school...

I've really enjoyed this term of school, its way better than the first term. More programs to learn like photoshop and illustrator that I really enjoy. I even like Layout and Design cause the teacher is entertaining.

But lately I've been feeling bummed and therefore haven't applied myself as I should. It keeps coming back to the fact that I don't get to finish school this year and that I am going to be waiting at least a year to get back in again...AND I might have to re take everything again. ....le sigh.

What a bummer its turning out to be some days. Photoshop class is exciting for me, but sometimes I get that way thinking about school and that I get to maybe finish term 2 before baby arrives.

I hear all the teachers talking about the courses they are teaching us in summer and fall and I am all excited cause they sound so cool and I don't get to take them.

Having a baby has been something I've wanted for sooooo long, but the timing was not my plan.
There is a reason for this, God knows what it is and I will trust him.

Also, feeling kinda icky. The bird and I were playing with quarters and he kept dropping them and I had to bend down and get them and I was squishing the baby a bit and it didn't feel so good. Baby I am sure is fine as it likes to punch me ever so often.

Time to sleep I think, the stress of everything is getting to me I think.

sexy mac store + shopping

These were the cookies that I almost left in the oven when I left the house. Perfect timing that I raced back inside and they were done and I didn't burn down the house. My brain was just not working yesterday. I think I might blame pregnant brain on that (sorry baby).


Speaking of baby...I went shopping this morning. The trip was intended for picking up a new mouse and instead I headed to Zellers just to see if they had any plain onsies and I found recieving blankets and a onsie. These blankets were on sale and my momma said I could never have enough of these suckers, so they came home with me.

While shopping it also occurred to me that little girls get Hello Kitty things! OH MY! Tony might not appreciate the extreme cuteness of Hello Kitty and her friends, but he is a boy and he will never understand. Larissa appreciates this though, and that makes me happy.

These were things on my desk. My little notebook that I've deemed the homework book. It also has notes in it, but red text = homework. I have rainbow pens that now travel to school with me always. I heart rainbow pens and cute little things :)


There it is, my photoshop homework for this evening. Notice that nothing is checked off yet...

And here is the bird admiring the new mouse. He has now marked it as his own because as soon as I put the camera down, he was licking its glossyness and getting all excited...oh dear. We are going to have issues with this, I know it. There will be fighting, biting and swatting. Tony shall find this humorous I am sure.

Note: plain onsie is for experimental screen printing baby clothes.... :D that is a project that will be documented later

Results of the Manicotti

mmmmm baked pasta.

There were 4 cheeses even! Mozza, parm, ricotta and swiss that I had on hand. I was too hungry to make the plate look "pretty" and so there it is all kinda slopped on in its glory.

Tony approves on this vegetarian dish even. Shocking!

I found the recipe here. I didn't use as much sauce, I used a big can of Hunts rich and thick sauce and I didnt need as much filling, so I would half the filling amount in the recipe (I was also using cannaloni pasta noodles cause they were taking up space). I made 1.5 casserole dishes. (the tiny casserole dish has like 6 cannalonis in it, the big one I don't remember.

The tiny casserole dish is in the freezer for now. Its the best size for small lunch for us both. This big guy will be in the fridge with leftovers!

annoyance and manicotti making

Bird was pretty annoyed with his feather sticking out of his head. He must have felt like me after getting home last night.

Transit failed me, and the bus driver was a jerk. I got on the bus that I normally take home from the skytrain. It was weird that he was exiting the loop in a different direction, so me and 6 other passengers went to ask him what was up. Apparently he was driving the wrong route or had the wrong bus number, but in any case he didn't say sorry, he was rude and we had to get off and walk all the way back to almost miss the correct bus.

So when I am on the correct bus, some bigger guy decides to swing and put all his weight on one of those strappy hand holds and the heavy metal clasp popped off and almost hit me in the face. He didn't care, didn't look back nothing.

