I dare you not to turn green with exploding envy like the Incredible Hulk from this post, but look what R made from scratch for dinner last night:
Yep, that's his homemade bacon on there, too
AND…
We’re going to the Kenny Chesney concert at Lambeau Field tomorrow. Wahoo!! Opening acts include Uncle Kracker, Billy Currington (who??), and Zac Brown Band. The first 2 I couldn’t really care less about, but I love me some ZBB. Then they’re all supposedly going to jam together at the end of the night. Sweetness! R’s making kabobs (steak and chicken) and BLT pasta salad for our tailgating escapades beforehand, and it looks like the weather *should* cooperate.
And with that, I anoint you sufficiently JELLY! (as in short for jealous, get it)
This article was published yesterday about the Bernie Brewer lawn ornament disaster, and it made me feel so much better about the whole thing. I didn’t know there was a “grand prize” Bernie, but I was beyond ridiculously happy to read this story of who found it.
And apparently the hoarder issued an apology too. That’s big of her and all, but saying you didn’t know you were only supposed to take 1 because you just followed what you saw on Twitter and didn’t read the official rules? Nice try, but Bernie tweeted numerous times to share with other Brewers fans if you found many of them and only take 1 for yourself. Try again next time, little Miss Hoardy McHoarderson, and learn to play fair!
Completely unrelated, but equally as heart-warming (or should i say, belly-warming?), check out what we had for dinner last night. I saw these online last week and couldn’t believe we hadn’t had them before! So R, being the absolute gem that he is, grilled them right up for us. You can read his synopsis of them over at TinySausage.
The Hamburger Fatty - yes, those are grilled cheeses for the bun
So this whole milk drying-up procedure has turned out to be much more painful than I expected. Remember how I thought that since my pumping had slowed down so much recently my risk of exploding boobs was pretty much gone? Yeah, I was wrong. Everything I read said that in order to get your milk supply to end you need to stop pumping/nursing entirely, so even my every-other-day pumping was making my body think I still needed to keep producing. I thought I was just teaching my body to produce less and less until finally it would simply get the hint that I no longer needed any milk. Apparently I was mistaken. So this weekend I decided it was time to stop for good, and I haven’t pumped since Thursday morning.
And I want to rip my boobs right off my chest. Actually just the right one; the left one has been behaving nicely. But righty? My god it’s being a turd. Full, hard, extremely sore, just all around unbearable. I’ve been popping ibuprofen like it’s my job since Saturday because I can finally take it again and it’s the recommended pain reliever for going through this process, but it hasn’t been doing much that I can tell.
What has been helping, though, is cabbage. What? Yes, cabbage. Everywhere I looked for how to go about doing this warned of the engorgement I would experience (they were right!) and recommended putting cabbage leaves on my boobs to relieve the pain of the swelling. Har – yeah I don’t think so. Raw cabbage leaves? In my bra? You’re crazy. Nope, you’re a genius! That shit saved my sanity this weekend. I’m not kidding, from the very first leaf against my skin I wanted to cry with joy and relief. For all the sites I read that suggested this I still can’t tell you what exactly is in the cabbage that helps, but I am now a believer. If Mr. Cabbage told me the world was ending tomorrow night at 6:00, I might actually listen, that’s how much of a cabbage convert I have become. You take raw green cabbage leaves, either slice off the top edge of the big veins in them or smash them down with a rolling pin (i chose the latter), and put them on your boobs for about half an hour or until whenever they’re wilted. I just wore a sports bra so they were easy to put in and remove, and I plowed through almost an entire head of cabbage in two days. The colder they are to start the better, and seriously as soon as you put the leaves on it’s instant relief. They don’t actually reduce the engorgement that much since they don’t do anything to make the milk dry up, but just like ice packs work, the cold compress on your skin does help take a little of the swelling down and provide some pain relief. And I guess women have been using this remedy since the 1800s, so who am I to judge? Bring on the cabbage!
I’ve also read that it may take up to a week or two for the milk to finally be dried up, and if that proves to be true too I may just have to be locked away by the end. I can’t even describe the level of discomfort, for although I’ve felt it before when I would go too long without nursing or pumping, knowing that I can’t relieve the engorgement or else I’ll have to start this cycle all over makes me a little crazy. If the pain gets too awful or I start running a fever I’m supposed to call the doctor at that point, so let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. I did have to express a little by hand last night before the right one exploded, which is such a fun endeavor all in itself. I tell ya, the human body? It’s a crazy machine.
To switch topics to try and take my mind off the boobage pain, let me tell you how my 5k went. I rocked it!! My original goal was to break 30:00, which, after I ran the route earlier last week I knew I’d be able to pull off. So then I had the 27:00 mark in my head. I secretly wanted to break 27:00, but the whole time I was running I kept telling myself I’d be happy with 28:00 something and felt like that’s the pace I was holding. Imagine my surprise when I crossed the finish line and my watch read 26:57!!! (it wasn’t an officially timed race so i used my watch instead of their clock) I mapped out the race route and it actually was 3.24 miles, so that’s an 8:18 pace! Holy shit. The whole time I was running I couldn’t believe my legs were holding in as well as they were, but I had no idea I was going that fast. Well, fast for me, I should say. So I was very happy about that.
Then Saturday night R smoked another scrumptious rack of ribs and we enjoyed 2 bottles of wine. These:
Kung Fu Girl RieslingLeese Fitch Zinfandel
Both were quite tasty. The zin was pretty sweet for a red zinfandel, which I love, and the riesling was nice and light, tasting very much of pears. Last night R used his new pizza stone and pizza peel and made 2 homemade pizzas for dinner. They were both on whole wheat crust, and one was topped with his homemade bacon and cheese, and the other was topped with pepperoni and cheese. Need I even say it? Delicious!! Unfortunately he didn’t take pictures of any of the food this weekend, so you’ll just have to imagine the savory delicacies yourselves.
