at six months

the photo was when i was about 24 weeks. i am at 28 weeks now and will be posting a new photo soon. only 12 weeks to go, more or less, and i am definitely looking pregnant, but still wearing the same jeans from pre-pregnancy days.

 

Merry Christmas

below is the ultrasound picture i promised to post. i had to get my scanner up and running before i could do it so it took me awhile, not because its difficult to get the scanner going but because it is difficult to get me motivated, especially if carl is home and we are on the couch watching tv, but he is out playing poker tonight, as he does every tuesday night, and i actually felt like getting away from the couch.

i bought a crib yesterday, from JCPenney. i am excited to get it delivered. it cost us a pretty penny but it is a crib that goes into a toddler bed then a full-size bed so it will grow with our child. the crib cost more than any other piece of furniture we had bought in the past. our first big investment in this child's life. i don't think i will be one of those parents who feels the need to buy everything for their child. i just don't see the point but we debated it and decided it would be a good idea to get a crib. can't have our baby sleeping in a drawer, although, really, its not like she would complain, right?

 

she was crossing her feet...

carl and i got to seen an ultrasound of the baby a few days ago and while the technician was doing all of the measurements and checks we got to see that the baby is likely a little girl and that she was crossing her feet. i will post the ultrasound photo of the baby later on.
i am on a modified bed rest this weekend due to some spotting that has kept occurring. My doctor was on her day off when i called with worry so i saw another doctor and after he checked me out he told me i had some type of infection that could be treated with a week of medication but to take it easy this weekend because this infection could cause premature labor and since i was lightly cramping the other day he told me to do nothing over the weekend.
Carl just came by to let me know that his drop will be dropping off dinner for us in a little bit. I told his mom about my suggested bed rest yesterday when we ran into her and i guess i have worried her enough to have food sent over. She is good to us both.

 

yeah! i am back.
took some time off to get used to my job, working with adults with traumatic brain injuries, to get over morning sickness that lasted a good 6 weeks or more, and to move again from one side of the duplex to another. a few other major things happened too during my absence from blogger. a good friend of mine lost his battle to brain cancer in mid-october. i don't want to say much about that because i would hate to put his girlfriend, also a very good friend, in the spotlight like that, but carl and i went out to visit him over Labor day weekend. We expected to see him at his worst but he was actually the same old guy we had said bye to in california back in the end of March. He was too tired to spend much time with us but other than that he was his same self and at that time his doctors had been telling him that he had days to live but he survived for one more month. i believe its becasue he didn't want to leave his girlfriend too soon.
i have a lot to write but i will do that later. for now i just want to add this letter i wrote myself back when i first found out i was pregnant but too scared to tell the world yet.

It may be awhile until I publish this on my blog but I wanted to capture the essence of this feeling while at its strongest. I am pregnant. Well, as long as the Target brand pregnancy tests are accurate, as well as the tenderness of my breasts, and inability to eat much because of the constant feeling that I am going to throw-up; as long as those things are accurate, I am pregnant.
I cannot believe the nausea. It’s not morning sickness; it’s day and night sickness. Last Tuesday Carl came home from his poker game around 11 pm and when I heard him I woke up and just felt sick to my stomach. I curled up into a fetal position and went back to sleep because at least than I wouldn’t have to think about throwing up.
This feeling has only been with me for a week. At first I thought it was something I ate because although Carl and I are trying, I refused to believe that I could be pregnant. No way, I thought because I had not had a real period since I stopped my birth control three months ago. My body was being wacky so this was just another result of the hormones adjusting. I thought. I also thought it had a lot to do with the ice cream I had for dinner two Fridays ago, than I had greasy popcorn at a movie later that night, well morning. It was at a 3 am movie. That was another thing I thought it could be. I thought that because I had interrupted my normal sleep cycle to watch a movie at 3 in the morning my body was fighting to get back to normal. I thought it was everything except the obvious.
At for the constant breast tenderness? I figured it was a hormone thing too and only when it lasted over a week + the nausea did I think that perhaps I should get a pregnancy test.
Carl is excited but we are worried too because we are in the middle of painting the house, we have been using a lot of chemicals to take down wallpaper, and I got my hair permed two days ago. I have been exposing myself to so many chemicals that although its early, very early, we hope I haven’t exposed my self to too much and already put the child at huge risk.
So as soon as we got the results from the test last night, and again this morning to make sure, we decided that I have better be more careful. Right now I have closed my self off in a room away from the painting although I am going to be heading outside in a moment because I can still smell the fumes.
Tracy is here helping Carl paint and I hope he doesn’t wonder why I am not helping out with the painting when only yesterday I said I would but much has changed overnight.

