeks and then jump into a fresh start. Happy holidays, y'all.

Due dates...just a suggestion

Due date, schmue date.  Come and gone and no baby in sight.  Well, I guess he's technically in sight since I'm sporting this bowling ball midsection thing, but...you know.  Does it look like he's worked his way downward at all?  Everyone keeps asking if he's dropped...well, I don't know, maybe...so then maybe not because should it be really REALLY obvious?  I haven't exactly done this pregnancy thing before.

So what do you do with a pregnant lady who's hit her due date and hasn't had a baby yet?  You take her out to dinner, preferably somewhere with awesome pregnant lady food like biscuits and fried chicken.

I love you, Babe's.  Although it's a little sad that I have limited tummy room these days.

We do have an induction end date in sight, which is both reassuring to KNOW Holden will be here within the next week and also a little weird to KNOW something like that.  Still hoping he decides to make his appearance on his own; I keep telling him it's ok to come out, but he seems pretty content to keep baking in there.  Stubborn kid.

Might as well get as ready for everything as I can!  The tax department is shifting to a new space in our building over the summer...so on Thursday I went ahead and packed up all of my stuff, which definitely felt a little strange.

And I was feeling mushy anyway since the sweet work gals got me flowers and a card AND cupcakes and took me to lunch at Uncle Julio's - talk about some of my favorite things.

So sweet!  I managed to not cry, which is a big accomplishment for the pregnant lady.

It's strange to think about having a completely different routine in the next week.  I mean, we know change is coming and we've done a million things to "get ready" for this ridiculously large life event, but I just don't think it's going to hit me until it really, really HITS me, like with an actual baby actually here.  It feels very real right now...but still just a waiting game.  Yeeps!!

Let's see if anything happens at 40 weeks and 1 day...last child-free weekend EVER.  Weird.

So, I'm still a person...

Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I ONLY want to talk about the baby.  I'm still me, people. I'm aware this is an epic, life-changing event that will completely rock my world and probably change the way I feel about a lot of things and how we live our lives...but I'm actually still me at the moment.  Which means that even though I LOVE talking about the baby and what's going on with my pregnancy and getting advice on how to handle this whole parenting gig, it's not the ONLY thing I want to talk about.

Let me caveat by saying this is really not an issue with 97.3% of the people in my life.  I'm generally surrounded by wonderful, supportive friends, family, and co-workers who ask me about my life in general and talk about things other than the tiny child I'm currently carrying around with me at all times. But sometimes the 2.7% really get to me.

Work has been the most challenging battleground on this front.  My admin at work is well-meaning but a little overreaching in her concern and sympathy - I'm greeted every morning with a belly stare and a "how are you feeling?" when previously just a simple "good morning!" would suffice.  And I know she's desperate for her own daughters to give her grandchildren, so I think I'm filling this strange surrogate role in her life that's freaking me out a little bit. Another admin, whom I'm spoken to for approximately 10 minutes in the last 15 months, now carries on epic conversations in the hallway with me about everything from belly bands to breast pumps.  It's a touch awkward.  And since these relationships don't exactly go past the acquaintance phase, I can't just say "please stop doing this" without it coming across the wrong way.

And this week I got the "you're finally looking pregnant!" exclamations on multiple counts. Well, thank you - it's not like I was trying to NOT look pregnant before, so I'm glad the baby's popped out enough to satisfy your desire to see a pregnant-looking pregnant lady walking around.  This is wonderful for you, but marginally uncomfortable for me - huzzah!

I'm aware this is an epic, life-changing event...but...

I'm so fortunate to even be able to have this experience and bring a new life into the world, and I don't want to seem disinterested or anything less than thrilled or grateful for the little guy hanging out with me...but every once in a while I just want to talk about what book I'm reading or weekend plans or even the ridiculous stock market.  For the 97.3% of you who do this, THANK YOU.  It's nice to not worry about kiddo or parenting or daycare for a minute.  You guys are awesome.

For the other 2.7%, QUIT STARING AT MY BELLY.  And maybe also stop offering me parenting advice from your lifestyle in 1976 that doesn't resemble our lifestyle in 2014 in pretty much any way at all.

All that being said, we're going to go devote seven hours of our lives today to a one day condensed Weekend Childbirth Seminar at the hospital, so really it probably all IS about the baby.

And now that I've devoted this space to pretty much talking about the baby while essentially asking you to talk to me about things other than the baby every once in a while...thanks for letting me rant and ramble.  It's probably just the crazy pregnant lady talking.

