Broccoli Concoction

So, last Wednesday evening I was planning on making some lemon pork chops and braised broccoli.  That morning I woke up, with an ugh, I don't want to make braised broccoli.  I really want something cheesey.  So, I came up with this little cheesey broccoli side dish.

Cheesey Broccoli

Ingredients

2 bunches of broccoli
4 oz Velveeta Cheese, cubed
1/4 tsp ground dry mustard
splash of milk
sprinkle of ground black pepper

Steps

1.  Preheat oven to 250 degrees (this will keep dish warm while I finished working on the pork chops).
2.  Cut the broccoli so that you just have the florets.
3.  Steam the florets (I love the Ziploc Zip and Steam bags - fill it up and put your broccoli in for 3 minutes in the microwave.  Perfect!)
4.  In a microwave safe bowl, place cheese, mustard, milk, and pepper.  Place in microwave for 30 second increments up to 3 minutes, stopping to stir and combine ingredients until smooth.
5.  Place steamed broccoli in a small casserole dish.  Pour the cheese mixture over top.  (I added some bread crumbs on top to give it a little crunch.)
6.  If the rest of dinner isn't ready, place in preheated oven to keep warm.

The Finished Product
My apologies in not taking a picture.  It turned out pretty yummy, plus it was quick and easy to make.  Next time, I would consider adding a bit of "heat" - either making an addition of chili powder, paprika, or red pepper flakes.  Pretty sure I can make almost any veggie side become cheesey now!

35 Weeks

Yes, we are in the home stretch!  I am ready to evict Rampage as early as possible.  Well, no, scratch that.  He can be evicted once I do a load or two of newborn clothes, get the bassinet ready, check/sterilize all the bottles and nipples (if breastfeeding doesn't go down so well), wrap up his birth plan, install the car seat base, and pack my hospital bag.

I definitely feel a bit easier this time around - probably because we have all of the stuff and know how to use it.  The only new things we got were a stroller, diaper bag, and an carrier.

Even more exciting, I walk in for my OB appointment to hear that the office just got a brand spanking new 3D Ultrasound machine.  After getting all my vitals done, the doctor comes in and says - do you want an ultrasound today?  I say sure, we haven't seen baby in while.  The doctor replied - you'll be the first baby that I get to do a 3D on - with a great big grin.  Happy doctors make for good appointments.  :o)

Here you see a face frontal - upper left is Rampage's eye, and the black spot in the center is his mouth all wide open.  He was just getting ready to stick his hand (yeah those are fingers to the right of black center) in his mouth.

I like this one even better!  Side view of his face and cute little nose.  Guess what - already sucking on his fingers.

We took a bunch of measurements as well.  To be honest, my biggest worry so far has been whether or not Rampage will have a low birth weight/size like JT did.  Well, he is measuring in between 35 and 36 weeks.  He is 50th percentile for head and femur.  Rampage is already weighing in at a whopping 5 lbs 9 oz.  Incredible!

So now I look forward to taking the next few weeks easy, with the exception of getting those things I mentioned at the top of the blog completed.  Plus, I am trying to get in all the sleep I can.  The pregnancy has been brutally hard on me with lack of sleep.  So I will continue to prioritize and only do the things that most desperately need to get done - you know like making dinner in the evenings.  Everything else can wait.

Hopefully it will continue this way until our scheduled eviction date - August 12, 2013.  8/12/13 seems a good birthday right?

Foreign Cultures and Languages

As you may recall, the reasoning behind our big move is for the hubby to attend language school.  In particular, he will be immersing himself in one of the harder languages - Hindi.

When we learned this, I decided that my gateway to India would be through food.  But low and behold Baby 2.0 made it impossible for me to handle any really strong spice smells.  So the hubby took over cooking the Indian food.  With all the moving, packing, and unpacking, I hope to get back into testing out some new Indian recipes in the near future.

So I have been trying to acclimate myself to Indian culture and Hindi through other means - history and learning the language.

