Photos Galore!

Here are some pictures from Lily's birthday party. I made a strawberry cake with cream cheese frosting. It was also like 90*F and ten thousand percent humidity. And raining. So the cake itself ended up pretty sad looking. But I like the chunky chocolate butterflies. They're just perfect for a little kid cake. 

And here are some pictures from forever ago for some perspective. This was taken on the day we moved out of our house in Tucson, exactly one year ago. Lily is 6 weeks old. 

Here she is about 4 months old. 

And 5 months. 

This might be one of my favorite pictures ever. She's about 9 months old here. 

She's still on the small end for her age, but it's nothing compared to how tiny she was when she was first born. Even until just a couple of months ago she was pretty scrawny. Now that she eats enough food to feed a small cow she's finally getting some chub. So there are some pictures. Finally. 

One year old! (Belatedly)

So I'm finally getting around the "Lily turns one year old" post. I'm only five weeks late...


Lily is one year old. I can't believe it. It feels like she's been around forever and just arrived all at the same time. I feel like a whole new person and still the same person. I still don't feel like a 'mom'. I don't really know how to describe it. When I think of moms, I think of patience and understanding and unconditional love. I still feel like I come up short. But whatever. This has been an amazing year and I'm excited to see what's still coming. 


Lily is about 20 pounds and 30 inches tall. She crawls all over everything, climbs up on everything, shuffles along the furniture and is taking steps all on her own. She made it all the way from the living room through the dining room this afternoon. It's not quite consistent enough to truly call it 'walking' but we're close. She is super silly and loves to laugh. She doesn't have any single favorite toy buy loves anything you can pick up and shake. Or hit something with. She's still the cutest baby on the planet but is starting to look more and more like a little kid every day. 


Joe took this video today. I like how she doesn't give up and just keeps coming. 

We had a small gathering at the Morton Arboretum on her actual birthday. I made a cake, of course. Compared to the cakes I work on now it looks like it was made by a monkey. So it turns out that I don't have any pictures from her birthday celebration on my phone. I'll have to get them from my mom's camera tomorrow and upload them later. All I have is this one picture I shared on facebook earlier. 

And here are some random photos from a trip to the Field Museum a couple of weeks ago. In the Crowne Family Play Lab they have all these little costumes you can dress up in. Lily picked the skunk. She also loved the music room where they have all these different instruments from around the world that you can play. The elephant bells were her favorite. 

I feel like I should write something profound and amazing that Lily can read one day when she's older. I don't really know what else to say other than I love you and I'm so glad you're a part of my life. Happy birthday Lily Sofia!

9 weeks to go

So it's been a long time since I wrote a fitness post. I don't even know what week I'm on anymore. All I do know is there are only 9 weeks left until the Monster Dash Half Marathon that I registered for way back when. I've been doing pretty good over the last couple of weeks. I went for a 5 mile run yesterday. It took me about an hour, but that included a quick pit stop at mile 3. I've been hovering right around 161 lbs for the last couple of weeks. My original goal was to be under 150 lbs by race day. I think it's still possible, I just need to be better about what I eat. I always have an excuse for what I eat. When it's too hot I don't want to cook so we eat crap. Now that it's a tolerable temperature in the kitchen with the oven on I cook cheesy delicious rich things and eat way too much of them. Oh well. I'm still getting smaller and fitting into more of my old clothes so I'm not too concerned about the actual number the scale says. What I really need to do is start some strength training again. My arms are so weak and I keep thinking about how much easier it would be to run if my core were stronger but I never do anything about it. I broke our set of weights at home a few months back and they're really expensive to replace. They're just hunks of metal, why do they cost so much? I just need to suck it up and do some good old fashioned calisthenics. I'll get back to posting weekly updates on this, but from now on the weekly count will go down to race day. Happy training!

It's done.

After much agonizing I decided to stay with the part-time cake decorator position and decline the full-time museum position. This was probably the hardest decision I've ever had to make, but I'm convinced I made the right one. 


I got lots of great insight from friends everywhere. But the thing that really helped me decide was yesterday at church a teenaged girl got up and was talking about a mission trip she went on over the summer. She quoted a passage from Matthew that was read at our wedding:


Matthew 6:25-34
²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?
   ²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? ³¹ So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’³² For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.


It's been a long time since I thought about that passage. It occurred to me that I was being influenced by what could be, what might be, what may be and not what actually was. Being a part-time cake decorator right now is absolutely perfect. Working full-time for the museum had a bunch of different possibilities, none of which were a sure thing other than I would be spending less time with Lily and Joe. It's the kind of job that would require a huge emotional investment, and I would feel guilty about not giving it 100% and I would feel guilty about not being with family. That's just too much guilt for me to handle. 


Also, I can still volunteer at the museum. That's basically how I got the job offer anyway. Volunteering allows me to work more closely with high school students than the job would have, I get to do it once a week, it lets Joe and Lily have daddy-daughter-dates, and I'm still doing something worth while. Working part-time and volunteering offers me the best of both worlds. 


So there you have it. After sending my email declining the position I went for a 4-mile run along the lake with Lily in the jogging stroller. The sun was shining, there was a cool lake breeze, Lily napped the whole way, and I didn't have to stop to walk even once. Now Lily's taking another nap and I get to blog and watch Days of Our Lives. This is definitely the right choice.

Too Much of a Good Thing

So, remember when I said I had two job interviews a while back? Well, now I have two job offers. And I'm going through a major identity crises/anxiety attack because of it. I am completely aware of how blessed I am to be given these two opportunities. In this economy I feel lucky to have even gotten interviews. Only now I feel like I have to make the choice between family and career that so many parents must make. So let the whining commence...