So I got home, got angry again, ate some toast and went to bed.

Today is looking better I think. I am at the moment making mushroom manicotti stuff and its baking in the oven.

We shall see how this concoction turns out in about an hour.

Bird is also better, Tony fixed his feather. Bird seems relieved.

visiting and treats!

My parents were in town today and decided to visit me! So happy they did, I was so bored today. I tried baking cookies and as I got to the part where I was to add flour, I realized I didn't have any more. Also didn't feel like going to get it from the store right away which was perfect cause they popped in and we hung out for a bit.

Mom and Dad brought us treats! Homemade blueberry jam, cobs bread and some other things like fruit and stuff. (excuse the terrible picture, its kinda blurry but I was in a hurry to take the picture and eat the toast before it got cold).

We went out and brought home pizza, it was good. Also talked about how we are going to fit a baby in our apartment and what Dad could build me for the house. Hopefully he will build me a cupboard thing that holds my crafts and stuff cause my rubbermaid-esque one is broken from me kicking it closed - a lot. I really have cut back on getting more, only stuff I need, like fabric paint for screen printing. Gotta mix it and make it pink cause baby girl will be wearing some of my creations. Crafts have been slowly taking over my living room, under my desk, the rubbermaid tub, wooden chest and kitchen table. I wouldn't even call it a kitchen table cause I don't use it to eat on, just to paint on or craft on.

So we have a plan for where to put it and where we can put our stuff and things we need. Dresser or 2 is on my list of things to get. Shelves from Ikea are on that list too. Shopping is next weekend and I cant wait! It will feel a little better to get some of this done.

feel the burn

These are my new bff! Its been 3 times this week that I've been almost in tears from heartburn. Been drinking more milk during the day, but it seems to happen any time I eat something past 6pm. So my new experiment is to stop snacking in the evening.

What other tips do you all have for curing this mess? I've been pacing around the house to try and stop it as well as eating 3-4 tums. Throwing up hasn't helped, and made it worse one night.

Girl

I was awake at 6 am this morning hoping that today we would find out what the baby was. Ultrasound was bright and early at 7:30 am. Did the drinking of all the water, uncomfortable, but not as terrible as the last times.

Baby was being difficult again, but not impossible. Today was to get good pictures of its heart, and we got that mission accomplished. Baby's head was too low to get a good shot of it, we only saw the top part. Baby was also kinda sleepy, not moving so much. Ultrasound tech told me that it was a GIRL! So exciting! I went to get Tony to tell him and also see if baby would start moving, and baby was not moving. Tony did get to see baby again on the ultrasound and saw its heart going real nice and strong. Checked out the baby to make sure we could see if there were any "extra bits" between its legs, and no, couldn't find any.

Tony is unsure about being a daddy to a little girl cause he doesn't know what to do with little girls. He will learn, and I told him that.

Mom and Aria went shopping today and bought things that were girly with some ruffles. We are going shopping for a crib playpen next weekend. That will be fun. I'm really excited to get more things ready for baby. I haven't been buying a lot of baby stuff, just little things. I would have been happy with a boy too, secretly I was thinking for the longest time it was a boy.

Its been a long day of school, but its been so good :)

brownies vs homework

and the brownies win! Chocolate chip brownie cake is what I actually made. Pretty good stuff too. I normally don't like brownies, but these have chocolate chips in them and that makes them good.

I have a topic for my one class picked out, so that homework is done. Still have to print a name tag (probably will happen tomorrow morning before I go to class) and find one magazine spread that I don't like. I think I can find that in one of my freebie ones from shoppers or bell.

Cooking easy casserole, the type that you plop a can of soup in with some veggies and meat and call it dinner. Mmmm easy dinner.

I've been trying to cook more homemade type foods cause its better than pre packaged noodle soups or things of that nature. So far making soups has been helpful cause they make so much and last for a couple days. Still have some cauliflower soup in the fridge that should go tomorrow in my lunch.

