I bought a couple different kinds of juice at my last grocery trip on Saturday. When I got home I put one jug of apple juice in the fridge so it would be cold later. Later, when it was cold, I poured myself a drink. I drank the whole glass and thought to myself, “this apple juice tastes funny.” I even asked Mike if he noticed that the apple juice tasted a little funny. He hadn’t noticed. Then at dinner time I drank another glass and thought to myself, “boy, this apple juice tastes funny.” A few hours passed and I went to the fridge to get another glass of apple juice (I do love me some apple juice, even if it tastes funny) and it was no where to be found. In its place was a jug of white cranberry juice.

Hmm. I’m thinkin’ maybe it wasn’t apple juice I was drinking all day.

That spreadable butter you can keep in the fridge is nice, but I worry about what they had to do to it to make it spreadable. I buttered a plain, room-temperature piece of bread for lunch and noticed after a few minutes that the butter was melting. For no apparent reason. Just melted right there in front of my eyes. Admit it, you would have been worried too.

I know butter and margarine cannot – and should not – be compared, but what about comparing butter to butter? The following photo is of two different blocks of butter purchased at two different discount grocery chains. If you open the photo to see it close up you’ll notice they were both packaged at the same plant. I can’t remember what the price difference was, but if I could it would make this comparison a lot more interesting.

I am not the best cook. Neither is my husband. We can do okay in the kitchen and we know how to follow a recipe (I make fantastic chocolate chip cookies) but dinners have always been a struggle. Our biggest problem seems to be answering the question “What’s for dinner?”. As much as we love to eat, we can never come up with good ideas when the time comes. It doesn’t help that my appetite has been waning since I had the baby. It also doesn’t help that Mike and I have totally different tastes in food. He is your stereotypical “meat and potatoes” guy and I love fruit and vegetables and pasta. I guess it is true that opposites attract.

My sister suggested to me (she is a whiz in the kitchen, a culinary school graduate in fact) that we make a list of five meals we like and just keep eating those five things over and over. We can always throw in something different every once in awhile to mix it up. So here is the challenge: what five dinner meals would be easy to make, tasty, and include all of the necessary nutrition (protein, starch, and vegetable)? Keep in mind that I’m kind of picky in that I want to keep away from processed foods as much as possible. Fresh is best but when it comes to veggies I’ll accept frozen too. So, let’s here it. Any suggestions?

I was having a bad day yesterday but I mentioned there was still time for good to show up, and it did! I came home from work to find my fantastic husband preparing a feast of steak, salad, and potatoes. It was delicious and it was just what I needed!

Luke is not always a big eater. He eats a ton for breakfast, but not usually so much for lunch or dinner. Sometimes we bribe – I mean negotiate with – him in order to get him to eat more. The other day we were using potato chips to get him to eat more of his bratwurst. We told him, “if you eat another bite of your brat, you can get a chip.” And he replied, “No!! Beans!” He wanted to eat his green beans instead. So he ate not one, not two, but fourteen little green beans before he asked for the chip that had been offered to him.

I love this kid.

Today I ate a leftover bratwurst and half of a leftover cheese quesadilla for lunch. It was pretty decent. I think I’ll have a leftover brownie for dessert.

That is all I can think to blog about.

Seriously, what’s up with my blogging motivation? It has diminished down to zilch. I hope it’s not permanent. I hope it’s just a pregnancy thing. Cuz I used to really love blogging. Sometimes about silly things, sometimes about deep, thoughtful things. Now all I think about is being pregnant and having this baby. Which in itself is exciting, but not exactly for blogging. Because I’ve never wanted to be one of those “mommy bloggers”. I love reading those blogs but I never wanted to have one of my own. I like to keep some variety. And I guess I do still throw out my random silly thoughts to the internet, but I’ve been doing it on Facebook mostly. So maybe I’ll stop doing that and bring them back to the blog. If you don’t mind. I mean, isn’t it super interesting to read about my leftovers?

One of my favorite breakfast treats is vanilla yogurt with fresh fruit. Yesterday I had blueberries. Today, peaches. They are so sweet and juicy and divine. DOUBLE YUM. God created some of the most delicious foods, I don’t even know why we bother with candy!

I love BooMama. I don’t know her in real life or anything, but I read her blog faithfully and I swear the way she talks about food makes me feel like she could very possibly be a distant relative of mine. Because you know my family loves us some food. We love to eat food, make food, talk about food, have contests with food…

So if you can appreciate some good laid back food talk, head over to BooMama and read her latest post: The Night We Met the BoBerry. And if that makes you curious about her green sauce incident, you can find that over here. It made me laugh right out loud. Seriously.

Since I can’t think of anything else to blog about, I guess I’ll just do one of those “what I’m been up to” posts.

1) Working at my day job: I’m still enjoying it, still learning a lot, and it’s still feeding my family. Rock on!

2) Eating: I have no special cravings, and I can eat just about anything. Although I have been in the mood for a good steak most days. Must be the baby girl wants her protein. Which is good, because I’m told increasing protein in my diet can help prevent pre-eclampsia, which is what I had at the tail end of my pregnancy with Luke.

3) Researching childbirth: From what I’m reading, all signs point to “I can do this!”. I can’t really explain why this is such a strong conviction for me, to have a natural birth. I suppose this is my way of nesting. I’m not really into cleaning and decorating, but reading and researching is something I’m totally into. Yes, childbirth can be painful, but I have some experience dealing with pain and I am not afraid of it. It hadn’t occurred to me until today, but I believe the experience I had with my miscarriage has prepared me for this on some level. When I was feeling the contractions, as heart-wrenching as it was, it helped to know that there was a purpose for them. I’m not trying to be a superwoman or a martyr here, I just want to have a positive birth experience and be able to enjoy my baby without the effects of drugs and without the pain afterwards. Pain medication takes time to wear off, and surgery is hard to recover from. I don’t want to have to be dealing with those things this time.

 4) Waiting for my sister to go into labor: She’s due August 4th so it could be any day now! And when she starts those contractions, I’ll be getting a phone call so I can go down and support her and her husband for the birth. I’m super excited to be there and to meet my new niece. New babies are always fun. Especially when they’re cute, and my sister is known for making cute babies

That’s about it. I don’t do much else lately. Just enjoying the simple life and enjoying my family. We’re having a blast with Luke. He talks more and more every day. We’re starting to actually understand what he’s saying. He’s not fully potty trained yet but he is sleeping successfully in his big boy bed. And he’s just super cute all the time (even when he’s throwing fits) but we’re too busy enjoying the moments to remember to stop and take a picture. We’re terrible at that sort of thing. Oh well. Life is good.