Jennie Day Blog

Announcing

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Our daughter, Ramona, has arrived! She was 8 pounds, 7 ounces, and 19 1/2 inches long.

Her birth was a very positive experience, and I wrote it up in excruciating detail and wanted to share. This is without any gory details, but it’s childbirth so there’s a bit of TMI.

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I’d been having Braxton-Hicks, the so-called practice contractions, for a week or two that had started to pick up in intensity. Every time, I’d think, “is this it? Will I know when real labor actually starts?” As it turns out, yes, I would. At 1am on my due date, I was woken up by a contraction that was obviously not just for practice, and they kept coming. “What a punctual baby!” I thought to myself. They were regular and about 10 minutes apart, so I knew it was just the very earliest stages but the excitement and anticipation, as well as the physical contractions, kept me awake until about 6am. At that point I finally was able to drift off and slept for about an hour.

I had an appointment with my OB that morning, so we got ready and headed out. The contractions had spaced out a bit, but I was having some other obvious symptoms that early labor was starting. The doctor checked me and confirmed that I had made some progress from my appointment the week previous and said, “I sincerely think you’ll have your baby this week.”

Joel had a class that morning, and I didn’t want to drive so I hung out and had a cup of coffee. I made it about 90 minutes before the contractions started to pick up, so I went back to the car to wait. I sent a text to let him know where I was, and about 10 minutes later, he showed up after walking out in the middle of a lecture!

We went back home to let nature run its course. While waiting for Joel, I’d emailed our doulas to give them an update, and the plan that we’d discussed with them was to labor at home for as long as possible. So that’s what we did. They’d given us some suggestions for comfort – I took warm baths and showers, ate and stayed hydrated as well as I could (which wasn’t much, as I was nauseated by every contraction), and used the TENS unit they’d loaned us.

By about 2am, I was miserable. The contractions were getting more intense and I’d had an hour of sleep in the 25 hours previous. My pain was tolerable if I was up and moving around, but I was so exhausted and all I wanted to do was lie down which intensified the pain. I called the doula to check in, and she said it still sounded too early to head to the hospital. She offered to come sit with us if we needed the support, but we all acknowledged that I was in for a long ride and decided to wait until morning.

That gave me a little boost – just a few more hours until morning, surely I’d have made enough progress to head to the hospital by then. I watched some TV and listened to podcasts to distract myself and Joel got some sleep so that he’d be safe to drive us.

By morning, though, more of the same. It was like this all day long. I’d occasionally get a break of 10-15 minutes and I’d nod off, but the next one would wake me up. I repeated over and over in my head, “every contaction gets me a little closer to meeting my baby,” and then, “every contraction gets me a little closer to getting my epidural!” Finally, in the early evening, the contractions were about a minute and a half long, four minutes apart, and that was consistent for over an hour. I called my doctor’s office and checked in with the doctor on call, who told me I could head in to labor and delivery whenever I wanted to get checked out, but I’d need to be 4 centimeters dilated to be admitted.

So immediately after talking with the doctor, I started obsessing and second guessing myself, wondering how far along I was, and the contractions basically stopped. We checked in with our doula again, and she decided to just come over and sit with us for a while to give her opinion.

By that point, I could talk and breathe pretty normally through the few contractions I was having. I was pacing around our living room, as I’d been doing basically all day. She said, “this is a tough call. We don’t see early labors this prolonged very often, and it sucks, and you’re obviously exhausted.” We ultimately decided to go to the hospital to find out where I was in the process, knowing we were very likely to be sent home, but that I’d be able to get some pain relief to let me sleep.

On the car ride over, I had four excruciating contractions. I was so mad that I was going through all of this when we were just going to have to turn around and go home again. Joel was optimistic and had brought our packed bags along, and I was really upset that he’d jinxed it.

Obvious foreshadowing aside, we got to triage and got strapped in to monitor the contractions and Ramona’s heart rate to make sure she was tolerating them well (which she was.) The nurse checked me and said, “you’re 3-4 centimeters, I’ll go ahead and admit you.”

What a relief!! At about 11pm, the on call doctor came in to introduce herself and said, “your baby will be born tomorrow.” Now that I knew we’d be staying and that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, I relaxed and the contractions picked up again. We waited in triage for about 3 hours — apparently it was a popular night to be in labor! I was undressed from the waist down but needed to pee every half hour, so I’d get unstrapped from the monitors, wrap up in a sheet, waddle down to the bathroom, have a contraction on the toilet, waddle back to the room to get strapped back in, repeat ad nauseum.

