Two red lines

So as I idled awayed my TA hours this morning, I looked and realized that I have indeed made my 12 week mark and that it is 12 and not 14 that marks the end of your first trimester so I guess I can go ahead and make it public: I (Rachel) am pregnant.

So Stephen and I had been pretty baby hungry for a while, and I was convinced that I would be like my namesake in the Bible and have to wait years and years to have chidren. Looking back, my fears were not really justified, but what fears are, eh?

Anyway, back before we knew my sister had informed us that dollar store pregnancy tests were available. I had gone through at least 7 already in our 5 months of marriage (even though I was sure I would never have kids, I also always thought I was pregnant as well). When once again I tried to convince Stephen I was pregnant and that we should buy some tests, he said "no let's wait another week, these tests might just be a dollar, but you take them so often they add up." Granted I had taken one a week earlier and gotten a negative, but still. I made a deal. If we bought one, and I wasn't pregnant, I would rub his back for 20 minutes. If I was, he'd have to do mine. When it came to testing, I couldn't bare to look at the usual one line that stared me back. Instead I made him look and I ran into the bedroom. He waited a second, and then came in and said "well, it looks like I owe you a backrub."

I'm 12 weeks, we're due December 1st. This happens to have been the exact due date for my mother's first two kids as well. Seeing that my birthday's November 27th, perhaps I could have a birthday suprise.

A new meaning to the words "Baby hungry"

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/07/creepiness-continues.html

One upon a time

Alright all, I've refrained from too many book suggestions just so that you might take me seriously when I do recommend a book. Might I now take the opportunity introduce Cinderella Dreams: The Allure of the Lavish Wedding.
Married or not married, this is so fascinating a book on how lavish weddings came into be and why.
It is so good that I was almost tempted to drop my current idea for my thesis and adopt this. However it was so good, I decided I couldn't add much and so didn't.

For those of you with access to the byu library, you can read it all on-line.

If you prefer goole books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_GbTEDRyXQ4C&dq=cinderella+dreams+the+allure+of+the+lavish+wedding&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=V0kLStWCAo7ysQP42oHsDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8#PPA21,M1

that there cold

I was looking forward to summer so that I would no longer be freezing cold all the time. I forgot that summer's actually colder with the air conditioning going full blast in every building on BYU. Here is my question for the day . . . why do we like our water so dang cold? Why do we put ice in our water? Whose idea was this anyways? The Germans, the Brazilian, and all the level-headed normal people of the earth I know like their water room temperature. Why do we Americans have to be so different? When will we stop the embarrassing ritual of drinking from a glass that contains ice and getting the red juice all over us or slurping? When?

yes grumble grumble gripe gripe

the end

A call for polygamy

I'm sure my pictures of me making pasta the other month didn't fool any of you into thinking that I've turned domestic. I'm still as apathetic to open a recipe book as ever. I suspect the past couple months of unexplained weight loss (which by the way I am now remedying) has less to do with stress/pseudo-parasite/transition to marriage and more to do with actually having to buy and make my own food.

Reasons I don't like to cook:

1. Too boring to do all by myself
2. Too much effort and time for something consumed in 7 minutes
3. I actually don't know how
4. I don't know what tastes good in the recipe books
5. I never have all the ingredients I need
6. When I cook, I'm never hungry

As you might have guessed, this leaves a frightening position for my future/current family--especially since Stephen's attitudes are all to simmilar to mine.
Solution?. . . binge cooking.

Binge cooking is pretty much cooking once a month, a month's worth of meals and then freezing them and eating when so desired in the next six months.

My dear sister Sarah told me about the idea before my mission and I've hung to it as my only hope. Today I finally tried it out with her and her next door neighbor Becky and found it to be an utter success.

We made 24 meals (8 for each of us) in the last two days. Yesterday we went grocery shopping and did the prep work by cutting up the vegetables and meat and today we just put it all together, cooked it, and put it in plastic bags and those tin foil lasagna thingies in the freezer and we were done. We'll probably make more next time, but we just wanted to see how it would work first.)

As for my list of reasons why I don't like to cook, all of them pretty much disappeared. While doing this wasn't necessarily cheaper, it isn't more expensive and it is better quality than constant cold cereal and canned green beans. After we split the prices, it came up to $39.69 which for 8 fancy family size meals isn't too shabby.

Yes, we rotated as one took care of the kids (which at one point was more than 10 over at the house and seeing that the two smallest freak out at my slightest attention this usually fell on either Becky or Sarah), the other did the dishes, and the other put the food together. We talked, shared ideas, gave tips and by the end I was ready for Stephen to take at least two more wives, any volunteers?