July 27, 2008 Sunday

isn't this a cool logo? i thought it looked fun. its the first day of the beinjing olympics. they officially started about 52 minutes ago but it won't be broadcast in the usa until primetime. perhaps i'll watch.

The Batman

Another Batman movie came out and because i was pretty excited to see this one i did, last night. well, technically this morning at 3:15 am at an IMAX theater. i am sure i would have been impressed by the movie anyway but we (carl, Jessica, and me) really wanted to see the movie on the IMAX screen and since all the earlier shows were sold out we decided to do something out of the ordinary and to catch it in the early morning hours. i thought it was a typo on the website and we weren't sure if it would be a waste of our time driving half an hour south in the wee hours but it turned out to be the real deal and we weren't the only ones at the theater at this odd hour, although by no means was the theater crowded.
the movie was a long one and although i went to bed at 9 and got up at 2 i was still pretty tired and towards the last half hour i was struggling to stay awake so i missed a few things but i would love to see the film again because it was a good one.
the oddest thing about watching this movie at 3 in the morning is that when we walked out of the theater it was light out. we got to enjoy the full moon and the sunrise this morning.
i got to sleep when we got home, around 7, but Carl went to work all morning and except for a nap he took while we watched a movie at home, he hasn't been to sleep since 2 this morning.

another saturday afternoon

i have finished my second week at OP TBI. It is interesting and entertaining and i am enjoying it at this point. as long as i don't run out of things to do i should stay happy. i teach a few classes a week and go on activities with the different people each day and mostly i just keep an eye on people and help them cope with their days.
Thursday we were supposed to go on an outing but a storm built up over our lunch hour and when it was time to board the bus the storm hit with force. it was a beautiful storm to watch. a little hail, lightning, HEAVY rains and wind.
the radio was on and for the duration of the storm, almost an hour, it reported severe storm warnings and the occasional tornado watch. sirens went off as warnings for people in the Richfield area and i just watched the whole thing go over us. i love storms.
i was lucky enough to see another storm last night. a lot of the same but it didn't hit the area here by our home as bad as the previous storm.
what i find the most fascinating is how the day can go from beautiful and bright to dark and foreboding. i love a good storm. carl and i were inside a Dave's bbq when the storm rolled in yesterday. the news had already been reporting on the severity of this storm. a couple of tornadoes had touched down in areas Northwest from us so I was expecting the worst. as we ate i kept watching the storm and mentioning the sky to carl, tracy, and jessica but carl said it looked dark because the windows had plastic over them. it wasn't so. it looked dark because huge thunderstorms were coming in. carl believed me once the sky turned green. we hurried home at that point because our windows were open. no damage, thankfully.

happy fourth of july!

its a beautiful day here in the cities. blue sky, brilliant sun, and green everywhere you look. carl, beth, and i are going to spend our day out on a bike ride and than we will have a bbq over at the parents house and perhaps get in a game of croquet before the fireworks. we don't know where we will be going for the fireworks. i kind of want to go to the riverfront becasue i imagine it will be beautiful over the water and the buildings downtown but i also imagine it will be crowded and tough to get to. so...i don't know yet.
i finished my first week of work at TBI metro services, providing services for those who have suffered a traumatic brain injury. my position involves teaching independent living skills through a series of classes and activities. There is one other instructor and between us we are 'teach' and watch over the 9-11 'students' each day. i am sure the job will be interesting and will grow on me but i am unsure of what to think right now.
in the bigger news: there are numerous fires throughout california, many along the coast that we drove less than a month ago. Big Sur is one of the biggest places being mentioned over and over because its touristy. it is lovely there. the coastline from there is one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen and its very woodsy. its a beautiful contrast that is sad to hear that it is going up in flames, but fires are a natural part of the life cycle of a forest.

