No pink please...

but purple, lavender, yellow, green, blue, and red are all ok!

Congrats to those of you who voted - Speedy is a....

GIRL!

True to her name, she was moving all over the place this morning - but the ultrasound lady manged to get these two relatively decent photos. Even if she does look like an alien, she's our alien. ;)


In other cool news, our dog learned to play hide and seek with a bone this weekend. It's the best new game ever. He waits in the living room while Steve runs around the house and then we tell him to go find it - and he does. Scupper thinks it's fun for hours.

Things to be thankful for... the selfish edition

....that we have four days off together because Steve didn't have to work.
.... that Scupper wanted to sleep in until 9:30am on Friday
....that Turkey Day dinner was only 15 minutes off my master schedule and everything tasted good.
.... that it was sunny and 70 here today and not 40 and sleeting.
.... that our families understood that traveling on Thanksgiving just sucks and didn't make us feel guilty for having to fly 1000s of miles.

I am sure that I don't have to get sappy and tell you why i'm REALLY thankful this year - ya'll will get that in my cheesy annual Xmas letter, I'm sure.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the weekend.

The table barely fit - and I didn't have enough cloth napkins that matched. Shame on me.
Steve carves the turkey while Scupper prays little bits will fall from the sky.

I clean up after all the drinkers. Manhattans happened to be the drink of choice as the evening wore on - I didn't partake, obviously, but those cherries drowned in bourbon sure sounded good.

We took a post- Turkey day hike on Friday to walk off the food - at the local urban park which actually has 50 miles of trails. This is the view from 2/3 up the 1,500ft mountain. Metro San Diego and the ocean beyond.
Our very handsome hiking partner - who practically pulled Steve's arm out of his socket while on the trail. Next time, we'll put on the "no-pull harness." ;)

Jobs and the Future

Small update - so amidst all this baby nonsense, i have to keep moving on with the goal that was originally at hand - finishing the degree. Oh yes. It has to get done. Right now, Speedy is winning, as I haven't written a lick of anything since about September. I've kept up with lesson plans, prepared my conference paper (which was delivered in Boston last weekend at the conference - an exhausting weekend of listening to people talk at me, but an enjoyable weekend catching up with old friends), and haven't done much else school work.

What I HAVE been working on is applying for jobs and fellowships. Eek. Of course, all the cover letters say, "I am scheduled to defend my dissertation in June 2009, and will have my PhD in hand by the time of the job appointment."

Oh i hope i'm not lying. So here's the plan - either get the diss done and get a decent job OR find out that there isn't a decent job and get an awesome dissertation fellowship to finish the dissertation next year while taking care of a 6 month old and applying for jobs next year.

Both seem daunting, but frankly, I'd rather the "finish the diss and get the hell out of here" option. But i guess I had better stop blogging and get back to writing if i want to pick door #1. Don't you think?

In other news, i did get a phone interview on thursday with a college I applied to - kinda cool. Felt good to be at least short-listed for something. I have no idea how the interview went - phone interviews are contrived and weird and not good for a person like me that reads people by body language.

Ah well. At least it was good practice and gave me some sort of hope that some college out there might want me.

Even a little.

Here's a favorite picture of mine from recently - my two favorite boys doing what they love to do - Scupper is passed out and Steve is building a bicycle wheel.

Oh - and here's me at the start of 4 months. What's weird is that i'm only 5 pounds heavier than when I wasn't pregnant. How weird it is to watch the body change.

Historic Election Reaction

So of course Steve and I were a bit excited to vote today... exercising your constitutional right never seemed so amazing - or a bit scary - because, of course, we're Democrats, so we have to think that MAYBE something bad is still going to happen tonight and can't be too excited. The aching pit of despair that i felt in my stomach while watching the 2004 returns is still a feeling i can viscerally recall.

However, I thought it was pretty cool that Speedy and I got to vote together today... I checked with him/her just to make sure s/he was an Obama baby and it seemed the case. Woohoo. Mamas for Obama, right?

Best new dog toy ever

This thing is great. it bounced erratically, squeaks really loud, and is durable. Two thumbs up. So far, Scupper-proof.

You know it's a good day when...

someone gives you a bone, and then you proceed to bury and re-bury it throughout the day. It's like hiding a present and then finding it over and over again.

Like, under the orange tree. Or in the corner of the yard. Or in the corner of the living room. Or under the fridge. Or by the tomato plants.

But it's a better day when you are the person that gave the dog said bone and get to watch all this unfold.

Ah, if we only could be this satisfied by bones.

End of Track Season

So I just have to brag -

This past Tuesday was the last night of track season - which usually means that there is one good race, followed by bicycle insanity in the form of tricycle racing (for adults, mind you), a slow race (which means how slow you can actually go on your bike - and remember, no brakes or coasting), a pinata race, where you have to ride your bike around the track and try to hit the pinata while you are riding (someone broke their collarbone two years ago), and of course, lots of beer and pizza. A great way to end a 6 month season...

But back to the bragging - Steve's last race of the year on the San Diego Velodrome was a 60 lap scratch race - basically, ride 60 laps and whomever crosses first, wins. They sweetened the deal by adding that every 3 laps, womever is first gets $5. 60 laps around the velodrome is 13 miles. Steve's average speed was 28.8 mph (yes, average),

and his top speed was ...

37.5mph.

HOLY COW! No gears! no hills! no brakes!

and he won $5.

Pretty cool, if you ask me. I hardly go 37mph down hills. ;)

Anyway, it was a great season. He hung in there with the top group -the "A" riders, some of whom are former World Champions, Olympians, and National title holders... We are looking forward to next season when he gets to do it all over again... and if this whole dissertation job search goes well, even if we're moving, he'll still get about 4 months of racing in... and who knows? Maybe there will be a job position just for me right next to a velodrome. Steve can only hope.