Movie Night

We had our first family movie night last weekend, unless you count the times when Gareth was an infant and we watched "24" with him that is. I told Gareth we'd be watching a movie all together after we ate dinner. This might have been a mistake as he inhaled his dinner rather than chewing and swallowing in proper fashion. But it did mean that he was able to get pjs on while Ryan and I finished our dinner and did some quick cleanup. Not having a television yet, we didn't get to sit on our cushy couch. But that worked out okay since I'd decided to buy some special treats to go with our movie, which we wouldn't have let him eat on the couch. Gareth loves the fig bars from the bulk section at PCC, so I got a few of those along with some licorice (which he also likes, but it was more for me and my pregnancy-enhanced sweet tooth that I'm not doing so well at ignoring anymore). Gareth was a little iffy about the movie choice at first - "Despicable Me" - because it was something he hadn't seen before and he really wanted to watch a Cars movie. But I think it's safe to say he loved our selection as he made sure to get in two more viewings of it the next day before we sent the movie back. It was fun to watch him react to the movie and it's probably the slowest he's ever eaten a fig bar because he was so engrossed in the story. And it worked out nicely for us. Gareth went to bed a little late, but it was still only 8:30 by the time he was in bed, so there was plenty of time for us to get in some "Angel" (we finished Buffy a couple weeks ago) and "Mad Men" (like watching a train wreck in slow motion, but you can't look away) while enjoying some "dry" sodas (they're less sweet than typical soda) before we headed to bed. Unfortunately for Gareth, we also have movies on our queue that are just for us. I felt a little bad when he got the mail a couple days ago and was so excited to pull out a movie. He wasn't too upset about it being one he couldn't watch as he'd come up with the perfect solution: we just need to "keep this movie until he's a grown-up and then he can watch it too". Yeah, not going to happen. I think he'll get over it though.

What's In a Name?

So my due date is nearing, which is exciting but also a little scary. We've got plenty of clothes and anything left to do really won't take all that long. And we've both agreed we're definitely more mentally prepared for what to expect this time around, though it's been long enough since Gareth's infant days that how much I hate some of the early stuff will likely be a shock to remember, despite what I feel are very clear memories of how awful the newborn stage is. Probably the biggest thing left on my mental "to-do" list is to get our taxes done. (I will be thrilled next year to only have federal taxes to do; hooray for not state income taxes in WA!) Of course, I'm also probably forgetting a million things that we could be doing to prepare, but I'm pretty certain we've got most of the big things covered. Except for a name.

Now, we struggled with Gareth's name. It's a lot of pressure to come up with what your kid will be called for the rest of their life (unless they really hate it and opt to change it when they turn 18). Gareth is his name because in the end it's really the only thing we came up with that we both liked just fine, and we just sort of settled into it. We had absolutely no other names on the list. Okay, that's not entirely true, but none of them were serious considerations last time around. And they all got erased off of the list this time around for various reasons, usually because they're far too popular. We looked at the top 500 boys names the other day and it was discouraging to realize that there are really only 50 or so boys names and people just change the spelling (Jonathon, Johnathan, Johnathan, etc.) or use just the nickname (Tony rather than Anthony) or a version in a different language (Matteo rather than Matthew). The other problem we've run into is that Ryan works in a currently male-dominated field. Half the names I'd pulled out are names of managers at old jobs, or names of people on his team at his current job, or even names of tools they use at his current job. I told him he needs to switch to a female-dominated profession. And don't even mention a middle name. Last time around we just unthinkingly followed some family tradition and didn't have to come up with a middle name on our own that way. I'm still hoping that a middle name will come somewhat easily once we decide on a first name. But I'm starting to think this baby will be lucky if it has a name at all.

One Year in Seattle

It's strange to think that we've been here in Seattle for an entire year already. I was looking back over some old posts the other day and the ones from when we first moved here seemed so long ago, but at the same time it feels like the year has passed by very quickly.

