test, test

Test, test is this thing on? Oh, ok, good. I wasn't sure if it still worked since I've taken such a long hiatus! I'm BACK...sort of. Don't expect too much from me now; this mom stuff is exhausting, time consuming, wonderful, amazing and the best thing ever. So, sorry blog, you might get put on the back burner for a bit.

lucy is ready

Lucy is officially ready for Casey's arrival. She loves sleeping in his room and understands that she will need to be the chief watchdog of the house!

facebook i don't heart you

Friday Rant: Facebook.

I'm not sure if one is allowed to rant on a Friday. I believe rants are suppose to be saved for Sunday evening and Monday, but this Sunday evening I'll be with my favorite people in the whole world...mom, dad, kate, kevin and lucy and Monday we'll be driving home from San Diego to San Jose and I'm not technologically savvy enough to rant while driving north on the 5. Isn't that illegal anyway?

Digression complete, ranting may commence. So, Facebook. I think I'm the only person in all of the 20% of world citizens who use facebook that hates it. Here's why I hate it:

1) I feel like a total loser when I find out big news from one of my "friends" via facebook. Example: engagements, marriage, pregnancy.

2) I find texting terribly impersonal and only good for quick, "I'm running late, will be there in 5," or "have a great weekend, catch up with you on Monday." I find the "wall posts" just as impersonal and annoying. Call me/email me to ask how my life's been over the course of the past 6 months. To me, a "I haven't talked to you in so long, how's everything going" post translates to "I haven't talked to you in so long and don't really care to so I'm going to mark you off my list by sending a wall post."
**Note: To all friends who do this: try not to get offended, if you truly think about it, you'll see I have a valid point. I do this myself all the time, so please don't think I'm trying to be holier than thou.**

3) It confuses the crap out of me. I swear I've checked every possible security setting, yet I still get the most random things posted to my wall/get comments from people I don't know only because I commented on the status of someone I do know. Now, I really don't think I'm a technology retard, I actually can get myself out of sticky technology conundrums pretty easily, but the Facebook settings just through me into a tail spin.

4) Facebook friends. This may sting a little, I'm sorry. But like the note in comment 2, try to see where I'm coming from before getting bent out of shape. Just try. Facebook friends: If I haven't seen you in two years or talked to you in the same amount of time and we don't have plans to see each other in the next year or call each other, are we really friends? Ok, that did sound rude. Let me try to rephrase: If I haven't talked to you since high school, don't have your number, don't know what state you live in, I don't think we're "friends" and so I don't really think we should be facebook friends. Maybe if Facebook changed the friends tag to acquaintances, I'd feel a little more positive about this. Because truly, most of my friends on facebook, are leaning toward the acquaintances side of life; people I knew in a past life and see every now and then. That probably says something about me. I much prefer to have a tight knit group of friends than have tons and tons of acquaintances. It's just who I am and you may be different and that works for you. So that's probably why I'm so weirded out by being facebook friends with people I don't really know anymore. Ok, don't de-friend me because of this comment. Who knows, we may run into each other at Peet’s and realize what we had was so good and must be started up again!

5) Fine, the short list of things I do like about Facebook:
- Seeing people’s wedding/baby/trip pictures
- Seeing people’s status comments. Most are random to the point of being amusing and entertaining
- Ah, I think that’s it
- Getting to know acquaintances better via their posts and photos, even if we still will never call each other to catch up

get your can on

Grandma Hicks and Grandma Westhafer got together last week for Canning 2009. Don't laugh, I'm serious. Just because you have you face planted on your iphone and your hand on the remote bouncing between TMZ and Kendra, doesn't mean that we've all forgotten about the simple and bountiful joys of yesteryear.

I have an apricot tree and Allison has a peach and apricot tree. Kevin's dad brought over about 25 pounds of apples from their tree. Together Allison and I made 37 jars of apricot preserves, peach preserves, apricot honey (like preserves but w/o the pectin which makes it thick) and apple butter. Allison's peach preserves are always my favorite. I canned another nine jars of apple butter over the weekend and two jars of apple sauce for Casey. This was my first year making apple butter and I really like how it turned out. I went easy on the sugar so it tastes more like spiced apple sauce, but it's pretty good. When my new crop of lemons come in and if it's before Casey's arrival I think I might make lemon curd and can that too. You never know when you need a spare jar of curd for lemon bars and lemon meringue pie. You just never know. Especially if you're mother-in-law salivates over anything lemon. Now if I can master pie crust I'll be in business.

By the way, if you do ever take a break from reality TV and your fancy iphone apps, OSH is the best place to buy canning jars and tools. Great prices and selection!

30 weeks seems like so long ago

When you're on the home stretch of pregnancy, this photo/update seems rather delayed. Here's a photo of me at 30 weeks...that was three weeks ago but seems like eternity. This pregnancy gig is going really well, not a job I intend to keep full time, but it's definitely tolerable. I still feel great and am full of energy. All the know-it-alls in the world shake their heads at me and say just wait, to which I put on my smile face and say, well all the more reason to enjoy it now. My chief complaint right now is heartburn and especially worse now that I had to buy another bottle of Tums over the weekend and they didn't have the tropical flavor. So I'm stuck with the disgusting regular flavors. My heartburn has to be an 8 on a scale of 1-10 before I pop the regular Tums. Regular refers to orange, lemon, cherry and some other flavor. The tropicals are pineapple, banana, some other pink flavor and maybe mango. Banana's the best. I do have one complaint to add to the list, it kind of just started. I think Casey spent the weekend locking and loading...aka gettin' vertical, aka head down. I spent more time today in the SVB bathroom than at my desk and there's some fun pressure down south. Oh boy!

Moving on to non-medical subjects. This weekend, Kev, Lucy and I (Casey too if you want to get technical) are driving down to San Diego for my baby shower extravaganza. Kate's hosting and she's been working her tail off to make it amazing, not to mention making Casey's bedding, window valance, my hooter hider and I'm sure other things that I know nothing about yet. Strep throat hasn't even slowed her down. Such a MacAllister. To be honest, I'm a little nervous that it's going to be too perfect. How the heck am I'm going to top this when it's my turn to shower her, not that I'm trying to top anything, I just don't want her to be disappointed when I don't hand blow all the glass cups and vases, create a pattern and sew all the table linens, spend 6 months at culinary school in France to learn how to make the finest cuisine, and become proficient in calligraphy to hand write every invitation. That's the caliber of detail I'm talking about people and I don't think it's an exaggeration. Regardless of my own personal insecurities, I'm so thrilled to be spending the weekend with my family. I miss them more than peanut butter misses chocolate.

23 weeks with Casey Hicks

Getting BIG and still 17 weeks to go. Woh, 17 doesn't sound like much at all. Casey is a kicking machine, I swear the kid never steps. I think he has a treadmill in there.

I wish I could be one of those woman that says pregnancy is amazing and the best thing in the world, but I just can't. I do love my belly; it never ceases to entertain me, but everything else is growing too and that's a bit scary for me. I really looking forward to getting my body back and getting back into shape. It might be a bit ambitious, but I'd love to get another triathlon under my belt in 2010. I want this little boy to have a fit mama and having a goal will help get me there.