Finally at about 12:30, my room was ready and my L&D nurse came to get me. I knew long before my labor started that I wanted an epidural – the only question was when. But at that point, knocking on the door of 48 hours of early labor and almost no sleep, there was no question. We got into the room, my nurse hooked me up to an IV, and the anesthesiology team was there within minutes.

The anesthesiologist placed my epidural, and then my nurse and doula helped me get set up on my side with a peanut ball between my knees so I could get some rest. Hilariously, before the anesthesiologist left, he explained how the booster button worked and accidentally pushed the button, so my epidural worked pretty much instantaneously. The doctor came in to check on me and was pretty skeptical that I was already so numb! By that point I’d dilated to 5, so we all settled in for some sleep.

Not that I could get much actual sleep – the blood pressure cuff on my arm went off periodically, the baby monitor went off because it ran out of paper, and at 3, the doctor came in again to check me as my contractions had slowed down due to the epidural. And … I was still at 5. The doctor broke my bag of waters to see if that would pick up the pace again, and when it didn’t, started an IV drip of Pitocin.

I know I finally got some sleep because next thing I knew, it was 7:30am and doctors would be changing shifts for the day. The on call doctor realized I hadn’t been checked since 3am, so she did that before the changing of the guard – I had dilated to 10 and baby’s head had dropped into the birth canal! I had zero pressure or urge to push, so they decided to let me labor down and the next doctor on call was my primary OB at the practice who I saw throughout my pregnancy so it was perfect timing that she’d be the one to deliver my baby.

She came in to check on me and explained that she had to go perform a C-section. I was awake but still totally numb and contentedly munching on gummy bears (I was restricted to a liquid diet, but apparently gummy bears are liquid. Who knew!) so I ended up waiting another 90 minutes or so.

We got set up with my doula and Joel each holding a leg, the two nurses setting up the baby warmer and keeping an eye on the baby heart rate monitor, and my doctor using her hand to help guide me where to push. I still couldn’t feel a thing but everyone in the room kept encouraging me and telling me I was doing great. My doctor assured me that my body was working hard and I’d be sore the next day – it didn’t actually set in until 2 days later, but by then I felt like I’d been hit by a truck.

I ended up pushing for about 50 minutes, and then in one surreal moment, everyone in the room stopped chanting “one last big push” or “you’re doing so great” and instead started oohing and aahing, and this slimy alien creature was placed on my chest.

I don’t know that I can describe my reaction in the moment – I was elated and exhausted and amazed. After all the heartbreak and worry, she was here. After the months spent daydreaming about her, she was both exactly like what I’d expected and completely not what I’d expected.

Her APGAR scores at 1 and 5 minutes were 9 and 9, but then one nurse suddenly whisked her off my chest and rushed her to the baby warming table and the other was calling a NICU team to our room. Later, when everything settled down, my doctor and the NICU team explained that because her delivery had been quite fast, she hadn’t been able to clear all the amniotic fluid from her lungs so she couldn’t breathe well and her heart rate suddenly dropped. They suctioned a ton of fluid out of her and watched her for a bit to make sure she cried and was breathing well. I was still totally numb on the table, my doctor stitching me up, and Joel went to Ramona to talk to her. This was the point I most needed my doula and was so glad she could stay with me and report what was going on. It was very scary and I’m tearing up writing it out, but I’m so grateful for modern medicine and that in the end Ramona is fine.

We were in our L&D room for about 2 hours after the delivery but it felt like 15 minutes. I know that after I held her a while, I was finally allowed solid food and I ate while Joel held her, then he ate and I held her again. Then the nurses helped me get out of the bed and into a wheelchair and hauled us up to the postpartum floor.

Ramona slept for the first several hours we were there. My dad stopped by with smoked salmon for me – after not being able to eat it during my whole pregnancy, it tasted so good! After my dad, my mom visited, then later Joel’s brother and family came by.

The postpartum room was a tiny little box just big enough for my hospital bed, a fold out bed for Joel, and Ramona’s bassinet. We were due to be discharged the next day, which meant we needed ALL THE TESTS before they’d let us go home. There were people in and out of our room every 10-15 minutes all day long. It was exceedingly frustrating and made me all the more excited to get out of there!

Life right now is lots of nursing and baby snuggles and very little sleep. No complaints. (Okay, that’s not true. I have some complaints. But baby Ramona is totally worth it.)

