PooBou.com

Sorry the blog posts are so few and far between these days. It’s frustrating that every time I have a few baby-free minutes to write something, my web site is down. The tech support people at my sucky web hosts say that this isn’t related to comment spam, which is what they claimed it was last time. Now they’re saying it’s a server problem on their end, and they’re trying to fix it. Hmph. Apparently changing web hosts involves something to do with the exporting and importing of databases, so I’m waiting until Dave can help me with it because I know I will screw it up. Hopefully the fact that I mentioned it here will shame him into doing it sooner rather than later. (Thanks, sweetie!)

So, new topic…

At some point when my folks were here, my mom looked at me kind of hard and asked me how long it had been since my last haircut. I remembered that it had been about 6 months because I had gotten it cut right after Cate was born. My mom asked me if I would get it cut if she gave me the money for it, and I told her not to bother because I’d do it after I start working again and have a slightly more flexible cash flow.

Sure enough, the next day, I found my wallet on top of the diaper bag and some extra cash jammed in it. My mom is not very subtle, but I thought it was sweet of her. She knows how important it can be to feel cute when you’re a new mom and everything else on you looks like crap on a stick. Might as well have sassy hair, right?

So, I decided that it was time for a change, and I went ahead and had my stylist whack several inches off. I told her that I wanted it to be low-maintenance, and long enough that I can still get in a ponytail. This is why I adore her, because she can take a totally vague description of what I want and turn it into something I love.

Behold, the before picture:

And the after:

I’m quite happy with it. And I can still get it in a ponytail, so hooray for that.

In other news, today we met up with my friend Janet and her baby at the park, and gave Cate another try on the swings. She didn’t like it all the first time, but today she seemed to enjoy herself for a few minutes, so I guess that was an improvement. It was a fun afternoon.

P.S. Happy birthday to my sister, who’s turning 29 tomorrow. For like the 8th time.

3 Comments »

This may be the first time I have ever posted a recipe on my blog, so to compensate for the Domestic Goddess Overdose-ness of it all, here’s the background story…

I’m pretty good at making entrees, but I’m not very adept with desserts. I’ve tried to make my grandmother’s buttermilk fudge recipe on numerous occasions, and I have about a 30% success rate with it; most of the time, it turns out like caramel. Still yummy, but not what I was going for. And a few weeks ago, I tried to make homemade cookies for my neighbor – the one who checked on our cats when Dave and I were flooded out of our town - and they were a disaster. I was trying to make sugar cookies, and even though I followed the recipe directions exactly, they ended up tasting like hard, flat breakfast biscuits. (Note to you Brits: biscuits are not the same thing as cookies in this country. They’re more like dinner rolls.) I ended up making her slice-and-bake cookies and then smearing them with homemade frosting so she wouldn’t know the difference. As it turns out, frosting is pretty easy to make.

Point being, this whole Holiday Baking Day with the girls had me a little anxious, since I was pretty well convinced that I suck at making desserts. I asked my friend Janet for ideas, and she directed me to Martha Stewart’s recipe site. Riiiight. Because that’s attainable. Well, it is attainable if you’re Janet; everything she makes looks like it should be photographed for a magazine. The girl has seriously got the Mad Cooking Skillz. But Martha Stewart’s name alone scares the bejeezus out of me, so I was too intimidated to try anything there.

So, I asked my mom. She suggested my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, but she warned me that they aren’t always a hit. Apparently my dad doesn’t like them because he says they aren’t sweet enough. I thought that might be perfect, since Dave doesn’t like regular pralines because he says they’re too sweet. It’s not his fault, he didn’t grow up in this country, so he hasn’t adapted to our super-sugary, make-your-teeth-hurt desserts.

(Random exception: a couple of months ago, I had a pregnancy craving and came home with a box of Twinkies. Dave had never tried them before, so he had one and decided that they were awesome. It made me laugh because who on earth decides at 35 that they like Twinkies? But between the two of us, we wolfed down quite a few before we decided that we were sick of them.)  

Anyway, since most of the people involved in the Holiday Baking Day thing weren’t from the south, and probably had no idea what a praline was to begin with, and therefore would have no basis for comparison or judgment, I decided to attempt the praline cookies. And that, folks, is the very long story of how this recipe came about.

