I'm sitting at my computer, at work. It is godawful hot in here - my thermometer at the moment says 77.7 degrees. Lovely. (And that's not the worst it gets, by far - most day's it's close to 80 by the time I leave, at one point last summer it was 86.5!) My problem is that I'm a sweater. I don't glisten, I don't perspire, none of those nice girly things. I sweat. Usually my deodorant controls it relatively well, but when I get nervous, for example when I'm giving a presentation... well, not so much. When I'm presenting I also get sweaty *everywhere* - I can often feel the sweat running down the backs of my legs. Ugh. Anyway, despite the short sleeved shirt I'm wearing today, or perhaps because of it?, I've been sweating. And I get a whiff every now and again. Double ugh. I'm hoping that it doesn't worsen with pregnancy, although I'm not holding my breath. But perhaps I'm going to need to!
The other thing I hate is that I blush on a dime. Whenever attention is focused on me for any kind of personal reason (although fortunately not when I'm, say, presenting at work - then I just sweat), I can feel my face turning beet red. For example, one of my coworkers just came in to congratulate me on my pregnancy, having found out through the grapevine. We were having a perfectly normal conversation, what's my due date, how nice to be pregnant in the summer because clothes are less expensive, blah blah blah. And I can just feel the heat exuding from all the blood in my face. It's so annoying and embarrasing. As if I need to be more embarassed when I'm already there!
So, are there any physical quirks like this that drive you batty?
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Cake top
And here's the top of the cake. I was pretty proud of how straight I managed to get the writing, and how I made it all fit without obvious squeezing (I usually start out too big, and it just doesn't go well from there), but it looks a lot messier in the pic than I thought at the time. Oh well!
Monday, March 20, 2006
Top ten things I learned on Saturday.
I spent ALL DAY on Saturday baking cakes for my FIL's 65th birthday party, where we expected about 80 people. I was planning on baking four 12x12 square cakes - to make a two layer 18x12 cake, and an extra 6x12 just in case the first wasn't enough. Top ten things I learned during the day:
1. Never, never, EVER take my wallet out of my pocketbook. I got up bright and early (8am) to go to the shops to pick up the various ingredients I needed. Had a nice drive over to Wh0le Foods, picked up the 5 packets of maple sugar, maple syrup and maple flavoring that I needed (making a maple cake). Put them on the conveyor. Then realized that I'd taken my wallet with my credit card and bank card out of my pocketbook the day before and put them in the pocket of my coat. Which I hadn't worn. Argh! Add an unnecessary half hour of driving on to the day.
2. When the recipe tells you to add things in a certain order, they really do mean it. The Cake Bib1e (best cake cookbook EVER!) tells you to add the butter, then the milk, to the dry ingredients. For my first try I added the milk first. The butter never mixed in nicely. So although the cake didn't taste bad at all, the texture just wasn't right. Nor did it rise properly. Gah.
3. Don't jiggle a cake that really looks like it's not cooked! My first attempt cooked in 25 minutes. Which was less than I was expecting, but it was definitely done. So on my second attempt, where I mixed the batter correctly, I opened the oven to check the cake after 25 minutes. It was still looking pretty pale, so I didn't think it was cooked. I gave it a little jiggle just to check. Bad, bad idea. The whole thing just went phbttttttt. Number two relegated to the vultures at work.
4. Don't turn off the oven in the middle of baking a cake. Fortunately this happened for the second cake, so I didn't ruin a third one! After it fell, I was trying to shut off the oven timer. By mistake I pressed the "off" button for the oven instead of for the timer, and didn't realize it for another 10 minutes.
5. Don't invite people over for afternoon tea, assuming you'll be finished with your baking by then. I had been trying to get together with my sister and niece, and a very good friend of hers with her 1.5 year old daughter for ages. We all finally had Saturday free - I thought! Needless to say, with two more cakes to bake than I had originally thought, I was not a very good hostess.
6. Putting 60 egg shells down the garbage disposal all at once is a VERY bad idea. I had been piling them up throughout the day (each cake took 6-7 eggs, each batch of frosting another 6-7), and shoved each pile down the garbage disposal with little time in between. Just as I put the last batch down, the water in the sink started backing up. Turns out I had basically filled the entire drain from the sink to the trap with egg shells. Took us almost an hour to clean them out the next day.
7. Showering before going to a birthday party really is optional. So my choice was between getting the cake done on time and being clean. I went with the cake. tee hee.
