vacation and random stuff

vacation has proved to me that i hate my job as much as i thought i did. i hated it before everything that happened the last few weeks, and now it feels like torture. the good news is we had a blast. we drove the coast from san francisco to santa clara, stayed the night with good friends, then drove to santa cruz where ryan surfed with another friend, then to paso robles to see my aunt and uncle. we stayed the night with them and then headed home with a stop at point consumption and some more surfing for ryan.

the darling SHOCKED me with an iPod Nano for my present, which we can ill afford but i will hoard in miserly ways until i play it to death. :)

i am moving to pregnancy headaches and, i think, out of nausea. however, i am at a lovely in-between stage where i get both at once. oy. concensus? still wouldn't not be pregnant for the entire world. i am so excited to be ending my first trimester. it's like a huge right of passage in pregnancy and i'm starting to understand why.

thanks to everyone for their birthday wishes -- there is only one other birthday that comes close in fun and that was when i turned 23 and had a new orleans themed birthday for which my mother and i cooked for three days in advance. we even had bananas flambe. this was a lot more work and much more peaceful and satisfying.

also -- a big huge happy birthday to season, pampered chef sales person extraordinaire. i hope it's as lovely as mine was because that was pretty darn fantastic.