I've been totally remiss about posting pictures of delicious food hubz has cooked up for us lately, but he's really outdone himself. seriously, he made the roast chicken from Julia's cookbook and it was my favorite. chicken. ever. along with the butter braised carrots, which we had again tonight. we've scored these crazy awesome carrots at the farmer's market, and they're packed with special carroty flavor. plus they're pretty. hubz did take this iphone shot of the potato leek soup he made (again from Julia's cookbook)... he added chunks of bacon, celery, and pan-fried potato on top:

this is photographic evidence that I'm 'resting'... today I needed to let the kitchen cabinets dry, so I took a little siesta in the car:

and this is a shot my friend kyle took of me at a studio here in town, after we'd finished up a quick session... he took others, most of which were goofy (one was positively frightening... you can see it on facebook if you want), but I really loved this one:

the week has been full of blessings so far. one was the tax return we discovered we're getting, due largely to the fact that we had to sink a lot of money into our rental property last year. we were so surprised and grateful - we've been on a budget throughout this renovation, and we completely view getting this money back as a gift from God to help us finish up without stressing about when my crazy receivables will trickle in. my first Cricket gig of the week went well yesterday (until the wind kicked up... then it was sort of nutty and all about keeping the tent from blowing away), we bought a tub (woo-hoo!), and the kitchen is looking better and better. and then, tonight, I received this video and knew it truly was a red letter day:

I won't lie, that video tickles me in a deep, deep place. I think it's the showstopping panache.

must go to bed so I can get up freakishly early to drive to Dallas. long day tomorrow - I'm supposed to be done by 4p and would ordinarily drive home then, but I'll wait and see how I feel. baby and I can always trek down to the Super 8 and get a room for the night if we're too tired to drive the long haul back. interestingly, I'll go right by the recently imploded Texas Stadium... it'll be weird to not see it there, I think.

night, all.

-m.y.

whackadoo dreams.

I was... somewhere... and the baby kept falling further and further down in my abdomen. finally, I said something like, 'look how far down she is!' and decided I just needed to lie down, but after I made it onto my back I felt a shift and suddenly there was a baby's head on my chest - she had apparently fallen out of my body and made it onto my chest, umbillical cord and all. she was big and very genial, and I was all, 'look you guys, I just had a baby! she did come early! she just fell out!' then there was all sort of weirdness, with my mom calling my doctor (she said he told me to 'go to bed and heal with some lemon juice'.... yikes!) and people coming in and out. at one point I announced that her name was _____________ and she could be called ____________, and my mom or M's mom gently told me that it was a boy. I looked down and was totally holding a smiling little boy baby with a pretty small you-know-what, which was apparently why no one picked it up in our sonograms (but I was told it would grow to be normal-sized). the baby also suddenly looked like it had three eyes, but I didn't trust what I was seeing and put him down. I was totally confused. I told M about the baby being a boy, and he acted confused, too, and went into a different room. I think I followed him and we talked about how the baby came before we'd finished the house, and we'd discovered another room that needed to be painted that happened to be our bedroom. I went and found the baby and tried to nurse it, but that was awkward, and I looked at him and tried out a boy name we like and then another I'd never really thought about before. I went to find M again and my cousins told me he was outside smoking (?!!), and I said, 'oh, I need one of those'. we smoked, I think, but then I went back inside and ran into some convention people by the escalators (was I at a convention?!) and told them I'd just had a baby that day and needed to rest. I went and found the baby again, who looked more and more like a doll, and started to get anxious about having to somehow get the, um, other stuff out of my body, and then I'd have to trade all all of the girl things we'd been given and tell people asap before they gave us showers with lots of girl things... and then I woke up.

and felt my belly, and there's still a baby in there. I still think she's a girl, 2 sonograms said so and I'll probably be getting another this week with a specialist to check my amniotic fluid levels and make sure all is well. my doctor thought my levels were a little low at my appointment last Thursday and wants a second opinion just to be safe, but he didn't act freaked out or overly concerned. he did, however, tell me I needed to try to rest and drink more. he didn't give me any specifics so I don't think he meant bed rest or anything, just to generally take it easier. which seemed pretty easy, since we'd just come off of the Seattle trip and all.

