I Am a Pole and So Can You

This afternoon I was watching the Colbert Report from last night and found out that the children's book that Stephen Colbert jokingly (I thought) said he wrote and was trying to get published is now going to be available on May 8th!  You can preorder it on amazon.com for $8.49.  It is now on my wishlist for my birthday and if I don't get it, I guess I'll just have to buy it...for Avery of course...since it's a children's book.

What I Learned: Stephen Colbert's children's book got published.

New Blogger.com Website

Apparently in the past two weeks (when I haven't posted any blogs on time), they changed the entire blog website. Everything looks completely different! I suppose this would come as just as much of a surprise if I had been doing things promptly as no matter what, one day it would all be changed. So the fact that I am finding this out now probably makes no difference.  Regardless, I am now learning how to use and access everything on this website all over again. Usually I wouldn't mind, but I am having a hard time finding enough time to just write a post, let alone learning how to find everything on a website again!

What I Learned: How to use/find everything on the new blogger website.

Aleutian Islands

Tonight I was doing a puzzle book and came across the clue "Aleutian Isle." All I knew about the possible answer was that it was four letters long and had two syllables.  All I knew about the Aleutian Islands is that they are by Alaska.  So of course I went to wikipedia to find out more.  Here are some interesting facts about the Aleutian Islands:

-The chain includes 14 volcanic islands and 55 smaller islands
-The islands extend about 1200 miles west from the Alaskan peninsula
-The islands have 57 volcanoes total
-The largest islands are Attu (which is the furthest from the mainland), Unalaska, Umnak and Akun.

Map of the Aleutian Islands

The answer to the question in the puzzle book was Attu.

What I learned: I learned about the Aleutian Islands.

Masada

After church today, we had our monthly meeting for the Grace Book Club.  I mentioned in a previous post that we read The Dovekeepers this month, which was an amazing book.  Angela came prepared, as always, with pictures on her tablet of Masada that included scale models of Herod's temple as well as actual photographs of what Masada looks like today.  Apparently there is a museum at the site that opened in 2007 and the author visited it and was able to be more accurate in her telling of the story since she was actually there and saw the ruins.  She was able to know exactly where the dovecote was in relation to other buildings for example.

In reading about Masada, I also found out this interesting fact:


"The Chief of Staff of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Moshe Dayan, initiated the practice of holding the swearing-in ceremony of soldiers who have completed their Tironut (IDF basic training) on top of Masada. The ceremony ends with the declaration: "Masada shall not fall again." The soldiers climb the Snake Path at night and are sworn in with torches lighting the background."

And lastly, I always thought that it was a confirmed fact that the Jews committed mass suicide to avoid being slaughtered by the Romans who had seiged Masada.  However, only 30 skeletons have been found at the site and there is no evidence of a mass burial.  This is odd since apparently there were 960 inhabitants at the time of the mass suicide.  I doubt that the Romans moved all the bodies off of Masada.  So it remains a mystery as to whether it was all a myth or did in fact happen.

What I Learned: It is not an historical fact that the Jews committed mass suicide at Masada.  Also, the Israeli Army uses Masada for their swearing-in ceremony.

Maternity Photo Shoot

Today I did a portfolio photo shoot for Sarah (with Fresh Frame Photography).  This basically meant that Sarah will use the photo shoot for her portfolio, so she got to try a few things to see how they turned out so she knows what works and what doesn't work for future photo shoots.  The photo shoot was really involved, with multiple locations and outfit changes.  The surprising part was that I really enjoyed it, despite it being 40 degrees outside and having to wear dresses, go barefoot, and lay on the beach, pretending it was summer.  I was shocked because I usually a)don't like getting my picture taken, b)feel really uncomfortable trying different things that I might possibly look weird doing or that passersby can plainly see.  I can honestly say that I mostly have Sarah to thank for making me feel really comfortable and relaxed but I also just think that being pregnant (and possibly just being older) makes me feel way less self-conscious about what other people think and I find that I really like that.  I hate to say it, but I used to be more self-conscious about things than I ever should have been and am glad to see that I am not like that anymore.  I guess I never really realized that I changed until I had to pose in front of a  camera and think summery thoughts instead of worrying about what the other people on the beach might be thinking about how crazy I was to lie on the beach!

