Guilty of babies and sunsets

My personal episode of House Hunters would be so unexciting, because of my lack of $500K+ to spend.

I'm crawling inside and physically uncomfortable, but I can't put a finger on exactly what hurts or why, until I realize I'm just REALLY FUCKING ANXIOUS.

This morning I told myself I was going to be really patient and not Angry Mom with Bug today and for the next few days, and of course this was foiled within the first hour.  We're late getting out the door to go to class and she announces she has to poop.  Half of me thinks she's totally bullshitting with me, and the other half thinks she's serious.  I call her bluff and it turns out she was right, she did have to poop.

Class went fine; afterward we went to get coffee.  She was wearing the new running skirt I bought her for Christmas today and all I wanted was ONE stinking picture of her in it to send to my mom.  Eighty-seven attempts later, and I have one half-blurred one that's sort of acceptable to send.  To get to that point, though, required an encyclopedia of threats and bribes administered in the middle of our not-very-large and therefore everything-always-overheard neighborhood Starbucks.  Again, I felt like a complete ass with my phone out trying to get a picture.  Sometimes I tell myself, just bring the DSLR, but that feels somehow even creepier.  Also, if I'm so concerned about looking like an ass in these situations, maybe I should just stop trying to take her picture in public.

At home, obviously.  She's only standing still because this was the first picture I took.  The second she heard the shutter it was all running and lunging at the camera. 

It was frustrating.  At home there was a lot more button pushing, and not just of the phone kind.

And then she didn't really ever take a nap, just lots of quiet rustling and tapping on the wall for an hour.  

Someone needs to work less on pretend napping on the couch and more on actual napping in her bed.

I ended up canceling her PT appointment for today, and her OT appointment tomorrow.  I am horrifically paranoid about her getting sick now, because if she's sick, we'll have to reschedule the surgery, and then this gets drawn out even longer.  My boyfriend Brian Williams (and his stuffy old aunt Nancy Snyderman) keep freaking me out with all this flu craziness.  So I figured if I kept her out of really (really) germy situations, like a clinic, it couldn't hurt.  But Target is, of course, perfectly acceptable.

I'm the only one in the family who hasn't had a flu shot which is, I know, dumb.  And every time I get into the hype I'm reminded how it was (relatively) similar in 2009 when I was pregnant and that seems infinitely more risky of a situation than what we're dealing with now.  Keeping my fingers crossed that California stays healthy.

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It seems as though a large segment of Instagram photos can be divided into three groups: Babies, Sunsets and Food.  Lately I've been fascinated by the food ones, which I think plays into my wish that every cookbook, ever, came with a photo for every recipe.  I will admit, some of the food ones are a bit obnoxious: the artfully composed photo of coffee mug, avocado spread on homemade spelt bread with hand-churned butter and a meticulously filleted strawberry.  But even if the photos sometimes make me roll my eyes, many do prompt me to click a link for the recipe, which I love reading.  

One that I found the other day is here.  It tasted unbelievably amazing.  Lately a lot of the soups and stews I've been trying out are heavy on the chicken broth, which makes them all taste the same (and not all that terribly good).  This has a wonderful and complex flavor to it -- sweet and savory somehow at the same time.  I must admit that even after my stint as a Whole Foods Market employee regularly quizzed on bizarre produce for three years in high school/college I still had to confirm with the produce guy at Sprouts if what I had chosen was, actually, a turnip (thank goodness he was 50+ and could barely speak English, even if that made me doubt that he even knew what I was asking).  I ended up using a can of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes instead of just plain ones, and almost two cans of garbanzos, because I've never seen a 19oz can in the US.

I also made the baked brown rice recipe here to go along with it, and added a teaspoon of dried thyme for my seasoning.  I will never make brown rice on the stove top every again.  Sorry, no artsy-fartsy photos of my version to go long with either of these.  You'll just have to trust me. 

P.S. Xanax prescription has been acquired, thank you Baby Jesus.  I made sure it was just for two tablets, lest I get carried away.  Shit is dreamy.