The Cooking Bug

I have caught it again, guys. Well, actually I didn't feel like cooking At All yesterday, so we ate leftovers all day, but today the urge to exercise my culinary muscles has returned. Does anyone else out there in InternetLand find recipes for things they have no idea how to make and then totally change them on a whim? Because I do that all the time. I almost never make a recipe exactly as written. I'm always adding something or leaving something out (on purpose). Tonight I am going to make chicken & rice for dinner (no, I have never made chicken & rice before, now kindly pick yourselves up off the floor), and I am totally not using the exact recipe I printed out. I wanted a recipe that did not invlove canned soup or heavy cream. Not because I have anything against canned soup or heavy cream, but because I have none of either in the house, and I've already been to the grocery store once today, thank you (I was buying ingredients for blackberry tarts. Actually, the recipe was for raspberry tarts, but I made blackberry instead. See? I can't help myself). I also wanted one that didn't call for instant rice. I have instant rice, but I just prefer the non-instant kind.

So, I found myself a recipe for chicken and rice using uncooked, regular, long-grain rice (I am using brown rice) and evaporated milk. But it also calls for celery, which I don't have. But I am totally going to add onions and bell pepper, which the recipe does not call for. But I have onions and a yellow bell pepper, and I am going to use them. Don't judge me. Anyway, I hope it doesn't suck. But there is still some leftover spaghetti in case Max won't eat it.

I hope I don't cut myself tonight. I already have three cuts on my hands, and I don't need anymore right now, thank you. I am such a klutz. The other day when I was chopping vegetables and herbs for chicken and risotto, I got a little careless with my knife, and cut my middle finger. Thankfully, the knife also hit my fingernail or that situation would have been really bad. In retrospect, that cut probably could have used a stitch or two anyway. It was pretty small (maybe 1/4" long) but kind of deep for a cut on a finger. Later on, I cut my other hand opening a can of parmesan cheese. That's what I get for not grating it fresh, right? I have another cut on my other middle finger, but I don't know where that one came from.

So yeah, no more cuts today. I just sharpened my knives, too, so wish me luck.

Waiting Game

and i'm so not good at waiting. at my doctor's appointment last week, i was informed that at this point we're pretty much just waiting for me to go into labor. max has reached full term (though my due date is still 2.5 weeks away) and would be perfectly healthy if he were born right this minute. he probably weighs about 7-7.5 pounds right now (he was 6 lbs. 12 oz. at my ultrasound last week), and i am SO READY for him to come out of my uterus and into the world. however, dr. g. was not so encouraging as far as telling us that max will arrive any minute. her exact words were "you still have a lot of work to do on your cervix." she used those same words at my appointment yesterday, though she did say that i'm 1 cm dilated. which is pretty much nothing, but it's better than last week. she also gave me copies of my medical history sheets to give to the labor and delivery nurse when we finally do have to go to the hospital.

i'm considering cutting back my hours at work a little sooner than i'd planned. i had originally planned to work my 20 hours per week at DISL and still do HPLC on my own stuff two days per week right up until max is born. however, i am now thinking that might not be such a good idea. my blood pressure is staying pretty high these days, and my feet and ankles are now pretty much swollen all the time - but the swelling somehow manages to get even worse when i go to the lab, despite my sitting around with my feet up on a stool while i pick samples and stare into a microscope. sounds like a pretty low-key job, right? you'd think so, but i am the queen of finding ways to injure myself, and yesterday was a doozy in that department. i pretty much tried to cut off a finger or two when capping a little teeny glass sample vial. that takes a special kind of talent, right?

here's what happened - i spent all day picking the little critters out of a sample of benthic material from the delta and sorting them into vials of alcohol. i labeled all the vials and was putting caps on them when one decided that instead of getting a lid put on it, it wanted to shatter into zillions of pieces right as i was pressing the cap down on it. so, picture my fingers holding a little plastic cap about a centimeter in diameter and pressing down onto a little glass vial as it shatters. then picture shards of glass slicing into the side of my right hand ring finger to the left of the fingernail and gouging out a chunk of skin while a different shard of glass slices up my thumb. now imagine all my lab mates freaking out a tad as a i drip blood down the hall on the way to the bathroom to rinse the cuts out (can't have little pieces of glass stuck in there, you know). in their defense, i was bleeding pretty profusely, so some of their freaking out was justified. so katy and susan came into the bathroom to check on me, and i sent katy off for neosporin, gauze, and medical tape (believe me, band-aids just wouldn't suffice at that point) while susan volunteered to clean up the blood i'd dripped down the hall. i wrapped my cut and bleeding fingers in paper towels, and charlie went for ice. then katy came back and bandaged up my finger and thumb with neosporin-covered gauze, and i propped my arm up on the counter with my hand pointing up and tried to simultaneously keep ice and pressure on the bleeding wounds. a fair amount of blood managed to soak through the gauze on my finger, and katy changed the bandage for me before i left work for my doctor's appointment. i sat there with ice and pressure on the cuts for about 40 minutes before i had to leave for the doctor's office, and i was still bleeding when we changed the bandages before i left. it was pretty gross. the bleeding had stopped by the time i got home from my doctor's appointment and exchanged the gauze for regular band-aids. i did make my finger bleed again last night when i cleaned it out with peroxide before changing the band-aids again. and now it hurts pretty bad. and i'm sure it will for a long time. i think i'll have to go out later to by more band-aids, since i'm almost down to the really tiny and oddly-shaped ones in my variety box.

on a less bloody and gruesome subject, chad and i finished the nursery last week. i would have posted pictures then, but as you are aware, my internet was not working. so you can look at them now and get all those bloody images out of your head.


standing in the doorway of the nursery















the crib/changing table with the sweet wall decorations
















the crib bedding and mobile
















the corner behind the changing table with the diaper stacker, bookshelf, diaper champ, and laundry basket (it's full of new clothes that need to be washed before max wears them)




















the changing table has convenient drawers and shelves for storing clothes, burp cloths, and extra diapers and wipes




















the corner with my sweet rocking chair




















the nursery is all ready to go. now we just need the baby to put in it. you hear that, max?