What I learned: I am less self-conscious than I used to be, which allowed me to participate in an amazing photo shoot with wonderful results (thanks Sarah!).

Wasabi for Two

Tonight I went to game night at the Sonnenberg's which was wonderful because I feel like I haven't gone in over a month.  Unfortunately, it was just me, Karen and Gary, but we were able to play 4 games.  I didn't learn any new ones but the last game we played was Wasabi, one of my new favorites.  I have only ever played this game with three or four people but tonight, just Gary and I played it. I can't decide if I liked it with two players or not. On the one hand, it was way easier to complete all of your recipes without anyone messing you up or completely ruining your game plan. On the other hand, it almost seemed too easy to complete all your recipes because there was almost no challenge. It's not that I wouldn't play with two players again, but I think I prefer playing with a bit more of a challenge (or maybe Gary and I were just way too nice to each other!).  I won, so maybe playing with two isn't so bad!

What I Learned: Playing Wasabi with two players is not as fun or challenging as with three or four players. On the other hand, it is nice to play with two if you aren't in the mood to be frustrated at other players for screwing you up!

Dick Clark

I found out today that Dick Clark died yesterday.  The last time I "saw" him was on NYE with Ryan Seacrest and he didn't look very good then.  He died on April 18th of a massive heart attack that he suffered following a surgery to fix an enlarged prostrate. He was 82. I also learned that his real name was Richard Wagstaff Clark.  Obviously I assumed his real first name was Richard, but Wagstaff? What a weird middle name.

What I Learned: Dick Clark died.

VACATION!!!!

For the sake of time (and for fear of boring you), I will try to summarize this as quickly as possible.

Jared, Blake and my dad planned to go to Michigan on a fishing trip the first weekend of May to Jared's family's cabin. I wanted to come along with Avery initially but seeing as it will be two weeks from my due date and after the whole Georgia "vacation" debacle, I decided it would be more trouble than it was worth for me to go. My in-laws have been trying to convince me to come along so they can see me and Avery at the cabin while the men are fishing. Then today, Charmaine emailed me with some wonderful ideas and this is what was decided:

We are leaving on Thursday to drive to MI. I will be dropped off in Lansing at my best friend Mollie's house while Ken, Blake, Jared and Avery continue on to Flint. On Friday, they will all drive up to the cabin while I stay at Mollie's. On Sunday morning, Mollie, Matt, Lucy and I will head up to the cabin to join everyone else and stay until Monday evening. Then Mollie's family will head back to Lansing and we will head back to Flint, eventually heading for home on Tuesday. This means that a)I get to see Mollie, b)I get two days to RELAX FOR REAL while Avery is up at the cabin with everyone else and c)I still get to go to the cabin (because I do really like going).

The only bad thing is that I have never been away from Avery that long and hope that he is okay (and that I'm okay!) with being away from me for two days. But, if I'm ever going to take a break (and the clock's ticking so I don't have much time left before baby #2 arrives and I will be without a break for awhile again), what better situation to leave him in than in the care of three of his grandparents, both of his godparents and his father at a cabin, especially when Avery's favorite thing on earth right now is to play outside?

Thanks Charmaine for thinking of such a wonderful idea :)

What I Learned: Avery and I are going to go to MI after all and I will get a real break for two days!

Bug Killer

Today while I was at work, Jared sprayed the entire house inside and outside with the bug spray stuff we bought since we can't afford real pest control. :(  In the past four days alone, there have been 9 centipedes and 4 spiders in our stairwell and kitchen.  Today, I saw none.  I hope to God that this spray works as it was only $5 for the entire bottle and it was enough for the entire house.  I am so tired of seeing gross centipedes in my house and it's only been three days.  It seems like it's working so far...