We all know that history is not exactly my strong suit.  I have never really been able to make that sort of information stick in my head.  In support of this new job, I have taken the plunge into India After Ghandi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy.  It is a tome - weighing in at over 800 pages.  I began reading it nearly 6 months ago and I am still not done yet.  It discusses Indian history from Independence (1947, and a little earlier) onward.  While I have a difficult time with it (historical writing in general), I am making progress - I reading about the 1960's and am about halfway complete with the book.  I also purchased In Spite of the Gods at the same time - I am hoping that all this in depth reading will make this shorter book fly.

If we all thought my issues with history were rough, learning a language pales in comparison.  Sometimes I have a hard enough time with english (partially because I know these babies are taking all of my good-hardworking braincells).  I stayed away from spoken languages in high school and college, opting for the very dead Latin.  It served me well in avoiding having to provide conversational proficiency.  But here I am stuck.  I definitely need to obtain a working knowledge of Hindi.

So, we got Rosetta Stone.  Pregnancy and Rosetta Stone do not mix well.  After sitting through the first couple of lessons, I had an emotional breakdown.  My brain couldn't seem to keep straight the differences for boy, girl, man, woman, eat, and drink.  I was beyond frustrated and left a trail of tissues all around my computer.  So I have taken a break from Rosetta Stone for the time being.

In the meantime, I know I work well independently - just me and a textbook.  So I have picked up Elementary Hindi along with it's corresponding workbook.  I plan on cracking this open (yeah right - like I have time to crack any book open once Rampage arrives) on I complete my history reading (shouldn't take more than...6 more months right?).  I also picked up several workbooks geared towards children (cause that is my working level right now) on the alphabet, writing, vocabulary, and grammar.

For JT and Rampage, I picked up some children's books of which there do not seem to be many.  Bindi Baby covers numbers and animals in Hindi, as well as, several other linguistic states in India.  I also picked out Aamoo the Mango, which has stories with simple sentences that introduce colors, counting, food, shapes, etc.

But I am making the most progress with, of all things, Dino Lingo.  Oddly enough, my brain really seems to have taken to this language learning system for children.  After just a couple of viewings, I have my numbers through 10, colors, a bunch of animals, and some foods in my vocabulary. (As a mathematician, or well I used to be, it irks me that they do not provide the word for zero as it happens to be a construct attributed to the Indian number system.)  I also understand the short conversations and am starting to pick up on the grammar and genders of words (gender not being something I think they intend children to consciously pick up on).  There are 5 episodes - the last seeming to contain most of the information that Rosetta Stone throws at you in the first 10 lessons.  I did not walk away from the final episode teary-eyed, which made me feel a lot better.

Calling Cards

The Hubby's move to a functional area - Foreign Area Officer (FAO, pronounced "fay-o") - has brought along a load a new learning experiences for the both of us.  It has put a new spin on the Army experience.

For me, it means a couple of things (learning a language(s), upping my game in conversation settings, etc.) but I really only want to focus on one aspect of courtesy and protocol - the Calling Card.

In this day and age, literally everyone has a cellular device.  I find it easiest to just add a person/business contact right to my phone as I meet them.  I know I won't forget it if it is on my phone already.

Thus far in our army experience, I have had very few encounters with people using calling cards.  The spouses club at Fort Riley had cards made up for the board members. I rarely used mine but I did hand a few out or use them to jot other useful information down for people (webaddresses, etc since I was the webmistress for two years).

We attended a mock embassy reception as part of the introduction course.  This was the first event that I have gone to where the calling card really got put to use.  For nearly two hours, I did not see a cellular device out at all (okay, I snuck mine out of my purse to check a text from our babysitter).  There was a lot of mingling and I noticed a lot of exchanging of cards, well more so than I usually do at a military event.  I even received a few cards from spouses and I felt rather behind the times because I had no cards.

I feel the need to rectify this situation but I am somewhat at a loss.  What exactly do I put on my personal calling card?  Clearly, my name but what about other information?  I do not have a home business (which I think would make this much easier to deal with), I am not volunteering, and I am no longer actively working as a licensed teacher (although my license is still valid for a few more years).  I work hard at home with my son, well soon to be, sons.  Having a relatively blank card with just my name is somewhat ridiculous and I don't feel adding "Stay-at-home mom" or "Homemaker" really makes the situation any better.  I feel I should put some method of contact - be it phone or email - on the card but I am uncomfortable just giving that information out unless I have had some in depth conversation with a person.  Maybe I should create a separate email address just for my calling card to keep my FAO acquaintances in area that won't overlap with my personal/family correspondence.  If you have any tips, I would appreciate them. Or I might just have to go with the blank, name-only style calling card.