i never meant to let this much time pass in between posts because i knew it would be hell to catch up, especially since i took a two-week trip up the west coast and over to Minneapolis. it was about 3000 miles. carl and i drove the little Honda that could. Thirteen years old and it keeps going and going. It's funny, this car, because in 2001 the speedometer quit working on it. Along with that the odometer was no longer reliable either. it kept working but sometimes it wouldn't do its job, simple as that job is, so it says I have driven 218, 000 miles but i am fairly sure it is more than that. In fact i believe that i am closer to the 260k mile mark. I wish it was working effectively because I would love to see it turn over into the 300k mark.
Because of my car I am a big advocate for Honda. this little beast has carried me across the country numerous times, put up with 4 years of reckless driving when i was a Dominos delivery driver, and has given me very litte trouble. So i don't have A/C anymore (again), and two door handles are broken, and the muffler could fall off at anytime (it only cost me $100 under the table), and one window doesn't roll down, and it is beginning to rust. So what? this car is still my beauty. when it is clean and full of gas i feel like a proud mom. i know that i will likely be getting a new car in a year or so but maybe not because I thought this same thought a few years ago when we moved to California and my car has continued to amaze me with its ability to keep running day after day. By the way, my car still has its original brakes on the rear.
well, i never meant to start writing about my car but i did and that's that. what i meant to write about was the trip Carl and I took. it may take me several blogs to get it all in. Basically, we left California on June 3rd. we only made it as far as Anaheim because we went to Disneyland. After spending a month dealing with the details of the move we felt we deserved this. Disneyland was not as magical as i had expected but it was fun. I especially liked Space Mountain (why aren't more rollercoasters in the dark?). I did not like the other mountain ride. i called it the back breaker because the jerkiness of that ride made my back tweak twice. unpleasant and not worth the wait in line. We didn't do any of the rides for kids, except for the teacups and i loved those. we rode all the big rides and i wasn't too impressed by them. they were amusing but we had to wait too long for all of them and it wasn't even a busy day at the park. i worried that we would spend a lot of money on junk food at the park but we only had two things while there-an ice cream bar and a pickle. they were both delicious (and not eaten at the same time).
in all we spent 8 hours at the park and were pooped when we left. we only had enough energy to stop by Buca Di bepo on our way to our hotel. we had the best pizza there. i would recommend it if i could remember what it was. That was day 1 of our trip.

Rock and Roll moving experience

abe ran the rock and roll on sunday. he finished in just under 4 1/2 hours. he was up at 4 am to get to the race on time (and ended up with too much time before the race) and you could tell he was exhausted when he ran past. i had initially planned to see abe at about the 13 mile mark than to go over to the MCRD (military base) to see abe cross the finish but my parents did not show up on time (they say its a long story and i imagine they were fighting so i didn't ask) and we barely missed abe by what we think was 10 minutes so we rushed over to mile 18 and waited. we once again thought we missed abe because we saw a particular man dressed as elvis run past, whom we had seen before at the other mile so we were just leaving when my dad said, "ayi esta" and we turned around in time to see abe about to pass us. we did the whole cheer thing and he came over to us and that was fun than we got in the car and decided to go see him a few miles ahead to cheer him on again. the drive to the next location happened to go side-by-side the marathon so we honked at abe as we drove by (he had been walking at this point). at the next location we waited for awhile, and saw that same elvis again (i think he recognized us by this point because he was encouraging us to cheer when he ran past) and we chilled out until we saw abe run past us one last time. He was only a few miles from the end at this point and still looked to be doing all right. i wish i had gotten to see him at the end but that is life and it didn't work out that way. instead we went home after this. my aunt, cousin, and one of their friends went home to and i ended up napping for two hours because i too had been up since 4 to take abe and my parents left for the beach and carl disappeared to pick up abe.
when they got home, and i got up, we ate some IN n Out and relaxed than we went to the bay with my aunt, cousin, and their friend, and my parents to bbq and enjoy the best that california has to offer. it was very beautiful just chilling at the bay and i am glad we had dinner there instead of at someone's house because it showed my family what i would soon be missing.
on Monday we had to pack up our moving container and something that i thought would take about an hour took over five hours and that was with my parents and abe helping. it was not pleasant and we still had to work on it a little after we dropped abe off at the airport than went out for dinner (and got wasted on giant margaritas) with some good friends (mark, caitlin, jenn, kent, brian, tania, and joel, and a friend of kent's). i will miss them .