What I Learned: In spending $5.00 on bug spray, there seems to be a significant decrease in centipede activity in our house already.

Blood Meal

This morning I met with my friend Sarah to make plans for our garden this year.  Sarah loves to garden but has no place to do it as she lives in a condo on the Eastside.  I however have a garden and am an amateur and need some help...so we are doing it together this year and I am so excited to see how much better the results are.  While we were talking, Sarah asked if we used anything to fertilize the garden and I told her that we didn't buy fertilizer but that we kind of have been using it as a compost area, so that should help (for example, Jared puts his spent grains from brewing in the garden).  She suggested that we use blood meal as it's really good for the soil.  I've never heard of this so I asked her what it was and she said that it was dried blood.  Literally, you buy a bag of dried blood (in powdery form) and put it in your garden. Gross!  I mean, I looked it up and it's totally legit and real and Sarah said that her mom uses it and her mom is an avid gardener, so I trust her; it just seems like the last thing I would think of to put in my garden.  But we are going to do it!

What I Learned: People use dried blood, popularly known as blood meal, to fertilizer their gardens.

Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Today, the choir that I am in, the Lutheran Acappella Choir of Milwaukee, sang at the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel at the University of Chicago for their Sunday service.  The experience was really wonderful as I had never sung in a venue of that size and stature before.  However, the service itself was quite weird.  While the church is technically an Episcopal church, the church has an interreligious center and prides itself on its openness to all religions.  While that in and of itself is perfectly fine and wonderful, it doesn't really make sense that the church is Episcopal as it really seemed to mean nothing.  Besides that, the guest "preacher" was a theology professor at the college who basically just read his dissertation about Christian witnessing, or more appropriately, what he called Christian witnessing.  It was so hard to follow and was very scholarly and had no place as a sermon in a church service.  If anyone had come to that church to learn about Christianity, they would never come back.  To make the service even more weird, the service followed a very traditional layout with liturgy, scripture readings and hymns.  It was an odd mix of a very traditional Christian service with a much more secular sermon (if you can call it that) and communion practices.

Despite the oddities of the church service, we had a really good time and I really enjoyed walking around the church with Jared and noting all the cool architectural features and engravings.  The church was the size of cathedrals in Europe, so of course I loved it!

What I Learned: While the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel says it is an Episcopal Church, it only is so in name.

Gary's Gallop

This morning, Afton, Neal and Blake all ran in Gary's Gallop, which is an annual 5k race held at Greenfield Park.  Now I don't remember the exact numbers, but Neal and Blake finished 4th and 5th I think (don't know which one was which).  Afton, who to my knowledge has never run a race before, finished in the middle of the pack.  I am so jealous of the fitness of my siblings!  Go Millers!

I, on the other hand, will never be able to physically run a 5k (due to actual medical issues with my lungs where I can't run more than 20 feet without feeling like I'm going to die).  At least I was athletic in high school, right...?

What I Learned: My siblings did very well at Gary's Gallop.

Pest Control

Today, I saw the first centipede (of probably MANY more to come) in the house.  Last year, we had them   all summer along with these blond spiders in our kitchen.  I keep my house so ridiculously clean, but apparently that doesn't matter and they still are crawling around on my walls!  For some reason, I just assumed that pest control didn't cover centipedes and spiders as I always thought of them as covering ants, roaches and bees (which is what people use them for in Georgia).  I decided to call a few places just to see what was covered and to find out how much it cost.  Turns out that all pest control places (the four I called at least) cover centipedes and spiders!  On top of that, it was a lot cheaper than I thought to get them to come out year round to spray your house.  The cheapest I found was $378 for the entire year.  This company would come every quarter to spray but if you had a problem in between treatments, they would come out and treat again.  I was so excited about this and just thought that of course we would get this because why would we live with centipedes in our house when we could get rid of them?

Apparently, I forgot that money doesn't grow on trees, and when you live on a tight budget with no disposable income, coming up with $378 is literally impossible.  So alas, we are not getting pest control.  However, I am bound and determined to find a way to get rid of these damned centipedes!

