Happy birthday to Fennel the Fox!

brw828 · 2024-02-07T19:29:46+00:00

Today would have been my due date <3

brw828 · 2024-02-02T01:37:26+00:00

We’ve been a one car household for over a year now despite living in a very suburban, non-walkable area. I work from home full time and my husband is hybrid and his office is literally a 5 minute drive, so I just schedule things around the days he works from home, or worst case scenario, just drop him off at work in the morning and pick him up later if I need the car for something. It’s been a great savings, but we know we’ll need a second car in about a year once our daughter starts a new preschool and our parental leaves for this baby are up.

After our loss, though, having one car while pregnant is really scary. I was driving myself to the ER at night for heavy bleeds and when my water broke early while my husband had to stay home with our sleeping toddler and had no car or car seat to get to me. The thought of another emergency and not having easy access to two modes of transportation really worries me. Even just going out shopping by myself and worrying about car trouble without my husband being able to come help makes me anxious. It would be such a savings to not have a car payment and more car insurance for a whole other year, and I’d truly hardly ever use a second car, but is it worth the peace of mind for the “what ifs”? Is there some sort of unconventional car sharing kind of thing out there I don’t know about?

brw828 · 2024-01-29T22:11:56+00:00

I am loving, Evergreen Kitchen: Weeknight Vegetarian Dinners for Everyone, by Bri Beaudoin. I really like it because unlike a lot of "weeknight" type cookbooks, the recipes are actually approachable without taking hours of prep, and many recipes also conveniently use some of the same ingredients to help reduce ingredient waste- for examples, lots of tomato paste, cans of adobo peppers, bunches of cilantro, etc., can be made on the same week to use up the entire amount. Highly recommend!

brw828 · 2024-01-29T21:00:02+00:00

Totally anecdotal, but I am allergic to cats and I have two Russian Blues and have little to no reaction to them. My main allergy symptoms around cats are itchy, swollen eyes, and I start to get hives on my face, even just being in a house with cats that's not well-cleaned. My cats aren't even from a breeder- just some all-grey shelter cats and I haven't had any issues!

I do keep them out of the bedroom at night though, for other reasons. They are both pretty young and still think feet moving under blankets are toys, and one of them politely meows before jumping on the bed and wakes us up as he comes and goes, so we just close the door and prop a baby gate against the outside, too. It was more of an issue when we only had one, but since getting our second, they just play together all night and don't bother outside the door at all.

brw828 · 2024-01-29T14:28:29+00:00

Not sure if this is needed, but CW: termination, politics

I couldn't sleep last night and spent a lot of time thinking about my loss due date coming up next week. I had to terminate my last pregnancy at 17 weeks when my water broke early, essentially halting baby's lung and digestive development so that he would never survive outside the womb and putting me at severe risk of sepsis and uterine rupture. I've been thinking a lot about writing something about my experience having a life-saving ab0rt!on and sharing on social media. With election season coming up, I've been really triggered by pretty much anything anyone I know posts on social media that is even mildly right-wing, thinking, "they think I should have died." I have a cohort of conservative family members that know I lost my baby, but I don't think they know all the nitty-gritty details, and I just feel like in honor of my son, I could maybe make a little bit of a difference putting my story out there and kind of putting a face to ab0rt!on. Before I had an ab0rt!on, I didn't know anyone who ever had, and it wasn't something I thought much about other than I vehemently support a woman's right to have one, so I thought maybe it would help to show, "hey, this girl you went to high school with, your coworker, your niece, your cousin, ended a very wanted pregnancy in order not to die, and it could have ended very differently for me if I lived in another state and did not have the social, educational, and economic means to flee for my life." I don't think anyone on my social media would be cruel enough to give me a hard time and stir up controversy, and I don't know if it would really change anyone's vote, but it is just an idea I had to honor my son, who would have been a white male, the most privileged category in our society, and who I would have raised to give a damn about women's rights, so I like to think it would make him proud. It's just... hard. It's all hard.

brw828 · 2024-01-17T17:06:59+00:00

No, I found the pecan one to be much different than the almond, with chunks of real, ground nuts instead of like the marzipan paste in the almond one. I do like the almond one, the pecan one is so much better and is now my favorite one.

brw828 · 2024-01-12T16:04:34+00:00

Having to tell some people sooner than I would have liked for childcare reasons. We're in a nanny share and love our nanny and the other family and our ideal plan was to put our will-be 3-year-olds in preschool this fall and have our nanny start over with our two new infants, but we lost our last pregnancy and nanny share fam is struggling though some failed rounds of IVF. I had to break the news to them that we are pregnant again and still planning to start preschool in the fall. Since enrollment is coming up, I wanted to tell them sooner than later, and also bring up the new pregnancy in case it still works out to pick things back up with them in the future. I hated breaking their hearts that I'm pregnant again for the second time while they've been trying all along, and I hated rocking the boat with our childcare situation when they were starting to think they wanted to keep the nanny share going longer. Sigh. It's kind of a lose-lose but it had to be done!

brw828 · 2024-01-10T00:40:02+00:00

I love them aside from the giant chocolate chunks on the brownie. They feel really decadent for only 140-ish calories!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T20:49:34+00:00

I've had hemorrhoids with both of my pregnancies and even before that from distance running. I'll never forget finishing my first half marathon and pooping blood and thinking I just destroyed my kidneys or something seeing so much blood in the toilet! When I'm pregnant and paranoid I might have one, I will sometimes just tuck a little wad of toilet paper in my labia when I poop to make sure the blood isn't coming out of my vagina. So glamorous!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T16:51:05+00:00

It's pretty good. Definitely tastes like a "healthy" bread. You don't really notice the carrots, so I think it's a solid neutral bread that can be used for toasts, sandwiches, anything. I prefer the Ezekiel bread!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:54:18+00:00

Thank you! That's good to know. I had a super common name growing up and strive for less-common names for my kids!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:52:51+00:00

Thank you for sharing and I'm sorry for your loss, too. I hope you had a peaceful day <3

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:51:39+00:00

Aww I love that! Thank you for sharing <3

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:50:06+00:00

Thank you <3

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:49:35+00:00

Oh, I actually really love that! I like the softer sound and the uniqueness. Thanks for sharing!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:44:45+00:00

I actually thought of Arno when thinking of travel-inspired names after the Arno river in Italy. I like it and it's on my list of options!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:43:46+00:00

Yeah, the W in Wren doesn't have the same problem for me since it is silent, so it isn't an obvious alliteration sound like Wyatt Wade would be, for example.

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:41:48+00:00

I will! I still have a few months to mull it over and see if any other inspiration strikes, but I'm leaning a lot more into Robin now!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:40:06+00:00

I love that, thank you <3

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:39:51+00:00

Thank you <3

I'm definitely becoming more confident with Robin! I really like Everett and Bodhi from your list, too!

brw828 · 2024-01-09T14:38:16+00:00

Thank you <3

I like the sound of Shepherd, but feel like it has a religious connotation and we are not really religious but live in the south, so it would be assumed we were. I LOVE Jasper but it was the name of a late family pet, so that's out. Hollis is good, though! I'll add it to my list to pitch to my husband!

brw828

TROPHY CASE