Stranded! (and a PSA)

Last night was probably going to be one my last late nights out in New York City before baby Stormageddon makes her arrival in February.  Now I can say it was DEFINITELY my last late night in New York City.

It started off SO well.  My husband was already in the city for work, so I took the bus into Port Authority with one of our friends.  We met Glen at Veselka for some delicious Ukranian food.  I got a variety of pierogies, which were delicious despite the fact that they had run out of the pumpkin pierogies I was so looking forward to!  The place was all decked out for Christmas and it was very cozy.

After dinner, we had some time to kill before Glen's show at the Upright Citizense Brigade Theatre, so we found a bar to hang out in for a bit, where I drank the biggest Shirley Temple ever.  (Seriously, I think I've spent more time in bars since I got pregnant than I did before!)  Glen's show went really well, but by the time it let out, it was about 12:30am.

Here's where the PSA comes in.  I hadn't been to New York City since before Hurricane Sandy.  Glen has only been in weekdays during the day.  None of us had a clue that the PATH trains are currently shut down between the hours of 10:00pm and 5:00am.  Our plan had been to take the PATH back to Jersey City where Glen had parked, because we'd done it a million times before. 

After trying the 33rd St., 23rd. St. AND 14th St. stations to no avail (and a lot of walking!), we finally bit the bullet and took a very expensive cab ride to get to the parking garage near Journal Square.  When all was said and done, Glen and I didn't get back to our house until 4:00 this morning.

I had originally planned on taking the morning off from my day job, since I knew it would be a late night, but I think I made the right decision in calling off for the whole day instead.  And since I spent that entire ordeal paranoid about the possibility of going into preterm labor and with no way of getting home, I think it goes without saying that I will be staying a bit closer to home for the next 7 1/2 weeks!

By the way, I DO have 31 week belly pictures, but they haven't made it from the camera to the computer just yet.  I'll post them soon, I promise!

Craft Shows and Birthdays and Baby Showers!

It's been an eventful couple of weeks since I last posted.

I wrapped up the craft show season the weekend before Thanksgiving:

But when that was over, I also made a couple of sales on Etsy.  Hopefully there will be more this month, but the inventory in my shop is a bit thin and I haven't had time to take more pictures.

I also had a fabulous 30th birthday at the end of the month!  I took a half day at work, and then had to go for an ultrasound during the afternoon.  My doctor was a bit concerned that the baby might be measuring small, so he wanted to have a growth scan done, and it turns out everything is perfect, and she's not actually small.  She's measuring in the 48th percentile, and we were able to double check and make sure she's definitely a girl.  I know mistakes are rare, but people apparently just LOVE to tell pregnant ladies about someone they knew who was told the wrong sex. ;-)

After a successful ultrasound, my husband and I met up with my parents, his parents, and his youngest brother (who shares a birthday with me) for some hibachi and sushi.  I like California rolls and all, but after I have this baby I am going to eat soooo many salmon rolls and spicy tuna rolls!

When dinner was over, Glen and I met up with some friends at The Bookstore for dessert and drinks:

They were able to make me some super tasty non-alcoholic drinks, and the creme brulee was delicious.  So much fun. :-)

The day after my birthday was the baby shower.  The date wasn't a surprise, since given the schedule I keep there is a good chance I'd have missed it if I didn't know to keep the date clear, but I wasn't clued in on any of the details.  My mom, mother-in-law, best friend, and sister-in-law all did an amazing job, and I had such a great time!

Of course, now Stormageddon's nursery is a bit of a disaster area:

Oh, and for the record: those pictures were taken AFTER my mom helped me "organize" things.  I definitely have my work cut out for me.  But I won't complain, I am just so grateful that this baby already has so many people who care about her and want to get her off to a good start!

One of my friends helped get us stocked up on cloth diapers - she bought us a bunch of prefolds and covers, and turned them into "diaper babies" complete with googly eyes.  How adorable are they?!

 

And since I've fallen behind on belly pictures (we missed week 30, but week 31 is a pineapple, so it's all good because pineapples are delicious!!), here's the one picture I actually have from the shower so far, of my belly with diaper baby googly eyes on it:

What's the verdict on that picture: cute or creepy?? ;-)

Maternity Monday: 28 Week Belly Photos & Baby Bookcases

I'm not sure how it's possible that baby Stormageddon will likely be here in 2 1/2 months.  Crazy!

We actually didn't get to the 28 week pictures until 28 weeks, 6 days - so really these are technically more like 29 week pictures, but close enough. ;-)

Finally wore an actual maternity shirt!