Ice, ice baby

We've been stuck in the midst of a wintry blast here for the past few days...ummm, I thought we were supposed to have patio weather in Dallas in December!  Isn't that one of the perks of suffering through the ridiculously hot summers?  Oh well, I guess we'll take a little actual cold; it makes it feel more holiday-ish, anyway.  I actually escaped from the ice (well, the start of the ice - still had to face the aftermath) by driving down to Austin Thursday night to go to tax school on Friday.  And since Dallas got covered in a thick sheet of ice Thursday night and Friday morning, I really didn't mind being in Austin where there was no ice in sight.  Especially since my office decided to say, "hey, you guys go ahead and brave the ice and come on in today!  If you can't make it, you'll probably just need to take some time off, ok, cool?"  Not cool, actually, especially when sanity says to stay off the crazy ice slick roads and you have a twenty-something mile drive that takes 45 minutes on a good day.  Anyway...happy to be in Austin so I didn't even have to deal with that.

No one wants to hear about tax school, so I'll just share my version of highlights, which you know includes food.

I picked up dinner Thursday night from Hyde Park Bar & Grill, which has one of my favorite restaurant landmarks - a big ol' giant fork outside.  It's awesome, and so is the food. 

I was originally planning to drive back Friday after the conference, but decided to stay an extra night, knock out some Christmas shopping, and face the icy disaster on Saturday instead.  Which meant one more delicious Austin dinner!  So I went to Maudie's and indulged in Tex-Mex deliciousness.  And yes, the margarita is virgin - no tequila for baby, I promise.

I waved at the Capitol on my way out of town.

The drive back on Saturday actually wasn't quite as horrendous as I thought it might be; the ice and mess really only added about 45 minutes to the drive and didn't get too dicey.  Although coming into south Dallas, the first bridge I went over had two smashed-up cars and flashy lights on the scene...oh boy.  Fortunately, sand had been laid out in force and most people were actually driving with caution instead of stupidity.  The worst part of the drive was our neighborhood, which with minimal traffic was still basically a ginormous sheet of thick ice.  I slowly pulled into the driveway...and slid right back down.  Oops.  Street parking it is.  But then Craig the Brave went out and made it up the driveway and into the garage - I just didn't watch it happen.

Our poor, sad tree-bush-thing in the backyard has quite a few broken branches.  Wah wah.  Hopefully it's salvageable and not a total goner.

Total ice slick out there!  And temporary street parking since the driveway got the best of me.

Brrrrrrrr.  So we've kept it pretty low key and have mostly stayed holed up at home with the fire going.  I've actually been semi-productive and knocked out Christmas cards last night and this morning, woot woot!  Now it's time to get my baking on.  And maybe I'll do the boring stuff, too, like laundry and a touch o' cleaning.  Stay warm, y'all!

Piles o' Christmas card goodness make me happy

Well, it's that time of year again...

Last year I managed to kinda avoid this by leaving one job at the end of July, which happened in a bit of a whirl of life events, and starting at the beginning of this "busy season" business, so it was really a lot of transition time and not crazy time, which was really great.  But now I find myself back in a cycle where my life disappears into a cubicle/office where this guy watches over me...

yup, watching over me at both Pdub and TWM - he's everywhere, rallying the dark forces

...and I eat three meals a day here...

...and I wonder why it is that I do this stuff.  Sigh.

Nerd school, and back to the East of Coasts

I just got back from nerd school in Baltimore, and while the majority of each day was consumed with really exciting tax information and avoiding the oppressive heat, I did manage to escape for dinner and a little exploring.  You know, as much as you'd want to explore Baltimore.  Which for me, was apparently just a little baseball game action when it was within easy reach, so I was glad to take a little more time to discover that there are actually cute things, tasty things, historical things in Baltimore...not just scary things.  So I took some phone pics for you (for me, really, but since I'm sharing them and all...), happily enhanced with some Picasa action here and there.  Enjoy the brief trip.

Oh, you know, just some boats hanging out in the inner harbor

Look what I found in Baltimore!  A little touch of home

For reals?  Yes, it's for reals, and claims to be America's oldest...

A fuzzy shot of the awesome bar at Thames Street Oyster House

A million kinds of oysters!  I, of course, had none - they kinda gross me out

So instead of oysters, I had a really delicious lobster roll with cucumber salad - YUM

Hey there, dining at the bar buddies

They also talked me into dessert - key lime tart, so good

The super old and super cute Broadway Market

The National Katyn Memorial, which I knew absolutely nothing about...something about Poland?  It just looked kinda cool

View of the harbor from my room at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront - hello, water

Did you know the world is your oyster?  Mo's says so!

I was temporarily back in the land of Yuengling...it's a weird place to be

I'm not sure who first decided to eat these things...