When we first moved here I was very discouraged by the difficulty of finding housing (this has got to be one of the worst tasks ever) and the drastic change from Indiana. I'd put down far more roots in Indiana than I ever imagined I would or than I had anywhere else we'd lived. I'd made some awesome friends, some of whom I got to work with in the local schools. I enjoyed the work I was doing, the book group I attended, and had even grown to appreciate the general area for the most part. Moving here, I no longer had a job, had to once again find new friends, basically didn't have much to do with my life, and had to get acclimated to living in a city after getting very used to less traffic, lower costs and other things that come with a more rural area. Ryan, being a student, didn't have the time to get as attached as I did, so I don't think the move was quite as difficult for him.

I still miss my friends (and job) from Indiana, but now that we've been here for a whole year I can say it's a good fit for us and I'm glad we're here. I love the neighborhood we live in. Evidence of this being that for the first time since we've been married I was able to return to my hometown without feeling sad that I wasn't living there. I love my hometown; it's beautiful and generally awesome and I enjoyed walking down Main Street again. But when it came time to leave I was equally happy to return to our neighborhood.

In the past year we've made some good friends and acquaintances here. It's nice to have a house with a yard (even if we are just renting still). We have easy access to the city and all that comes with that, but I often forget that we technically live in the city ourselves. We've spent some of the last year discovering the area, which is always fun. Ryan enjoys his work, Gareth loves his school, and I'm enjoying having more time to play my instrument again, rather than just teach. One definite bonus to Ryan not being in school anymore is that we have more time on the weekends to spend as a family. I feel comfortable and able to be myself here and have come to love living here and the prospect of sticking around this area for the foreseeable future.

This next year will be a busy one - adding another member to our family and Gareth starting Kindergarten being among the biggest events that I can think of (and maybe me starting back to school myself?). One thing I'd like to do better at is getting out of the house, hiking, and exploring. We tend to very easily get caught up in the minutiae of our day-to-day life and not take the time to check out our area, something I regretted from our time in Virginia and Indiana. So I'm determined that this next year we'll get out hiking a lot more in the many surrounding parks and take the time to check out some places like Theo Chocolate, The Museum of Communications, and maybe even get out to some further away places such as Leavenworth, as well as checking out more of the local restaurants and maybe attending a couple of plays or concerts. There's so much to do and see around here that it would be unfortunate if we didn't take advantage of it all. Hopefully we'll follow through on such plans and you'll get to read about more outings this next year!

Light Fabrics

Can I just say how much I love Gareth being in preschool and how it gives me three hours in the afternoon most days of the week to do whatever I want? Today is a gorgeous day here: the sun is shining, birds are chirping outside my house and it's warm. In theory, I could have walked Gareth to preschool and then continued on to the quilt shop from there, but I'm glad I didn't, especially since it didn't take me anywhere near three hours to select my fabrics. I wasn't looking at my dark and medium tones while pulling out bolts, but when I put them all together after I was done collecting I'd done quite a good job. I discarded a couple and with the help of an employee added another one and I was good to go!

So there's the last of the fabric for the quilt. Except for the backing and binding of course. I'm really interesting to see how this turns out once I cut everything into 7/8" strips. For instance, that grey on the top left will have some strips that are just grey, others that throw in some red and white. Cutting everything so small will mean the quilt will potentially look like it has more variety of colors/fabrics than it really does. Time to start cutting the dark strips and get this fabric washed!

Gareth's Quilt

Remember how I was going to make a quilt for Gareth? And I'd even purchased half the fabric for it? I started washing the fabric, but then things like getting pregnant and feeling sick got in the way. And then by the time I was feeling better I had to make a Halloween costume. And then it was pretty much time for Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Years and all that.

But I'm still planning on making a quilt for Gareth. And over the holidays I went with my mom to the quilt store and chose fabrics for the quilt she'll make for our new baby. Over the past couple weeks she's proceeded to tell me how she's finished washing the fabric and cutting out the pieces (not to mention taking the time to figure out how to re-size the quilt to a smaller baby size). And she's only had the fabric for a matter of weeks! I was feeling rather shameful that I'd had mine for months and hadn't done a thing with it. So during our snow week (yup, Gareth had not a single day of school last week) while I was not doing other things, like practicing and house cleaning, I finished washing the fabric and proceeded to start cutting it.

It will be a slow process since the blocks for this quilt are small - less than 4" finished. Which means I'm cutting center squares of 1 1/4" to start. And then strips of 7/8" (it's a log cabin quilt). But, despite my frequent breaks whenever my back and hips start to hurt, I think I've done fairly well at moving along.