My friend Kelsey has bought a small freezer and its in her living room. Makes me a little jealous. Its so tempting that I might see about checking if Costco has them for cheap. It would be way better than my tiny freezer in the fridge that I have and way handy for when baby arrives.

Oh the recipe incase you just were here for that hehe, I got it from this blog called from scratch
I also added more chocolate chips than what she had used cause I like them more.

Hard to belive this is what baby looks like

Strange to think that from a small looking rice baby, it grew to be a big real looking baby. Its neat to think that it can hear loud noises or muffled voices.

Also crazy to think that if it were born today, its survival rate would be 16 percent, but at 24 weeks it gets to 44 percent.

Apparently your belly button goes to an outie around this time. So far I am lucky it hasn't happened yet, but I am sure it will later on. My belly button looks shallow and not like it used to. Tony thinks this is hilarious and wants to see it be an outie. weirdo.

I've been thinking of names for the baby recently. Found a bunch I really like. My momma read me some of the names of babies born in 2009 that were in the Chilliwack newspaper. In my opinion, most I heard were pretty bad. Like cant tell what gender it is from first or middle name bad. I guess someone finds these names pretty, or just wants a unique child, or wants to set up their kid for teasing for life lol.

I think I am going to keep my name choices a secret for the most part until baby arrives. That way that part is a surprise.

I shall post this part here as well as on facebook, but what do you all think this baby is, girl or boy? Hopefully if all goes well I shall have results on Saturday.

dinner = mir griddles

As incentive to wake up early with me today I told Tony there was bacon in the fridge. I then suggested there might be pancakes as well. He asked me sleepily if I could make him a mc griddle jokingly. Well, I took the challenge seriously and instead of for breakfast (cause I left home too early), I made it for dinner.

Eggs and bacon were easy, but pancakes were way more fun. Especially cause after a bit it was like a game. Every other bubble that popped in the pancakes needed to be filled with a drop or 2 of syrup. Sometimes I'd miss, but I got good on the second pancake.

Tony prefers my "mir griddles" to the mc griddles from mcdonalds cause I fried the bacon in the syrupy pan after doing pancakes. He requested that I do the eggs in bacon grease. I didn't like that idea cause its just kinda wrong, but I did it for him cause its his treat.

This is what Tony's dinner looked like:


This is what my dinner looked like (plus some bacon)


I don't like any mcgriddle really, so harvest crunch was the way to go. I love granola cereal.

23 weeks today baby

Its like baby hit a growth spurt or I did during the holidays. Probably a good mix of both. My living room looks like my crafts exploded all over it. It gravitated all the way to the table and table with the lamp on it.

I dream about having a craft room, and a room for the baby. For now, we shall share the space.

finished soup and screen printing

I accomplished 2 goals today finally! I made weird veggie soup and it was pretty good. Evil to clean up though, being cheesy. I hate melted cheese dishes. Oh well, thats price I paid for making a veggie I hate into something I like. So first the screen printing cause its got the majority of the pictures:



That is my finished screen. I wanted to try something really simple to start and these little guys will make great valentines.

inked and ready to be squeegeed!

Ah first print! Not bad for my first one. So now to do cards...


After the clean up...yay redish pink rings around my tub. I really cant wait to try the photo emulsion screen printing as you can use way more detail and its just plain cooler than this way.