8. Don't let the serving staff take the cake away from you. There should have been a fair amount left over... yeah.
9. Don't put on your going out clothes before frosting the cake. I ended up with a big splotch of frosting on my stomach, and didn't notice until about half-way through the evening. Fortunately it washed out pretty easily.
10. No matter how much trouble it is, the accolades at the end are worth every bit :-) I'll post a picture later today.
1. Never, never, EVER take my wallet out of my pocketbook. I got up bright and early (8am) to go to the shops to pick up the various ingredients I needed. Had a nice drive over to Wh0le Foods, picked up the 5 packets of maple sugar, maple syrup and maple flavoring that I needed (making a maple cake). Put them on the conveyor. Then realized that I'd taken my wallet with my credit card and bank card out of my pocketbook the day before and put them in the pocket of my coat. Which I hadn't worn. Argh! Add an unnecessary half hour of driving on to the day.
2. When the recipe tells you to add things in a certain order, they really do mean it. The Cake Bib1e (best cake cookbook EVER!) tells you to add the butter, then the milk, to the dry ingredients. For my first try I added the milk first. The butter never mixed in nicely. So although the cake didn't taste bad at all, the texture just wasn't right. Nor did it rise properly. Gah.
3. Don't jiggle a cake that really looks like it's not cooked! My first attempt cooked in 25 minutes. Which was less than I was expecting, but it was definitely done. So on my second attempt, where I mixed the batter correctly, I opened the oven to check the cake after 25 minutes. It was still looking pretty pale, so I didn't think it was cooked. I gave it a little jiggle just to check. Bad, bad idea. The whole thing just went phbttttttt. Number two relegated to the vultures at work.
4. Don't turn off the oven in the middle of baking a cake. Fortunately this happened for the second cake, so I didn't ruin a third one! After it fell, I was trying to shut off the oven timer. By mistake I pressed the "off" button for the oven instead of for the timer, and didn't realize it for another 10 minutes.
5. Don't invite people over for afternoon tea, assuming you'll be finished with your baking by then. I had been trying to get together with my sister and niece, and a very good friend of hers with her 1.5 year old daughter for ages. We all finally had Saturday free - I thought! Needless to say, with two more cakes to bake than I had originally thought, I was not a very good hostess.
6. Putting 60 egg shells down the garbage disposal all at once is a VERY bad idea. I had been piling them up throughout the day (each cake took 6-7 eggs, each batch of frosting another 6-7), and shoved each pile down the garbage disposal with little time in between. Just as I put the last batch down, the water in the sink started backing up. Turns out I had basically filled the entire drain from the sink to the trap with egg shells. Took us almost an hour to clean them out the next day.
7. Showering before going to a birthday party really is optional. So my choice was between getting the cake done on time and being clean. I went with the cake. tee hee.
8. Don't let the serving staff take the cake away from you. There should have been a fair amount left over... yeah.
9. Don't put on your going out clothes before frosting the cake. I ended up with a big splotch of frosting on my stomach, and didn't notice until about half-way through the evening. Fortunately it washed out pretty easily.
10. No matter how much trouble it is, the accolades at the end are worth every bit :-) I'll post a picture later today.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Psyche!
Had my 14 week appointment today (14w4d). When I was taken back, the nurse told me that I had to have an early GD test. I was a bit surprised, because I thought that didn't happen until 28 weeks... but whatever. She apologized for not having the drink ready for me, and went away for a couple of minutes to get it. When she returned, she told me to take my time, and let her know when I was done. It wasn't nearly as bad as I had anticipated (although this anticipation was for 14 weeks from now). It was only about 6 oz, and tasted like super-sweet coke. She then said that I'd have to hang out for an hour, and have my blood drawn at that point.
The rest of the appointment was pretty fast. Checked on the heartbeat (nice and strong!), weighed me (up 5lbs since the last appointment. I'm telling myself that at least a bit of it is because this time I was wearing clothes whereas last time I was wearing a fancy johnny :-), and took my blood pressure. The doc came in to see me after that.
I didn't have many questions for her, except to ask about whether I need to modify my weight-lifting routine at all (answer - as long as I'm not getting dizzy or light-headed, and feeling fine, I can keep up exactly what I'm doing), and about the whole lying on the back thing (answer - try not to sleep on your back if you can, but don't worry about it if you do happen to wake up that way. Also, okay for shorter periods of time (like for situps), again, as long as it's not causing any dizziness or light-headedness). And finally, is it okay for me to ride my bike out on the road? (answer - as long as I feel balanced and okay with it, totally fine for as long as I'm comfortable).