so. I'm trying to take lots of breaks, drink more water, and generally stay stress-free. but we have a house to finish and I feel the clock ticking (how is it April 12th already?!), plus I have opportunities to do some work this week with 2 big Cricket gigs, voice work, and on-camera commercial work. I go to Dallas Wednesday for my last trip before the baby comes, and right now I just want it and the long car ride and the long day over and done. I do know that I could turn all of this work down if push came to shove... the self-employed, non-existent-maternity-leave reality I live in just likes to do what I'm able to do while I can, that's all. I'm trying to be good about taking my vitamins and the iron supplement the doctor ordered (I was a little anemic a couple of weeks ago) and stop to sit down more often and refill my water bottle, and always feel like I'm forgetting something.

and then I think what if the baby is running out of fluid in there. and I gulp water and pray.

and on top of that, yesterday was an awkward, distracted day and I just wanted a do-over.

I think I'm a little emotional and just feeling a tad overwhelmed. I might have some long days this week, but nothing that's happening has to be hard or overly taxing if I relax and take great care of myself. so I'd appreciate any prayers for peace and excellent pacing and coping skills this week, as well as the strength to say no or take it easy if I need to.

-m.y.

p.s. we're almost done with our kitchen... pictures to come...

seattle state of mind

we finally got back home last night after spending the past few days eating well and bundling up against the rainy and windy elements of Seattle. despite both of us battling allergies and whatnot (M actually came back sort of sick), it was a really nice trip and I'm so glad we got to go. so I'll pour a little more Tim Horton's decaf (a gift from a Canadian fan) and get down to it.

Seattle had a GREAT vibe, and I really enjoyed getting to meet a lot of cool people up there. the convention was very well run and pretty big... I think they were anticipating about 18,000 attendees. M got some fun pictures - here's one of me looking like I'm playing to a huge room of people for my own panel, but in reality they were there for the Fullmetal Alchemist cast panel, a popular show I'm in. my other panels were great, too, and really well-attended which is always nice.

my autograph line Sunday.

M took this great video footage, trying to capture the smaller line of the dude next to me and then my line. the signing was at 10a and our flight was at 1:50, so we really were on a pretty tight deadline, but there was no way I was going to let anyone wait in line for an hour to NOT get their stuff signed! that's horribly uncool. in the end, everyone was happy and we made our flight:





we stayed at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel, which was SO NICE. I believe it was the first campus of the University of Washington, and is a historical landmark.

this is just one of the rooms off of the main lobby and up a flight of curving stairs... I thought it looked like something out of Beauty and the Beast, and M quipped that you could almost see the candlestick dancing in the corner...

when you exit the hotel and turn right, there's the water.

the architecture around Seattle is really something. check out the Native American detailing on this building (which houses a Bank of America, of all things):

Audrey was our guest liason. she's 18 and was absolutely wonderful. here she is in one of her costumes...

and with M in another:

Pikes Market. ah. one of my favorite things about the trip. the sights and smells down here really are something. here's me with Rachel:

it's sort of funny how deserted it looks in this photo... this was Saturday morning, when we'd walked down to get breakfast:

where the fish fly:

breakfast at the Athenian overlooking Puget Sound:

it really is true that coffee shops abound in Seattle, but the weather totally supports this. here's a pretty mocha I had at a coffee/bookstore:

we also had delicious breakfast at the Daily Grill:

and hopped in a cab to go find Bizzarro's, a restaurant M had read about. it was fun and quirky, and the food was fresh and wonderful.

Wild Ginger had been recommended to us by the McDs, and it absolutely lived up to the praise.

so flipping good. in this photo I'm clutching the warm jasmine tea and am so glad to be sitting down - M didn't think we walked all that much, but my hips and legs had a different opinion.

since we were away from home on Easter Sunday, we found a sunrise service in West Seattle. it was great, and they even had a free breakfast at the funeral home afterward! the food was amazing, I'm not kidding.

so now we're home and ready to push through and finish up the house before the baby comes. she was movin' and groovin' the whole time, and I distinctly felt a knobby little foot jut out from my right side at one point, which made me jump. I bought this drawstring shirt at H&M... just a little post-baby something to look forward to wearing this summer/fall:



it's good to be back.