Baby Watch

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I’m still pregnant, but hopefully not for much longer … My due date is next week and as of Monday, I’m officially on maternity leave! I was really torn about starting my leave before my due date or working until her birth so I could have as much time off work with her as possible, but around Christmas I started to get more uncomfortable sitting in my desk chair, so it was a no-brainer. Also, I knew I’d be in for some comments from my coworkers, however well-intentioned, like “you’re still here!” or “no baby yet, huh?!” So far, I’ve been doing some deep cleaning projects around the house, prepping food for the freezer, and spending the rest of my time lounging on the couch watching The Great British Bake Off or reading.

Since I have a bit of free time, I figured it would be the opportune moment to share some updates!

Baby Showers

I had 2 – my mom threw a baby shower for the family, then my sister organized a shower for my coworkers. Both were lovely!

Mom ordered gluten free carrot cupcakes from Dukes (in the weeks leading up to the shower, we taste tested several gf carrot cakes – it’s a tough life) and thought of all the little details, like repurposing the vases from our wedding.

Thank you, Auntie Barb, for sharing your photos 🙂

My sister organized dinner at Moctezuma’s, where I’ve eaten quite often this pregnancy because I can’t get enough enchiladas. Hilariously, at the end of the night, our waiter brought me a dish of ice cream and sang “happy baby to you,” but about half the table sang “happy birthday.”

Thank you to all of you who celebrated baby Ramona and for your generosity – we are both so lucky to have so many people who care about us!

Nursery

I think Joel nested more intensely than I did in this last trimester 🙂 Well, that’s not entirely true, we just had very different priorities about getting ready for baby’s arrival. I wanted to deep clean every square inch of the condo (not that I actually had the energy to do so), and Joel wanted to make sure we had the nursery ready to go. I LOVE how it turned out, and wanted to share a few pictures.

When I moved into my condo in 2009, I picked what I thought was a light lavender for the spare bedroom … but no, it’s purple. I’ve always liked it, and I think it’s a great color for a nursery, so we left one wall lavender and picked a tan for the remaining three walls.

The La-Z-Boy recliner was our first baby related purchase – so glad we’ll have a comfortable chair and hopefully it will last long past the baby years.

And no, we didn’t really pick a theme for the nursery … just baby things. We chose our favorite prints and photos that we already had, and the black cat curtains were an impulse buy from IKEA, because how could we pass those up?!

Third Trimester Update

Picking up from where I left off after my last update … pretty much the day my pregnancy app popped up the notification that I’d reached the third trimester, I started feeling progressively more uncomfortable. I don’t want to complain much – after what I’ve been through in the last year, I feel very fortunate to be pregnant and that I’ve had an utterly uneventful pregnancy (so far, anyway! Don’t want to jinx anything right before her birth.)

Between getting up 3+ times to use the bathroom, getting hungry in the middle of the night, and the hip pain, it’s been months since I got a good night’s sleep. And yes, I am well aware that I’m in for many more sleepless nights — but I’m looking forward to at least being able to lie comfortably on my back. Oh, and just when I was starting to think I was lucky enough to avoid the swollen feet and ankles, it set in and I’m down to two pairs of shoes that fit.

The last round of progress pics: 31 weeks, 34 weeks, 39 weeks. You’ll notice that I had to stop wearing my rings and watch because of the swelling. And I think I’ve pretty well maxed out my favorite purple tee.

I’ve definitely had more cravings in this trimester, and only sweet things. I woke up a few weeks ago and said to Joel, “we need to get strawberry milkshakes today.” I think it was the second or third strawberry milkshake I’ve had in my life – usually I like vanilla! We went to Dick’s Drive-In, where I can have not only the milkshakes but also French fries because nothing goes in their fryers except potatoes. I’ve also sent Joel to Trophy Cupcakes for a gluten free cherries jubilee cupcake, and I’m currently on the hunt for a caramel and chocolate covered apple.

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I don’t expect to be blogging much in the next few weeks – I hope to post an announcement when she arrives, and maybe a birth story. But you will be hearing from me because I’ve finally finished my Belize recaps! Until then …

Victoria B.C. Anniversary Trip

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In August 2016, to celebrate our three year wedding anniversary, Joel and I took a long weekend trip to Victoria B.C. Five years earlier, we’d gone on a similar trip to celebrate our one year dating anniversary. (Fun fact: our wedding anniversary is just a couple of days after our dating anniversary, so it’s like we get to celebrate both at the same time.) Victoria is so beautiful, and so easy to get to from Seattle, and we’d been meaning to go back – it just took us 5 years to get around to it.

