Favorite Holiday Dish

Definitely Monkey bread! YUMMY!! My Mom makes it every year on Christmas morning. It's like a cinnamon pull apart, but it has butterscotch on it as well. It is so yummy. I think it's the only time of year that she makes it. I'm looking forward to Christmas morning this year, just for that. Could be that I'm starting to have cravings!

Stress and worry

As most of you know, when I was 16 I had open heart surgery to repair 3 holes in my heart. The last time I was checked I was 19 at that point the murmur that I had before the surgery (since I was 19 mons. old) was gone. I went to the cardiologist yesterday. At 19, they told me that the next time I needed to get checked again was when I got pregnant. He told me that he heard the same kind of murmur that I had before. He didn't make me feel very comfortable about it. He doesn't know what it is or why it's there. I'm having an echocardiogram done on Friday, but I won't get the results back until 10 days later. I'm hoping that when I go to the OB on Monday next week, he'll be able to call the cardiologist and get the results sooner.

I tried googling it (I'm the queen of google searches) but the only thing I can find on it is in medical language that I can't understand. SO if anyone out there has any medical knowledge and wants to tell me what it says about tricuspid murmurs during pregnancy, I'd really appreciate it!

I'm not worried that it's anything that could kill me. Heck, I lived with it for 16 years before, what's another 6 months. I'm just thinking about having surgery again and that scares the crap out of me. I don't think I can deal with the pain again. It makes my chest hurt just thinking about it. Come to think of it, I wonder which is worse, childbirth or having your chest muscles ripped off the bone and then stitched back together. I'll let you know in 6 months.

Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?

Definitely hot cocoa! With mint and whipped cream please! I like one cup of egg nog with sprite about once a year, but on a cold rainy day I love a cup of hot chocolate!

White or colored lights?

My sister is doing a holiday question of the day, so I'm going to follow her. I'm a couple of days behind, so I figured I'd just start at the beginning.

I prefer white lights. There's nothing I love more at Christmas (okay there are probably a few things, but one of my favorites) is when a house has it all outlined in perfectly straight white lights with the snow on top. Unfortunately here in CA we don't get the snow on top part. Maybe I'll be lucky this year and get snow in UT. It's been a LONG time since I've seen a white Christmas. I love my tree to be all white and silver, or white and one other color. I think it's so elegant.

Body Worlds

AMAZING! If you ever go get the chance to see this exhibit ~ GO! I thought that I might be a grossed out by it, but everything looks fake so it's not gross. It's the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. Being that I'm pregnant, my favorite part was the fetus'. They had a 14 week fetus still inside the uterus that they had cut open (the uterus), being that I'm 14 weeks it was REALLY cool to see exactly what my baby looks like, not a CG image, not an ultrasound, but the actual baby. They also had the embryo's from 4 weeks until 8 weeks. At 8 weeks it was amazing you could see the eyes and the spine and the fingers and toes beginning to form. They also had a woman with the baby still inside of her. They opened up her abdomen and showed the baby, that was amazing!

The only thing that really made me realize that they were real people was one of them still had most of his skin on and on his hand you could see a tattoo, that was weird. That made it real, that they weren't just plastic. He had the hair still too which was really strange.

They also had a heart that was sitting in the pericardium still. That was really cool to see that, because that's what was used to repair the holes in my heart.

If I was a smoker before I went, I definitely wouldn't be after going there. In one exhibit they had a normal lung, a smoker's lung, and then a coal miner's lung. The smokers lung was really bad, but the coal miner's lung was horrific! It looked like a lump of coal. It gave me a new respect for coal miners!

Like I said if this is exhibit is anywhere near you spend the $20 a go. It's breathtaking!

Nesting

Wow! I guess what they say about nesting when you are pregnant is true. I've been on a rampage this past week. Frank and I took two full size house and between the 2 of us 30 years of living on our own and combined them into one house when we got married. It was very tight! The garage has been a complete disaster and stuffed full since we have moved in together. Just to do laundry (in CA the houses are so small that they all have the laundry in the garage to save space), you practically had to be a gymnast to get to the machine. We have just had so much other stuff going on that we haven't had a chance to go through it all and clean it out. Plus, the garage is NOT my domain of organization!

This week I listed practically everything in our house for sale on Craigslist! We are selling a car, Momo wheels that have been in the garage for 3 years, an aquarium stand, a couch, renting a room (in the house I own). This week as soon as I can get pictures taken I'm going to be putting on 2 or 3 receivers, MORE wheels (who has 2 sets of brand new wheels laying around their house, besides Frank De Vito), and whatever else I can find, I'm sure!

Then yesterday after weeks, no make that months of talking about it, we finally got started on the garage. We went and bought some cabinets to go in it and we went to. We stuffed three car loads of stuff to go to Goodwill. I'm so happy about it. It's so nice to go to that laundry with out breaking an ankle. I don't know how I would do that when I get huge!

I'll post a picture of the after when I get a chance to take one.

I'm becoming domestic

And they said it couldn't be done (really I guess it was me that said that)!

I have cooked twice this week. Hey, no giggling! That's a record. I do run a business and work late most nights. On Sunday I made a pot roast and veggies and fed about 10 of our friends with it. Then yesterday I cooked a turkey breast and potatoes. Okay, it was all crock-pot cooking, I have to confess (I think it's impossible to ruin that). Frank even said the turkey and gravy was about the best he's ever had. Way to go me!! He comes from an Italian family of amazing cooks! And if you don't know Frank, he's not one to sugar coat things to make me feel better. I was very proud of myself.

Also, today I even got creative (something I NEVER do) and put together a flower arrangement for Christmas. I'm quite excited about it. When I was in UT Stephanie (my very creative sister, they are both creative, I think by time the gene got around to me there was nothing left) helped me pick out all the flowers to use and so today I put it together. It's still missing some large ornaments that I bought for it (they got left in UT) but I should have them next week and then it will be finished. Stephanie did consult through pictures to get it perfect, but I did most of it on my own. It has white lights in it too. I'll have to take a picture once it's dark.