I actually didn't have to work this weekend, which was really a pleasant surprise after optimistically purchasing tickets a month ago to the annual LSU alumni crawfish boil* set for last Saturday.  I hoped I would be able to make it, knowing that I might not (the plight of a CPA in April), and ended up spending a gorgeous Saturday afternoon with friends and food instead of at my desk.  Chalk up one in the win column.

*aren't you a Red Raider, they say?  Yes, yes I am, but some of my favorite people happen to be Tigers, and I'm more than happy to throw a little support their way in the name of beer and crawfish.  Eat on.

Attack!  Don't worry, I traded my corn to Craig for his potato - that's what love is all about

After doing this crawfish business on our own last year at Jen & Mike's house (which I never told you about, pretend I did - ohhh, instant blog catch-up technique!), we opted for the far easier and more cost-efficient method of throwing some money at the LSU crowd and letting them take care of the details.  The delicious, delicious details, including Abita on "draft" (you know, a cooler/tap situation, which worked out just fine) and a lively crowd, surely debating highly important topics over discarded crawfish bodies.

I think Craig won the prize for the biggest, scariest weird thing we ripped apart and ate

Fun-filled Saturday afternoon, other than the traffic wah-wah on the way home (when will 635 ever not be a giant disaster area?!?), especially when it included deep-fried dough with a healthy coating of powdered sugar.

I think Gracie might like beignets almost as much as I do - look at the powdered sugar joy face

Not a bad way at all to finish up a spring busy season that was just a little busier than I might have liked.  Hmmm, these client service gigs...hey, but I have a FREE DAY OFF tomorrow ("free" as in "hey, you've worked ridiculous amounts of overtime in the last month, so SURE, take the day after 4/15 and go do things like laundry that you haven't had time to do"), which I have really big plans for.  However, the #1 thing on the really big plan list is "majorly sleep in," so that could have a pretty big impact on how the rest of the day goes.

Minor victories

Last year I baked a pie at the end of a long day.  This year I waited until the morning after a string of long days so that coffee could factor into the equation and kick-start my brain while I put together some blueberry crumb bars to take to Easter lunch at the Vaughns.  So even with a change in the jobs that's been *mostly* for the better, I still do this crazy tax thing and I'm still incredibly busy in light of this 4/15 situation.  Hmmm.  Guess I'd better look for minor victories where I can find them.

So for this minor victory I baked and didn't work on Easter.  I'll take it.  Especially when Gracie greets me with hugs and smiles and giggles and unabashed joy for all the Easter festivities.  Love this kiddo to bits.  Thanks for having us over, Vaughns!  Now, everyone enjoy the cuteness.

Omg, I am sooooooo excited about finding these eggs!!!  Except the ones I can't see or reach - geez, Dad.

Excuse me, this basket is getting loaded down with eggs - a little help?

Chocolate...chocolate...chocolate...

Delicious snacking opportunities

I really love desserts.  And baking.  And sharing excessive amounts of butter with other people in order to get these dangerous baked goods out of my house where they won't directly apply themselves to my hips/waistline/arm flab deposits.  Which is why over the past couple months at work when we've been...well, busy, to say the least...we try to encourage each other along with the promise of treats around 2:30 in the afternoon.  Snack attack!!  Crazy me, who loves kitchen adventures, signed up for three go-rounds.

First there were homemade Oreos.  Which were sooooo good.  And also took absolutely forever to make.  Although I kinda love going into a Zen mode of rolling out 150ish balls of cookie dough.

Then there were the butterscotch bourbon bars, which I rebranded as butterscotch bourbon cake when I quadrupled the recipe for everything except the brown sugar.  Oops.  Fortunately, it was fantastically delicious and no one knew they were a semi-screw up until I shared my original plan.  Baking adventures are fun!

And finally, rocky road brownies.  Which if you don't pay very close attention to when under the broiler for a little marshmallow toasting action...ummm...there could be something along the lines of actual flames and some shrieking and a finished product that looks something like this:

Fortunately, you can just scrape off the blackened goo (while standing in a faintly campfire-s'mores scented kitchen, I might add), pile some fresh marshmallows on top, and give it another shot.  And then you'll end up with something like this, which is much pleasing to the eye...and the smoke alarm.

Yup, that's a triple batch of brownies.  At least on this one I got the math right.

Oh, and for Easter tomorrow I'll be contributing blueberry crumb bars (already tested and approved) and caprese pasta salad to the spread.

Anyone out there have some start-up capital for the bakery? 

In search of pie

Rockefeller Center by night

During the October of Crazy Travels, I spent all of ONE NIGHT in New York during training for work.  A little disappointing because I love spending time in that city, but since it was a work gig and all...not exactly that much time to really enjoy the city, so I'll take what I can get.  After filling our brains with exciting tax things, Dana and I had a lovely dinner together at Lattanzi on Restaurant Row in the theater district - sadly, she then got sucked into work craziness, and rather than tracking down another human companion, I just took this guy out for a spin.  With a specific destination in mind.

I'm the kind of person who makes food a priority when traveling anywhere.  More specifically, dessert.  More specifically in this instance, pie.  And most specifically of all in this particular instance, crack pie (doesn't that sound both scary and awesome?) from Momofuku Milk Bar.  Even though I'd already had dessert at dinner.  Oops.  So I pulled up the address and went out in the New York night and walked myself over there.  Do you think the walk negated the additional calories?  I know it doesn't, but it made me feel the teeniest bit better about myself. 

Every person who walks in the door can try a sample of their soft serve, and I went with cereal milk.  Basically it's like they took the milk leftover from a bowl of tasty cereal and spun it into soft serve.  Doesn't that sound a little gross?  Well, kinda, but considering I'm the kind of person who actually likes to drink the milk at the end, I was intrigued and just had to try it.  It was tasty.

This is also the place that inspired my adventures in compost cookies.  You might say I'm kinda obsessed with trying everything they offer.  I have quite a bit more to sample, though.  Ummm...they now offer shipping.  This could be dangerous.

This time around, I limited myself to one piece of pie.  One piece of buttery, custardy goodness supported by an oatmeal cookie-ish crust.  It. was. so. good.  I'm going to assume the "crack" name is for its addictive nature.  Mmmmmm.

Oh, and I walked around more and more to make myself feel another teeny bit better about the excessive dessert consumption, and I fought my way through Times Square while chatting on the phone with my sissy...

...and compiling shots of what was showing on Broadway at the moment.  I ♥ NY.

Sweet babies. Awesome friends. Other things.

I was in Dallas last week, theoretically imparting my tax skills and knowledge to some new associates over five days, but you know why I was really there.  To see the babies.  And my friends, both with and without babies.  I love my people!

I got in on Saturday afternoon and promptly called Sarah, who graciously allowed me to stay with her a couple of nights AND who immediately knew my #1 priority (Mexican food, duh!), so we met for lunch at Chuy's.  I didn't take any pictures.  I just enjoyed the cheesy, deluxe tomatillo-ey goodness while catching up with a good friend.  Tex-Mex, I miss you so.  We then indulged in pedicures (for both of us) and a manicure (for me - nary a week goes by when I know without a doubt that I won't be doing dishes and destroying my hands, so I just had to treat myself) before getting caught in a ridiculous rainstorm.  At least my flight made it in before that mess o' weather.

Ok, this will get reaaaaaallllllly long if I detail it all out, so here are the highlights:

• Dinner Saturday night at The Porch with some of my best gals.
• Met with a realtor and checked out some houses on Sunday - eeekk!!  Thanks again to Sarah for all the advice and for being my real estate buddy.
• A nice, long visit with the Vaughns on Sunday!  Hanging out with Gracie AND taking her on her first trip to Rosa's.  It was awesome.

Gracie doing the "I'm threeeeeee weeks old!" stretch

Gracie chillin' with her awesome mom

Duncan looks a little suspicious...or maybe just sad that he's not the baby anymore.

Gracie faceplanted into me - she's OUT, man.

• Kinda ridiculous and awesome dinner at Javier's with my two co-instructors on Monday night. Caldo xochitl, cheese panela, carne asada a la tampiquena, tres leches cake. I think I gained five pounds.
• A Tuesday night visit with the Peterson family!  Carolyn and I journeyed out to Rowlett to see Jenny and Chris and meet Miss Taylor - isn't she cute?

• Dinner with Molly on Wednesday night at...no, not Mexican food...but Fearing's!  We would have been perfectly happy with Manny's, but fate sent us to Fearing's, and we were glad.  It was amazing.  Have you ever had chicken-fried lobster?  Trust me, just go for it.  It was also great catching up with my Molls!
• I just keep talking about food, don't I?  And babies.  Sorry about that.
• One of my favorite traditions, Thursday night dinner with Kami and Carolyn.  I miss these girls.
• Semi-birthday celebration Friday night with some of my peeps at Veracruz in Bishop Arts.  It was delicious and just the right amount of festive.  Thanks, guys!
• Finally seeing Stephanie's beautiful new home in Las Colinas AND catching up over one of my favorite fall beverages before heading to the airport.

So glad I got to see so many of my friends and catch up last week!  Miss you guys.

They're babies.  They're adorable.  Check out all the (limited!  I'm trying not to go overboard!) pictures.