When we went in 2011, we were on a really tight budget; we stayed in a hotel about a 20 minute walk from downtown because it was inexpensive, and we basically just wandered around and looked at the shops. Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time … but our 2016 trip was so much more fun because we stayed at the Chateau Victoria, which is in the middle of the city and houses one of our favorite Victoria restaurants (Vista 18), and made a point of visiting the popular tourist spots.

We spent Saturday afternoon touring the Royal B.C. Museum, starting with an IMAX movie Mammoths: Titans of the Ice Age. We learned about Lyuba, a mammoth calf who was discovered in Syberia … and then got to see her on display at the museum!

Don’t worry, some of the displays said “please touch.”

I had visited the Royal B.C. Museum in my younger years, but didn’t remember it … until we walked into “Old Town,” the modern history exhibit. Major deja vu!

Because of the timing of our IMAX movie, we’d missed lunch and were famished and disappointed to find that many of the restaurants in town were closed — despite it being Saturday night. We did not know this when we booked our vacation, but that weekend happened to be iconic Canadian band The Tragically Hip’s final concert, and apparently all across Canada, cities shut down to allow people to watch the concert. We happened to find a really excellent Thai restaurant that was open (with the show playing on the TV in the bar, natch) and had what turned out to be one of the best meals of our weekend.

The pad Thai looks like any other plate of pad Thai, so you’ll just have to take my word for it that it was super-delicious.

The highlight was our drinks – frozen sangria! I was probably a bit dehydrated, and could have easily downed, like, three of these. They were sweet and tasty and refreshing.

After it got dark, we headed back to the waterfront to meet our tour group for a walking ghost tour of downtown Victoria! Victoria is allegedly one of the most haunted cities in Canada. I’d found this randomly online and it was pretty inexpensive, so we decided to give it a whirl … and it was a blast. Most of the stories featured ghost exacting their revenge on the living, but there are some friendly ghosts in the city, too.

The next day, we set off early for Butchart Gardens, so we’d have plenty of time to explore the gardens before our lunchtime tea reservation.

Butchart Gardens was another spot I’d visited many moons ago, but didn’t remember until we walked in.

Then we stopped for tea time in the fine dining hall. They are easily able to accommodate gluten free diners, so long as you make a reservation 24 hours in advance.

Bottom tier: sandwiches and savory items, including a gluten free sausage roll! (Confession: Secret Eaters, a British show that followers dieters in their weight loss efforts, is one of my guilty pleasures. They show sausage rolls frequently, but I assumed I’d never find a gluten free version to try. I was happy to be proven wrong.)

Middle tier: pastries and a truffle.

Top tier: a scone with clotted cream and jam.

(Interestingly, when we had tea at of Morgana’s bachelorette party, the middle and top tiers were reversed.)

In the late afternoon, we headed over to the dock for our return trip home on the Victoria Clipper. We checked in and took our seats in the terminal, just in time to hear the announcement: “due to windy conditions, the Clipper will not be able to make the crossing to Seattle.” Joel and I looked at each other like, “wait, WHAAAA …?”

Not to worry, the Clipper has dealt with this before, and had a backup plan. We shuffled out into the parking lot and loaded up into charter buses … where they drove us around the block and back to the ferry dock immediately next door.

We loaded up and took the ferry back to Port Angeles, arriving right about when we thought we’d be back in Seattle. From there, we drove down to Bremerton and took a ferry back across to Seattle. Lucky for us, Joel and I just had small carry-ons, so we didn’t need to load back onto the charter bus and head over to the Clipper dock. Instead, we walked off the ferry and called an Uber, finally arriving back home at about 12:45am.

But as we’ve learned from our previous adventures, it’s the times when things go wrong that make the best stories.

Book Review: The Underground Railroad

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Imagine if the underground railroad were, literally, a railroad that had been constructed under the United States. Who would build it? Who would run it?

photo source

Colson Whitehead does this in his historical fiction novel, The Underground Railroad. Cora, a third generation slave on a Georgia plantation, follows in her mother’s footsteps and escapes north on the underground railroad. Along the way, she encounters people of different races and classes who help or hinder her progress.

And Whitehead answers the question as to who would have built this hypothetical real underground railroad – slaves, of course. Who else?

What I Liked

A writing professor I studied with in college explained in one lecture that the plot is what a story or novel is about. But on a deeper level, it has an “aboutness” – not what happens, but the greater purpose of the writing. Maybe to make the reader feel a particular emotion, or explore a difficult concept. At its core, The Underground Railroad is really about the brutality of slavery and the pervasiveness of racism.