And now the soup. I had a baguette with garlic on it and that went really well with my soup. I think it shall be a good evening soup to take to school. In case you are wondering its recipe, I shall post it:

(from Jamie Olivers Food Revolution Book)

Ingredients:

-2 carrots
-2 celery stalks
-2 onions (I only used one cause I hate them)
-2 cloves of garlic
-8 cups cauliflower (I cup up a whole one for this)
-900 ml veggie or chicken stock
-8 oz cheese ( don't know how many cups this is, I used my trusty scale that I measure soap on to get it right, but it took up I think 2 - 3 cups ish).
-salt
-pepper
-1 tsp hot mustard (they call it english mustard...Jamie Oliver lol)
-2 tbsp olive oil

Peel cup up carrots, celery, onions and cauliflower into small pieces.
Peel slice garlic
Put broth in its own sauce pan to boil
Put all chopped veggies and garlic into a bigger pot with 2 tbsp olive oil
Let that cook for 10 min with a lid askew, stir every once and a while
Grate your cheese
Add boiling broth to your veggies and let that simmer for 10 min

Once its done, take the soup off the heat and add the cheese and mustard. I used my immersion blender to make it smooth, but a blender works too. Season with salt and pepper.

If you want to be all fancy, you can cook some back for a topping. I just used garlic bread.

veggie tales

My veggie I've never cooked before:


Well surprise, its not anything too weird, I just never buy it or have cooked it at home.
Its going into a soup cause I don't really like it, but I love cheese, so hopefully it turns into a nice soup that I kinda like. Cheddar cauliflower soup this afternoon!

the bunnies are back

They are blue, I couldn't find my magenta pen and that made me sad. :( Hopefully I can find it to make pink ones for valentines day or pink robot mugs. I think a trip to the craft store is in order though if I don't find it today.


I have to be patient and wait for the paint to dry and then do the other side. Same with the teapot that I am making. The teapot has little blue birds on it. Kelsey has commissioned me to make it for her, but its a surprise so I wont show pictures of it yet.

craft overload!

I've been feeling crafty, so I found a new craft website, its called dudecraft.com
Very awesome site! Masculine crafts galore, but it has such cool sculptural crafts and ideas. Its nice to find something different than the girly crafts that I'm used to.







Tony didn't get the stroller, cause he thought it was supposed to be functional and not art. That's ok though.

operation veggies

I went for Starbucks coffee yesterday with Larissa. I miss that girl! It was so nice to see her again. We are both avid lovers of the food channel and she had the great idea to try cooking a new vegetables. Like ones I've never tried. Not a bad challenge for me, I like being creative.

So that shall be my plan, cooking weird veggies. I wont be doing anything crazy strange, just a couple new ones like Kale, or parsnips or something.

I think my first plan is one of those 2. I really also want to try cooking butternut squash again. I attempted that once, and failed so bad, it sad. That will happen again, and in soup, but not yet.

I think Wednesday shall be my experimental vegetable day. Hopefully I keep this date with my mystery veggie and let you all know how it goes.

If you have any suggestions on cool veggies or recipes to try, let me know.


Evil Veggies for the WIN!

Recipe for the marshmallows

I keep forgetting to do this :P

Ingredients
• 3 packages unflavored gelatin
• 1 cup ice cold water, divided
• 12 ounces granulated sugar, approximately 1 1/2 cups
• 1 cup light corn syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• Nonstick spray

Directions

Place the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. Have the whisk attachment standing by.

In a small saucepan combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes.

Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.

Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high.

Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans as follows.

For regular marshmallows:
Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. Lightly spray a 13 by 9-inch metal baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Add the sugar and cornstarch mixture and move around to completely coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.

When ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, using a lightly oiled spatula for spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza wheel dusted with the confectioners' sugar mixture. Once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary. Store in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/homemade-marshmallows-recipe/index.html

homemade marshmallows

Every craft blog and food thing I saw this Christmas was touting the ideas of making marshmallows. I even saw them with their own devoted episode on "Good Eats". Awesome show by the way if you want to learn the science behind making food. Alton Brown gets 2 thumbs up.


So I caved today. I didn't have anything really to do, and I was not about to fold the 2 huge loads of clean laundry in my hallway. I despise folding laundry. I think its the folding of small socks and finding exact matches. I never get the socks with their exact matches unless they are patterned or colourful, but white socks with grey soles and white socks with white soles match just fine to me.