What I Learned: Pest control can get rid of centipedes...if you can afford it.

Ichabod

As I was reading my daily Bible reading tonight in 1 Samuel, I discovered that there is someone in the Bible named Ichabod.  I had no idea that Ichabod was a Biblical name.  Did you?

1 Samuel 4:21- She named the boy Ichabod,^[b] saying, “The Glory has departed from Israel”—because of the capture of the ark of God and the deaths of her father-in-law and her husband.

To read it in context, click here.

What I Learned: Ichabod is a Biblical name.

Jeans

Today my dad babysat Avery for a few hours at my house and when I got home, Ken was watching this show about how jeans were made.  Now this is one of those things that I have never sat down to think about how they are actually made, so of course I was intrigued.  Without recapping the entire hour-long show, I will give you a few highlights.

-At this one factory in Mexico, they make 400,000 pairs of jeans a day.
-They dye the thread yellow first because the blue dye doesn't stay as well; something about dying the thread yellow first helps the blue dye hold, although as most of us know, new jeans still bleed blue a little because it is really hard for the blue dye to stay on cotton.
-For every three blue threads, there is one white thread

There was a lot of information on the show and it really made me want to watch more of this show.  Fortunately, I can't even remember the channel or the name of the show, which is good because I have too many things to watch anyway.

What I Learned: How jeans are made.

My smart cousin

Tonight I had practice for LAC and remembered that this coming Sunday is when we are going to Chicago to sing at the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago for their Sunday morning worship service. When I first found out about this performance, I called my cousin Laura who goes to school there to see if she could come for the service. She didn't know at the time if she would be able to come because it was a few months in advance. Well I just remembered that I hadn't talked to her about it since, and now it's in a few days! So I called her on the way home from choir and found out that of course, her department is having a conference this weekend that she's presenting at and won't be around at all :( It's funny that we finally are making it down to Chicago and of course Laura is busy being smart and awesome :) Oh well. Now we just have another reason to go to Chicago this summer to visit her!

What I Learned: Laura can't come to my choir performance on Sunday because she's presenting at a conference for her department.

Yogee

Today, Blake played "yogee" in Words with Friends. As I did a few days ago, I looked up this "word" in the dictionary but it wasn't in there! So I asked Blake what it meant and he said it was in the urban dictionary and he thinks its a term for a white guy who raps. According to urbandictionary.com, the definition of yogee is: "White kids who act like they are black gangster rappers. Less offense form of wigger." Hahaha. I guess I need to start using the urban dictionary or more slang words in Words with Friends...either that or Blake can start using real words!


My next question is, how on earth does Blake know that term?


What I Learned: I learned what "yogee" means, as well as the fact that Blake apparently has a wide vocabulary of slang words that are accepted in Words with Friends.

Fried Turkey

Happy Easter!

Today, everyone came over to our house for Easter. Ken recently purchased a turkey fryer for the dual purpose of frying turkeys and using the equipment for brewing with Jared. He decided to fry his first turkey for Easter. So he got an 18 pound turkey. The oil took about an hour to heat up to the right temperature, but once the oil was heated up, the turkey only took one hour to cook! Amazing. On top of that, we used the oil afterwards to fry potatoes to make some homemade fries. Hmmm.  The turkey was really good, especially all the really crispy bits. Next time though, Ken's going to try to put a rub on the turkey for added flavor, and we need to cook the potatoes for longer (we were hungry and got tired of waiting). I can't wait!

What I Learned: It only takes one hour to fry a turkey.

Fer

Today in Words with Friends, Blake played the word "fer." I had never heard of this word before and was wondering what it meant, so I looked it up, only to find out that it's just the slang/informal term for "for." What?! Here I thought Blake was using a word I didn't know and lo and behold, it's just another word that's been added to the dictionary due to improper pronunciation by enough people. Lame.

What I Learned: "Fer" is apparently an accepted form of the word "for" now.