This set the stakes appropriately high and made the action more real. I’ve criticized movies before for setting the stakes too low — I can’t bring myself to care what happens to the characters along the way, or have a hard time getting involved because it’s too predictable. This is not the case in The Underground Railroad. Each of Cora’s near brushes with getting caught or killed seemed real – the world was big and realistic enough that the story would have gone on without her in it, as it did for so many.

Also, there’s a big twist in the story of Mabel, Cora’s mother, that is revealed just before the book’s conclusion. It’s so heart-wrenching and really got under my skin; it completely changed the way I felt about the whole novel.

What I Didn’t Like

It took me a while to get a feel for the structure of the novel – the majority of the story is told in long chapters, each set in one state that Cora spends time in during her journey north, told in the third person from Cora’s perspective. In between each is a short chapter, character study really, of one of the tertiary characters from Cora’s life, from her mother and grandmother to the slave catcher pursuing her. These are told in the third person omniscient. They added a lot to the story, and deserved their place in it, but I found the changing perspectives a bit jarring.

In Conclusion

The Underground Railroad is a grim, haunting story but excellent and worth reading. Publishers Weekly gave the novel a starred review.

One Upping the New York Times

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I was one of the many who, mid-November 2016, started making more charitable donations and signed up for a digital newspaper subscription for the first time in my life. I opted to subscribe to the New York Times because it was always my first stop for election-related news – until I ran out of free articles for the month, anyway. Also, I have a grudge against the Seattle Times because if I pay for a subscription, I should not have to deal with pop-up ads!

ANYway, though I scroll through the headlines and read a few articles daily, what really justifies the cost of the subscription for me is the cooking section. There are a good variety of recipes that are gluten free, or can easily be adapted by say, making breadcrumbs from the heel slices of my gluten free bread or using cornstarch or whatever gluten free flour I have on hand. I’ve gotten excited about cooking and trying new recipes again because, unlike certain gluten free blogs, the recipes in the Times cooking section are consistently good.

Once every week or two, I try a new recipe. So far, my #1 favorite has been this roasted red pepper and tomato soup – highly recommend! One day this summer, Joel requested shrimp and grits, which I made from this Times recipe, and was also quite good. The only downside was that it left me with a nearly full bag of dry grits that needed to be used up. Obviously, my search engine of choice to find a new recipe to try was the Times cooking section, where I found this butternut squash polenta with sausage and onion.

It’s the only recipe I’ve made from the Times that wasn’t a hit. It was a bit bland, the recipe made WAY too much polenta and not nearly enough sausage and onion, and eating the leftovers was kind of a chore. It was disappointing because butternut squash and sausage and onions are all tasty – I knew the recipe had potential and I wasn’t willing to write it off just yet. So I set out to one-up the NY Times, and I think I succeeded. (I promise, I didn’t read the comments on the recipe until after I’d made it with my modifications and saw that a number of commenters made similar modifications. But I’ll still take credit for it, because I came up with the idea without seeing their comments.)

Jennie’s Butternut Squash Polenta with Sausage and Veggies

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 small butternut squash

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup milk or cream

1 cup dry corn grits or polenta (I used Bob’s Red Mill brand, as it’s manufactured in their gluten free facility)

1 lb ground sausage (I used spicy Italian because pregnancy has made me suddenly like spicy food, weirdly)

1 medium onion

1 bell pepper of any color

1 zucchini

1 tsp fennel seeds

1 generous tsp Italian seasonings

Salt and pepper, to taste.

Here’s what you’ll do:

1. A few hours or even days ahead of time, roast your butternut squash. I poke a few holes in it and stick it whole into a 350 degree oven for about an hour and a half because it’s much easier to cut when it’s already cooked! Allow to cool. If you do this a day or more ahead of time, just wrap it up in tin foil and store in the fridge.

You could skip this (as well as step 3) and use canned butternut squash puree, but this is much more fun and tasty.

2. Bring the chicken broth and milk or cream to a gentle boil. Add the dry polenta and simmer for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Meanwhile, peel (if you haven’t already) and roughly chop the butternut squash. Use a food processor or potato masher to puree – a few lumps are okay!

4. Thinly slice the onion, pepper, and zucchini.

5. Cook the sausage in a large skillet. Transfer to a paper towel lined plate.

6. Cook the sliced veggies in the rendered sausage fat (or in some butter or oil, if the sausage doesn’t leave a lot to cook in.) Stir frequently. Add the fennel seeds and Italian seasonings.

