Feed me

My stomach is directly connected to my mood.  Empty stomach = bad mood.

When I worked at EY my coworkers knew that if they wanted me to remain pleasant through the late nights of tax season I needed to eat dinner before 6 pm.

Right before we got engaged Nate asked my coworkers (who helped him with the proposal) to, "Please make sure Katie eats dinner."  I guess he worried that empty stomach = no wedding.

So one of the perks to being pregnant and then nursing was that I did not need to feel guilty in the slightest for eating on Fast Sunday.

Today I informed Nate that I need to start fasting again, now that I can no longer use nursing as an excuse.  His response: "Oh my."

Life according to my iPhone

I use my iPhone camera on a daily basis.  My primary subject, of course, is Porter.  However, I also take pictures of things I'd like to remember (like the library hours), things that are pretty (like flowers), and things that amuse me.  And those things, my friend, are what I will share with you now.  (See the first iPhone photo post here.)

 I have a continued obsession with bugs:

Looks like a mild winter!

This bug welcomed us home one day.

I love to photograph trees: 

trees:

and more trees:

This is just a sample of the tree pictures I have on my phone.
Perhaps my obsession is related to living in the desert for 11 years.

Porter and I walked past this house the other day and wondered how the people in apartment 2 get to that door.

Signs were a major subject of my iPhone photos this go-round.

I had to capture the dire warning at our local gun range:

The men at the office told us to feel free to walk around and explore.
We respectfully declined.

 With the recent election there was a plethora of political signs.  This one was the best:

Of course we ate lunch here.  

 We happened upon a "Tot Spot" playground that I thought would be fun for Porter to play at in the future.  Then I reconsidered.

 I'm debating buying a house on this street someday:

Every time I see this picture I can hear Miracle Max's wife:

I'm relieved to know we'll be safe in the event of a nuclear explosion:

I love this exit sign because they guy looks like he's running for his life.

Perhaps he's running to the fall out shelter just down the street.

And finally, I took photographic evidence of Halloween decor.  I don't remember so many Halloween decorations anywhere else I've lived before. (There are even Halloween parades here in PA.  Jealous??)  Most of the decorations are cute and child-friendly.  These two examples of holiday decor, though, I'm almost certain were made by adolescent boys.  Oh the things I have to look forward to!

Correction and Clarification

I have been sorely remiss in blogging the past month.  In addition, I realize I must make a correction and a clarification to my last blog post.

Correction:  In my last post I wrote that we were moving to Maryland.  This is not entirely untrue, as Nate is working in Maryland.  However, we are living in a quaint little Pennsylvania town.  So far we love it here!

Clarification: I had several people congratulate me on my pregnancy.  I am NOT expecting a baby any time soon to my knowledge.  I believe this confusion arose because I did post during the summer of 2011 that we were moving and painting a room blue.  This was to announce Porter's impending arrival.  I do appreciate the congratulations, though!

Now you can expect a series of posts I've been composing in my head during the past month.  Coming soon to a blog near you.  I hope.

Transient

Growing up I moved a lot.

Utah.

Ohio.

Indiana.

Texas.

Virginia.

Texas.

Utah.

Four years after my family moved to Utah my dad retired from the Air Force and my parents stayed in place.  I, however, went away to college two years after we moved to Utah.  While I stayed at the same school, I moved to a new apartment every single year.  After I graduated I moved back home for a year.  Following that year, Nate and I married.  In our three years of marriage we've lived in three different apartments.

Suffice it to say, I move a lot.

So, without further ado, I will announce that I am adding one more state to my list.

Maryland.

What do you see?

I drive past this billboard several times a week:

Here's what I see when I glance at the billboard:

Probably not what Zion's Bank had in mind.

Make way for ducklings

I took Porter to the San Diego Zoo recently while Nate was attending a statistical conference.  We enjoyed walking around and looking at all the wildlife.

As I walked around I was also scouting out good places to nurse.  Porter would need his "afternoon tea" and I was trying to find a discreet location where I could nurse without drawing attention to myself.

After looking for the entire first part of our visit I quickly realized two things:

         1.  I was not in Utah anymore
         2.  Zoo benches are not provided for nursing

I haven't been to the Hogle Zoo since Porter was born so I can't say that I see people nursing all the time there but I can say that I see people nursing all the time in Utah.  In fact, over Memorial Day weekend we went to the City Creek Center (a new mall) and I saw a woman nursing her baby as she stood in the center of the walkway talking to some friends.

The second thing I realized was that benches are placed along pathways so people can rest, not nurse. If they were for nursing they'd be off the path a little in a corner or a wooded area.  Bummer for me.

I finally found a place that was as secluded as it would get - it was in an outdoor patio areas of one of the zoo eateries.  My table backed up to some bushes and was off to the side.  I was so proud of myself!  I sat down, placed my backpack on the table to add an additional level of privacy, put on the nursing shield, and discreetly started nursing Porter.

Right about that time a mother duck decided she too would like seclusion for herself and her ducklings.  And she too liked the little table by the bushes at the edge of the outdoor dining patio.  Before I knew it, a cute little flock of ducklings was waddling around and under my chair, following their mama.

And following them came the hoards of children and parents who were entranced by the sweet little ducklings.  So much for seclusion while nursing!  I suddenly felt like a main attraction (even though it was really the birds not me).  I avoided eye contact with everyone and just sat there as if I was only rocking my baby while he took a nap under a blanket I wore looped around my neck!

As a side note, a few hours later Porter and I walked past the gift shops towards the exit.  And there it was: "Baby Care Station."  The perfect place in the zoo to nurse your baby without becoming an exhibit yourself!

Narcolepsy

Ever since I went to college I've had trouble staying awake the entire way through movies.  I honestly haven't seen the end of some movies in years.  And once I watched Pirates of the Caribbean for the umpteenth time and came across a scene I'd completely forgotten was in the movie because I was usually asleep by that point.

So the other night we rented the new Sherlock Holmes movie from Red Box.  About twenty minutes into the movie I held my hand up in a stop sign/time-out signal and made Nate pause the movie.

"What on earth is going on??  I am so confused!" I said.  I was watching the movie intently but I just couldn't quite follow it.

"Well, you remember the first movie, how there was the bad guy..." Nate trailed off as he saw me shaking my head.

"I fell asleep during the first movie."

"Oh, right.  Well, do you remember when we watched the TV series?"  I just looked at him.  "Oh. Right.  You were asleep," he said.  Then he sighed.  How to explain what was going on?

"Well, basically, there's a professor who is making evil plans but they don't give us enough information in the movie to figure it out."

So with that explanation I proceeded to watch the movie.

I don't remember when I fell asleep.  It was probably about fifteen minutes later.  I didn't wake up until the end credits.  Poor Nate.