this is my mom, visiting me in San Diego, over Memorial Day weekend. Mom is wearing my jacket, she has lost some weight recently and looks great. we spent the day driving around san diego county and enjoying the beautiful day. it was a little chilly but that helped make the day seem clearer and feel crisp. it was an ideal day to watch the kayakers, swimmers, sea lions, and even a couple of dolphins play in the waters of La Jolla shore.

you know what stresses me out? talking on the phone while doing multiple tasks like looking for plane tickets and signing contracts for storage/moving containers and canceling dinner plans. i am a little overwhelmed. it helps for me to write lists of things to do so i can go through and cross things out. i guess i should write a list now but i am waiting for my mom to call me back. i bought her a ticket to come out to visit me before i move to Minnesota but somehow i put down the wrong date and didn't notice until i paid for it (no wonder the price was so good). anyway i called JetBlue right away to tell them what i did and i was able to get avoid getting a $100 fee for changing the ticket (mostly because i was about to cry on the phone) and got my mom the right date, it only cost a hundred dollars more because its for two days from now.
carl left with his dad yesterday for Minnesota. they got to Utah yesterday and are in Colorado today. they are not moving as quickly as planned because the truck is packed to the gills. Carl managed to get half the sectional in the truck along with the large television and the dining room table and most of our art. there was no way for Carl to see out of his back or side windows.
i am missing him. i couldn't sleep last night because of everything i have on my plate now that he is gone. i sleep much better when i have Carl around to help me do the worrying.

We have had quite a morning already. this photo directly above is of Carl being interviewed by Dave Scott, a local news celebrity for KUSI, before the Bay Bridge run/walk started. Well, honestly, Dave was only kind enough to pretend for us while i shot the photo and Carl admired the fact that he did this since Dave must be annoyed by people all the time. (Carl used to hate seeing him on the news before).
the morning was/is hot. the race started at 8 am at by 8:05 i was sweating profusely and worried about the rest of the race but I/we actually did great. The part that went uphill on the bridge was tough but we only stopped once on it and carl had me look over the edge. it made me feel dizzy, probably because my heartrate was 180+ at that point and stopping suddenly when i am that high makes me dizzy and sick.
There were over 8000 participants in the race. It was fun to be part of something that big. carl finished the four-miler in 44 minutes and i trailed behind him 45 seconds later. i really wanted to quit at the end but just knowing that i was almost finished and that carl wasn't stopping kept me going.
at the end we got free tickets to a Padres Game (that we are giving away because we won't be able to make it), a free t-shirt, and most importantly bananas and water! after collecting all the freebies we could we made our way to a ferry that brought us back Downtown. all this before 10 am. now we have to pack some more things because Carl is leaving tomorrow (with his dad who is flying in tonite) to minneapolis, leaving me alone for the week. we have never been apart for a week.

earthquake in china, tsunami in miranmar...

and a man shot at a gas station in Poway, CA. okay. the gun fight wasn't national news but i was surprised that during this last news story to see the gas station prices were up to $4.79/gallon for premium! whoa. its not that high where i get my gas. i believe the last time i filled up it was $3.83.
Carl just filled up yesterday and it was $3.85 and his total was $70.33. this is a new high for him. just a little over a month ago he hit the $60 mark and he was amazed. i wonder if he will hit $80 soon?
anyway, i did want to mention the earthquake in china. it was a 7 point something on the richter scale and thousands are missing or dead. (i just saw that the death toll for miranmar is 128 thousand) one news story this morning talked about how a influx of toads in the city occurred a few days before the earthquake and wondered if this was some sign from them that they knew what was coming. i believe so, but how?

we are packing our things and preparing to move AGAIN. well its not so bad i guess. we did get a three year break between moves this time around. its the longest period of time that i have ever lived anywhere since moving out of my parents home in 1998. since then:

1 year on campus at USU
1 summer at parents home in Logan
1 school-year in apartment with friends
2 months in Jackson, WY
1 summer in Sacremento with brother and sister-in-law
1 year at parents home in Logan
1 school-year at apt. closer to campus
6 months in Escondido with boyfriend (future husband)
2 months in apt. in Hopkins, MN
5 months back at parents home in Logan
1 month back to Hopkins
11 months at Duplex (we own it) in Columbia Heights, MN
3 Years in apt. in Pacific Beach

...and now back to Duplex in Columbia Heights, MN for an indeterminable time. We plan to buy another home and continue renting out both sides of the duplex but who knows how long that will take, probably no more than a year since that has been my history. all this moving has made me a great packer though.

happy mother's day (its on the tenth in Mexico)

happy mothers day para la mujer mas importante en mi vida.

te quiero mucho, mama, y tengo mucho admiracion para ti. tu unica hija, vero.