7. When the polenta has absorbed all of the liquid, stir in the pureed squash. Salt and pepper to taste.

8. To serve, spoon the polenta onto plates and top with the sausage and veggie medley. Eat. Enjoy.

2018 Reading List

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It started at the end of 2014, when I got an email from Goodreads, “congratulating” me on my reading accomplishments of the year.

img_2319.jpg“6?! There’s no way that’s right!” I thought. Actually, it wasn’t – there were two that I’d forgotten to log, and I was in the middle of one book that I finished before midnight on New Year’s Eve. So … 9 in total. I’d spent what would have been quality reading time scrolling around on forums, playing 2048, and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer in its entirety.

I resolved to do better in 2015, and set a goal of 48 books (4 per month) but ended up at less than half of that number. That was when I started to really examine where my free time was going. Again, it was mostly TV. So in 2016, I made the resolution to stop watching TV on weeknights, and suddenly, I was a reader again. My “to-read” list is still long, but that’s because I find more I want to read as quickly as I check them off the list. Walking into bookstores is more fun now that I recognize and have read so many of the books out on display.

As I mentioned in my post outlining my goals for 2018, I want to read 50 books this year. I don’t really know how realistic that is with a baby due in less than 8 weeks – I’ve heard from some new moms that they didn’t read at all after their babies were born because of the overwhelm and sleep deprivation. But others have told me that if reading is a priority for you, you find the time to make it happen.

So here’s what’s on my list for 2018:

In the past couple of years, I’ve tried to read 4 classic novels (one per quarter) which has been a good challenge and achievable number. I also love to go back and re-read old favorites, and plan to read one of those quarterly as well.

Classics:

  1. Middlemarch by George Eliot (I started this in 2017, but am just finishing it!)
  2. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (I’d hoped to read it last year, but it didn’t happen.)
  3. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
  4. Ulysses by James Joyce

Favorites:

  1. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainier Maria Rilke
  2. The Frog Prince by Stephen Mitchell
  3. Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
  4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I hope to finally get around to a few titles that have languished on my to-read list for too long: The Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I started re-reading The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series in December, which I haven’t read since high school, and plan to finish those in the first quarter of the year.

After re-reading the entire Harry Potter series last year, I’ve wanted to read more children’s or young adult fiction; I’m thinking either A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle or maybe Lemony Snickett’s Series of Unfortunate Events (which I’ve never read but have been enjoying the Netflix adaptation.)

I’m sure I’ll find plenty of books about babies and parenting that I want to read 😉

Something that I want to be more conscious about is reading books by people of color. I read this article on Vox a few years ago that drew my attention to it, and the number of books written by non-white authors were an abysmal 6 and 4, respectively. I’ve been conscious about reading books written by women, and these days read a pretty equal split of male and female authors without trying. My hope is that bringing that same consciousness will have a similar result. On the list so far:

  • The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy
  • The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • Swing Time by Zadie Smith
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
  • In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

My last reading-related goal is to spend more time reflecting on the books I read — instead of immediately diving into the next book in the pile — by blogging one book review each month.

The Best Books I’ve Read in the Past Two Years

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Since my blogging fizzled out midway through 2016, this list spans both 2016 and 2017. You may recall that I set out to read 100 books in 2016 – I fell just short at 94. I decided to keep my 2017 reading goal lower at 60, though again, I missed the mark, ending the year having read 52 books. I haven’t hit my goal either year, but I’m still proud of those numbers and just happy to be reading so enthusiastically again.

This is an incomplete list of my favorite reads from the past two years, listed in the order in which I read them. It includes only books that I read for the first time — although I’ve been slowly rereading all of my favorites over the past several years – I figure you don’t need me to tell you how much I loved the Harry Potter series 🙂 I also read a lot about massage, marketing, exercise science, and more recently, pregnancy and babies. Although several of those reads were excellent, I’ve left those off the list because they may not be universally interesting subject matter.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith

I’ve loved every installment J.K. Rowling’s murder mystery series, written under her pseudonym, but The Silkworm is my favorite thus far. P.I. Cormoran Strike and Robin, his assistant, are interesting and believable characters, and the action is fun (I even enjoyed some of the more gruesome details.) Admittedly, one of the reasons this is my favorite of the three mysteries is it’s the only one where I’ve correctly guessed the murderer 🙂

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Somehow I made it through my first 30 years of life as a bibliophile and English major without reading this classic. I knew the story, but of course reading the novel is a very different experience than watching the TV or movie adaptations 🙂 I’m sure part of the reason I loved it was because I was already familiar with the story, but I loved the writing and the novel gives a deeper look at the characters.

