Without school, I’ve been able to spend more time in the kitchen. I really do like to cook. Lately, it’s been fun with the increase of produce from the garden. It’s forced me to try new things including roasted beets, cooked greens, ratatouille, eggplant, and zucchini soup. It’s been fun. And this recipe is absolutely delicious, so I am sharing it:

Zucchini Soup II

INGREDIENTS

• 3 1/2 cups diced zucchini
• 1/2 cup chopped celery
• 1 cup diced carrots
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 2 cubes chicken bouillon
• 1/2 cup dry white wine (optional)
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Liz and Baby

This is a week ago, when Joe and I went hiking. I am still in great shape–although our hikes haven’t definitely decreased in length and intensity.

Congrats to my sister Emily and Matt for their recent wedding. The wedding turned out very nice, and my sister was gorgeous.

So my garden plot is doing quite well, but for all the education I have I think I could do a lot better. Some things you just have to do and experiment with to really learn. This year we planted tomatoes, pepper, eggplant, lettuce, corn, cucumbers, zucchini, watermelon, cantaloupe, and squash. I am hoping that we do not get an early frost so I can get some of my melons. The tomatoes have just barely started to get a good crop, so I will be making salsa soon. Planting stuff at a community garden is a lot of fun, because you can compare with all the other gardeners. And my plot is not the best, but very far from the worst too.

Our garden about a month ago

School has started, and for the first time I am not going. Instead, I get to send my dear husband to school and can have the joy of packing lunches and talking about his day when he gets home. I suppose school will be more like this for a lot of life–just sending other people off.

I’m still working, but work is a little slow. Everything I have to do is pretty boring, and some things I am allowing to slip by (like weeds) due to the fact that physical labor is not something I can do a lot of. It’s hard to keep going when I know I am going to leave. I still have much to get done–including one project that is scarily pushing up towards my due date. Come on little strawberries–grow a little faster so I do not go into labor while you still need attention!

Baby is moving and growing. I feel more pregnant everyday. The most awesome thing about every day is feeling little baby kick around (he is currently making my belly look like a wiggling bowl of jello). I do not so much appreciate heartburn, backaches, and tiredness. I only have two-ish months left. That’s not a lot at all! 

I recently finished a book called To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Loveby Marsha Sinetar. It talks a lot about our vocations, and how we should make our work something we enjoy and fill fulfilled in. I love the practical approach to it–it didn’t say quit your job to immediately become an artist but that you can work toward things and take calculated risks. She talked about how we have a lifetime to do things in, and its really never too late. The book made me think about my own vocation, and what I wanted in life. I’ve changed from a student, to horticulture assistant, and soon to mommy. I hope to continue to keep and expand my knowledge of gardening and plants, and at a future date work in different areas of horticulture. But right now in my career, I want to mostly be a mom. The rest can wait a while. I would highly recommend the book to anyone.

My family took a fun vacation to Yellowstone this last week. I discovered that walking around all day and sitting in car aren’t as easy when I am 30 week pregnant (there’s only 10 weeks left!). It was tons of fun though. First time for Joe–he had no idea what to expect, but enjoyed it. We stayed in a cabin, and I really enjoyed being able to go home and sleep in a bed. Camping is fun, but I currently prefer sleep.

We did see a black bear, and she had two little cubs. That was awesome–but I think I really prefer wildflowers, waterfalls and such. They are just a lot more common than bears, and hence a lot less exciting.

We have moved. Both apartments are a mess, but all our stuff minus a few cleaning supplies are in the 100 east apartment, not the old 600 east apartment. The Internet is working in the new place, we have slept several night in our new bed, and cooked in the new kitchen. My family also came over to celebrate my sister and mines birthday (I am 21 now). The new apartment is large. Compared to a two room/studio I came from, this is huge. Two bedrooms, a kitchen and living room. That is two more full rooms then I am used to. Plus there is even a balcony.

I am tired. Although I must say the new bed is wonderful. We have been sleeping on an ancient, sinking double bed. It has been horrible. Now we have a new, firm queen. All we need to figure out is how to keep the room cool at night. I would think it would be easier now that we actually have air conditioning (just plug in units), but I have burned up the last couple nights. The old place was so easy. There were two windows (total) and we would put the fan in one to suck in air from the other. Now it is more complicated.

Back to being tired. I worked outside today, and rode my bike around, and did a little lab work. Little baby is not allowing me to work as much as I would like. So I am trying to cut back a little, but at the same time I want to get things done. I will learn to cut back so I am not dead tired after work . In the meantime I am grateful for naps, and husbands who willingly give back massages. Oh–I also have a tub now.

Here’s some pictures of the new place. I have yet to decorate completely, or clean. But writing blog posts and taking pictures is much easier. Cleaning can wait.

