Today has been a day of self-pity for me. I'll admit it. I think we're all entitled to one of those days every once in awhile. And I think it's o.k. as long as we smack ourselves out of it at the end of the day and get on with life. So, before I smack myself, I thought I'd write down some of my self-pitying thoughts.

Sometimes, life circumstances reveal a reality you are not prepared to see...or a reality you don't want to see. As we make friends and forge relationships with others, we want to believe that those bonds matter - that they are meaningful. I think many are. But sometimes, you realize that relationships that were meaningful to you are not as meaningful to the other person...and that hurts a little. Or you realize that a friendship you have enjoyed wasn't really a friendship - simply a family obligation. I guess it's humbling, because you realize that life continues without you, and there is very little concern over your absence.

These feelings put me between a rock and hard place. I can't be too hurt by this reality, because I created it. We packed up our things, we drove 2500 miles away, and we started to create a life away from family and friends. That was our choice, and these are the consequences. But even though I know that, it still hurts when there are no phone calls. When promises go unfulfilled. When they stop asking about the kids. When there aren't Christmas gifts anymore.

I was prepared to take the lions-share portion of maintaining long-distance relationships...but I didn't expect to find out that keeping those relationships would be 100% my responsibility. And that hurts a little.

My husband says it most likely a simple case of "out of sight, out of mind". I think he's right. I guess I just thought that if a relationship was important enough in someone's life, we'd come to mind every now and again. But never? Ouch.

The silver lining in all this is that it reminds me to start creating relationships that matter here - where we live, and where we are raising our kids. Maybe it's a push to stop spending so much time trying to maintain old friendships and pour that effort into new friendships. Maybe this is just a season in our life...and a few years down the road, we'll be able to pick up where we left off. I don't know. But for now, it hurts a little.

I guess I just wanted to be thought of more often. Doesn't that sound cheesy! :) Ok, time to smack myself....and go to bed.

Our little girl is nine months old today!

I've heard people point out before that this is significant because Rebekah has now been with our family for the same amount of time as I was pregnant with her. I think that is a thinly-veiled attempt to discourage future pregnancies! Even though these months have gone by quickly, I don't like being reminded that pregnancy is that looooong. Ugh. Anyway. :)

Here is what Rebekah is up to these days:

• She takes two 2-hour naps during the day (I don't think she's actually asleep that entire time, but she's content, so I'll take it!).
• She's sleeping 9pm to 8am each night with no interruptions.
• She is on a combo diet of nursing, baby food, and the occasional table food.
• She is a crawling fiend.
• She loves to pull up to standing on anything and everything, and is starting to let go with one hand.
• She just discovered the stairs - evidenced by a nice bruise on her forehead.
• She says Da-Da and means it.
• She is still completely taken with her big brother.
• She sucks her thumb when she is falling asleep, or needs to calm down.
• She tolerates the baby food we give her, but LOVES to eat what we're eating.
• She's wearing 6-9 month clothes, but they are slightly big, so she'll be wearing them for awhile.
• Her shoe size is size 1 - 6 weeks to 3 months. Geez.
• She loves to wrinkle her nose and give an intimidating stare to people - especially her daddy.
• When I hold her, she burrows into my shoulder with her face, thus leaving snot and drool on my shirt.
• She prefers her mommy and daddy...and is slightly suspicious of anyone else.
• She loves to hold puzzle pieces and crawl around with them.
• She has four teeth - two bottom and two top.

And in honor of her 9 month birthday, I canceled her doctor's appointment. So no shots! :)

Enjoy some pictures of our sweet girl:

Zach is about 4 months away from turning three years old.

That blows my mind.

It seems like just yesterday that we brought home a baby boy, and began learning how to be mommy and daddy to our Zachary.



Now, he's
walking,
talking,
disobeying,
running,
laughing,
teasing,
swinging,
sliding,
dreaming,
sneaking,
learning,
and playing the role of big brother.

