Wiped

This weekend was fun--but good gracious, it was exhausting!

Friday we had a nice dinner with the in-laws, and had fun catching up with them. Despite the fact that my DH mis-informing his mom about my 'complete' maternity wardrobe (whaaat??? umm, NO), my MIL offered to take me shopping to get a few 'extra' things this week. I was quick to inform her that two pairs of maternity pants does NOT a complete wardrobe make--and she was actually excited to hear that. ...She's a shopper, like me. Woman after my own heart. :)

Later that evening, after we made it home from the in-law's, we were able to get in touch with our friend Taylor, who's currently living in Bolivia, teaching english at an international school in Santa Cruz. He's a friend from college, who actually lived with us one summer while between apartment leases, so we're quite close. He was the last close friend that did not yet know our news, so sharing that with him via Sky.pe was fun. Going to bed at midnight -- not so fun. But the conversation with our friend so far from home was well worth it.

Saturday morning had me rushing around, trying desperately to clean up our house before the girls from my book club arrived. We read a fantastic book, called A Shad.ow in the Wi.nd, set in Barcelona, Spain, back in the mid 1940's. It's part mystery, slight bit of romance, big part 'coming of age' book... and so, so good.

With the spanish-background to our book, we had decided to try our hand at a spanish-themed lunch (we typically meet over some sort of meal - brunch, lunch or dinner!). I tried my hand at paella AND got to use my dutch oven for the first time, and both met with resounding success, woohoo!

I'm not a huge seafood fan, so I stuck to one that included chicken, smoked sausage, and a good variety of vegetables -- it was wonderful. Definitely a keeper recipe -- good fine off of Tas.ty Kit.chen. Here's the link, if you're interested:


Hmm... not sure why this link isn't working for me. You can go to the site and look up "Paella Manantiales Calientes" though, if you'd like.

The only changes I made: used canned artichokes & tomatoes, traded in the lima beans (blech!) for frozen peas, and added in diced onion and bell pepper (would recommend yellow, orange or green, for the color). Two thumbs up to the chef-author!

After book club, a friend of mine stopped by the house to catch up for a bit --she's engaged, and I'm in her wedding on December 4th. She brought her dress over for me to see - soo soo pretty -- and tried on some jewelry I thought might work with it. Then we just talked -- her in-laws were in town all week long, so it was interesting hearing how that has been going for her. It's always an adjustment when you merge families and have to get used to the way other people live/do things... and having them around for a few days is easy-breezy compared to entertaining/hosting for over a week! Thankfully, she likes 'em.

Saturday night DH and I went downtown to see comedian Az.iz An.sari perform at the Tabernacle. It was a 10:30 pm show (I know -- what prego in her right mind would EVER sign up for a show starting at that hour??), so I wisely took a nap after dinner. ...Not that it helped much! I could have easily rolled back over and kept sleeping, but my hubby loves comedy, and considering it was my anniversary present to him--I sucked it up and made the effort to stay awake.

I must acknowledge a truth here: although I know 31 is not 'old,' per se, it is not entirely all that young anymore, either. And being up 'til 2 in the morning is just painful these days -- whether you're pregnant or not. We slept in Sunday morning, and it was still difficult to get out of bed at 10.

But get out of bed we did, so we could meet up with our small group and take a little field trip up to Ellijay, GA (the apple capital of GA), to pick apples, shot an 'apple cannon' (I'll give you 3 guesses who picked this activity!), and basically walk all over the orchard trying the various different apple varieties.

The only drawback to our lovely outing was the heat. It's still hot as blazes here in the south, with temps at least 10 degrees hotter than normal-- still in the 90's most days -- and it was definitely mid-90's on Sunday. So although we had a grand 'ole time sampling apples and walking all over creation, it was, to quote my husband "hot as balls"... which I'm sure justified the ridiculous consumption of cold apple cider, apple slushee, and shared apple fritter that was had afterwards...right?

Even though I'm not feeling so utterly tired and worn out these days, I'm not doing myself any favors by acting like I can hang w/ my husband and stay up as late as he does... I'm going to try to kick that bad habit this week, and hit the sack by 10 every night.

Oh, and our company just recently started a wellness walking challenge -- gave out pedometers to every employee and challenged them to walk as many steps as possible over the next teen weeks. First week: my average steps walked was close to 9,300, and my highest for the week was over 14,000. This week I'm going to try and raise my average to at least 10,000 --wish me luck!