*Side note–blog has come up as a spelling error. That is very strange.

After we signed the contract I started noticing things wrong with the apartment. Nothing bad. There are hornets in our storage shed, but they seem pretty docile. There are no upper cabinets in the kitchen, but I have discovered that having a lot of drawers is better anyway. The ceiling fan stopped working. As we were sitting on the couch, I noticed it was slowing down for no reason. It hasn’t spun since. I am still in love with the apartment though–which is good because I am living here for the next year.

For all those who care, and because I do, here is my gear list for backpacking. I ended up with a pack under 15 pounds for an overnight trip. Not too bad.

So I started out with my sleeping gear, including a nylon hammock, lightweight sleeping bag, inflatable pillow, and foam pad. Here they are:

This gets into the bag by rolling the pad inside the main compartment, and placing the bag, hammock, and pillow inside the pad.

I put a water bladder and my rain jacket also in the main compartment. Food, emergency supplies, and other essentials like bug spray and a camera went in the outside pockets. I felt quite impressed with my packing job.

I just had the most amazing overnight trip! A while ago I decided I wanted to go backpacking this summer. Not a big deal, except for little junior growing in my stomach. I wasn’t quite sure if I was up for it. We almost went a month ago, but due to work, weather, and other interference we didn’t make it. I had planned this great hike to the top of Logan Peak. So it was rescheduled, tentatively to this weekend.

This weekend came. I’ve been feeling really good and staying active. But Joe had to work a ton this week (two 24 hour shifts in 72 hours), and there was rain in the forecast. My desire to go could not be deterred. I packed up all our gear while Joe was at work, and as soon as Joe came home we were off. Here’s the itinerary:

Friday 4:00-8:00 pm–Hike a little under four miles up dry canyon to the cut off to the syncline trail.

Pretty uneventful minus a little stinging nettle. I had planned on four hours to hike to the trail cut off, and it took exactly that. It was a little hot at the beginning, but quickly cooled down as we hiked into more shade. Joe ended up carrying my pack for about 100 yards at the very end. Otherwise I had it the entire time–and mine was about the same weight as Joe’s. Neither were very heavy (I have good packing skills).

8:00 pm – 7:00 am Saturday–Set up hammocks and sleep

So fireworks mixed with thunder are very loud. I am very happy to report that it hardly rained. I have yet to get our backpacking set-up all that waterproof, so rain could have ruined the night. I slept pretty well–hammocks are the way to go backpacking. No stick in your back.

7:00-9:30–Hike the remaining two miles to Logan Peak

This was an interesting portion of the trail. The trail started out quite normal, albeit steep, and gradually disappeared so that all it consisted of was a series of fluorescent tape markers. Glad those were there–it took us within several hundred feet of the peak where we bushwhacked to the top. We met four-wheelers on the top. Doesn’t feel secluded like you would like a six hour hike to be. But we made it!

9:30-1:00–Descent

Didn’t follow the trail back–just clamored down the mountain for the first bit. We met up with the trail after a bit of searching. Then we zipped the rest of the way down. Much easier than up. Although both ways my legs were not enjoying it.

I am happy to say I hiked 12 miles while 5 months pregnant. Wasn’t too different from normal–just took a few more breaks. But I’m not planning to do it again for a long while. This was the last hurrah before the baby comes. And kudos to Joe, who is once again at work and very sleep deprived, for taking me.

So I have been thinking lately about how I use my time. I think work and sleep take up the bulk of my time (especially sleep–I can never seem to get quite enough thanks to little baby). But in between is really the fun time. I wanted to do things when I had more time without school. And I’ve been lucky enought to actually start filling my time with fun things. I’ve made jam twice, I am learning how to sew better, I’ve gone hiking on several cool new trails (but can’t go as far as I used to thanks again to baby), invited neighbors over for dinner and games, learned more about cooking in a crock pot, made rhubarb pie, played my accordion, read several books, do yoga everyday (I can touch my toes on a good day!), gone fishing (but not caught a fish. bummer), worked on furnishing the new apartment (not that we know where we are moving), and spent some relaxing moments thinking.

Time is interesting, because it we always want more, but never quite use what we have the best. It’s so easy to get caught up in distraction and entertainment and never really do the things we want to do. I don’t think I will ever accomplish everything I want to do, and learn about everything I want to learn about. But I can do some of it a little every day.

Joe and I are having a little boy. That is why I have been calling baby a he while he moves around–I’m glad I don’t have to change my pronoun. All was healthy and well with him. He was all curled up–I’m impressed with how flexible he is. We almost didn’t get any good pictures of him, but he peeked out his nice little head for one. He looks like he has Joe’s nose–but maybe not too. He’s also been kicking around for some time so that I could feel him–Joe even has a couple of times. It’s really fun right now.