-m.y.

favorite thing friday is... CAULK!!

the husband and I started hanging crown molding last weekend, which is a TOTAL TREAT if you've never done it. the weird angles, the imagining yourself looking down on the corners from above the ceiling and trying to envision the cuts before you make them (and realizing you did it backwards... again...)... seriously, everyone should play the molding game at least once in their lives. M actually got the hang of it and by the time we'd finished he completely understood the logic of it all. don't ask me, I was just the helper. one thing I do know - if you're going to undertake any kind of project like this, having the right tools makes it infinitely easier. we borrowed a great miter saw and pneumatic nail gun from M's co-worker, and the work was definitely better and faster thanks to these terribly handy apparatus.

oh, and I thought molding was spelled 'moulding'... turns out, I think it's one of those words that can actually go either way. but since 'moulding' looks sort of meady and Old English, I'll switch to the straightforward 'molding'... unless there are any vocabulary hall monitors out there who have a strong feeling either way...

so here's the difference molding makes. but not just molding, CAULKING after molding really finishes things off and makes everything looks so much nicer:







our house's foundation has some issues, as is evidenced by the wonky angles of the ceilings and walls. behold the magic of the molding/caulk combo under M's masterful care:

Exhibit A: large gap between the molding and the ceiling.

Exhibit B: gap is gone and, unless you're into scrutinizing ceilings, no one is the wiser!

here's what I ended up doing to the concrete floor in the skylight room... this was after it'd gotten one coat of sealer. we're planning on just continuing this treatment into the kitchen, unless we get the new countertop in and it all looks awful together. in which case, we can just paint over it again. :) this room is about to get it's baseboards painted and put back on, so it should be mostly done pretty soon.

a pretty cool iphone photo hubz took while I was working on it:

and now I have to go brush my teeth and head out to my work location for today. this week, I started moonlighting for Cricket wireless as a street-teamer for some extra bucks. I've known the woman I'm working for since I came to town years and years ago... oddly, she told me yesterday that she's planning to hand off the street-teaming stuff to someone else after April, but wanted to make sure I knew that she'd pass on my number and give me the new contact's information if I want to keep doing it. I'd looked at this as a temporary way to earn some extra money anyway and had very low expectations so it was no big deal, but I'm consistently intrigued at how God brings things in when you need them and then poof! they change and morph again. thanks for windows of opportunity, Father! here's me at the event yesterday:

today's a long day, so wish me luck. and a bit extra that I might get the laundry finished. oh, and baby's moving around a lot and doing fine... we've gained 3 lbs. woo-hoo!

-m.y.

37 is the new... 37?

so full. the past few days have been so full. let's see if I can do this in sequence.

first off, my SIL and niece got into town Wednesday, and we celebrated St. Patrick's Day by cooking them and my aunt a scrumptious dinner of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and turnips. lest you think I had any part of this, let me give it up for mr. bell, who cooked it all AND cleaned the kitchen afterward! this food was seriously delish... most of us had seconds.



after dinner, Linda, Su and I went to The Chocolate Bar for a sweet nightcap. totally fun and hip, eating chocolate cake in Montrose at 9:45 on a school night!

the morning of my birthday, the 18th, I was so loved on. Linda, Mo, and Kev got me some more of the Bella B's Mama Soak - they got me some for Christmas, and it turns out that M and I are both fans of it. :) M drew a wonderful bath for me complete with lit candles, fluffy towel, and soft washcloth. I'll take a shower, whatever - but I LOVE baths. it's such a centering time for me. when I finally got out, it was almost time to get ready to go meet my dear friend Sara for lunch. while I waited for her, I relaxed in the gorgeous weather:


this one almost became my new blog header... husband thought it looked almost indecent, but I love the rolling belly hill in the foreground!