I found that all I needed was gelatin and that was super easy to find. Now the recipe said to use a stand up mixer, but all I had was my hand mixer. It will be just fine...


So I boiled some ingredients and got gelatin ready, and then Tony my kitchen assistant, helped mix while I poured sugary stuff into the gelatin.


Things were going great until the stuff got thick. Really thick. Then it started creeping up my beaters. It got so high it almost hit the motor part. It was really puffy, like that marshmallow fluff in a jar. mmmm fluff


Way better than store bought stuff and awesome in our hot chocolates.

tea

I'm trying to be good about not having too much caffeine. One of my weird cravings after finding out I was pregnant was tea. I have oodles of tea here like Darjeeling tea from Arias India trip, British Corrination tea from my momma, Yorkshire tea from England, and so many more. I don't think I drank as much tea in the summer/fall, but once winter hit, it was all I really wanted to drink.

Right now if I could, I would drink 2-3 cups a day. So I save my 1 cup caffeine allotment for one of my special black teas. Right now the "Unbirthday" tea takes precedent. Its my treat for me and Tony from Disneyland. He will usually only drink it if I make it for him. Unbirthday tea has hints of peach and apricot in it and is so smooth. Way better than the decaf orange pekoe tea that I bought.

I had the doll hands on my desk after cleaning up crafting stuff. I feel good about making things only if its clean around me.

feeling creative again

Well kinda creative. I'm more in the mood to start selling on etsy. I've been feeling kinda in a rut so the shop has been empty since I started school. Sad times.

For now there are 4 soaps in there that I've made a while back but never did anything with. Its something different than mugs and dishes.

We shall see what happens. I have one more to list, a yellow one and I might make a white one today.

Disneyland part 4, the last of the pictures that I have

Mik and I hung out for a bit, rode on a rocket ship ride, it was cute. Got to see the california theme park from up high. She looks so cute here.



When we were done our ride, we headed over to this one, the raft ride. Mom, Dad, Aria and Tony did that one. There were people dressed in rain gear. Too bad thats not gonna work. Everyone got really wet, especially their feet.


Mom and I waited for the 4 to do the screaming california roller coaster. Mom was done riding and we were almost ready to head home when Mik saw that the wait time was like nothing! SCORE! So they did her favourite ride.


This is the one I took where I was watching them all do that same ride. They loved it so much. I loved watching this roller coaster take off and hearing the screams.





This is one of the Baby's presents from us. The others still need pictures and are a little big for it, but when it gets bigger it will have them all. :)


We did the Christmas Parade and Pixar Parade as well as the fireworks on our last night. Fireworks were awesome and really blow the symphony of fire out of the water. But they do them every night and there was Christmas music and it was the night before Christmas so it made it better.

We did quick shopping and took advantage of some of the clearance stuff there. I would defiantly do this again, but not pregnant and maybe with a toddler. That was one thing that kept me smiling throughout the trip, seeing all the little girls with the princess dresses on and the boys with cute hats. If I had the money, I would drop it on a princess dress if baby was a girl. Even the Alice in Wonderland dress was awesome, but I preferred the sleeping beauty or belle ones.

It looks like we shall have to plan another drive down in a few years.

Christmas Day we went to Medieval Times. The Medieval dinner theater thing. It was the only show that day and we got there early.

Once you get there you are assigned a coloured crown which is the colour of your knight and seating section. If you get there early, you get better seats. Well, we got there super early and got awesome front row seats for our knight, the blue knight! We had no utensils and got metal plates and cups and things. It was dark, and there was jousting and a princess and an evil knight.

Its a something you have to do if you are in Anaheim. Tony loved it, he said it was like every little boys dream to go. We got to be all rowdy and eat a lot of meat and things. It was a good Christmas thing to do away from home.

And now that I have had my breakfast and my hair is dry, it is time to work out a bit and then get a coffee from somewhere that has peppermint mochas.