Tomorrow my mom heads back to WA, after spending almost the entire month with us, cooking, cleaning and hanging out. We had a lot of fun, and she quite enjoyed buying maternity clothes (everyone needs to wear maternity jeans—most comfortable jeans EVER) and baby clothes (and stuffed animals). She was supposed to watch our house while we went to Italy for our honeymoon, but due to the complications of being pregnant, we rescheduled and she decided to come anyway, lol.

I’m 18 weeks today, which means I have a bump, my boobs have gone up half a cup size and I’m pretty sure I can feel something moving in there. Although it could be indigestion. Or gas. Who the hell knows, pregnancy is weird.

Yesterday we went for an ultrasound (mom was quite excited) to check all the parts (spine—check, 2 kidneys—check, good heart—check, penis—check).

Yep. I’m having a boy. It’s quite a shock to the Chop and I, both having expected a girl. My parents are thrilled (they always wanted a boy, lol) and we’re coming around. It’s odd, when you think you are having one thing, and it turns out to be another, it can be quite emotionally surprising.

We went to see my liver doctor today. All in all it was highly uneventful—he said, “well it looks like your levels have come down without you doing anything,” to which I responded, “I’ve been on SAM e and that’s why they are down.” I found it very annoying.

I don’t think he believes me. Which is odd, considering the first time I was sick the SAM e was what worked—and it was the only thing that worked. After all the pills, tests and scans they could muster, SAM e managed to get me healthy in three months.

He doesn’t think it will affect the peanut—granted, he Googled SAM e and pregnancy while we were sitting in the room—so at this point we carry on as planned. Me ingesting five pills a day (in addition to three others—pregnancy = vitamin overload) and counting on my dad to make sure I don’t turn yellow.

I was never one of the people who related to Catcher in the Rye, as a teenager or as an adult. Like most books, it entertained me and made me think, but that’s about it. I always felt bad for Salinger and wondered, if he didn’t want fame so much, how come he didn’t publish under a pseudonym? When he wrote it, did he just assume it wouldn’t be that popular? The sad thing is that now that he’s died, no one will ever get him to answer those goddamn questions.

One of my favorite sections in (most) books these days is the Q&A with the author in the back. If a book is good, it leaves you with all sorts of lingering thoughts and questions, and a good portion of the time the Q&A answers them (or suggests new ones). Plus, it’s a great marketing addition to convince you to buy the author’s next book.

Sadly, my brain now outputs a steady stream of marketing ideas re: virtually everything I see, hear or read. It’s highly entertaining to me, and probably highly irritating to everyone else.

Because yeah, still don’t have the best filter for this mouth of mine.

We went and saw Sherlock Holmes today. I really, really wanted to love it. I love Robert Downey, Jr., I adore Rachel McAdams (especially as a brunette) and Jude Law was perfectly cast. But for some reason a) I had a rough time paying attention to it—ie, my mind would wander and that’s never a good sign and b) the close ups of the punching and ribs breaking made me gag.

Chop says I just don’t like Guy Ritchie-directed movies, and that may be true, but overall I feel like the plot was missing something… and in my opinion, it’s a good beginning. Batman Begins was an awesome movie, and one of the reasons it caught my attention was it showed how it all began. Now why couldn’t they do that with Sherlock Holmes?

It was like being dropped into a room full of people who knew each other, had their little inside jokes and quirks and history, and we weren’t really privy to them. Bleh.

It’s funny, once you finally just stop blogging, it’s really easy to forget how long it’s been. In my case, almost three months. And I have no excuse other than my wedding is exactly three weeks away, business is booming (so we’re working nonstop) and I can barely manage to do laundry every week, let alone take the time to blog. A pathetic excuse, yes, but true nonetheless.

But if you haven’t noticed, somebody awesome is back in the states and it appears as if she might be blogging.. and that inspired me to come back too. :)

The past months have been insane—work, house, wedding, traveling every other weekend for wedding-related things—and the Chop and I are desperately looking forward to January. Married, no traveling for a few months, tickets to see Bourdain (hehe, LOVE him)—January is going to be a wonderful month.

On Wednesday the Chop and I close on our new house in MA. I’ve lived in RI since I moved to the east coast six years ago.. in fact, I’ve lived within the same 20 miles the entire time.. and it’s starting to hit me how weird it’s going to be. We’re moving over an hour north, closer to work for both of us, right on the commuter line into Boston and in a great town near good friends, so we’re happy.. but it’s still an adjustment.

We’ve been hitting all our favorite restaurants for the past couple of weeks, and packing like fiends. My mom is coming out (yay, mom) on Thursday to help us move/clean/etc. and we hope to be totally out of here by Sunday morning.

The house is gorgeous and we were incredibly lucky to find it, as a contractor owned it before us and he did loads of updates (three bathrooms, refrigerator and freezer drawers, landscaping, etc.). If it wasn’t for the recession (boo, recession), we wouldn’t have been able to afford it for five more years (or anything in the town for that matter). I’ve attached some photos below from the listing sheet, and hopefully by this time next week I’ll have some we took ourselves.

And for something totally random… my four-year blog anniversary is the 25th, the day we close on the house. Interesting… :)

On New Year’s Day a friend of ours was walking her dog in the snow. He suddenly started screaming and lo and behold, he had essentially impaled himself on a metal spike hidden in the snow.

It was in a public park and so she wanted to start a website to draw attention to a few things… mainly that there is no 911 for pets and that the parks system should be taking better care of the area. Her dog is 90 lbs, which is why he survived with only(!) a three hour surgery and 20 stitches. Had it been a kid or a smaller dog, they would’ve died.

I built the site for her over the weekend and today she, and the site, were on the 6 o’clock news.

Our work made the news!

:)

We spent Christmas on the west coast, and while it was as entertaining as ever, it was not without stress. Amazingly wedding chatter was kept to a minimum, but only because my dad is quitting private practice and that was the talk of the house. It turns out that we have to get his new schedule before we can pick a date, so we were off the hook. Instead we were snowbound (hi, WA cannot deal with snow—something like 300 plows for five major cities?! please) and played a lot of Mario Kart (possibly the best group game for the Wii).

New Year’s was spent watching the snow fall (a lovely seven inches) and eating dinner at our favorite restaurant. I know, I know, we’re SUCH party people, lol. We ended up heading to bed around 2AM and frankly have spent most of today overcoming hangovers, LOL.

2009 should be interesting. The Chop and I are heading to Ireland in March (for a very much needed vacation), I’m heading to Vegas in April to speak at a conference (kill me now) and we’re hoping to get married in September or November up at Sunday River in Maine. We’ll see though, lol. I’m still all for eloping in March.

Happy New Year. :)

I SWEAR TO GOD: if McCain wins, I will leave the country.

No ifs, ands or buts. I’m out if he’s in.

Alright, I found this via the Very Good Taste blog and it’s really entertaining. He put together a list of 100 food items every omnivore should try, and it’s a little scary how many creepy things I’ve tried—61/100 on this list.

Instructions
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:
1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare — no way in hell
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses — extremely stinky cheese, gag
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper — i’d like to keep my mouth not on fire
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi — bleh
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects — only if I was stranded on a desert island.
43. Phaal — see #26
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini — gag
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads — so many no ways, no hows, nu uhs
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian — cannot get past the smell
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis — double gag
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill — so disgusting
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish — dirty water fish, bleh
95. Mole poblano — amazingly, you can do something bad with chocolate
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake