There has been a bit of a delay..

In case you haven't noticed, there has not been a recipe posted on the food blog yet. This is not an "I'm a slacker post" it's an "I really do have valid reasons" post. I was planning on making my butternut squash ravioli on Sunday, and then posting the recipe that night.

The first hitch in the plan happened Saturday night when it started to snow. I had gone to a birthday party for my brother-in-law, Sam. The snow was falling pretty heavy, and I opted just to stay at my parents house that night instead of making someone take me home. Daniel was headed to pick me Sunday morning, after he got off work. It was snowing again at that point and the roads were pretty bad. He ended up sliding off the road. He called me, let me know about the situation and said he would get me after the tow truck came and pulled him back onto the road. After the tow truck came, the weather was even worse. He told me to stay at my parents, and that he would teach primary by himself. (I'm not really sure how well that went..) I eventually made it home, but not until about 8:30 that night. Obviously, no pasta was going to be made, so I figured I would just make it today (Monday) instead.

I slept in this morning, and woke up about 10:30 (I didn't get a nap yesterday after all). I planned on roasting the squash nice and early; I was going to cube it up and stick it in the oven around noon. Life had a bit of a different plan for us today. About 11:30 I had one of my now fairly routine bathroom breaks. However, this time around was not routine in the fact that I found blood (and it was not coming for the hemorrhoid I had a few weeks ago, too much information? Maybe, but oh well). Panic ensued, especially as I realized that I hadn't felt the baby move that day. I yanked Daniel out of bed and we went to the hospital. I was doing pretty good at staying calm, until anyone asked me how far along I was. "30 weeks" I would mutter out trying my best to not have a complete break down.(For those of you that don't know, pregnancy is supposed to be 40 weeks, and they want you to make it to at least 37 before you give birth.) I got to ride in wheel chair and I waited for someone to take me back to a room.

The CNA/OB Tech was the person to get me and take me back. "Hello, my name is Hope" she said as she was wheeling me away. Hope? Are you serious, that was possibly the best name anyone could have at that moment in time. She brought be back to a room, talked to me a little about the hospital gown and peeing in a cup. She then asked the dreaded question "How far along are you?" I lost composure as I said "30 weeks". Hope: "Is it a boy or girl?" Me: "girl" Hope :"Aw, do have a name?" Me "Juliet." Hope "Well, I'm sure Juliet will be just fine. Let's get you changed and figure out what's going on. It's okay if you need to cry." This girl was really good at her job. She even called me pretty later on.

The nurse was the next person to journey into my room. She asked me a bunch of things like "Have you done illegal drugs?" and such that apparently Daniel wasn't allowed to hear, hence they wouldn't let him come in yet. She put a monitor on my belly (which the baby decided she didn't like, she was kicking it within a minute of it being on my stomach) to track the baby's heartbeat (which was perfect by the way, hallelujah) and asked if  was cramping (uh, no) and check to see if I was dilating or still bleeding (nope again). They said they were going to monitor me for awhile and then call the midwife to see what we wanted to do. Well, my midwife is apparently not available today, go figure. They called another doctor from my center and had her consult with them instead. "Have you had sex in the past 48 hours?" Uh, no. I had been trapped at my parents house for the past 48 hours. Sex during pregnancy can make you bleed? Good to know I guess.

They watched me pretty carefully for a few hours (well, mostly they just monitored the baby, which was fine by me, that's who I was concerned about) and decided that I was good to go home. They said a number of things could have caused the bloody discharge, but everything looked good with me and baby. I'm supposed to monitor myself pretty closely today and take things easy. If anything seems out of the ordinary, I am to call, or if it seems really strange go back to the hospital. They ensured me I did the right thing by coming in, because there was no way to tell if everything was alright unless I had come in. Since Daniel works tonight, I'm heading up to my parents house again tonight, just in case something is off and I have to go the hospital again(we only have one car).

So, obviously no pasta is being made today either. I'm sure after reading all this this, that was by far the greatest concern on all your minds...just kidding, I really hope you didn't care that much. I have my normal appointment with Karen (my regular midwife) on Wednesday, so we will see what she says then. For now, I am just extremely grateful that all 3 of us (Daniel, the baby and I) have made it though the past few days alive and well. Maybe Daniel isn't completely well, he has to work tonight with virtually no sleep, poor guy. Luckily this is the end of his work week, so things should hopefully normalize in the next few days.

Now Introducing:

http://beckystastyfood.blogspot.com/

The food blog has been launched! No recipes as of yet, but that will change soon.

The results are in!

The results are in, and the score it tied...a lot of good that poll did me. Looks like it is all up to me now. So, look for the launch of a new food blog in the next few days. I will now take name suggestions for the food blog if you have any ideas.

Calling all readers.

For those of you who know me well, you likely know that I like to cook. If you are aware of this fact, you may also be aware of the fact I tend to be more of a recipe creator, or at the very least recipe modifier, than a recipe follower. One problem that comes with this is that I never write anything down. If I want to recreate something I have made previously, I have to rely on memory. This isn't so bad, because I can usually make my recreations pretty similar to the original product, but in an attempt to be a more organized cook I have thought of an interesting option: Start blogging my recipes.

If I start to blog recipes, I will be forced to start writing things down, helping me better recreate them in the future. What I am asking for from you, my blog readers (however many of you there may be) is to vote in the poll I created. Would you be interested in knowing my recipes? If so, how should I go about posting them? If your option is not in the poll, feel free to leave a comment on this post stating what you think would be the most viable option.

Just a little FYI, If recipes do begin to be posted, by whichever option, the first entry will be Butternut Squash Ravioli. I made it last month, and I am going to make it again this month, it was quite the hit with Daniel, and I never say no to squash.

Some Random Thoughts.

Sometimes I feel inclined to write a blog post. When I have these inclinations I usually don't have a particular subject matter in mind, and therefore, no blog post gets written.  Today I have an inclination, so instead of ignoring it and writing nothing, I bring to you a compilation of random things I have thought as of late.

• The only downside I see to naming my daughter Juliet (which will very likely happen) is that when reading Romeo and Juliet in school, the poor girl will always have to read the part of Juliet.  

• It's good for me when people challenge if I can do something. For those of you who are not aware, I had a professor tell me to drop out of his class because I am pregnant, and it would be too hard. While my initial feelings were anger, I have now been overcome by extreme motivation.

• I call my two pet mice "my girls". If I end up having another daughter after this one, it seems very likely that I will call them "my girls". In years from now I can just see two teenage girls telling their friends that their mother calls them the same thing she once called rodents.

• It is a good thing I am not a vegetarian; I currently have about 40 pounds of beef in my freezer.

• Have the parents of the Luna Lovegood doppelganger in my primary class read or seen Harry Potter? If they have, do they encourage her to act like that? 

• It's possible college students have never seen a pregnant person before, or so it would seem by the funny looks I get walking around campus.

• Though french fries are not from France, their name makes perfect sense to me. The way in which they are cut is called frenching. French toast, however, does not make sense. If it did not orginate in France, why does it have this name? 

• While I believe the bikini(among other woman's fashions that do not make sense) was invented by a man; Maternity clothes were almost definitely invented by a woman. Most comfortable pants I have ever worn.

I hope have enjoyed this episode of Becky's Blog. Today's post was brought to you by the number 8 and the letter S.

Bring on the Pink!

...just not too much of it.

In case you haven't heard:

My thought has always been boy. The midwife even said that the mom is right about 73 percent of the time. So, as you can guess, I am surprised my baby is a girl; I should obviously never gamble. I told Daniel I felt like I know more about boys, so this was going to be interesting. He looked at me with a puzzled face and said "but you are a girl!" Well, yes I am, but boys make more sense to me. I am excited though, I would have been excited either way, but now I know that I can buy things with sparkles on them! Girls clothes are way more fun(at this point I'm trying to convince Daniel to let me put her in a tutu).

Now we can really start thinking of names. My top two are currently Noel and Juliet. Noel is great because it's a built in Christmas card. Take a picture of the adorable baby with blocks that spell out Noel, slap it on a card and there you go! The TV show Psych was my inspiration for Juliet. My last name just makes it even more epic. Juliet Spencer, that's right, like if Jules married Sean. Fans of the show understand how awesome that makes it. I might find a name even more awesome later on though, who knows.

I'm looking forward to my little princess, so bring on the pink!(Just not too much of it, variety is the spice of life and little girls look cute in purple too! Not to mention all the colors of the rainbow)

My New Career Plan

Throughout my life I have had many different plans for careers, as I think most people have.

When I was little I wanted to be this:

A Veterinarian. I feel I'm pretty good around animals, and most pet-loving children want to grow up to be Vets, am I right? This Career goal ended in about Junior High. I didn't want to be in school long enough to make that happen.

In Junior High my new Career Goal sprouted. It being this:

A Published Author. A Published Poet, to more exact. While I would still like to have some of my things published at some point, I realized this was not a solid career goal. To make it in this career you have to be very dedicated, forcing yourself to write every day, and I just don't have that kind of self-motivation.

High school classes helped me to narrow my search. I liked health, and I was pretty good at it, so that's where I started looking next. I knew I didn't want to be a nurse (yuck, poop), so I thought the following was a good idea:

Radiology Technologist. I kept this plan for quite some time. I have broken a lot of bones, so why not help people who have broken bones! It was after my first semester of college, and realizing basically no one gets into this program. It's very competitive, and I didn't want to have to apply 60 billion times.



For a brief time (while still having radiology on the back burner) I thought about doing this:

No, I did not want to be Alton Brown, just an awesome chef like him. I thought about going to culinary school instead of college to learn the tools of the trade. Much like the poetry dream, I would still like to live this one out a little. My eventual (Eventual meaning when I'm like 50 or so) goal is to open my own bakery.

I obviously went back to radiology considering I went to Weber State and not The Art Institute of America. So, after radiology seemed to be a bust, but still looking in the health field, I turned to this:

Respiratory Therapist. It is what I have classes for now, and will likely get my degree in.

 Life isn't always simple however. What I have worked is this:

Which was not a bad job. It was pretty fun actually. People were often  not so smart, and I had to work strange hours, but other than that I had a good time. However, I decided to abandon that for this:

Not a beautiful young doctor, but a person who serves the beautiful young doctors their food. I did not enjoy this job. I tried to, but I could not. Some days I would just sit and cry because I had to go to work (even before I was pregnant). So I decided to abandon that for this:

Oh wait, that's right, I quit without something else to do. I've been looking for something easy, temporary, and not very many hours to help me fill some time and help save for the creature growing in my stomach. It has been suggested that I go back to this:

That might not be such a bad idea, however, today I thought of a very different, easy, temporary, not very many hours career choice. Which brings us to the title of this post (I know you are all excited, since it's taken forever to get here), My new career plan:

I am going to get a monkey, and I am going to get an organ grinder. I will teach said monkey to play said organ grinder and we will sit on street corners where people will give us money. Plus, as an added bonus, I will teach the monkey to clap when people give us money, making all the people say "AWWWW" so they will want to give us more money! Seems pretty solid to me!

Okay, enough with the silliness. The past few months have really made me realize that all I really want to be is this:















No, I do not want to be a bride again. Once was enough for that. For this I am looking at the two beautiful women next to me (No Nicholle, you do not look like a Cardassian). I do not wish to be my sisters, though I do wish to be like them in one very distinctive way. I want to be good mother. My sisters are both wonderful examples of this, as is my own wonderful mother. If I can do that, be a good mom, then none of the rest of it really seems to matter much, does it?