Saying goodbye to May...

Last night I had the most vivid dream that I had my baby. I was calling everyone and telling them that Brynlee was here. People were visiting me in the hospital. I got to hold my precious baby for the first time. It was so wonderful and real. Imagine my disappointment when I woke up and realized that it was all just a dream and I still had about 7 weeks until that becomes a reality. I've dreamed several times already that I have had Brynlee, but none of them were as real or emotional as this. It just made me more excited for when that moment actually arrives. I really can't wait to hold my baby for the first time, to kiss her perfect face and hold her close.

I've been telling myself that if I could just make it through the month of May, I would be set. May was a rather uneventful and drawn out month for me. I didn't have much going on or much to look forward to. June, however, is packed full of all sorts of weddings and showers and other events to keep me entirely too busy, and I absolutely can't wait for all the distractions. Because once June is over, then July is here, and with it comes my sweet Brynlee.

Pregnancy has been becoming slightly more uncomfortable and tiring with each passing day. I find myself out of breath all the time. It's quite an effort to climb the stairs to my apartment. I'm finding it more and more difficult to get comfortable when I sleep, probably because I have a honeydew melon inside me. And so on and so forth. But I just think of the day I get to hold my baby and somehow it's all worth it. 47 days and counting...

I would walk 500 miles...

I recently downloaded a pedometer app on my phone because I have been so curious as to how much I end up walking at work. Last night was a pretty busy night, but when I finally checked my pedometer at the end of it, I was happy to discover that I had walked 3.8 miles. That's pretty crazy. I'm not sure how accurate my pedometer is, but atleast it's a ballpark figure.

On to other news in my life.... I am now 29 weeks pregnant and getting bigger every day. My sweet little Brynlee is kicking and moving all the time. I can't believe that I'm on the last leg of this pregnancy. I really can't wait to meet her. I'm so excited about my baby shower this weekend. It is going to be awesome!

My new love is for this website called Pinterest. It has literally become my drug. I can't get enough of it. It has become my online dream/idea/motivation board. It is soooo awesome. You have to request an invite to join, but they'll send you an email in about a week. Let me just warn you, it's fantastic for wasting hours of time.... everyday. :)

I'm going to attempt to knit a baby hat very soon. I went to Hobby Lobby yesterday to buy the yarn, and was very disappointed to not find the kind I was looking for. Joann's is definitely the place to go. They have about 6 rows of yarn. It's incredible. I'm hoping to stop by there after work today and find something awesome.

That pretty much sums things up. Stay tuned for updates on my ever increasingly interesting life. :)

Oh yeah....                                                        HAPPY

Exhaustion from Kleenex...

This weekend could have (and probably should have) been a very relaxing time. Instead, I somehow picked up some bug from somewhere and have spent the last 5 days quite miserably. It started out with the soar, achy throat. Then I got the runny nose, and watery eyes. Now I've moved on the the scratchy cough and hoarse voice. I'm hoping that I'm on the up side of things now. I must've used over 500 Kleenex this weekend.

That is the main reason that I haven't posted anything in awhile. I've been trying to recover. I was hoping to get my house in order, but it's just gotten worse this weekend. You somehow loose every bit of motivation when your sick. It's not fun. I'm struggling with the fact that I have to close tonight at the restaurant. I barely have a voice, so we'll see how this goes. I'll keep you posted. :)

New Food Friday - Caprese Lasagna

I've decided to try something new. Every Friday I'm going to try a new recipe and let you know how it is. At least that's what I'm going to attempt to keep up with every week. So today, I decided to try a Caprese Lasagna from Rachel Ray. It was absolutely fabulous!

Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or grated
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken stock
A few grates of fresh nutmeg (I left this out because I didn't have any)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 box oven-ready lasagna noodles
4 Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
Half a bunch basil, chopped (about 30 leaves)
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 375ºF.
Place a large saucepan over medium-heat and melt the butter. Add the garlic to the pan and cook until aromatic, about 1 minute. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and garlic and cook for about 1 minute. Whisk the milk and chicken stock into the butter-flour mixture and bring up to a bubble. Add the nutmeg, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and simmer until thickened, 3-4 minutes.

Assemble the lasagna by ladling a small amount (about 1/4 cup, just eyeball it) of the sauce into the bottom of a 9-inch x 13-inch baking dish and laying three lasagna noodles over the sauce. Top the noodles with about a third of the sliced tomatoes, a third of the basil, 1/4 cup of sauce and about a third of the shredded cheese. Repeat until all ingredients are used up, topping the lasagna off with a final layer of sauce and shredded cheese.