I apologize – I am remiss in my food reporting duties here. I totally forgot about the culinary highlight of the weekend…
R bought lobster tails Friday night – hooray!! We met at the Milwaukee Art Museum Friday afternoon after work to check out the Frank Lloyd Wright exhibit as this was the last weekend of the tour, and he swung by the Milwaukee Public Market on his way to pick up the frozen delicacies. These he steamed and served with drawn butter (because really, what is lobster without the clarified butter?), then concocted another fantastic batch of his mushroom risotto. But what catapulted this risotto into stratospheric status was the topping – homemade bacon! Yes, R now makes his own bacon too. If you’re interested, he is cataloging all of his charcuterie endeavors in a new blog, TinySausage.
We paired 2 great bottles of riesling with the meal, but unfortunately I didn’t take note of the names.
Completely unrelated to our magnificent regular ol’ Friday night meal, check out this bloody mary! It’s from INdustri Cafe in Walker’s Point. I’ve never been there, but since garnish is my favorite part of a bloody, I will definitely be going to get one of these! Is that a block of cheese on top?? ::i die::
No, I’m not tokin’ it up today at all, but I always just giggle a little when this day rolls around. 😉
Completely unrelated to my post title, what I really wanted to do here was brag about my husband again and his ridiculous cooking skillz. What was on the menu last night, you ask? Oh, just some more homemade brisket/green pepper/Colby jack burgers with 25 year balsamic vinegar ketchup and a side of mushroom/peppers risotto (grated parmesan on all, yum!). We were out of buns so the toasted bread ended up being a tasty touch. What was the occasion? Tuesday. 🙂
Scrumptious!
I really am spoiled by R’s cooking. I wasn’t lying when I said if it were up to me we’d be living on bowls of cereal and pb&js, so I totally lucked out in the culinary department with this guy. He’s trying to clean out the fridge and get all of our meals back to basics – meat and potatoes (or veggies of some sort), nothing fake or phony, little to no processed foods, local ingredients as often as possible.
R grew up on a dairy farm, so he’s 100% a meat and potatoes guy. He loves making his mom’s recipes on which he grew up too, and I have come to fall in love with pretty much all of them. They’re delicious, hearty, healthy, easy – what more could I want? Their farm is no longer a functioning dairy producer, but his dad still butchers hogs every so often, so we reap the benefits of that as well. 75 lbs. of fresh pork from your home for free? Sign me up! I’ll make room for it in the basement freezer amongst all the bags of breast milk. 🙂
Are you familiar with Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution? It’s a campaign to get America to eat healthier, fresh not processed, specifically targeting kids and schools. Now with D in the mix, the importance of good food and proper nutrition is even more in the forefront of our daily lives. R has taken his cue largely from Jamie’s show, and it’s fantastic. Check out his site and sign the petition – it really is an awesome idea and cause:Â http://www.jamieoliver.com/us/foundation/jamies-food-revolution/home
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the best part. R declared yesterday his personal spring break, so he opened a bottle of my favorite wine to go with dinner. It was a heavenly treat for a plain ol’ Tuesday night.
I’ve never understood that phrase. Who wins something and gets a chicken dinner? What kind of contest do you enter that carries that prize? It’s never sounded very enticing to me either. Like oo yay, you won whatever you were doing, so here’s a big pile of chicken. I picture a heaping plate of fried chicken, of which I am not a fan. Maybe that’s why the whole saying is a bit perplexing to me. If I win, I want something good – cash money, bling bling, trophies along those lines. Not a plate of greasy chicken bits. Ew.
But anyway, it is a fitting title for this post because R made teriyaki chicken sliders for dinner last night, the second invention with his new meat grinder. Um, holy awesome!! These were some of the best mini-sandwiches I’ve ever had. They were made of ground chicken breasts, green onions, garlic, ginger, and real soy sauce, topped with cherry horseradish mustard, and served on pretzel dinner rolls.
I’ll just let the picture speak for itself. And yes, I had 3 of them.
Because it sure felt like it. 80+ degrees, sunny skies, hot breeze blowing, it was great! It was actually almost a little too hot for this early in the season, but I am certainly not complaining. I started off the day in jeans and a 3/4-sleeved shirt, then quickly changed into shorts, then again into a tank top. R grilled up some delicious homemade green pepper and Colby Jack burgers for lunch, then D and I sat outside for a good hour yesterday afternoon enjoying the fresh air and listening to the Brewers on the radio. Talk about the perfect way to spend a Sunday.
I did a garden survey too, and am happy to report that all plants appear to have survived the harsh winter again and are coming up nicely. I’m especially excited for one garden in particular this year – I created a new one in our backyard last fall and wasn’t sure how well it was going to fare. I dug up and tilled a row along our neighbors’ garage and planted 6 peony plants that one of my grandmas sent for D, then covered the whole thing with mulch. This was in October and the peonies were just roots, so I was afraid they were going to be destroyed over the winter. Fortunately I saw a couple of them starting to peek through yesterday, so I’m very hopeful that they’ve all made it and will be a beautiful addition to the scene. Peonies are one of my absolute favorites, and I planted these right next to one mature white peony bush that we already have in the back corner of our yard. I can’t wait to see these all in bloom together.
Oh, and the anniversary present turned out splendidly! I rented a limo to take us to dinner Saturday night and then out on the town afterwards, and R was completely surprised. He was so excited and we had a blast. I still have to get the pictures uploaded, so I’ll share those tomorrow.
Until then, here are a couple from our lazy, almost-summer afternoon yesterday. I can’t wait until the real thing is here to stay!
Pure deliciousness
D playing in the shade while Mommy soaks up some rays. I need a pedicure!