The Red Bull Airshow

Carl and I saw the 2nd annual Red Bull show (2nd annual in San Diego at least). It takes place today and tomorrow but we got a good view of it today. It is pretty cool. A bunch of pilots compete on a course that has them zigzagging around pillions situated on the water between Coronado and Downtown. The crowds were huge! We didn't exactly know where we were going to see the show from but i wanted to be close to the action with a view of coronado because we had gone to a rooftop bar last year and it would have been a good view had we ever had the chance to get on the outside of the crowd. we had no luck last year but this year we were practically on the water. actually we had to sit on some rocks that left our backsides sore but we had a GREAT view. i took my camera because i wanted to do some photo practice (i definitely need to continue practicing) and i got some shots of the fast moving planes. the show started at 1 p.m. but not much happened until 2 and we left and were home by 3 because it was getting too hot in the sun. had we been more prepared like some of the people around us who had chairs (on the rocks) and food and drinks we could have perhaps lasted longer but we got the gist of it.
i also wanted to mention that the hummingbird baby has flown the coop (nest). I told Carl just last Monday that the bird had gotten pretty big, as big as its mom, and that i thought it would be flying soon, and i was right. I wish we could had seen it fly off but one can't have it all. Now the nest is empty, but i am full of memories (i am intentionally being cheesy).
also, Jennifer moved out to Colorado to be with Rich. She will be staying with him and perhaps when everything is over they will move back. who knows. i guess i have never mentioned who these guys are. Jennifer is a friend i made while working at the YMCA. we became better friends after we both quit and Carl and Rich got along quite nicely too. everything was peachy until late February, or perhaps early March, when Rich ended up getting surgery for what was thought to be just a blood clot in his brain. Well, after some tests came back, and we had all thought Rich was in the clear, it was determined that it was a tumor. Suddenly, and when isn't it, Rich was being moved back home to Colorado with his parents so he could get better care and his parents could be with him, leaving Jennifer here alone.
Initially, Jennifer was told by the mom that she would be a burden on Rich if she came out. This tore Jennifer apart, as it would most people, and we told her that the mother's opinion didn't count unless Rich felt the same way. Guess what? He didn't and he spoke to his parents about it and it was agreed that Jennifer would go to Colorado, but a month after Rich so that she could sell off all her possessions (except clothes) , quit her job, and leave her apartment.
she left on Wednesday night and she made it yesterday afternoon so they are together again.

the photos are from my favorites folder so there's a medley of them. i did this using the picasa picture program that google offers. i only wish there was a way to move the photos around after creating a collage but thats all right.
so i have been sick again. not as sick as i got about a month ago but its irratating all the same.
in the news, last week a man from solana beach who was training for a triathlon was attacked and killed by a shark. its rare that such a thing happens but i understand why some would be fearful of this. i am not, necessarily, going to stop loving the ocean but i know that i wold not have any chance of surviving if this happened to me. the waters around the area of attack were closed right after the attack. i guess the authorities were worried about the shark lingering in the area but nothing else, here, happened. however, in baja a man from san fransisco was killed yesterday. For something so rare it sure was a coincident to have happened again.

this place often has the steepest gas prices in town but it was about $4.00 for premium at other gas stations around town

flower patch in Old Town San Diego

we might move again. all along it has been the plan. we never intended to stay in San Diego long-term but we did stay here one year longer than planned. landscape architecture as a whole is getting hurt by the state of the economy right now. it makes sense i guess; why would one invest in landscaping when they can't afford their mortgage.
its not that we are exactly suffering or anything but it is time to move on with our intended plans of moving to Minnesota where we do plan to live for the rest of our lives. buy a home. have children. live the dream. and hopefully work hard and save big so that we can retire early. well, so Carl can retire early. i honestly don't mind working a little longer, especially if i take some time off from a paid position to raise our family. i do want to vacation though but perhaps i will have a flexible job by that point. that would be ideal so we could explore the world from time to time but wouldn't necessarily be around each other all the time. that would be hard on my nerves, although i love carl dearly, because i just NEED alone time so that i appreciate our time together so much more, and i have something to talk about.

