BlogHer 09

If you are coming here from BlogHer, welcome! A Spiced Life is a lifestyles blog discussing my family, life, and experiments in the kitchen. The recipe for the cookies attached to my cards can be found here: Spice Cookies

I am mom to a boy, born Aug. 2000, and am expecting my second child in Jan. We live in the suburbs of Washington DC, and I work for a large Federal Contractor.

Please say Hi to me if you see me in a session. Despite the pregnancy headaches I'm suffering, I promise not to bite.

Oh... Hi!

So, I have this blog thing, and I haven't updated it in nearly forever... At first I could claim that I was crazy-busy at work and didn't have time. Then Tom and I took a trip to Hawaii without the boy. But then we got back, and I still didn't update. I really have no excuse at this point, other than I'm extremely lazy. For those of you who know me in real life, this should come as no surprise. After all, I never updated my LiveJournal either when I had that!

However, my silence has boarded on the point of ridiculousness at this point. I've had all kinds of news to share (and if you follow me on twitter, and you know you should, this will come as no surprise). So here goes. Guess what! I'm pregnant! 14 weeks at this point, with a due date of Jan. 21, 2010. That means that I'm going to be going to BlogHer knocked-up and unable to drink. Oh right, that's my other news. I'm traveling to Chicago this weekend to attend a blogging conference (and to PARTY!!!) with 1400 of my closest friends. And I get to share a room with my friend Wife & Mommy, another one of the DC Metro Mom bloggers, so I'm really excited about that. I guess the plus side of not being able to drink is that I won't be nursing a hangover at 8am when the breakfast starts. The downside, of course, is that I can't drink all of the freeze booze that will be flowing. Lets hope some of the party hosts offer some interesting mocktails...

New Post at DCMM

I was over at DC Metro Mom's today talking about trying to help a dog loose in the neighborhood.

Look for a new Spiced Life post this weekend with my favorite stuffed mushrooms!

National Delurking Day

I've been crazy-busy at work today (in fact, at 7pm, I'm still sitting in a conference room with 10 teammates working on testing for a new system). However, I've heard from a few other bloggers that today is National Delurking Day.

I know I don't have a lot of readers or commenters, but if there is anyone out there who happens to read this little site and doesn't comment, please leave a little note that you're here!

This also applies for you regular commenters.

How about this... Let me know you're here, and how about you tell me what you're having for dinner tonight. Or at least something you have planned for dinner one night this week. I'd love to hear some new meal suggestions!

Thanksgiving Recap

(Note: I started writing this post a month ago. It's now after Christmas and I'm finally getting around to finishing it. Nothing like a little timeliness on my posts.)


For Thanksgiving, we were invited to Tom's aunt and uncle's house in New York. They live in the city, but have a "country home" up in the Catskills that is just gorgeous. The house was built in the 1880's and has a detached guest house (nicknamed the cottage). Both have been completely modernized with the formal gardens maintained.

This Thanksgiving marked the second time I had been to this house. The first was Thanksgiving 2006. That was the first holiday after Tom's grandfather had died, so at the time, the family was looking to mix things up a bit (previously we had alternated Thanksgivings between Tom's grandfather's place in GA, and our house). We made the drive up late Tuesday night, and finally arrived around 2am after battling snow in PA and missing out turn at the NY/PA border (thankfully we only went 5mi out of our way before coming to a toll booth and finding out about our mistake). Thankfully Will had managed to fall asleep in the car somewhere around 11pm, so we walked the sleepy boy straight into his bedroom where he fell right back to sleep. The rest of us (us being myself, Tom and my MIL) unpacked the car, brought in the luggage, and prepared for bed. This is when we found out there there was no water in the cottage. Thankfully there was some bottled water around for bushing teeth and the like!

Life progressed fairly normally on Weds. We prepped the turkeys and got them in the brine, went out for lunch, did some shopping... As part of a thank you gift for hosting, Tom purchased a boneless standing rib roast of bison from a local farm for dinner Weds. night. Tom's Uncle has mentioned in the past how much he enjoys bison and had gifted us with a box of steaks a couple years ago from a supplier in the midwest. We're thankful that we have such an excellent, local source of high-quality meat! To complement the meat, we had a salad and I prepared one of my favorite barley dishes. I want to remember to post the recipe for it, but of course I didn't remember to take pictures.

Thanksgiving was a repeat of Weds, in that we had a lazy breakfast and spent the day prepping for dinner. I was charged with roasting a whole turkey in the oven, while Tom's uncle grilled a turkey he had boned and marinaded in a mole sauce he brought back from Mexico. The cousins each prepared a side dish, desserts were handled by my MIL and Tom's aunt, and Tom's uncle did an intricate stuffed swiss chard purse. (After our bounty of swiss chard this summer, Will was less than thrilled to see it appear on the table yet again!)

Since turkeys are pretty much hands-off after the initial prep work, I was able to take some time and play with the boy outside. Snow forts were built and snow balls flung. Much hot chocolate was drunk. Everything for dinner came together wonderfully, and the meal was a delight. Afterwards, Tom and I ended up joining his cousins for some sledding at a friends' house a couple doors down. Just visualize for a second, 6 adults, ranging in age from 24-32, mostly plastered, sledding down the steep tree-lined driveway being chased by a crazy 2yo Airedale puppy. Definitely a sight. I definitely ran into the trees a few times, and I think most of the other guys tumbled off the sleds (or over each other) at least once. The guys were sinking their beers into the snow banks while sledding, and they'd eventually get knocked over. The dog would then proceed to eat all of the booze-soaked snow. This didn't stop her from chasing everyone down the hill or accidentially stepping on a sled and going for a ride herself. The poor dog just passed out when we got back to the house.

Friday morning was lazy and casual. I'd been asking Will during the week if he'd want to try skiing and he finally said he didn't want to ski, but did want to go snow tubing. So, after Noon we rounded up enough warm clothes and headed up to the mountain. Well, apparently the snowtubing part wasn't open yet, but after checking out the ski slopes, Will finally decided that he wanted to try. You can read about that experience over at DC Metro Moms.

We drove home Sat. afternoon after a second day spent on the ski slopes. I was sore, Will was exhausted, and I think we were all excited to sleep in our own beds. We definitely had a fun trip, but an 8-10hr car drive definitely takes it out of you!