I was so happy to hear that. I stopped playing ice hockey at 12 weeks, and have moved to using a stationary bike and elliptical instead. It flipping sucks!!! I'm so used to having FUN while I exercise, either playing ice hockey, volleyball, or riding my bike to/from work (the latter is not exactly fun, but it has a purpose). The whole stationary thing is for the birds. I wasn't sure I could keep it up throughout however long this lasts, much as I want to for my health and Phred's (I highly recommend the book "Exercising through your Pregnancy" by Dr. Clapp for a scientific dissection and debunking of many of the arguments against exercising while pregnant). But if I can keep commuting on my bike, I can definitely handle it. Whew!
My last question - why exactly am I doing the early GD test? answer - psyche! I didn't actually have to do it. Apparently they normally will do the early test if you have any signs of glucose resistance (or is that insulin resistance) such as might be seen with PCOS. But since I don't, no need for it. Hahahaha. At least I didn't find the drink too bad.
On a different note, I went shopping for shoes on Saturday at some outlet stores near here. Don't go getting all hot and bothered - these weren't fun shoes. My daily brown and black shoes are over two years old, and definitely worse for the wear. Time for new ones. There also happened to be a maternity store there. I thought I would go in and get a pair of jeans - my regular ones don't really fit any more, and the larger sizes my sister had given to me were too small for my hockey thighs. I couldn't do it though. Walked in, flipped briefly through a rack of jeans, and totally freaked out. I told M "I'm not ready for this yet", turned around and walked out. I don't know exactly why I was so uncomfortable in there, but all those clothes frightened me. I guess I've never been one for shopping in the first place, and seeing all that stuff just overwhelmed me. I might have to get a personal shopper for it instead ;-)
The rest of the appointment was pretty fast. Checked on the heartbeat (nice and strong!), weighed me (up 5lbs since the last appointment. I'm telling myself that at least a bit of it is because this time I was wearing clothes whereas last time I was wearing a fancy johnny :-), and took my blood pressure. The doc came in to see me after that.
I didn't have many questions for her, except to ask about whether I need to modify my weight-lifting routine at all (answer - as long as I'm not getting dizzy or light-headed, and feeling fine, I can keep up exactly what I'm doing), and about the whole lying on the back thing (answer - try not to sleep on your back if you can, but don't worry about it if you do happen to wake up that way. Also, okay for shorter periods of time (like for situps), again, as long as it's not causing any dizziness or light-headedness). And finally, is it okay for me to ride my bike out on the road? (answer - as long as I feel balanced and okay with it, totally fine for as long as I'm comfortable).
I was so happy to hear that. I stopped playing ice hockey at 12 weeks, and have moved to using a stationary bike and elliptical instead. It flipping sucks!!! I'm so used to having FUN while I exercise, either playing ice hockey, volleyball, or riding my bike to/from work (the latter is not exactly fun, but it has a purpose). The whole stationary thing is for the birds. I wasn't sure I could keep it up throughout however long this lasts, much as I want to for my health and Phred's (I highly recommend the book "Exercising through your Pregnancy" by Dr. Clapp for a scientific dissection and debunking of many of the arguments against exercising while pregnant). But if I can keep commuting on my bike, I can definitely handle it. Whew!
My last question - why exactly am I doing the early GD test? answer - psyche! I didn't actually have to do it. Apparently they normally will do the early test if you have any signs of glucose resistance (or is that insulin resistance) such as might be seen with PCOS. But since I don't, no need for it. Hahahaha. At least I didn't find the drink too bad.
On a different note, I went shopping for shoes on Saturday at some outlet stores near here. Don't go getting all hot and bothered - these weren't fun shoes. My daily brown and black shoes are over two years old, and definitely worse for the wear. Time for new ones. There also happened to be a maternity store there. I thought I would go in and get a pair of jeans - my regular ones don't really fit any more, and the larger sizes my sister had given to me were too small for my hockey thighs. I couldn't do it though. Walked in, flipped briefly through a rack of jeans, and totally freaked out. I told M "I'm not ready for this yet", turned around and walked out. I don't know exactly why I was so uncomfortable in there, but all those clothes frightened me. I guess I've never been one for shopping in the first place, and seeing all that stuff just overwhelmed me. I might have to get a personal shopper for it instead ;-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)