I had a hard time getting rid of my last name. it was something i was so proud of growing up. Everyone knew who the Medinas were, even if they didn't quite know who i was specifically, people knew of me because they knew my brothers.
When i got married i didn't want to give up the last name so i hyphenated it and dropped my middle name instead. it was too much anyway and my mom was the only one who used my middle name, when she wanted to make me mad.
Medina, MN is about 45 minutes outside of Minneapolis and i just had to go see it when we moved to Minneapolis. There isn't much to it. i can remember a bowling alley, a motel, and two water towers. Not much to mean much to me about the town but the surname means a lot to me and although I have four brothers to carry on the family name, I just couldn't let go.

looking back at my childhood. this is a photo of my brothers and i in front of the house in Grace, Idaho. i am guessing i was about 6 years old making noe 5, esau 7, abe 9, and junior 11. i am just guessing though.

one

as you can see in the photo there is only one baby. Maybe i am not seeing things clearly but I don't think there are two babies anymore. It might have been eaten by that crow we saw lurking around the nest a few times, or perhaps it didn't hatch, or something else. whatever the case its sad to us that we are only seeing one when we earlier saw two. it also makes me wonder why the beak doesn't look hummingbird like. is this even a hummingbird? i will keep my eyes on it.

carl and i started running again. i don't want to run more than 3 miles at a time this time around, at least until i resolve the issue with my knees. they use to hurt all the time just from standing all day but the pain has decreased dramatically. i have been taking glucosamine and it seems to have helped because my knees no longer hurt, even when i wear crappy flip flops instead of shoes with cushion and support. my right knee still makes some squishy sound that worries me a bit but i rarely notice except when doing lunges or other exercises focusing on the knee.

It was my mother-in-laws birthday today. we called her earlier today. well carl did and i just yelled from a distance but than i had to brush my teeth and couldn't talk.

My day...

It's my dad's birthday today. He's 54 today. Is that right? He was born in 1954. I believe its right. I called him earlier but he wasn't answering his cell. Maybe I should try again. this day was full of photo opportunities. i started my day by volunteering at an MSWalk as a cheerer at the start/finish line. I just had to shout, 'Hurray, good job' for an hour and a half. it was more fun than i thought it would be but i didn't get a free pass into legoland like i kind of hoped i would. From there i took the long way home along the 101 and stopped at various spots to look around. the first photo was at a campsite in carlsbad, the second at the beach in Del Mar, and the last one was at a site in La Jolla where paragliders take off. That was fun to watch. one paraglider didn't look like he was going to make it and just as he took his last step off the cliff and started going down his parachute did its job and he started climbing into the sky.

gas prices guzzle up money

I paid over $32.00 yesterday to fill up my car. This is the first time I got over $30, a new milestone for my car. The price per gallon is up to $3.739 in San Diego right now. I heard that the national average is at $3.49. That would be nice. I get my gas at Vons because it gives me a 3 cent per gallon savings but if I were to drive next door to Chevron I would find myself paying about 10 cents more and if i wanted premium I would be paying up to $4.00 per gallon. OUCH!!
I guess certain things will always be monitored and any little price mark-up is widely discussed such as gas, or milk or eggs, as well as some fruits and vegetables. Those are all essential to me though so I pay no matter what the price. I can do without meats but I need my veggies, fruits, and dairy. Actually, I don't always notice the price hikes when I am paying because I buy when items are on sale or in season and if they seem too pricey at the time I just put off buying that particular item until next time.

If you look closely within the nest you will see that the two eggs have hatched into two baby hummingbirds. I believe they hatched yesterday or even the day before because that is when we first noticed that the mama was standing at the nest instead of sitting on it but it wasn't until today that we really noticed what was going on within the nest. Actually Carl noticed when he saw a crow hanging around the nest and he shooed it away. It made us wonder what he was doing around the nest so Carl peeked into it and said he thought he saw two birds. I didn't fully believe him, it seemed too soon, and i was a bit afraid that the crow had somehow hurt the eggs so i was hesitant to look but i finally got the nerve and grabbed the camera in order to get a better look and this is the shot i got. Since the birds make no noise we still wondered if perhaps they were dead but after many anxious minutes of waiting for the mom we saw that they were and she was feeding them.
that was just part of our day. It was hot this whole weekend but because we hate being cooped up we went out for a hike this morning in this Mission Gorge park. The hike was about 4 miles roundtrip but we saw an old dam. the hike was nice overall but it was so hot out there even at 10 a.m. and when we got back to the car we found that we had a flat tire. So we had to deal with that and it took up the rest of our morning (waiting in line for 40 minutes at Sears didn't help).
so that was my day. A busy Sunday full of surprises.
by the way the soup the other day came out really good and close to the original.