Job 1: Part-time cake decorator. 
Pros - part-time, fun, creative, Lily gets to spend time with grandparents, great hours
Cons - not very lucrative


Job 2: Full-time science education coordinator at a place that rhymes with Schmuseum of Schmience and Schmindustry.
Pros - big $$, prestigious, opens many doors for future jobs
Cons - full-time, stressful, evening/weekend hours, we would have to find other child care


These lists are greatly simplifying my thoughts about the two positions. The cake decorator job is the perfect cake decorator job but by not taking the other job I feel like I'm giving up on my future as a science educator/advocate. A big part of me still wants to be involved with science education and I'm worried that the longer I don't do it the less likely I am to be able to do it again. The Schmuseum job is not the perfect museum job but could lead to me getting the perfect museum job. It would give us the financial freedom to get things going on our long term family plans (move to the 'burbs, buy a house, start putting down permanent roots). It would take some of the pressure off Joe to get a job right out of law school, but it would put more pressure on us as a family unit. This next year Joe will be busier with school and we'd have to figure out something fairly flexible for child care for Lily. And I know that I am not much fun when I am too stressed out about work. We're fortunate in that financial matters are not the primary motivator for me going back to work. That would make the choice much easier. 


I'm really conflicted about all of this. Do I pick the job that allows us to have an awesome family life at the possible peril of a possible future career in science education? Or do I pick the job that allows us to start a more financially stable/permanent life but means less time together as a family? Anyone have any advice? I'd love to hear it. 

Cake-tern!

I got a position as an intern at a bakery! For the next two weeks or so I'll be there twice a week decorating real wedding cakes. Then after that I should be hired! The part-time position will most likely be three days a week. Here are a couple of pictures of the first couple of cakes I completed. Talk about trial by fire, my first day I did two wedding cakes, one 4-tier and one 3-tier. The second day I did two 3-tier wedding cakes. This bakery mostly does traditional buttercream, with some fondant decorations. Thankfully they purchase their royal icing roses, or it would take me three days to finish one cake. 

More than anything I'm really excited to work on my piping skills. I've already learned to ice a cake freakishly smooth. This is so much fun!

I'm so ready to be going back to work. For the past month or so I've been in kind of a funk. Maybe it was the heat, but I was really unhappy. I was getting so frustrated with Lily and she wasn't even doing anything that different. I was beginning to feel really trapped. So I started applying places. I've had a couple of interviews with a nearby museum, and maybe that will still eventually pan out. For now though, I'm having lots of fun as a cake-tern. I had a bit of a breakdown before my first day and I had to call Joe for reassurance that I really want to do this. 

This is all possible due to our very generous parents. My mom and Joe's parents are kindly taking turns watching Lily so I can go play with cake. I'm also in the market for affordable child-care as I know they can't do this forever. I'm really interested in a home daycare, or even just a stay-at-home parent who could take Lily part-time. I don't think I could take her to a big day care center. I have no experience in this area, so any and all suggestions are welcome. 

I'm really happy that it's just a few days a week, during regular business hours, and no weekends. It's just enough time to feel like I have my own thing and I don''t feel like I'm abandoning my child to be raised by other people. The people at the bakery are really nice. I like that this job doesn't involve dealing with other people all day. You get your assignment and you just kind of go at it. There is some chatting with the other decorators, but it takes a lot of focus to do things right so not too much. Mostly we just listen to the static-y radio and decorate away. I find it very relaxing. I'm naturally a huge introvert in that I really get energized/refreshed from spending time alone. When Joe was in the National Guard, I really appreciated having one whole weekend a month completely alone. When I was pregnant a wise co-worker warned me about not being able to be alone once you have kids. I just sort of nodded and figured I would find a way to sneak off every once in a while and just sit quietly. Well, in a whole year that hasn't really happened. So it's really nice to just focus on one thing, think about whatever I want, hum along with the radio, and not have to touch anyone. 

Distance makes the heart grow fonder is a truer statement than I ever believed. Today, my first day off (in two whole days!), was wonderful. Lily was extra clingy, but I expected that. More importantly, I fell in love with her again. Not that I ever stopped loving her, it was just rough for a while. Today we appreciated each other's company and are friends again. And I'm much nicer to Joe, now. He is amazing and has never complained about my being a horrible crank over the past month, but I know I have been. I like having something that's only mine. I've been kind of jealous as Joe goes off each morning to school or to his summer position. I've missed doing something. I think this whole part-time work thing is good for all of us. 

Garden Bounty

Our garden has been growing like crazy! We literally have tomato trees. Our little raised bed garden in Arizona never looked like this. It's crazy. Here's a picture of Lily checking out our harvest one day when we got back from the garden. She thought it would be fun to smash the tomatoes together. 

Here is a delicious meal I made with all vegetables from our garden, and the meat came from Mint Creek Farm where we are part of their meat CSA program. I made beef kebabs with sauteed chard and onions. The chard tasted better than it looked. 

I've been getting down to the garden about twice a week, and this is a good picture of our typical harvest. At least one zucchini, one green pepper (we might be done with those now, they've been lost in the tomato forrest), a bunch of carrots, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and one or two roma tomatoes. Our roma tomato plant has so many on it that it bent the cage and I'm going to have to stake it up this weekend. We have three Big Boy tomoato plants as well, and there are tons of huge tomatoes on it but none are ripe yet. I think we might be making a lot of sauce!

On a sad garden note, I'm pretty sure we have aphids on the zucchini plants. I'm going to prune them a bit tomorrow, but I'm worried about them spreading to the tomato plants. I bought some organic soap spray stuff, but I'm kind of afraid to use it. Does anyone have any experience getting rid of aphids? They're so gross.