Praline Cookies
(courtesy of my great-grandmother, who in our family is referred to as Ma Mere, because we’re just crazy French-Spanish-Creole south Louisiana folk like that)

* 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)      
* 1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* pinch of salt
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 cup pecan halves

Let butter sit out at room temperature until soft. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
 
In a bowl, mix softened butter and sugar, and beat with electric beater until smooth.

Add egg and mix well. Then add flour, salt and vanilla. Mix again.

Add pecan pieces (then stir, don’t use electric mixer). When well mixed, shape into balls about the size of a pecan, place on a buttered cookie sheet and flatten to about 1/4″ thick.

Bake 12 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 3 dozen.

2 Comments »

I’ve been so incredibly lazy about blogging lately, mainly because it’s getting increasingly difficult to sit still and string any kind of coherent thought process together. My attention span is virtually non-existent these days. Dave and I have tried to watch a couple of movies together in the past week or so, and I find myself getting fidgety and bored long before the two-hour mark rolls around.

(Which, seriously? The Da Vinci Code? Was ok, but waaaaay longer than necessary. Of course, I think I’m the last person in the English-speaking world who hasn’t read the book yet, which is probably the only reason I found the movie somewhat interesting to begin with.)

So, here are some random odds and ends, which should probably each be their own blog posts, but I can’t make my brain develop them any further than this:

* My last day at work was Wednesday. It was weird, because I didn’t hate my job at all, so I wasn’t excited about leaving like I thought I might be. Most of the times that I’ve quit jobs in the past, I’ve left feeling very “woo-hoo, I’m outta here!” And I was always moving on to something better. It’s strange this time, to leave a job and not know when I’ll be looking for another one. I know that Dave and I decided a long time ago to just roll with it and see how things go after the baby arrives, but I’m usually a bit of a planner, so this is all feeling quite foreign to me.

* The problems that I’ve been having with my stomach haven’t let up yet. (It’s been over two weeks now, lucky me.) I saw my primary care doctor on Thursday, and hopefully I’ll hear the results from those tests tomorrow. She said her initial guess is that I either have some kind of bacterial infection or a parasite. Charming.

* Yesterday a group of women that I’m friends with got together and had a little Holiday Baking Day. Basically, everyone made two or three things, and then we all traded off, so everyone got lots of Christmas goodies to take home. Most of the things that I got (peppermint bark?) are the types of treats that I would never think of trying to make myself, so it was pretty cool. It was also nice to get to a chance to hang out with the girls, since there were a few people there who I only see every once in a great while.

Oh, and if any of you want my great-grandmother’s recipe for praline cookies, let me know, because they’re really easy and quite yummy. (Aside to Alphagal: according to my mom, it was Ma Mere’s recipe. I’m guessing Nahnee must’ve made them too, though, because I had the weirdest childhood nostalgia flashback moment when I first tried them.)

* This same group of women has also organized a book club, which I’m trying to participate in. Our first meeting is next Saturday, so between now and then, I’m supposed to read “The Alchemist.” Which is another book that it seems like everyone in the world has read except me. I found Dave’s copy, but with my non-existent attention span, so far I’ve only made it as far as the preface. Luckily it’s a short book, so hopefully I can hammer through the next 175 pages sometime in the next week. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up with the book club after the baby arrives, but I like the idea of it, so I’m going to give it a try. 

5 Comments »

I’m officially 24 weeks pregnant today. And since I’m trying to keep up with tummy photos every six weeks or so, I figured that I would combine them with before-and-after pics of my hair. Two birds, one stone, yadda yadda.

So, this is before the haircut:

There was this whole other drama yesterday afternoon about getting the crib delivered to our house, and how the delivery guy was well over an hour late, and how I almost missed my haircut appointment because of him, and how I almost yelled at him that he shouldn’t come between a crazy pregnant lady and her hairstylist because dammit, this is all I have left when the rest of my body is going to hell!

I didn’t yell at him. He was very nice and apologetic about the delay, and I managed to be pretty darn polite, given how tense the whole thing made me.

