Bryan Paul Teague

He has arrived! Out little bundle of love arrived on October 26th at 10:41 pm. "It's a boy!" Paul announced as he laid Bryan Paul on my tummy after delivery. He weighed 8 lbs. 9 oz. and was 20.75" long.

I have not been much of a "baby person," in the past, preferring to spend time with children that are older (4+ years being optimal). So I was worried that I would be always hoping my baby would be 4 years old sooner rather than later. But no, he's already 5 days old, and I'm instead worrying that he's already growing too fast! I could hold him all day long and look into his little face and not be bored for a minute, and I can't think of anything more precious (even a kitten, which I always argued was the cutest type of baby on the planet). So, yep, motherhood and me will be just fine, thank you!

Proud Daddy with Bryan just after delivery

All cleaned up and content as can be!

Green, yellow and white all over

What's green, yellow and white all over? Our laundry! The project for yesterday afternoon was washing all the baby clothes, blankets, bed linens and cloth diapers so that they can be put away and ready for use. It was pretty cute seeing all those newborn Onesies folded up! Ahh simple pleasures.

We finally got rain in South Carolina, too, which has been the big news around here. People practically dancing in the streets with joy. I think it's been something like 35 days without rain and that is something to contend with when all the plant life around here is used to at least one thunderstorm per week. We'd all given up on our lawns and I think Lawn Patrol has too, thank goodness. My rain barrel/soaker hose system amazingly kept our veggie garden alive through the blistering heat and "drought" although we didn't get much of a crop this year. We got a total of 2 cantaloupes, 4 cabbages, 1 bell pepper and 4 tomatoes and a bushel of jalepenos (odd that they did well)... and we are talking edibles, not number of plants here.

Yesterday was a really fun day of being showered again! Tracy, her mom and best friend came over and commandeered the house, setting up food and Beatrix Potter decor all over. About 20 people ended up coming from the neighborhood, church, and also the wives of the guys Tracy and I work with (the wives are so much more fun). We had a fun time visiting and eating some delicious southern food that I hadn't tried before (such as Pimento Cheese dip). Tracy, being the clever one that she is, had a Beatrix Potter name for all the food such as Jemima Puddle Duck's Devilish Eggs and Mr. McGregor's Garden Patch (veggie sticks and dip) and Mrs. Tiddlemouse's Pimento Cheese.



We had some oooing and ahhing and present opening too.

Backtracking to a few days ago, Paul thought we better get another belly picture because it's been awhile, so here I am on Thursday- yikes! hardly any shirts fit me anymore. I mainly wear dresses now.

And here is the crib set up in the finally-finished painted bedroom. All that's missing now is the chair rail that Dad's putting up when he arrives (and a bit more decor, lamps, etc to cozy it up).

Seeing Stripes

The first round of stripe-painting was last weekend and we were surprised at how fast it went. We also painted the ceiling a pretty pale blue. So by the time that was done our arms were tired and we decided to post-pone the second coat to this weekend. Stripes should be done today but sadly the paint store was closed on Saturday due to the holiday so we couldn't get more blue for the ceiling. Hunter Paints is the only store for hundreds of miles that sells the Mythic Paint that has no VOCs (bad for breathing) and is non toxic. By the time we realized we could order it online from Mythic, it was too late to have it for today.

But that's OK because stripe painting will be just enough painting for one day to wear us out and will also give us time to do other things like relax and enjoy the Monday off! It gets really hot in these rooms when you are working hard and there's no ceiling fans to help. Even setting the air conditioning down lower than normal didn't seem to make much difference, so painting was done with as few layers of clothing as possible.

The dark green stripes outlining the medium green stripes is one of the types of tape we are using to keep our lines straight, but will be coming off once we are done.

Happy Labor Day everyone! :-)

Ship Out and Shape Up

We had a case of uninvited guests lodging in our pantry for a few weeks. It was probably longer than a few weeks but it became very noticeable that the lodgers were multiplying and fast becoming a daily occurrence. I bought a few pantry pest traps which were moderately effective by trapping the male moths so they can't reproduce, but then some days I found that there was still some mating shenanigans going on on the ceiling. So I ended up vacuuming twice a day until we had a weekend free to tackle the pests. Upon closer examination last weekend, we had cocoons and caterpillars allll in the nuts and flour and grains in our pantry. At least they were picky eaters so it was easy to get rid of the few infested items. But the bigger problem was that there were cocooners lodged in the lips of cans and under the ledges of bottled water, lunch bags and weaseled under box flaps that were sealed. What I thought would be an hour project of sorting through our food and cleaning down the floor with vinegar, ended up being an all day event of hauling everything out of the pantry and checking each item carefully before putting away and also wiping the whole pantry down with vinegar. Some things that were very questionable went straight out onto the deck for closer investigation..
while the less susceptible things were piled up onto the counters. Finally we got rid of them all. But even after the clear out, we were getting one moth every day for four more days until we were moth-free.