Is it me, or does this eggplant look smaller than the cabbage??

The view from the front!

...This one's a little blurry, but I was making ridiculous faces in the others. :-P

Now I'm really feeling the pressure to get the office-to-nursery conversion moving.  I did finally manage to get the crib put together (you can catch a glimpse of it in right-hand side of some of the pictures above) and the old bookcase moved to the storage closet, so that's a step in the right direction, at least.

Now I just need to get rid of my old desk so we can pick up a baby-friendly bookcase for the nursery.  We're probably going to use the ClosetMaid Cubeicals 6 Cube Organizer:

We'll put a couple of baskets (probably these purple ones) in there for toy storage, along with her already-growing library of picture books. ;-)

I've been awful about visiting/commenting on blogs lately.  Last week was kind of absurd.  Glen was barely around because he was commuting to New York City every day for his new job.  In addition to working my regular day job, I had extra library hours, played in a concert at a nursing home, went to Glen's comedy competition in Staten Island, sold my jewelry at a craft show, and drove up to Connecticut for a party with some friends from college.  I didn't have much free time to sit in front of computer, and when I *did* have the time, I picked my husband over my laptop.  Hopefully I'll have a bit more time to make the rounds this week!

Perfect Timing

I'm generally not the "I don't believe in coincidences" type, but the past couple of weeks is making me rethink that point of view.

About a two and a half weeks ago, we found out Glen's old car would need a new transmission.  Since Glen's old car was a '99 Kia Sephia worth less than the cost of a new transmission, we decided to search for a new-ish car.  The same week we were car-searching, Glen also applied for a job as an associate editor for Geekosystem.com.

Well, a week and a half ago, we were able to find a car that looked like it would work for us - an '09 Chevy Aveo hatchback.  We'd have preferred a Honda Fit or a Nissan Versa, but unfortunately our search was restricted to dealerships that were actually open after the storm, which meant our pool of potential cars was a bit on the small side, made smaller by the fact that we wanted to keep the purchase price on the lower side since we now have two (ugh!) car loans.  Luckily, we got a really good interest rate on both loans, so the payments are manageable for us.

...Made more manageable by the fact that Glen got the job!!  Apparently he beat out hundreds of applicants for the position, and now Dan Abrams is his boss.  So, yanno, that's pretty cool.  And it turns out it's actually a good thing Glen's car decided to die when it did, because Glen will be commuting to New York a couple of times a week, and I don't think the Kia would have put up with the 130-mile round trip commute for very long. ;-)

Oh, and since this post is pretty light on photos, I thought I'd share this picture I just took of Elvis.  This is what I was contending with while attempting to type this post:

Made it a little difficult to type, but I can't be mad at the guy for being so obsessed with snuggling his baby sister already. ;-)

Maternity...Tuesday(?): This Produce Thing Is Getting Weird

Yesterday was crazy busy, but I have belly pictures AND recipe pictures to share.  The strange part is that the two are actually related.

Yesterday was the start of 27 weeks (third trimester, when did that happen?!?!), and last week we took 26 week belly pictures.  Technically, baby is the size of a head of lettuce, but we decided to substitute with a head of cabbage instead:

I think Stormageddon had a growth spurt these past couple of weeks! :-)

...Buuuut most of my maternity clothes are still too big.  Still usually wearing my regular clothes with a belly band. ;-)

Cabbage patch kid??

Here's where the produce thing gets weird though:

See, it seems wasteful to buy produce for the sole purpose of taking pictures, so every other week we end up eating our "baby."  It somehow seemed less odd when baby was avocado sized and we'd just buy a few of them, take a picture, return it to the produce basket and not know whether the avocado we'd just eaten was our "baby" from the pictures.

But it's not like we can just buy a bunch of cabbages and eat one as a snack.  So our cabbage baby got cooked into two delicious meals after those pictures were taken.

I used the first half of the cabbage to make creamy Thai sweet potatoes and lentils for dinner on Sunday night:

If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend you follow the link above and make it.  SO yummy!

Tonight I used the remainder of the cabbage in a halupki casserole:

The casserole is my mom's recipe, so I don't have a link (I tried to find an identical recipe online, but no luck, and I don't know offhand whether she got this recipe online or elsewhere), but if you want to give it a try, feel free to send me an email and I'd be more than happy to share the recipe!

UPDATE:  My mom saw this post and forwarded the link for the halupki casserole to me!  Our slow cooker is too small to fit the whole recipe, so I usually make it in the oven - 30 minutes at 375 degrees usually does the trick.