Prepping for Rampage

With the hubbub of moving coming to an end, I have the chance to start preparing for the  onslaught that is Rampage, baby 2.0.

On the stuff side of preparedness, the major relief is that Rampage is still indeed a boy.  There is no need to run around buying a whole new baby wardrobe for little miss thang. Being able to pull out all of JT's old clothes has been a comfort after all the traveling and spending money to reset our home.  We also have all the bottles and my pump - they just need to go through some sterilizing.  We tons of burp clothes thanks to JT's consistent spit up for the first 9 - 12 months of life.  We have the bassinet and the pack-n-play.  I hope to transition JT to a big boy bed when Rampage does the move from bassinet to a crib.  We have the infant car seat and 2 bases - it doesn't matter which vehicle we are driving.

But there are/were three big things I really felt I would like for Rampage.  The first was a new (re: larger) diaper bag.  JT is to the point where we do not have to change him every five seconds but we still need to have some back up diapers to carry around.  But the kid loves his food - so I need something to carry around num-nums and his sippy - not to mention his cars and blanket.  But I know I will need something will accommodate his needs plus Rampage - his set of diapers, burp clothes, extra clothes, and any bottles.  I just recently scored a sale pattern of the Make a Change Baby Bag along with a $20 off coupon.  I am impressed with it's size and feel confident that it will meet our needs - well maybe not Hubby's needs for it to look more manly (I did get a blue pattern!).

Second on my list is a double stroller.  I love my BOB single stroller.  JT is not big enough to be out walking on his own (have a little stroller tag along strap for when he hits that point) while I walk.  Oh, and I want to walk.  It is too beautiful here to not take a walk everyday.  That is the plan - Rampage arrives and we go out for a family walk every day.  So I have been looking into getting a BOB duallie stroller with a car seat attachment.  I felt bad missing the boat for the REI garage sale - just a few minutes to late to score a refurbished one for really cheap.  I then noticed that Amazon is running a sale on the Revolution SE Duallie - at near 25% off, plus Prime membership means no shipping fees.  So I snagged one up along with the car seat adapter and the handlebar console (I love putting my water bottle, keys, and phone somewhere accessible) all for less than the regular price of the Duallie. I think that deserves a pat on the back.

The final thing on my list is a new carrier.  I really like the ERGO Baby carrier.  I have a Moby which is good for around the house but I hate having to tie and retie the thing when we are out and about.  I want to snap and go with Rampage.  I have not found any at a reduced price yet but I am still looking.  I do know that I want to get it in the next few weeks so that I am prepared for Rampage.

Outside of the "stuff",  I can not tell if I am mentally prepared for Rampage.  Thankfully, I have no commitments (volunteer/otherwise) to really worry about.  Just need to find a balance of keeping Rampage, JT, Hubby, and Myself happy - on what will probably be very little sleep.  Good thing I don't get much of that now, right?  I think I am prepared for the hospital part - it can't be any worse than what happened for JT's arrival - although JT's arrival always seems to blindside me at the most inopportune time.  But for now at least, I am healthy and Rampage is healthy (and kicking like a maniac).  So I can't ask for much more than that.

Relearning How To Cook

The moving process gives you a chance to really take a good look at the things you have in your home.  There is quite a bit of assessing and reassessing the value and condition of all of your items.  Is it coming with us, should we drop it at the Goodwill, or has the item run hit the end of its lifetime?

When it came to my pots and pans, well, we need those to cook and not eat out every meal of the day.  So there was no question in my mind that they would be making the trek to our new home.  But upon arrival, I took a good long look at them.

The cookware set is as old as we have been married.  It has been a very reliable set over the years.  I have gotten used to knowing just how quickly it will take for them to heat up  and cook different types of meat.  As I pulled them out of the packing paper, the nonstick coating jumped out at me.  Almost literally.  My more heavily loved pans were showing signs of scraping and peeling.  I wasn't planning on serving my dinner with a side of Teflon.  Yuck.