This last weekend we started painting the baby room to begin sprucing it up and making it more cozy. The primary color is a beautiful key lime pie color and I have to say it was the best paint I've ever used- Mythic Paint. It has no VOCs so it is virtually odor free and is safe from off-gassing toxins into the house, plus it is non-toxic so breathing was easy for me, the painter and it will be better for the baby. But even connoisseurs of paint that don't pick a paint primarily for the health/environment reasons would pick this paint for it's exceptional quality. It applies evenly, smoothly and I only had to do one coat.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

I had such a fabulous weekend two weekends ago- I went back to California for my babyshower! And my, was I showered! Dad even provided the soap and shampoo. It was great because so many people came and I got to see my friends and family that I haven't seen in a long time (some I got to see at Kaitlyn's wedding in May). I wished that we all could have stayed at the shower for another day so that I could have spent more time catching up with people individually. It all went so fast! I am still overwhelmed by the kindness of Deanna and Jill to host the shower for me and also for everyone else who took the time to make the drive out... some coming from as far away as Tucson and Mariposa! Paul and I are also well stocked now with a crib, Pack 'n Play outfits, books, blankets, quilts, a stroller and just about everything else we could possibly need. Thank you everyone!

We played some fun games like figure out what kind of chocolate bar is smeared in the diaper, guess the babyfood in the jar and baby items bingo.

We also ate some great food and did what women do best - gab! :-)

Another Man in the Kitchen

Last week I got to escape the office for half a day to drive down to Camden, SC to do a safety audit on one of our groundwater monitoring teams. These are fun to do because the team gets an advance warning, we all are audited each week in the field by each other (so it's not stressful) and it gives an office person a chance to get out in the great outdoors for a few hours. It's been super hot and humid here, though, so it's not the ideal conditions for anyone to be outdoors.

I arrived on site just in time to get the last of a passing thunderstorm which made the mugginess more muggy and brought all the bugs out of the woodwork. I put on my steel toe boots and safety glasses and stepped out of the car into the meadow where the guys were working. Instantly I could not see because my glasses steamed up. But luckily, Ken was ingenious and had bought an industrial fan and matching industrial-strength power inverter for the car so that they had torrent of wind blowing across the tailgate and camp chairs they had set up by the well. Since every well was taking several hours to stabilize, they decided that they should take the time to set up as comfortably as possible at each location. Being pregnant, I was given "top fan position" with the cushiest chair. What gentlemen!

A good part of any decent safety audit is getting caught up on chit chat, finding out the woes of the field work, the adventure, the tales, and I likewise act as informant on office news, deadlines and other unpleasantries. Although I work with Ken all the time because we are in the same office, I don't see Woody very often because he's out of our Alabama office. So it was fun to see him. A highlight of the safety audit was the recipe that Woody described to me in detail. He hails from Tennessee and told me about this famous Tomato Pie recipe that he made that weekend. By the end of his impromptu cooking show (hand motions to demonstrate, colorful descriptors and passion), my mouth was watering with the thought of bacon and tomatoes. On the drive home I even stopped at a convenience store (no grocery stores en route for the whole hour drive) to buy the necessary cheese. What a pie it turned out to be!! I will share with you this secret:

Woody's Tomato Pie (this is probably not on the Weight Watchers menu)

Three large tomatoes (or so), chopped and well drained of juice (or you get soggy crust)
one baked pie crust (you can do 2 parts whole wheat flour to one part all purpose for more fiber)
one large onion
handful of fresh basil chopped or equivalent dried basil
about 6 slices of cooked bacon, chopped
1 cup of light mayonnaise (I used the olive oil mayo- turned out good)
1 cup of cheese (I used a combo pack of mozzarella, asiago, cheddar and provolone)
salt and pepper

Prepare and bake your pie crust at 350 for about 15 minutes. meanwhile chop and drain the tomatoes and onions, pick your basil and wash and chop and get the bacon cooking and drained. Chop bacon into small pieces. Once the crust is done, spread a layer of tomatoes, a layer of onion and sprinkle with bacon and basil. Repeat until all veggies/bacon have been placed in the crust. Season with salt and pepper and spread the mayo over the top of the pie like frosting. Then top with cheese and bake at 350 for about 1/2 hour. Serve with a fresh salad. This refrigerates well and tastes even better the next day!