Much and Many

Thanksgiving was great. We made a traditional sage and bread stuffing for dinner, and it went over well. (No leftovers - huzzah!) The vegetarian something that we took was a Quorn Turk'y Roast, and it was delicious. So very much so, in fact, that I had to go buy another one to have to cook for later. (Even meat-eaters in the group enjoyed it!)

So much has happened since then, and I kinda feel bad about slopping all of it into one post, but ce la vie. (And it's honestly par for the course on this blog!) :)

Early in December, my parents and Jake and I went to a park to take some quick family portraits to put them on a Christmas postcard, and then we went to lunch. Of course, it was cold and windy that day, when the other days surrounding it were sunny and enjoyable. (Go figure.)
Jake and I put up our Christmas tree that evening after dinner, and as I was taking a few photos of it, he proposed to me! Hooray for being officially engaged!

I finished my class with an A. I signed up for an on-campus class next semester, one of the requisite writing classes. Huzzah. The book for this one should only be $25 to rent, so that's about an 80% savings from last semester.

We have done two Christmases -- one with half of his family (due to illness and traveling) and one with mine. One more awaits us on January 1. I'm not sure how awake we'll be that day, as we have a cocktail party in Denver on the 31st to celebrate his aunt's 55th birthday. We have possibly a third Christmas with the aunt and uncle, because I'm not sure they'll want to host the party on the 31st and then get up early and drive to Greeley for the Christmas, but who knows.

Now that Christmas is mostly over, we can start actually planning and talking about the wedding in a serious way. (Something that my Type A brain wanted to do the night that he asked me to marry him!)
Mom and I are going to look at dresses on the 31st at David's Bridal, as they're having their $99 sale until January 19th. (I fell in love with a dress on Modcloth, but we'll see what DB has.)
Jake and I have our engagement photos on the 2nd, thanks to my awesome, wonderful, and insanely talented friend, Krista, of Juhl Photography.

So, yeah.
Much and many things have happened in the last six weeks.

This post does seem a little summary, but sometimes that's what happens when you're typing a post on your lunch break while actually eating lunch. :)

Food, Babies, and Christmas **UPDATED**

How many of you thought that said "food babies"? I did when I re-read it! Ha! :)

After four weeks in my Mindful Eating Class, I am constantly thinking about food. Honestly, I was doing so before the class started, when I began hoarding vegetarian recipes (something I'm still doing, let's be honest), but now I'm thinking in terms of balancing whole grains, fats, and proteins. I have measured out my yogurt and various fruits this week, which is a little weird to say so matter-of-factly. I say, "Hmm, for breakfast, should I have Chex with milk, or should I have a fruit, yogurt, and granola parfait? Which would provide more nutrition for me today, based on what I plan on eating throughout the day?"

So how goes the vegetarian thing? Great! Most days I eat at least two meals containing zero meat. (Aided by the purchase of a fantastic vegetarian cookbook for $3.99 at Tradesmart a few weeks ago.) There are lots of beans and chickpeas in my diet right now. I've recently fallen in love with butternut squash, though the peeling bit is a pain in the ass. I just bought my first package of tofu. I do, however, still have meat in my food supply. My boyfriend is visiting this weekend, and I took out the final package of pork chops out to thaw. That leaves some salad shrimp, some chicken strips, some ground turkey, and maybe one or two other things in my freezer. But that's it. I can knock those out pretty quickly, and then be full-on veg.

If I am full-on veg by the time Thanksgiving and/or Christmas rolls around, I'll bring my own main dish to family meals. That way, no one has to make any special accommodations for me. I wouldn't want them to.

Thanksgiving and Christmas: things that make people think of family, which brings me to my next topic today: babies. ("Struggling for a segue way?" you ask. Always!)
One of the counselors at work delivered her twins on Tuesday. Luca and Laney -- awesome names! One of my friends is celebrating her daughter's seventh birthday later this month and then a second birthday for her youngest daughter in December. In February, another friend's son will turn two, and she and her husband are actively trying to conceive a second child. Two of our accounting ladies are in various stages of coming back from maternity leave. There are babies everywhere.

I am still undecided if I want to have children of my own or not. My boyfriend and I have talked about adoption, and all portends indicate that we are both on board with that. I don't know why I'm so undecided about bearing children. Maybe the fact that I've been able to have children for two out of my three decades, and I feel that I'm running out of time / quality eggs? That definitely plays a part in it. Plus, hearing about all the complications and stuff that can happen to women and the babies doesn't sway me in the direction of "Yes, I want to!" The direction we're leaning right now is to get our lives in a state where we'd be comfortable bringing children into, opening our home and hearts to adoptive children, and if we have children of our own genes, then so be it.

I definitely want to have my children foster a love of learning. (Honestly, what parent doesn't want that for their children?) In days past, I wanted to be a teacher. There's a small part of me that still wants that. No matter what happens, I want to get my kids on the path of learning early. (Shoot, I was reading third-grade level books when I was in kindergarten! I want my kids to be that way, too.) I never want to school to feel like a chore for them. I mention this because I've been pinning a lot of educational stuff to my Parentage board on Pinterest, along with a bunch of other stuff that I want to remember when I'm a parent. I'm torn if I want them to be homeschooled or if I want them to go to public school. (Honestly, that will all depend on where we live when we have children and what our lives are like at that point.) I'm sure this sounds pretty ridiculous to some readers -- talking and planning for things that haven't happened yet -- but I'm the kind of person whose visions of the future need some sort of outlet, and Pinterest is it for me.  :)

Of course, that could all change as time goes on. But that's the beauty of life: you can always change your game plan as necessary. I wish that concept was something that more people had peace with.

Ah, peace. The season of peace is soon to be here, y'all: Christmas. (I know, I was struggling for a segue way again. At least we made it back around to Christmas. I could change the title around, to make it easier and allow me to introduce the Christmas thing back when I was talking about vegetarianism at family holidays, but then I wouldn't have the title that may allow someone to read "food babies and Christmas." Yes, this is my thought pattern. Welcome to my life. Feel free to stop reading now if you find my life annoying.)

This year, despite both my partner and I having jobs, most of the gifts we give will be homemade. I'll give the traditional apple butter, yes, and I've been thinking of expanding into other fruit and cucurbita butters. There will be other gifts in the ensemble and they will also be practical, usable, homemade gifts. This can be attributed to my more-completely manifested hippie-dom or the fact that most of the people we'll be buying gifts for are able to get themselves the gadgets and e-goodies that they want. We'll be giving them pieces of ourselves and our time -- more valuable than any Blu-Ray! I think that most of where the homemade motivation comes from is that what people really need is not the latest e-gadget, which will be used and ultimately discarded, but something thoughtful. Something that someone took time out of their lives to think about, plan out, and create. (Ok, that feeds into my hippie-dom.) A lot of it, too, is that I enjoy making stuff for people. I'll be doing my traditional Christmas cards, but that never feels like enough. Like, "Here's this card I made for you alongside this bright and shiny boxed-and-styrofoamed thing that I found on a shelf in the store." I much prefer the idea of "Here's this card I made for you, and this jar of fruit butter I made for your weekend gipfeli, and this other thing I made for you when you do that thing you love doing, and this other thing I made for you..." Doesn't that sound so much better??

I just know that if I were mostly giving commercially-produced gifts this year, I would regret it. If the people who are gifting to me would feel the same way (or do feel the same way, should any of them be reading this) I wouldn't want them to do something they'd regret. (That goes for ever, not just in gift-giving.)