Byerly's Wild Rice Soup

This a soup from Byerly's, a high-end grocery store in Minneapolis (it has carpeted aisles!). Carl introduced it to me on a cold Minnesota winter when nothing could warm me up, then I tried a hot bowl of soup with crackers and I warmed up all the way down to my soul. It was amazingly good and became a special occasion meal from then on. The problem came when we moved to California because I couldn't find it here, not having any Byerly's nearby.
We still got our fix when we visited Minneapolis but that has been so infrequent that today I decided that I would attempt the recipe from home. I went online and found the recipe and started....
Well, I haven't finished making it yet because I have to cook the rice for an hour first but I will be finishing it soon and I will let you know how it turns out. I hope it turns out as good as the original because I take pride in recreating my favorite restaurant recipes (like the Olive Garden soup I mastered a few years ago).

i've been sick

a severe cold or the flu? i don't know but i do know that i have felt horrible for the past four days, yesterday being the worst day of all. i didn't even enjoy the many hours of daytime TV that i would ordinarily enjoy on a healthy day. the plus side has been that i got to use two sick days to get better. i rarely use sick days. in fact these are the first two sick days i have used at this job that i have been at for a little over a year. the sick day i am using today is mostly to make sure i am feeling better and to get everything cleaned up and washed in the apartment (blankets, germ-infested surfaces). i had a slight fever last night, nothing too high but high enough to keep me sweating all night long although i slept pretty soundly when i was out. i woke up only once at 2:30 a.m. i woke up thinking, "wow, i feel much better". it must have been when my fever finally broke and i was back to normal. well, not normal but the cold sweats stopped and that was nice. now if i can only get rid of my cough and chest congestion i will be 100%.

why i struggle with going green

I recently went to a sight about going green and it had a quiz to see how many "green leaves" i had determined by how many questions about my green habits I could answer. I got 27 leaves. It is not great but i realized that I could do better but do i want to?
My problem with going 'greener' is that i have trouble giving up certain things such as showers everyday, not flushing the toilet when i go pee, recycling (in a recycle unfriendly area), biking to work (it may not be far to work but that's because i take the freeway), our two vehicles (but when they die we are thinking are getting hybrids).

I must state that there are many things Carl and I have done in order to be 'greener'. such as...

1. walking when something is close (like the grocery store, the bars, the bank, and many eateries)
2. buying recyclable bags to use at the grocery store (we do have to remember to bring them though, and often we just go without any bag and just carry our stuff in our arms)
3. replacing most of our light bulbs with fluorescents
   
4. not using any heat or cooling in our place (blankets in the winter and cool breezes in the summer keep our temps bearable, plus we live in San Diego)
5. using refillable bottles (i just changed from my Nalgene bottles to Kleen Kanteen and Sigg and it was costly, over $50, in order to avoid the possibility of plastic leaching
6. we try not to buy too much new stuff and donate our old stuff, as much as possible

We are trying like you can see and there are many other things we intend to do such as buying from farmers markets, getting energy-star appliances, using other house products that don't introduce harmful chemicals into our home, and composting. Some of these things can be started now but many won't be implemented until we get our own home because as renters we can't do certain things (composting!). oh well, we are trying and hope to do better over time. It is easier then in the past since it is now everywhere.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MR GILLIES

This is the cake creation for Carl's 35th birthday. It is a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with a caramel swirl ice cream center. I found that frosting does not stick to ice cream, but only after I tried it various times. I am pretty excited about trying it out but that will have to wait since Carl and I are going out for dinner and a movie with some friends of his. The friends coming along was supposed to be a surprise but not that long ago, as I was having Jenn help me figure out who would be coming, Carl found out. He is at the office right now and that's how he found out. Mark asked everyone, "who's coming to Carl's thing tonight", while Carl was in the office and Carl immediately called me to let me know that Mark had let the cat out of the bag. Oh well. He does hate surprises.
I do to. I just found out that a trip I had planned for the two of us tomorrow got cancelled due to insufficient interest. Bums me out and I am scrambling to find another option.