He seems to learn something new everyday, and he loves it. My days are full of a little voice asking "What's this?", reading off letters whenever he sees them, and counting anything he deems worthy.

Tonight in the bathtub, he was playing with his foam letters, held up the letter 'C' and told me the sound it makes. It's amazing to think he might be reading soon!

Zach is a rough and tumble boy who loves to play and wrestle and run and jump - the bruises and scrapes up and down his legs are proof of that. But my boy is also sweet, and I can't describe how great it feels to be loved by this kid.

It's the kind of love that compels a 2 1/2 year old to sleep next to on his daddy.



It's the kind of love that compels his daddy to let him.

It doesn't get much better than this.

Yesterday, Tyler and I strapped the kids into the car, and made the 3 1/2 hour trip to see on of our favorite people - Mrs. Bower. The plan was that I would drive on the way there, and Tyler would drive on the way home. So off we went, my iPod keeping me awake with a steady stream of music, and my trusty Dr. Pepper at my side. Rebekah was quiet in her car seat...I couldn't tell you if she was awake or asleep, because in this culture, we banish infants to a lonely corner of the car, facing away from the family they love, so that they can stare at the backseat upholstery job for hours on end. Zachary was watching a DVD on the portable DVD player that I swore we would never resort to "when we had kids". Tyler and I were enjoying some good conversation, and doing our best impressions of different singers as they played.

Suddenly, I look in my rear view mirror and see a state patrol car speeding up to my rear bumper, with lights on and all. My first thought was "wow, that car is awesome" - because he was driving a Dodge Charger, and they are just cool. My second thought was really more of a hope - a hope that he was off on some call and needed to get around me...so I put on my blinker and did my best driving school "glide" into the lane to my right. Unfortunately, he followed. So I announced the obvious to my husband..."I think I'm going to get a ticket".

I pulled over, and waited for my punishment to commence. I'd like to note here that had this been just a few years ago, I'd be hysterically crying at this point...but I guess I'm getting a tougher skin. The highway patrolman introduced himself (how nice!), and I pretended to be glad to have made his acquaintance. He asked for my drivers license and registration, and I silently said a prayer of thanks that I actually put the new registration in the car just a few days earlier. Then Mr. patrolman says "I pulled you over for speeding...is there any particular reason why you were speeding?"

So annoying.

Suddenly, I'm back in a Jr. High classroom, trying to explain why I had not done my homework assignment. Of course there was no good reason - I just didn't do it! So like a 13 year old, I look down and mutter a "no" to the patrolman. Truthfully, the first answer that popped into my head was too sarcastic:

"Well, sir, yes, I was speeding because I
wanted.
to.
get.
to.
my.
destination.
faster."

I think we can all be thankful I didn't say that out loud.

Then he went back to his awesome Charger and spent roughly 2 hours and 45 minutes writing out the ticket and checking my license history. I think they do that on purpose with speeders - so that you are sure to be extra late to wherever you were trying to go.

Long story short, I have a $160 ticket for 80 in a 65. Traffic school, here I come! And for the next 18 months, I need to probably stay a little closer to the speed limit. Ugh.

After nursing a sick child back to health, my reward is that I am now sick. Oh what joy. It's about 4am, and it is impossible to breathe through my nose...so I've given up on sleep. But that is good for you guys, because it means I have time to blog! Forgive me if any thoughts are incomplete, or words are spelled in whole new ways...I am tired, and full of ibuprofen and Afrin.

Lately, Zach has been obsessed with letters. Back in this post, I showed the artwork that I put in his room. It must have inspired him, because now we have a 2 1/2 year old that knows all his letters, and he's quickly learning the sounds as well. Honestly, it amazes me how kids can go from little newborns to grasping the idea of reading in such a short amount of time. The brain is impressive (sorry, that's my internal-geek coming out!). We took this video of Zach - we didn't coach him on the letters at all, and it's a favorite pastime of his now to "read" our t-shirts. The best part is that I sent it to some old friends from when I worked at Lockheed Martin, and they quickly passed it on to some high-level executives. Although it means nothing to him right now, Zach got to appear in all his letter-identifying glory at a staff meeting with some big names at Lockheed. Cool!