Oh, but hey, I have a crib! It’s still in a box by the front door, but at least it’s here. The website I ordered it from had made it sound like it was going to take 4-6 weeks to receive it, and I think it showed up something like ten days after I ordered it. And I was only five minutes late for my haircut. So really, no complaints.

My hairstylist is great – she’s one of those rare finds who genuinely listens to my incredibly vague description of what I want my hair to look like, and she executes it very well. Although she has, on occasion, told me that there was no way on earth that what I described would work on me, and I appreciate her honesty. The bangs, she said, definitely would work, and she thought it’d be really cute. So we decided to go for it.

She also has a three year-old daughter that was born on my due date (February 2nd), so we talked pregnancy and baby stuff the whole time, which was fun. Because, you know, I don’t get to talk about that stuff nearly often enough. Like with anyone who’ll listen to me. And even some people who only pretend to listen (hi Dave!).

As for the final results… Well, I’m still a little in shock.

I haven’t seen myself with bangs in probably a decade, so I keep doing double-takes every time I pass a mirror, because it just doesn’t feel like “me.” I think I might like it, I’m just not used to it yet.

Dave says he likes it. And my mom (who demanded that I email her a picture the minute I got home from the salon) says that I look like the pictures of herself when she was pregnant with my sister. Which I’ll take as a compliment, because she was 23 years old at the time. If having bangs means that I get to shave off the better part of a decade, I think I might keep them forever.

I suppose I should have some sort of “I’m six months pregnant and here’s what I’ve learned so far” update here, but I’m drawing a blank, so I think I’ll leave that for a future entry.

6 Comments »

Thank you all for your suggestions on the previous post. I found an Episcopal church that’s relatively nearby, and I went ahead and called them to ask what the services are like, because I really don’t like walking in not knowing what to expect. It sounds good, and the guy on the phone promised that they have no bongos. (Yes, I specifically asked.) I think I’m going to give them a test run on Sunday, and I’ll report back afterward.

Honestly, I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of the Episcopal church before. It’s essentially the American version of the Anglican church, which is how Dave was raised, so it makes sense to at least check it out and see how it feels.

I should add, though, that one of the Methodist churches that Kris and I tried was actually pretty nice. It was a little modernized, but not to a scary degree like that last one. I liked the minister, they do lots of really good local community work, and they had a church member who’s been HIV-positive for the last 12 years get up to speak because she had just gotten back from the United Methodist Church’s nationwide summit on global AIDS in Washington, D.C. Who knew that such a thing even existed, but Kris and I both thought it was cool.

In other, totally unrelated news, I am having some major issues with my hair lately. Ever since my gastric bypass surgery (four and a half years ago), I have noticed two very strange changes with my hair: it grows crazy fast, but it also falls out in large amounts. This means that there’s always a pretty large amount of “new growth” sprouting up on my head, causing those annoying little fly-away hairs that stick straight up. For the last four years, it’s been irritating, but at least somewhat manageable.

However, it would seem that another side effect of pregnancy is the acquisition of thicker hair, which means that I now have even more new growth showing up on my head. I’m honestly not too excited about the prospect of thicker hair, since my hair was plenty thick before I got knocked up. And besides, I hear that it all falls out when you’re three or four months post-partum anyway. So I’m not getting attached to this new stuff.

In the meantime, it’s everywhere, and it’s driving me insane. The worst place is right around my forehead – I have all of these short little hairs along my hairline that make it look like I started to go for bangs, and then changed my mind when I was about 20% there.

So, I gave up. I called the salon, made an appointment, and tomorrow: I am getting bangs.

I’m sure this will all end in tears, since I usually hate the way bangs look on me. But if bangs can make the stupid new hairs a little less obvious, I’ll give them a try. And I love my hairstylist, so if anyone can make bangs look halfway decent on me, I think she’s the one who can pull it off.

Pray for me. (See how I tied it back to the religion thing? Wasn’t that clever? Yeah, I know.)