35 reasons to love Carl L. Gillies

1. you are always there when I need you
   
2. You make me laugh till i cry (and panic till i cry but you don't mean to)
   
3. your need to excel in even the smallest of things (card games)
   
4. you are friends with my brothers and kind to my parents
5. you are good to your parents and sister
6. you are such a good host and have great manners (something i must work on)
7. you are never jealous, well perhaps just jealous enough, but not scary jealous
8. you don't try to control me
9. i love your intelligence
10. i love the way you encourage me in my never-ending hobbies
11. your secret ingredient, love, makes all your food taste better than mine
12. i love that you can change a car radiator then make a lasagna, blowing away my father's ideas of what is man's work
13. I love how you will encourage me when i am frightened to try new things
14. i love that you know when to back off when i am not willing to try a new thing

More reasons to be added over time

Pregnant Man Makes Headlines

okay. this image has been all over the news recently. the 'man' is actually pregnant. 'His' name is Thomas Beattie and his story is that his wife couldn't conceive so he decided to carry the child. what makes this possible is that he was formerly a she and had a sex change above but left the uterus below making it possible for him to carry a child now. He is to be on Oprah to discuss this today but i doubt i will watch it. My views are already set on this whole situation, and my views are? I accept it and would hate for Beattie to recieve negative attention from all this (although i am sure he is) but it is bizarre. The news has a lot of bizarre stories and because I am a big news fan I will likely be commenting on them from time to time on my blog.
I also wanted to mention a story about some third-graders who were caught in a plot to hurt their teacher. It all started when one little girl got in trouble in class and was instructed to sit in time-out. It didn't go over all that hot with the girl because that evening she got two classmates, a boy and a girl, to join her in a plan to get back at the teacher. They all had their own parts in the plan, such as covering the windows, hitting the teacher over the head with a blunt object, than stabbing her with a knife. One student even had the role of clean-up. Now what kind of children are these? I imagine the main little girl comes from a family that doesn't give her the proper attention but allows her to get away with everything, therefore making a small time-out at school seem monumental to her. They were all caught before the teacher was hurt and charges pressed against them. So young.

the blue M&M

their is a commercial on tv right now that shows a blue M&M sitting on a couch. it looks just like CArl. it makes me laugh so hard that i don't actually know what the commercial is about. what happens with this M&M? i don't know. i laugh so hard i cry and get cramps then i stop laughing only to think about it again and start all over. i don't know if carl likes this or not but he showed the commercial to a buddy of his at work, and the buddy agrees with me. Carl is a blue M&M.

Carl is not really glaring at me. He is probably just trying to get work done and i am picking on him with my camera.
I got a camera back in November, a nice Pentax SLR camera that I am getting to know, even now, and so I tend to drive Carl nuts with the constant snapping of photos. I can't improve if I don't practice, I should take a class though.
It's Carl's birthday at the end of the week. I got him something I hope he will love but I can not say anything until Friday.

all you bibliophiles out there

i put a website to the left of a site i have been a part of that allows me to keep track of the books i read and what i thought of them. not only that but i also get to invite friends to do the same and can meet other people who have similar interests. very interesting for the book lover in me. check it out.

the youngest (male) medina

this is Julian Anthony Medina, the son of Julian and Carmina (?) Medina, the son of Julian Arturo and Gloria Medina. Basically, this is my cousin's son. Carl and I went to visit their family today because Julian will soon be leaving on another tour (he's a Marine) and my aunt was having a get-together to say bye to her son, again.

Our Own Hummingbird

My own hummingbird. Only ten feet from my window/sliding door I have a hummingbird incubating two eggs on a branch that sways up and down with the gentlest of winds. Aren't these birds supposed to build nests in more concealed areas? This nest is somewhat hidden. I didn't notice it right away but once you know where it is it is impossible not to notice it again. It is my guess that the nest is fairly new and that in two weeks or so we will have two new hummingbirds. Let's watch and see.
btw, i want to mention that this nest is only slightly bigger than a golf ball and the eggs were pretty much invisible to me until i got up close and snapped off this photo. I'm lucky the photo came out since I had to do it quickly in order to go unnoticed by the hummingbird who had gone off to get food (about every ten minutes).