Now, we are moving on to learning the sounds of each letter, which is a little more challenging, but he is loving it so far.

Rebekah is crawling all over the place these days! Well, she switches between traditional crawling on her hands and knees to what we like to call "the wounded soldier crawl" on her forearms and tummy (she has a sort of limp with it too). It's pretty funny, and I plan on getting a video up of that ASAP. She is obsessed with Zach, and tries to follow him wherever he goes. When she can't follow, she watches intently, with a look that clearly tells us she's taking notes on how to do what he's doing. Because of her new-found mobility, Zach and Rebekah's worlds are officially colliding. This results in a lot of "No, baby sister!" and "Zach's car! Mine car." And of course, less articulate statements from Rebekah, such as "Waaaaaaaah!".

So, sharing has become the value of choice for now. I've also had to explain to Zach that his old baby toys that I have given to Rebekah are not his, but that we allowed him to play with them when he was little, and now Rebekah gets to play with them. I think this is the very early precursor to "who pays the mortgage around here?!" lecture that will be given in roughly 12 to 16 years from now.

A couple of weeks ago, we participated in a local charity fishing tournament. It was out at a fairly large pond, and we had 4 hours to catch fish. The biggest fish wins. Of course, in keeping with my experience in North Carolina so far, I caught nothing. But I enjoyed watching Zach "fish" and Rebekah's escape attempts. Here are some pictures from that day:







Now it it time for me to attempt to go back to sleep. I still can't breathe through my nose, but maybe exhaustion will allow me to sleep in spite of that. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I love living in North Carolina. I don't love all facets of it...like the way mother nature is out to get me...but that's a post for another time. I grew up in the high desert of California. We did not have 4 seasons there; it was simply winter or summer. Technically, we probably did have fall and spring, but we just don't recall them because they last a matter of hours instead of days. Summers are extremely hot (100+ degrees, but no humidity), and the winters are cold enough for the occasional snow - proof of that at Christmas last year:


Summer in Southern California can easily continue well into October...and then it starts to cool down suddenly gets very cold.

Anyway, back to my point.

I get so excited out here in NC when we turn the calendar to September, and the weather really does start to cool down and feel like fall! The leaves are changing and, well, it's just the real thing, and I may be retarded, but I am giddy over it. Yes, I just used the word giddy.

So of course, I want to take as many evening walks as possible. Even if it means dragging my son who is coming down with a cold (I justified it with the whole "fresh air will do him good" thing).

Our little family of four was happily walking down the street trying to get Zach to stop screaming over the fact that we chose to walk down a different street than he wanted. So I'm stopped in the middle of the street with the stroller, looking back at Zach and telling him to catch up and stop crying. The house I have stopped in front of is a house that we looked at when it was on the market. It was a nice house, but the layout was strange to us: the front porch has the front door and two windows on either side. One of those windows looks into the dining room (normal). The other window is actually in the master walk-in closet, that you can only get to by walking through the master bathroom (not normal). That was one of the main reasons that we passed over that house.

So picture it with me...I'm stopped in front of this house, trying to get Zach to catch up. While I'm waiting, I'm just looking around. It's 7:30-ish in the evening, it's getting dark, so there are lights on in the house, but the blinds are still open. I just glance at the window in the master closet, and I see a man there, walking toward the closet (in the master bathroom).

Hmm. He has no shirt on, and no....OH!

I quickly look away and start walking. I can't help but laugh and I tell Tyler that I think I just saw a naked guy in that house. So, Tyler looks back just in time to see a terrified face peer out of the corner of the closet window, and then the blinds snap shut. We laughed about it the rest of the way home, and had never been so happy that we decided against the unusual layout of that house.