my time with Sara was so great... she's hosting a shower for us, so we looked at my registries online, did a little maternity shopping for my birthday, and strolled across the UofH campus to the deli to have lunch. I'm so blessed to have such a good friend.

later in the day, we all decided to head to Eastwood Park. their playground was totally re-done and it's all brand new and super-cool. Morgan really enjoyed it:

ever the animal-lover:

my lovely mom and sweet donna jo chit chatting it up... how fortunate was I to have so many important people in town?!

we took Chi with us to the park. the old man stumbled a couple of times, but you can tell he still loves the opportunity to be outside and explore. we went into the enclosed baseball field and let him off the leash, and true to form he walked the perimeter. he especially seemed to enjoy the clusters of clover that grew here and there.

for my birthday dinner, Daddy and the Bells joined us and we all went to Michaelangelo's on Westheimer. in short, it was great and I ate too much. the best part was that so many people I love could be together... it doesn't happen all that often, and I felt so blessed. for the record, I'm not sure why people are so hung up on being young. maybe it changes the older you get, but my life gets consistently better with every passing year and I'm more and more comfortable with myself. I'll tell you this - you couldn't pay me to re-live my twenties!

my brother came into town Friday, so after we went and picked him up from the airport I ended up taking mom, Kev, Linda, and Mo over to see the house on Woodfin. here's Mo leading the hula on the deck out back... something about that deck just screams 'I'm a stage! perform on me!':

we'd planned to go to the zoo, but it was CUH-RAZY around there with spring break and all. we ended up at the Children's Museum instead, and that turned out to be the right decision:

Mo exerting her strong desire to NOT pose for a photograph at this time:

my brother, taking a photo of himself:

woo-hoo, Children's Museum!

during the day, M texted me to say that we had plans that night... plans that involved me looking cute and wearing comfortable shoes. I had no idea what was afoot, but his surprises are always good so around 7 we headed out and down 45... to the Dot Shop, a throwback of a restaurant we've always liked. we scooted into a booth and, just as he tossed an envelope that said 'happy birthday' onto the table in front of me, our friends the McDs slid into the booth across the table from us! I was SO surprised, and a little overwhelmed that people planned something like that for me. not to sound mushy, but it really is such a tremendous feeling to be considered and it honestly makes me want to be more thoughtful of thinking to honor others. throughout the evening, I kept silently thanking God for giving me such a fun gift of a night. receiving good things can sometimes be awkward for me, but I so appreciate it. my husband is one of the most thoughtful people I've ever met, and the care he shows me is humbling and so very, very sweet. oooh, in the envelope were tickets to the Jennifer Knapp concert that night!

the lady can write songs. still. she opened her set with my prayer song! it was great to see her play, and I really enjoyed getting to be a witness to a rebirth of sorts of this woman's music career. there's been a lot of speculation about her life, but whatever has or will come of it all, I appreciate the artist allowing us to follow the music along the way.

yesterday involved cold and rain and crown moulding. M and I hung moulding in the living, dining, and skylight rooms!! just the bedrooms to go! the walls/ceilings are pretty wonky so I have a few gaps to fill in and some caulking to do, but it really does make everything look so nice. the fam was at the rodeo all day, so we all met up at The Black Lab for dinner by the fire, which was the perfect call for such a cold, rainy night.

everyone went home this morning, and this Lord's day has been lovely. I enjoyed church and getting to see my friends, Christian Cattle Co. pot roast lunch with mashed potatoes and exceptional homemade gravy was the bees knees, and everything was capped off with a thoughtful and connective 242 tonight. I really liked that we went around at the end and asked about any special concerns or needs to share... I've been thinking about that recently, about how it's so much easier to try to do everything yourself and not let people know about things going on with you. I want to learn to ask for help or prayer when I need it and allow people the opportunity to use their gifts, and hone some of my own in showing up for others. mostly, I think it's just about allowing yourself to be really known, and being willing to know others.

and now I'm so tired. while I wrote this, the health care bill was voted in. wow.

-m.y.