So, I was on the hunt for a new set of pots and pans.  Not that I really wanted to - but I guess the day had come for our wedding set to hit the road.  I began thinking about what type I would like now.  If I get a similar set, I will probably be having the same dialogue again in a few years.  We enjoy making meals at home (besides the fact that it saves us a bit of money instead of eating out).  I want pans that will have a longer lifetime than 5 years and be able to stand up to our everyday use.

It really only left me with one choice - stainless steel.  We would be taking a big wallet hit in the beginning but if we took good care - we could have them for 20 + years.  No need to worry about the nonstick coating peeling off into my cooking.  My other issue was I know need to readjust how I cook.  I have always been scared of stainless steel.  Everyone warns you about the sticking and the pans warping on high heat.  Do I trust myself to not do anything dumb to seriously ruin this investment in our cooking?

After taking a look at a couple of sets, asking some questions (the one salesperson said they are still using the set they bought 28 years ago), and debating it over lunch, we took the plunge.  We got a 10 piece All Clad Stainless Steel set.

And seeing as we went all in, why not test my skills doing our favorite - spaghetti and meatballs!  I create the sauce in a Le Creuset stock pot but I would be frying up the meatballs in a brandy new and super shiny fry pan.  I don't know when I have been more nervous.

As per the salesperson's instructions, I placed the pan on the stove and set the heat (we have gas in our new home that is a whole other challenge to get used to after having electric) to medium/medium high to warm the pan.  Once I could feel the warmth from the pan, I lowered the heat to medium-low and poured in some oil.  Once I saw the oil shimmering, I said a little prayer and dropped my meatballs in the pan.

And then I waited.  I heard the sizzling and got excited.  I got a hold of my emotions and remembered - "Do not flip the meat early, it will not brown, and you'll probably be left with a sticky burnt mess."  So I waited a bit more.  This was Christmas-opening-presents level of anticipation here.  I honestly did not know what to do with myself.  When I just couldn't take the pressure any longer, I caved and started flipping those balls.

Ugh!  Not as nice crispy brown as I normally liked but I did not have any issues flipping.  So it was partially a success.  Next time, I know to leave them for longer.  It is still something I keep telling myself over the past weeks.

But you know what, I am really happy with these new pans.  I am also glad that my hubby agreed to take the plunge.  It may be taking us a bit longer to make our meals while we adjust but there are no more worries about "Hey, I didn't add pepper to this dish!"

Chicken Stir Fry

For one of the first meals in our new home, I decided to fight the urge to make the same old same old.  New house, new recipe!  Now that we are out on the west coast, everything seems to have a more asian flair to it.  So, I decided to try a chicken stir fry.

Basic Chicken Stir Fry

from The Everything Chinese Cookbook

Ingredients

1 lb chicken meat
2 tbsp oil
1 garlic clove
2 think slices of ginger
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 tbsp rice wine or dry sherry
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Steps

1.  Cut chicken pieces into cubes or slices - get them to be all about the same size, so they cook at the same rate.
2.  Add oil to a preheated wok.  When the oil is hot, add the garlic and ginger.  Stir fry until they become aromatic.
3.  Add the chicken and stir fry until it changes color.
(4.  Since I had some veggies laying around, I removed the chicken and added the veggies.  Stir fry them for a few minutes.  I added the chicken back in after step 5.)
5.  Add the chicken stock, rice wine, sugar, and salt.  Mix.
6.  Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, until the chicken is cooked through.

The Finished Product

It turned out pretty yummy.  I wish the sauce had gotten a bit thicker.  Nonetheless, the sauce was not overpowering, which I was a little worried about.  The veggies came out tender and not wimpy. (I have made stir fries where I let the veggies go a little too long.  Wimpy veggies just are not fun.)  I look forward to trying it again - not sure what I would add to the sauce to make it thicken but it is something I will look into.

Food Fodder

In an attempt to become more of a local, we have taken to listening to the area radio stations instead of satellite radio while we are driving around town.  One fateful lunch hour, we stumbled across Food Fodder on KRML (it's a cute call name since the radio station is in Carmel, CA). 

