to market, to market to buy a fat pig

some days i love the market at haymarket. fridays specifically. saturday mornings are a madhouse, not to mention, the produce has been ravaged by god knows what on friday night. right? can all those fruits and veggies sit out overnight with a blue tarp tied over them and not have rats munching on them? i really don't know but it freaks me out. although, we have gone on many a saturday morning and lived to tell the tale.

anyway, it is the best simply because i just bought 9 enormous red peppers for $3. if you are good, then you can load up weekly for practically nothing. we used to be really good at this. we'd get up at the crack of dawn on saturday morning - see, i told you we did it - and we'd wheel our little granny cart down there and fill it. then we'd get back here and have a little food processing factory. the key to the market is to do whatever it is your planning to do with your goods immediately because the stuff doesn't last very long. i used to make fruit smoothies after running - running, HA! imagine that! - so we'd clean containers of blueberries and raspberries, dry them off and package them into single serving ziplock baggies and load up the fridge.

now i pretty much only have it in me to roast peppers. so i get what seems to be an insane amount of red peppers and roast them up. not that impressive but i'm feeling pretty good that i got motivated enough to brave the masses. now i need a nap.

i forgot to mention that the WORST time to go near the market is saturday night and sunday morning when they are bulldozing the rotted crap into piles of the smelliest sludge you've ever seen. the ground is coated with a slick layer of this crap so you have to be very careful when walking through. i have never walked through on this slippery slime and not had the very vivid and detailed image of slipping and falling and then just laying there too paralyzed to move. its one of those things that i am certain will happen to me someday. it terrifies me.

has spring sprung?

i really want to know. can i really get excited about being warm? i think i can but i'm really not in the mood for another thirty-something degree spirit breaking day at this point. i am cautiously optomistic. what is that from anyway? cautiously optomistic. i can't remember but i know i didn't come up with it.

anyway, today bridgie badooga and i went out for a nice long walk and touched flowers and dogs and a whole lot of dirt. we ended the walk with a cupcake for moi at the new north end magnolia bakery rip off. i don't mean rip off in a bad way because i really love the fact that a cupcake with an overdose of buttercream frosting is within 3 minutes walking distance, its just not quite as good. their cupcake is like a magnolia cupcake on day #3. and i know that they are using the magnolia bakery cookbook so what gives?

the first time i went in i asked them if they were somehow affiliated with the nyc bakery because i saw that they had red velvet cake on the menu and one of the owners said - no way. and then he told me that there was a scandal down there when a disgruntled employee let it leak that they used shortening - gasp! - in their recipes, but not to worry, they don't use it up here. just butter and good old fashioned ingredients. i'm really not thinking of my health when i'm eating these cupcakes. i'm thinking, how many of these can i eat before i actually throw up?

i say - go get youself some shortening and i will justify coming here every day for some moist sugary love. trust me, i will.

bridget 2 mommy NOTHING

i have begun to realize that i am losing the battle of wills with bridget. i am hoping that i just feel a little tired and worn down because of the baby in my belly - and that will be all gone in 7 weeks after the baby is born so no worries. HA!

she just kicked my ass in the bedtime wars and got me in there twice. the first time was legit - i think. she started crying her "i'm hurt" cry so i ran in to find her leg stuck between the bars of her crib. i come to the rescue and give her some hugs and kisses and go back to my post here at the desk outside her room. btw - we are still doing this ridiculous bit where we put her to bed and sit outside her room, ignoring her endless pleas for attention that range from laughing to crying to saying hi one thousand times to god knows what else, just so that she knows that we are "here."

so anyway, now i am watching her out of the corner of my eye manuevering her leg out through the bars on purpose so that she can start yelping to get me in there. but i'm hip to her jive and i'm not biting. i will win this round. she is resilient though. more resilient than her mother it seems. the whining and whimpering continue until i decide that she may actually be stuck again since her leg is out up to her kneecap at this point. in i go, to an instant smile. she's so pleased with herself that she can't even hide her happiness. and she is so cute that i can't take playing it tough and give her five thousand hugs and kisses as her reward.

i need to start watching the super nanny again.

evil museum

word to the wise. don't bring your kid to the children's museum a few days before a big weekend. it was a rookie mistake, i know this. bridget was full of snot and poo - literally and figuratively - for her cousin's baptism. either that or she really has a problem with christenings in general and is making her feelings on the catholic church known at the ripe old age of 1.5. anyway, i've learned my lesson, we are NEVER going to a children's museum again. learning and fun be damned. not really, but i will make damn sure that there will be nothing going on in the near future when we do go again.

so, the christening was very nice. i am a godmother! luckily for my sister - and the guests - miss agnes was the anti-bridget during her catholic debut. she was the perfect little angel. she is so freaking cute.

as luck would have it, miss b is back to her happy and healthy self today. i am going to sneak into her room now and eat her up!

museum

today we went to the children's museum with stacey, olivia and lola and i for one am exhausted. bridget loved it and ran around for hours. we didn't even cover half of the place so we will have to be going back to check it all out. hopefully with michael. although that would most likely require a weekend visit and i just don't think i'm ready for that just yet. miss b is too prone to running off on a whim to add hundreds of kids to the mix.