So if you are looking for a new house, or will be in the future, picture yourself naked in your bathroom. Can you get to your clothes without the neighborhood getting a show they didn't pay for?

These are the life issues that matter, my friends.

Lately, I've been hitting the jackpot, so to speak, with recipes. That is unusual. Most of the time, I slave over some new recipe, only to try it and be fairly to mostly disappointed. Maybe my luck has changed! :) I posted this recipe awhile ago, and have made it a couple more times since - still great. But if you are looking for some new ones, consider this your lucky day, my friends!

Recipe #1
Grilled Stuffed Zucchini
(the link will take you to the original recipe that is complete with photos - my friend Julie sent this to me, and I'm so glad she did!)

Ingredients:

• 2 medium zucchini (about 10")
• 4 oz Italian turkey sausage (I used 3 bratwursts - YUM!)
• 1/4 C diced red onion
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 medium tomato (about 1/2 C diced)
• 1 1/2 T chopped fresh basil (or about a teaspoon of dried)
• 2/3 C Italian cheese blend (the kind pre-bagged with parm/mozz/asiago/etc)
• 1 T Italian style bread crumbs
• Kosher salt
• Black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil

1. Slice zucchini in half length wise, leaving the tops on.
2. Scoop out the centers, saving them in a bowl. Leave at least 1/4 inch around the edges and bottoms. Take the good parts of the zucchini guts you just scooped out and dice up 1/2 C. This will go in your filling.Drizzle the zucchini shells with a little olive oil and use your hands to rub it on all sides. Sprinkle with some kosher salt and black pepper and set aside.
3. Preheat your grill outside and then start your filling in a skillet on the stove top. Start by browning the sausage. When you no longer see pink, add the onions, garlic, and diced zucchini. Cook for 2-3 minutes until onion is tender. Add tomato and basil, 1/4 t kosher salt and a few cracks of black pepper. Remove pan from heat and set aside.
4. Take your zucchini to the grill and put them hollow-side down.Grill for about 5 minutes on medium heat. They should have nice charred marks and look tender on the inside.
5. Take them back inside. Add cheese and bread crumbs to filling mixture. Stir to combine and then divide the filling between the zucchini. Top each zucchini with about 1T cheese and sprinkle with 1/4-1/2 t bread crumbs. Lastly, give them a little drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
6. Place them back on the grill (filling side up- please!) Close grill lid, and cook for another 5-7 minutes. Larger/thicker zucchini will obviously take longer to cook.If you're doing this inside, it will take a little longer seeing as you can't close the lid to keep in the heat. You also might want to broil them in the oven when they're finished to help the cheese on top get nice and bubbly.

You can serve them as a main dish and pair it with a green salad and some crusty bread. Or cut them into thirds for a side dish or appetizer.

Recipe #2
Grilled Pork Chops with Cherry Tomatoes and Garlic Butter
(From Real Simple Magazine, Sept. 2009)


Ingredients:

• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter, at room temperature
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
• 4 1-inch-thick bone-in pork chops (about 2.5 pounds)
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 2 pounds cherry tomatoes

1. Heat grill to medium-high. In a small bowl, combine the butter, garlic, and thyme; set aside.
2. Season the pork with 1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper and grill until cooked through, 6 to 7 minutes per side.
3. Meanwhile, divide the tomatoes among 2 pieces of heavy duty foil and season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Close to form 2 pouches. Grill the pouches alongside the pork, gently shaking occasionally, for 8 minutes.
4. Top pork chops and tomatoes with the garlic butter just before serving.

Serves 4

If you try either of these recipes, be sure to come back here and let us know how it turned out, or if you tried anything different with them! I haven't tried it yet, but I think the stuffed zucchini could also be done with a mexican flare - Rotel, taco seasoning in the meat, and mexican blend of cheese. Anyway, enjoy the recipes and let me know what you think!