One of the regular contributors was on a whirlwind East Coast foodie trip - hitting up the big cities by checking out the food scene.  The topic of discussion that lunch hour was to compare and contrast some of these larger cities to the food scene here in Monterey.  A statement that came out really hit my funny bone - or more like my sarcastic bone.  They were comparing the food scene in New York (they snuck San Francisco in there as well) to Monterey.

"You know you just can't get Peruvian food here.  I mean to get something decent you need to drive to at least San Francisco."

PALM to FACE.  Oh goodness.  I couldn't help myself - I nearly spit out the water I was drinking.  I wish I could have called the station right then and there.  After four years in the middle of Kansas, I am pretty much in food/restaurant heaven here.  In Kansas, we were all excited for the arrival of the Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse.  I would have to plan special trips to Topeka to get some seafood at the Red Lobster.  (There were a couple of great restaurants - like Harry's, Della Voce, or Little Apple Brew Co., Umi's - don't get me wrong here!)  But here, you have a long list restaurants that are American, Italian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, Thai, etc.  Hell, if you can't find a good Seafood joint, I am pretty sure the fish will jump out of the bay and give you a good fin-slapping.  I am not quite sure how these contributors would have fared in Middle America.

But I did learn something - I won't get Peruvian food here, I'll need to drive to San Francisco.

Moving

It is that time of the year in the military - the time for PCS-ing or moving to a new duty station.  This is the first year in a long while that we have had the chance to participate in the spring/summer move bonanza. After four years in one location, it really is quite a shock to see how your family has grown roots in that spot. 

We forged so many new friendships.  It feels overwhelming to be back at square one again.  Not that we are really back at square one, just that new location means finding new "here" friends. With all the moving, I am pretty sure we will run into our "Ft. Riley" friends again at some new locale.  Not to mention all this great social media lets us interact across the miles.

All the "stuff" we have.  The packers and movers transported nearly 11.5 thousand pounds of stuff.  Plus, we loaded almost another thousand into our two vehicles.  I thought I had done a decent job of purging but now that we are settling into our new home - it might just have to happen again.  I don't know how we managed to squirrel away all of it.  Given the hubby's new job, I think I might spend the time we have here in a constant purge state - there is no way all of this is coming with us to a foreign country!

The paperwork - and I don't mean the paperwork for selling a house, that is a different can of works.  The paperwork, phone calling, documenting of every service - utilities, magazines, banking, credit cards, heck online ordering - that needs to get updated with new addresses or to get cancelled.  It is one heck of a storm.  I am so glad it is over.

The uncertainty of your new location.  None of the roads are familiar - when getting from point A to point B, you pray you don't cut off the wrong the people because you just don't know that that turn comes up so quickly, or that a merge lane ends in 20 feet and really should not be considered a merge lane.  Not being able to get a pizza from your go to pizza place.  Okay, I guess that is a function of being pregnant and tired - but trying out different pizza joints and their pricing can be daunting.  I need a good pizza joint.  Thankfully, it only took two attempts to find our place!

Resetting a new home.  You need to go out and get all those essentials - like soap, toilet paper, towels, salt, tea, coffee, etc - all those things we had in our old house.  The whole system needs to get restarted. Not to mention the usual daytime routines - getting the dogs used to a new yard and especially, JT getting used to his new surroundings.  Things are just not quite the same as they were in KS.

Now that we are here, life is returning somewhat to normal.  I won't lie - moving was a big time stress for me, especially while pregnant.  I did not get much sleep.  I get a bit more now that we are settled.  I would avoid doing this ever again while pregnant.  We have begun exploring and are very happy that our new home is situated where there seems to be events going on all the time.  There is more to come - and probably a photo dump too.  Unfortunately, my computer is still sitting in it's box. We have ordered a new desk for it.  When it arrives, I can hook up the nice camera a put up some photos of some beautiful places.

Rampage

Before we begin the relocation process, I got a chance to see Baby 2.0 - lovingly dubbed "Rampage" by his grandpa - one last time.  It eases my mind as we get ready to move and travel across the country.  Rampage is growing nicely and it super duper active.  Let's say that sleeping is nigh impossible because every time I take a load off he decides it is time to tap dance and move around.  Here are pictures from the photoshoot:

I like this cute little profile picture - my favorite.

This does not leave us much doubt about whether or not Rampage is a boy.