Cantaloupe

I looked ahead on babycenter to see what my baby weighs now (since technically every Friday is when I start a new week of my pregnancy; they just send you the email the following monday). It said that the baby at 34 weeks weighs about 4.75 pounds, about the weight of a cantaloupe. Now I never would have thought that a cantaloupe weighed more, almost a pound more on average, than a pineapple. But sure enough, I picked up a cantaloupe and it does weigh more than a pineapple, I guess because it is more dense. It's just not something I ever would have guessed.

What I Learned: A cantaloupe weighs more than a pineapple.

Continuous Distribution

Today at the Maundy Thursday service at Grace, they did continuous distribution for Holy Communion. I found this rather strange seeing as to me, continuous distribution takes away some of the significance of communion in the first place, and then they decide to do this on the one day of the church year where we are celebrating the institution of the Lord's Supper? And it's not like there were way more people there than on Sunday and they needed to get through everyone quickly. I just don't understand why they would use this practice at all. I really didn't like it and am glad that they only use this method of distribution during the early service at Grace. Let's hope it stays that way.

What I Learned: I do not like continuous distribution for Holy Communion.

Ugly Name List

Back in 2009, before I was even pregnant, my mom sent me an email with a list of all the names she doesn't like, you know, just so I knew. So today, Jared and I were going over our name list and I have a folder with lists of names in it that we made when I was pregnant with Avery. In the same folder, I put mom's list. I was looking over it again since I haven't looked at it since 2009 and I noticed that Avery was on the list! Oh no! Sorry mom, I didn't consult the list first :) I brought this up to her and she said (which she told me before, but I didn't realize it was on her all-time ugly name list because of this) that she just associated the name with this comedian named Avery Schreiber that she found annoying. But as soon as we named her first grandchild Avery, the association moved to thinking of our Avery instead and she likes the name now. This just proves that maybe I should use the list to name all of my children in order to move some good names off of that list!

What I Learned: Mom used to think Avery was an ugly name.

33-Week Appointment

Today I had my 33-week appointment with my midwife. I found out that based on my last ultrasound, the baby is in the 46th percentile for growth. I also found out that I've gained 21 pounds total this pregnancy, which is a little ahead of the pace I gained with Avery, but I also started out about 15 pounds lighter this time around, so I guess I needed to put on a little bit more weight for the fat and water :) The appointment went well and I continue to have a normal and boring pregnancy. Yay!

What I Learned: Baby #2 is growing just as he/she should; I've gained 21 pounds so far.

I'm carrying a pineapple

According to my babycenter.com email today, my baby weighs about 4 pounds and is 17 inches long. The baby weighs about as much as a pineapple. Yikes! I looked ahead to see what the last one was, and at 40 weeks, I will be carrying a small pumpkin. Geez. When you look at it like that, it seems so much heavier! And, that's not including all the other extra weight you carry due to a significant increase in blood, the placenta, your giant uterus, etc.

What I Learned: The baby weighs the same as a pineapple.

Mandrake

For book club this month, we are reading The Dovekeepers. I am really enjoying this book. Today, I read a part that talked about the mandrake plant and its supposed magical properties. Now, I have heard of the mandrake plant thanks to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, but I guess I just assumed that the mandrake was a made-up plant for the book. With J.K. Rowling, it's so hard to tell what's real and what's made up because all of it seems so real! Anyway, the mandrake is a real plant. I kind of feel stupid that I never knew this before. Interestingly enough, J.K. Rowling got the idea about mandrakes screaming and their magical properties from actual legend and magic books. In The Dovekeepers, it is used in a magical ritual as well.

So the mandrake, or mandragora (as Hermione points out), is real and poisonous and the root actually does resemble a small human (hence the myths surrounding the plant). The mandrake is also in the Bible in two places although it looks like there is some speculation about the translation of this and it could possibly really be ginseng since ginseng is known to help with fertility and the plant is mentioned in the story of Rachel and Leah when Rachel is trying to conceive with Jacob.

What I Learned: The mandrake is a real plant.