2 Comments »

I don’t usually bother with getting all political on here, because I figure that that most of the people who read my blog have the same general beliefs that I do. And if you don’t, what’s the point of arguing about it? You’ll never change my mind and I’ll never change yours, so it’s really all just a waste of breath. It’s like when they have the Aryan nation guys on talk shows, and the audience just boos and hollers at them until the skinheads “sieg heil” and storm offstage. You’ll never manage to convince them that racism is a bad thing, so why bother?

So, I have been genuinely trying to let this go since I read it last week, but I cannot get it out of my head because it astounds me that people like this even exist in our so-called modern society. I first heard a reference to something called “Prairie Muffins” over on flea’s blog (that post, btw, is totally mind-blowing and worth reading in its own right), and clicking a couple of links blog-hopped me over to the blog of a Prairie Muffin. (Apologies if you’ve already read all about this.)

What is a Prairie Muffin, you ask? In this case, it’s a woman who calls herself a “reformed Christian” (I grew up in the Bible Belt, and I had never heard that term before; google it if you like, they might even be scarier than southern Baptists), she homeschools her ten (10!) children, and she lives in California (of all places).

Ok, so it seems a little fundamentalist Christian-y, but no harm so far, right? She’s just doing her thing, whatever. Then, a whole big slew of controversy got stirred up on her site because of this post, which is just a regular ol’ standard blog meme. But then this question came up:

If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt and politics, what would you do?

Now, if you’re a fundamentalist Christian, there are about a million possible responses to this question. I would imagine that converting the world to Christianity is way up at the top of the list. But even if it isn’t, what about things like putting an end to war, world hunger, child abuse, or disease? No, the Prairie Muffin cannot be bothered with such trifles. This is her response to that question.

Hoo-boy, this is where I get in trouble, and that starts with “T” and that rhymes with “P” and that stands for “pool.” I’d like to jump in a pool right now. Some may tell me to jump in a river for this one: I would remove women’s suffrage, and I might even consider making voting rights tied to property ownership.

Really? Of all the things in the world that you could potentially change, taking away a woman’s right to vote is the one thing that you’d pick?

(I have to stop here and give some credit: this site makes some truly excellent remarks on the whole subject, and if you have time to read through it and all the comments, it’s well worth it.)

So after my initial “blu-bu-whaaa???” reaction, I read through her comments, and it seems like there are an awful lot of people on her site who agree with her. Oddly, they’re all women. How much hatred must these women have for their own gender, that they don’t even believe themselves worthy of the right to vote?

Oh, except they all do vote. Because their husbands want them to. Ooooo-kay.

More digging around led me to the Prairie Muffin Manifesto (yes, they have a manifesto). You absolutely have to click that link, but you should probably first put a pillow on your desk because otherwise, it might hurt when your jaw hits it. Here are a few of my favorite items on the list:

3) Prairie Muffins are aware that God is in control of their ability to conceive and bear children, and they are content to allow Him to bless them as He chooses in this area.

Easily said by a woman with ten children. I wonder what the infertility bloggers would think of that statement.

9) Prairie Muffins do not reflect badly on their husbands by neglecting their appearance; they work with the clay God has given, molding it into an attractive package for the pleasure of their husbands.

Dave thought this was hilarious. I was somewhat disturbed by it, because I thought the reason that I never left the house without mascara was because I’m southern and vain. Turns out, I’m apparently a Prairie Muffin. Funny how I never thought that my make-up (or lack of ) was a reflection on Dave, though.

Here are two in a row that make me want to scream:

17) Prairie Muffins place their husbands’ needs and desires above other obligations, arranging their schedules and responsibilities so that they do not neglect the one who provides for and protects them and their children.

18) Prairie Muffins are fiercely submissive to God and to their husbands.

Right. I don’t need a life or any sense of self-awareness, I’ll just devote myself to my husband. And then he’ll leave me because I’ll be boring as all get-out. And I’m sorry, #18 is just flat-out kinky. (So is #29, if you go read that site.)

32) Though we abhor the idea of women being involved in the military and fighting battles which men are commanded to fight, Prairie Muffins recognize that there is a real battle in which they are on the front lines: the battle of the seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent. In this most-important conflict, we gratefully serve King Jesus in the capacity He has given us, waving our wooden spoons and rallying our children to stand alongside us in the battle, training them to be mighty warriors in the defense and furthering of God’s kingdom.