One Small Step Can Change Your Life by Robert Maurer

A book about habits, based on the Japanese concept Kaizen that lasting and profound changes are made through a series of small, incremental steps. Maurer details why “innovation” — projects or resolutions with sweeping, starting tomorrow, always/never — doesn’t lead to lasting change the way that simple, non-threatening changes do. It’s a quick, easy read, with simple advice and stories that illustrate his point.

The City of Mirrors by Justin Cronin

The third and final installment in the vampire trilogy (I reviewed the first, The Passage, and second, The Twelve, back in 2013.) This was a really satisfying conclusion to the story – every character got an ending that felt complete and satisfying, and overall, this book redeemed a lot of the flaws of the second.

Station Eleven by Emily St.-John Mandel

A post-apocalyptic dystopia that tells several overlapping stories: the virus that destroys the modern world and the people who survive. Several of those survivors go on to form a traveling Shakespeare company in the aftermath and travel around the new world. It’s told in a non-linear format, which made it a real page-turner because I couldn’t wait to find out what happened to each of the characters.

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Ove is a grumpy old man whose suicide plans are frequently derailed by his neighbors, until he accidentally becomes a valuable member of his community. This was such a touching story – I cried when I finished it because the ending is sad, but also just because I was sorry it was over.

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Two fantastical beings, a golem and a jinni (or genie) who’s been entrapped for several centuries, meet in early 1900s New York and form a strange friendship. I wouldn’t say that I normally like or read much magical realism, but this was really engrossing! Though the action is fantastical, the relationships between the characters feel very real.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

A fictional account of the Canadian murderess, Grace Marks. Atwood is one of my very favorite authors (I read 7 of her novels over the past 2 years!) and I’d put Alias Grace near the top; Like all her best books, it’s beautifully written, the main character is sympathetic and ends a bit ambiguously (so it really stuck with me.) The novel was recently adapted into a really compelling TV mini-series and is available on Netflix.

Welcoming in the New Year

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The thing that makes me most sad about how little I’ve blogged in the past several years is that I gave up my tradition of writing a pair of posts every New Year, one about the year ending and one about the year beginning. They’re some of my favorite posts to go back to revisit.

Looking Back at 2015 // Looking Ahead, 2016 Edition

Parting Ways with 2014 // Here’s to 2015

Greatest Hits of 2013 // Bring On 2014

Looking Back, 2012 Edition // Welcome 2013

Goodbye 2011 // And Hello, 2012

But here we are at the beginning of 2018 and now seems like an appropriate time to revive the practice. I’ll combine the two, starting with a look back:

Things that happened in 2017 (the good)

-Probably goes without saying, but #1 was learning that we had a bun in the oven and having (so far, knock on wood) an easy and healthy pregnancy.

–Our road trip!

-Spending Thanksgiving in Hawai’i with my family.

-Last spring, I started taking a lot of barre and Pilates classes, and completely loved both! I hope to get back into them, but have been taking a break since I got pregnant because I have so many other plates spinning.

Things that happened in 2017 (the bad)

–Saying goodbye to Eggs

-I left my weekend massage job in the spring. It was a bittersweet decision, and I cried like a banshee on my last day at the clinic. I miss my clients and fellow massage therapists and practicing massage. (And I won’t lie, the extra paychecks!) But I do not miss working 7 days a week and having no free time to spend with my husband.

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I guess we are getting old because once again, we were both asleep before midnight this year! We watched Wreck It Ralph and Captain America: Civil War, and I baked cookies and recreated the New Year’s Eve feast that we had at the end of 2011 – ham steaks, collard greens, cornbread, and black eyed peas.

I think the turn of the year might be my favorite holiday, because I love the symbolism of starting fresh and all the energy towards self-improvement, and also because both of my parents are New Years enthusiasts and we talked about resolutions every year when I was growing up. This year, I’m making one big, “starting tomorrow” style resolution which is to get up with my alarm and not hit the snooze button.

In addition, I have a number of ongoing goals for 2018:

  1. Have a baby!
  2. Continue to save money for retirement. Since I first made this a goal in 2015, I’ve almost doubled the amount in my retirement accounts with little more than paying attention and automation. This year will be more difficult, because baby expenses, but what’s important to me is just to keep up the habit of saving.
  3. I’d like to do the Kettlebells for Women program by Lauren Brooks again, which I did in the summer of 2016 and completely loved. I know it’ll take time after the pregnancy to get back to my “normal” exercise habits and it will sometimes feel like I’m starting from scratch but that’s pretty well where I was when I did the program originally.
  4. Read 50 books. This might be a little ambitious, considering I barely managed it in 2017.
  5. Maintain my daily habits around the house even when there’s a tiny and fully dependent human being living in it, so that we don’t end up living in a pigsty.