That may not look like much, but there are over 300 squares there. Only a little over 100 to go! Of course, once I finish the squares I get the fun of cutting the strips. Oh, and this is only half of my fabric. I still have to go back for the light tones. My quilting store here is moving (thankfully they're just moving down the street a little way from where they are now, not across town or something!) and so I'm going to head over there this week during their moving sale to see if I can get some of what I need for a good deal. 

The goal is to get as much cut out as possible before the baby comes. If I can start piecing even better - I'll pay someone to do the quilting for me this time around. I'd like to have the whole thing done by the time Gareth starts Kindergarten, or at the latest by this next Christmas. 

Quinoa Again

Remember my post soliciting quinoa recipes a long while back? Well, my sister and her husband remembered that I'd been in need of some and gave me Quinoa 365 for Christmas. Last year we got a cookbook full of vegetarian recipes from another sister, which turned out to have many delicious and easy/quick recipes in it. This cookbook has so far proven equally successful (good job, siblings, on purchasing great cookbooks for us!)

I honestly had to limit myself when making up this month's menu, or else half of it would have been dishes from this cookbook. There are several great things about this that make it a useful book to have: several dishes have quinoa as their main ingredient, several dishes have quinoa as a secondary ingredient rather than a main ingredient, they have recipes in the back for baby food using quinoa (seriously, how awesome is that?!), they have some amazing looking desserts that use quinoa, some of which are gluten-free (I've become more aware of this as a couple parents in the preschool and Gareth's preschool teacher all eat gluten-free), and all the recipes I've tried so far are tasty and quick/easy.

This month we're trying three dinner dishes and a couple of breakfast dishes (on our weekend breakfasts). So far we've had Leek and Potato Soup (soups with milk in them often make my stomach very unhappy - this one didn't!), Black Bean Soup (I did have to increase the amount of liquid called for in this one, but it was easily done at the end and everything still tasted delicious), and Apple Strudel Cereal. Ryan and I liked the breakfast cereal, Gareth not so much. It is a little strange at first to be eating quinoa for breakfast, but after a few bites I got used to it and it was very tasty - basically just quinoa with raisins and dried apples and cinnamon mixed in while the quinoa cooks. Then once it's done you throw in some vanilla and a tiny bit of brown sugar if you want. Serve it with yogurt (I used Greek honey yogurt, Ryan tried the leftovers with plain yogurt) and toasted almonds on top. A great thing about eating quinoa for breakfast is that it keeps you full much longer than many other breakfast foods. I think we're going to be going through a lot of quinoa in the next few months...

On a less healthy note, if you want some delicious-looking recipes that are far more fattening, check out the "Daily Indulgence" at myrecipes.com. Not all of them are desserts, but most are. And most of them are very tempting. Good thing I don't usually have time to make dessert!

Snow Day

We've had snow all weekend, but none of it stuck until yesterday (though friends further out did have a couple of inches stick). The schools opened late (not sure why) and then it started snowing, so they closed early. Gareth ran out to play in the snow yesterday, but came back in about five minutes later saying there wasn't enough to build a snowman with. And he was right - there was probably less than a quarter inch. A few hours later the sun came out and most of what had stuck melted.

But the snow started up again during the night and we woke up this morning to a couple of inches. Gareth was very excited to go out and help me shovel. Maybe one day he'll learn that the snow on the grass doesn't need shoveling and that we want to put shoveled snow on the grass areas, not the areas I already shoveled. Overall, he did a pretty decent job though. Then this afternoon we went outside and built his first snowman (well, I built it, but he did shovel some snow over to me once in a while and helped put in the stones for it's face and buttons). He really doesn't have mittens conducive to playing in snow, so it was best for me to do it anyway.

I couldn't be bothered to find sticks for arms. It's a pretty small snowman, but a good size for a little kid. I'd forgotten how exhausting making a snowman can be! At least we can make them here, though. In Indiana I could never get the snow to pack. Growing up I remember being able to make a small ball and then just roll it in the snow to make it larger. That method didn't work so well today, but maybe I'm just out of practice. Gareth was very pleased with it and didn't seem to notice that it has no arms, for which I was very grateful.