Cover the pan with foil and bake the lasagna for 30 minutes. Remove the foil from the baking dish and bake another 15 minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly. When ready to serve, top with the remaining chopped basil leaves.

The only complaint I have is that I don't think there was quite enough sauce. I'll definitely make more next time. But all in all, it was a success. Will definitely make this again. I couldn't find fresh basil leaves anywhere so I ended up buying a basil plant from Fresh Market for $2.99. It is awesome!

The perfect housewife...

Just recently I've been craving the chance to quit my second job and just be the perfect housewife with my extra time. Those people used to drive me absolutely crazy. You know the ones.... their house is always spotless and they always have perfect homemade, 5-course meals prepared. My dear sweet sister-in-law is one of those. :) It's always made me feel guilty and depressed when I came home to my small little place that is piled high with dirty clothes and dishes, and the fridge is always empty. I used to loathe those activities. Now I long for the chance to be able to stay at home in the evenings and cook and clean and piddle around doing crafts and whatnot. Ha ha. But alas I am stuck going to work, to serve food to people that I could care less about and forced to run around for hours on end. Oh for the simplicity of cleaning my bathroom and dejunking my closet. Someday soon, this will be my reality. Then I will count myself truly blessed to have the time to do my dishes and organize my filing cabinet. But until then....

I finished knitting my baby hammock. I was surprised at how simple and quick of a project it actually was. Besides fudging around to figure out a certain stitch, everything went extremely smooth. I forgot to take a picture of the finished project before I handed it off to my sister. You will just have to be patient with me and wait until she gets to put it to use for a picture. Until next time, I shall be dreaming of doing my dishes. :)

Knitters block...

If you're anything like me, then you're always looking for something new and exciting to do. I'm not exactly sure why, since I don't have enough hours in the day as it is. Yesterday I happened to stumble across a very exciting and dangerous website: Ravelry. It is an awesome site if you enjoy to knit or crochet.

I was looking at baby props yesterday for my sister's photography business, and I was amazed at how much people can charge for the simplest things. One of the items that I clicked on just happened to be a pattern to make the item yourself. It wasn't too much longer before I was on Ravelry finding my first project to knit. And here it is:

 Such a simple and yet adorable little hammock. I decided that this weekend would be the perfect time to work on it, seeing as I'm about to venture on an extremely long car ride tomorrow. Since my sister was in town last night, I drug her with me to Joann's Fabrics to buy some yarn. We got there only 30 minutes before the store closed and it took us all of that time to decide on which yarn to buy. Too many choices!

Once I got the yarn home, we spent what felt like hours rolling it into balls. I'm very excited about how this will turn out. Check back for pictures of my finished project and for feedback on the pattern.

Along came Brynlee...

In my quest for inspiration for my blog yesterday, I just ended up wasting my time browsing through a mess of websites. I got so caught up in it, that before I knew it, I had run out of time. So today I'm simply going to start writing and see where it takes me.

I know I've slightly failed at being an excellent blogger and I always vow to do better the next time, but this time I really am going to try and blog at least once a week. So let me catch you up....

After months of anticipation, I found out that my sweet baby is a girl. You would not believe how excited I was to hear that news. Tears of joy poured from my eyes. Although I have a feeling that had I found out it was a boy,  I would've had the same reaction. I was just so happy to know what I had been carrying. The search for the perfect name then began.

Little did I know how difficult it would be for my husband and I to agree on a name and both be excited about it. But one thing that I've learned about my husband over the years, if he doesn't like it at first, give it some time and it'll grow on him. So I began throwing out all the names that I liked and watching his reaction on them. If there was even the slightest bit of interest, I'd keep using that name. After what seemed like forever, I finally got him to agree on a name with me, and somehow I think it just fits perfectly...

Brynlee Elizabeth Adams

I definitely didn't pick Brynlee for it's meaning. In fact, I didn't even know the meaning of it until I started doing some digging. I was slightly disappointed by what I found.

• The Welsh meaning of Brynlee is Hill Meadow
• The English meaning is Burnt Meadow

It honestly doesn't matter. I mean, who comes up with these meanings anyways. To me, Brynlee will mean my sweet angel. And that's all that matters. 

As for Elizabeth, she is being named after both my mother (who has always been my role model and my hero) and my husband's mother (who has taught him everything he knows and turned him into such a wonderful person). I think it's very special that she'll share that name with both of her grandmothers. 

Stay posted..... more to come!