The waving of wooden spoons almost made me fall out of my chair laughing.

36) Prairie Muffins are happy to be girls—they rejoice in the distinctives which God sovereignly bestowed on them which make them feminine. They are also happy that their husbands are masculine, and they do not diminish that masculinity by harping on habits which emanate from the fact that boys will be boys, even when they grow up. In addition, Prairie Muffins are careful not to use their feminine, hormotional weaknesses to excuse sinful attitudes and actions, but learn to depend more and more on God’s grace and strength in the midst of any monthly trials.

Ah, the hybrid word. I get that they were trying to combine hormonal and emotional, but… “hormotional”? I honestly thought she made that word up, and I was shocked that Dave had actually heard it before. I think his church back in the UK was a bit more “fundie” than where I grew up.

Also, I am totally going to start referring to my period as my “monthly trial.” I love that.

There’s a million other things I could quote from that site that just generally give me the heebie-jeebies, but I think y’all probably get the idea. What’s amazing is that the few commenters she got who disagreed with her were very polite in their objections, and it didn’t turn into an all-out flame war. Still, she said in a later post that she’ll be praying for all of her dissenters. I wonder how the liberal feminist agnostics feel about that.

These types of people make me ashamed to call myself a Christian.

6 Comments »

Even though I’m 5′5″, I am what one might call a short-waisted girl. I remember, several years ago, when low-rise jeans first became available in stores. I still praise that day because it was the first time in my life that I was able to buy jeans and wear them off the rack.

Before that sacred, blessed day, every time I bought a pair of “regular” jeans, I had to get my mom to alter them, because either: (a) the waist of the jeans came up to about 2 inches below my bra line (sexay!), or (b) if I pushed them down so they were actually on my waist, it created this weird bulge in the crotch that made me look like I had a package. Not a good look, to say the least.

Because of that, I knew before I got pregnant that I would probably start to show a little earlier than some people. When there isn’t much up-and-down room for the baby to grow, it tends to go straight out in front of you. I know that’s something that my cousin is dealing with right now. Also, when I was in college, I worked with a woman who was about 5 feet tall, and by the time she was 4 months along, people were looking at her sideways, going, “Um…. are you sure you aren’t having twins?” (And even though I thought I understood at the time, I really understand now why those sorts of questions infuriated her.)

But still, I had this delusion that I wouldn’t start to show until my third or fourth month. I don’t know where I came up with that. I think I was basing it on the fact that Madonna was something like 3 months pregnant when she was filming “Evita,” and you couldn’t really tell except for that one scene where she danced with Antonio Banderas. Remember? She was wearing that white satin-y dress and if you looked closely, you could see that she had a little bit of a tummy.

Um, yeah. Comparing my pregnancy to Madonna’s. I’m clearly totally sane.

The point of all this is that I feel like I’m already starting to show, and I’m not even 9 weeks along. Is it possible for me to be showing this early? Or have I just taken up temporary residence in Bloatville? Because I don’t feel like I have a “baby bump,” I feel like I’m just carrying an extra spare tire around my middle. But I’ve actually lost two pounds since I found out I was pregnant a month ago. (Hooray for being too nauseated to eat, although I don’t think that’s a diet plan that I want to stick to.)

My mom keeps insisting that she was in maternity clothes by the time she was ten weeks along. She also has a memory like swiss cheese, so I don’t know how much I believe that. I’m not at the point of wearing maternity clothes yet, but I keep eyeing the few maternity tops that I’ve bought, and thinking that they look really comfortable right about now. My choice of summer clothes is pretty slim since I’ll only wear shirts that are loose around my waist. And my jeans (even my baggy ones that I always had to wear a belt with) are so tight that they’re starting to leave little denim imprints on my flesh, which isn’t too comfortable. Getting dressed for work the past few mornings has not been fun for me.

So, any of you who read this who either are pregnant, have been pregnant, or are close to someone who’s been through it – when is it “normal” to start to show? Is this what the early stages are supposed to feel like, or do I just need to pop a Gas-X and chill out?

11 Comments »