i was pretty proud though. the first thing she saw, ran over to and climbed on was an old vespa. that's my kid. :)

i think you'll find i start to stink after 3 days

did you know that my brother had dinner with whit stillman on friday night? its true. i can't even believe it. his boss is friends with whit, who was in town, and knows that my brother is a big fan, so she invited them both over for dinner. LA is such a weird place. somehow these things can come together and it seems normal that whit stillman is picking up indian takeout for you, your boss and her husband and giving you relationship advice.

on another note, what is the story with the TV guide channel? i usually am so completely entranced by their little snippets that i miss the beginning of the scrolling channels. i realize that those of you with digital cable - that could very well be all of you - have no idea what i am talking about. anyway, i'm just there to find out what is on, not to be entertained. or distracted. trust me, its annoying. and embarassing.

the devil's food

i have finally figured out the problem with ben and jerry's - the problem to the consumer that is. literally. it took pints of research but i've finally figured it out. they have managed to perfect the amount of - in my case - heath bar per pint in addition to having figured out how to distribute the heath bar perfectly throughout so that you always are confronted with an irresistable chunk at every level. this makes it impossible to stop before eating an entire pint. i've tried. its just not fair. in fact, i need to go and get some now just thinking about it.

a special thanks to stop and shop for their ben and jerry's $2.50/pint sale.

happy st patrick's day

top o' the mornin' to ya

mama mia!

so i finally went to the playtime in the north end with miss b after music class today and met lots of other mothers. there are a lot of them in the north end. and they weren't "north enders" either, just normal chicks like me. i'm glad i went. bridget had fun running around this enormous gym and playing with all sorts of new toys. and i got to chit chat.

i found out that they have this every tuesday through thursday; then on mondays and fridays they have arts and crafts. who knew the nazzaro center was so great? not me. i can't believe i missed a year and a half - well, lets just call it a year - and there was something to do with other kids every day all along! oops, i guess i should have been a little more proactive.

AND they have an adult volleyball league every tuesday. i'll have to tell michael about it - although, he's still grendel's bound at this point on tuesdays. not for long though...

now can you remove the babies jacket also?

as you can see, we survived a week in chicago - and more importantly, the flights to and from chicago. bridget was so perfectly good that i couldn't have asked for anything more. i think that she somehow knew that i was at my breaking point and even the slightest protest from her would have brought me to tears. okay, that's a bit dramatic. it really wasn't bad at all. it was very tiring though.

i am normally really efficient at the check-in/security process and it just isn't possible to be efficient with a 17 month old - or more specifically, with a stroller and a car seat, one pair of hands and a curious 17 month old. when she started crawling for the conveyor belt everyone got a little panicked. i figured it might be the quickest way through but reigned her in anyway. oh yeah, and that basketball in the belly bit again.

i can't begin to tell you how many comments i got on the homemade carseat backpack. people LOVED it. if the pacbak (sp?) didn't exist, i'd be all over it. although that guy needs to get his product into babies r'us or some retail locations. no one has seen it or heard of it and i'm sure its easier to load and unload than the one that we fashioned. i highly recommend it though, they aren't at all heavy or cumbersome when attached to your back.

okay, that's it. dinner is ready. i'm over what was ailing me yesterday - it could have been the 3 hour nap i took today. unheard of.

happy birthday husband!

we are back. i am too tired to tell you about chicago and the suburbs because i slept for about a total of 3 hours last night due to the fact that i was nauseous - how could you do it to me casa romero? - only to get out of bed at 8 AM for a pukefest. trust me when i tell you that barfing profusely for 15 minutes sucks when you have a larger than standard sized basketball under your skin.

but but but, i pulled it together for a few hours and went to a baby shower and a christening. this is why i have no guilt about my mini blog. what i do have guilt about is that today is michael's birthday - and what a crappy day for him. i am officially moving his birthday to next weekend to make up for this though.

hit and run

i fell off the wagon again. and i'm actually only back for today because tomorrow i leave for western mass and then chicago. i spent last week out at my parent's house with my very cute niece and sister while michael was out in st louis for work. it was very nice to have a playmate while my usual playmate was away. not to mention, bridget got to try out her big sister chops on her cousin. she was pretty good at it and full of kisses - neverending kisses actually - for miss agnes. although it was just as stressful making sure that she wasn't cutting off her oxygen while smothering her with these kisses as it would have been if she were beating on her. she sure does love her though.

so here i am squeezing in a blog for you before i start to pack for the week in chicago. i am very excited to go and check out the towns that we are interested in. i'm wondering if i'll be able to resist seeing a few houses while i'm there. it will be just bridget and i since michael will be working so it might not be as fun. we'll see if i give into temptation.

since michael is going for work and we are going because southwest had ridiculously cheap fares ($50 each way!), we are flying separately and i have bridget alone. 7.5 months pregnant to boot. i'd be lying if i said i wasn't nervous. i threw my back out earlier this week and its better, but i will be toting a 17 month old, a stroller, a carseat and a backpack. michael is taking all of the clothes for us, so i have no suitcase to deal with but still. the carseat is stressful. we bought a new one today for the trip. it goes up to 100 pounds so its the last one we will need to buy. i dug up this old backpack i've had for years and i'm planning on rigging the carseat to the back of it. finally it will get some use since i never became that sort of hardcore hiker or annoying college kid touring through europe after graduating (yes, i'm jealous.) if that doesn't work out then i'm going to try and be one of those people on the golf cart hitching a ride to the gate. i'll let you know how it turns out. in a week or so.