Oh, and I should add #6: continue blogging regularly!

Jennie & Joel’s Epic Summer Road Trip 2017

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Because our wedding anniversary is just two weeks before my birthday, which is just two weeks before Joel’s birthday, we like to plan a vacation or big project (see: our 2015 bathroom remodel!) as an anniversary/birthday present to one another. Over a year ago, when he learned that the 2017 solar eclipse would be 1. visible from Oregon, and 2. just days before our anniversary, Joel proposed that our 2017 vacation be a road trip.

We agreed to spend a weekend in eastern Washington with his parents, then head south into Oregon for the eclipse, then west to Portland for our anniversary. What a great time we’d have!

Then my best friend, Morgana scheduled her wedding for Labor Day weekend, just a week and a half after the eclipse, in San Francisco. We tossed around the idea of going on our road trip, coming home for a few days, and then flying down to California. But what if, Joel suggested, we combine the two and spend a week driving down highway 101?

It seemed crazy and I was resistant at first, because two and a half weeks seemed like a really, really long road trip. How could I take that long a vacation? Who would take care of our cat? But eventually I gave in – I had just enough vacation time and my sister was able to house sit for us – and it ended up being a total blast.

We spent a total of 18 days/17 nights on the road:

  • 2 nights in Pasco, WA with my in-laws
  • 2 nights in Union, OR (well, one of those we mostly spent at a rest stop just outside of Lime, OR, to see the eclipse!)
  • 2 nights in Portland, OR
  • 1 night in Seaside, OR
  • 1 night in Coos Bay, OR
  • 1 night in Eureka, CA
  • 1 night in Mendocino, CA
  • 3 nights in San Francisco, CA
  • 3 nights in Marin, CA
  • 1 night in Ashland, OR

For a total of roughly 2900 miles.

Some of the highlights:

Day 1: Did we overpack??

Day 3: Welcome to Oregon!

Photos from the eclipse!

It’s hard to take a selfie with eclipse glasses on.

Here’s the view of the rest stop from the top of the hill. We were at the bottom of the hill in the parking lot.

The light through the trees.

And the totality! It was amazing, this doesn’t do it justice. We were just shy of the center of totality and so got to see it for about 2 minutes.

Day 7: Lunch on our anniversary in Tillamook, OR – cheese samples and ice cream 🙂

We made a little detour through Cannon Beach to see Haystack rock.

Seals at Cape Arago State Park in Coos Bay

View of Mendocino

Welcome to San Francisco!

We did the Alcatraz night tour, which was really interesting … and cold!! The night tour is the way to go, because they take the boat all the way around the island and you can see the city. But — the night tour sells out more quickly than the day, so we had to buy our tickets way in advance, even before we had our hotel booked! (This is a recurring theme in our travels.)

The guides and rangers and staff were really funny and engaging – as we were getting off the boat for the tour, one of the guards said, “enjoy your time in prison, we’ll pick you up in the morning!” And the guide started out tour by saying, “since this is probably the first time in prison for most of you …” (though it was Joel’s and my second time 😉 )

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge (it was terrifying.) The view from Marin county!

My own special gluten free tea tray at Morgana’s bachelorette party. (Believe it or not, this is one of the only food photos I took on this trip! It still makes me laugh that I spent so long snapping photos of almost every meal I ate back in my food blog days.)

The best meal that we ate in San Francisco was at China Live in Chinatown, and you’ll have to just take me at my word because I forgot to take a picture. They had a number of gluten free options on the menu, and we sat at the counter and watched the chefs prepare dumplings (those weren’t GF 🙁 )

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Morgana and Grahme had a beautiful wedding in Marin – and an amazing photographer. You can’t tell in this photo that it was 108 degrees that day and we were sweating buckets!

Then we raced up I-5 so I could be back in the office on Tuesday. There were wildfires raging throughout Oregon, so the drive home was mostly smoky. We stayed overnight in Ashland to see the Oregon Shakespeare festival perform Julius Caesar, and made a pit stop back in Portland for a second round of tacos from Por Que No?

Day 18 – back in Washington, home sweet home ♥