Babble

I’m sitting in my doctor’s waiting room this morning while they test my glucose levels, via hourly blood draws, to make sure I don’t have gestational diabetes. Apparently I have “roller veins” which are difficult to stab at, so the morning started out a little rough but things have improved each time. More to the point, these tests require a 12-hour fast prior to the first draw and then no food or drink during the 3-4 hour testing period, other than the 10 oz. of sugar water you have to slam at the start. It is safe to say I have food on my mind (as does Poco, who seems to be ticked off and doing more acrobatics than usual), so I thought I’d recommend a few books and videos I’ve read/seen over the last several months which have influenced my thoughts about eating, or explain better than I can why I choose to be a vegetarian.

• In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
  I picked up this book after it was selected for Go Big Read at UW–Madison, only to discover I had been quoting the author for years after reading an excerpt entitled “Unhappy Meals” in the New York Times. Pollan’s synopsis is “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” and the book explains why in detail. Highly recommend reading it, or the excerpt from the Times.
• Food, Inc.
  A movie about what Americans eat, and how it’s produced. One of the big reasons I don’t eat meat is because of the hormones, antibiotics and genetic modifications routinely associated with commercially-raised farm animals. This video explores some of these concerns, the unpleasant conditions animals are typically exposed to, and the pressure put on farmers by Big Ag (Monsanto in particular, does not fare well in this film) to use the latest and greatest chemicals. A must-see. Trailer
• Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer
  The account of a 30-year-old, on-again/off-again vegetarian who decides to explore his eating choices more thoroughly as he enters fatherhood in order to make better choices for himself and his new family. I thought some of his writing was a little over-the-top, but there are plenty of eye-opening, inarguable truths in this book which will make you stop and think. Also interesting because he criticizes some of Pollan’s work (although in the grand scheme of things they share far more similarities than differences.)
• The Cove
  Award-winning, uber-disturbing movie about dolphin fishing in a cove in Taiji, Japan, and the measures former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry (who trained dolphins for the show “Flipper”) is willing to go to, to put a stop to it. Great information about the multi-billion dollar dolphin entertainment industry as well as the depletion of our ocean life and growing mercury levels. Forewarning: may make you think differently about Sea World, and, hopefully, some types of seafood. Trailer

All of these can be tough or frustrating to read/watch at times but in the end I believe awareness is better than ignorance when it comes to health.

Except when it comes to marshmallows.

Note: This post was originally written on New Year’s Day 2010, but is getting bumped to the top every time a new baby arrives.

We noticed when we sent out wedding invitations that a disproportionate number of our friends were expecting… eight couples all in all. We’ve since learned it turned out to be eleven! So without further ado, I bring you the dozen+ babies of our wedding guests, born within a year of our wedding, as they arrive.

Lilly Bee Schueffner, born September 20 to Eric and Kerrie. She was 6 pounds, 13 oz. Eric and Kerrie weren’t able to make it to the wedding (I used to work with Eric at UW-Madison, but they have since moved to Seattle) and we already missed them once in Madison, but we hope to meet Lilly someday soon!

Charles Beach Olsen, born September 22 to JeffO and Molly, which makes him my first and only nephew to come from my siblings. Be forewarned, I am biased. He was 7 pounds and 18 inches long. Charlie will likely get his own post here soon enough, but suffice it so say he is the cutest, well-behaved, most entertaining child ever. (Yes, I’ve become one of those people.) An ever-increasing number of photos of Charlie can be found on my Flickr account.

Jasper Evan Schultz, born September 29 to Matt and Mel. He was 8 pounds, 12 oz., and 20 inches long. Matt promptly messed up a tendon in his arm which required surgery, so between that, a foot of snow and a 2-year-old at home they’ve had some challenges (Calgon!), but all seem to be doing well now. M&M are also responsible for the photo that prompted this post. How cute is that?

Sophia Louise Walker, born November 9 to Jim and Jen Walker. Sophie was 9 pounds, 7 oz., (uh, ouch) and 21 inches long, and big sisters Lucy and Ella are pleased with the new addition. As a side note, Jim lived a couple blocks away from me when we were growing up, but I didn’t really get to know him until I met him again, as one of Matt’s friends. (Small world example #453.)

Keegan Barrett, born in late November to Ben and Jen Barrett. Ben is a firefighter at station 1 and works with Matt.

Gwenyth Rose Schroeder, born December 10 to Matt’s brother Patrick and his wife Taylor, making her my first niece and me an aunt for the third time along with her brother Hugh and Charlie. Taylor gets extra kudos for having an in-home, all-natural childbirth with only a midwife present. Impressive. Gwen was 2 weeks early and weighed in at 7 pounds, 6 oz., and was 20 inches long.

Oliver Asher Barnett, born December 28 to Mike and Susie. He was 6 pounds, 7 oz., and 18 inches long. All are doing well, but were delayed at the hospital while in search of a middle name. Despite numerous suggestions on Facebook (Arroz?), they came up with Asher, which sounds perfect! Looking forward to meeting him.

Jake Anderson Soslow, born January 11 to Stace and Jason! If this is a surprise to you, it’s understandable… Stacy sure didn’t look five months pregnant at our wedding! In spite of a c-section after 12 hours of labor I’m happy to report all are doing well now and are very happy. Jake was 8 pounds, 8 oz. and has a very cool birthday: 01-11-10! Congratulations S&J!!

McKinley Rose Younggren, born on Valentine’s Day to Maggie and Luke. This is one couple who has seriously outdone us… not only did they also get married last year, but they moved across the country to Portland, OR, started new jobs, bought a house and got pregnant on their honeymoon! McKinley weighed in at 7 pounds, 14 oz., and was 20 inches long.

Olivia Mae Weaver, born February 22 to Kara and Nick. Olivia is 7 pounds, 10 oz., and 18.5 inches long and arrived with a head of thick, brown hair like her older sisters, Abby and Sarah. Nick and I make up 2/3 of the Communications web team at UW–Madison, so expect there to be some delays over the next several months in the UW web world!

—Comma optional—

I’m very happy to officially report Matt and I are expecting a wee one this summer. We’re just past the 5-month mark so I’ve now had enough experience with this to predict and answer most of your questions.

1. When is your due date? See title. I’m envisioning a pain-free birth with fireworks set to the 1812 overture. Don’t wreck my fantasy.
2. How was the first trimester? Unpleasant, but it could have been worse. I somehow managed to throw up regularly and gain an immense amount of weight.
3. How did you tell your family? At Christmastime, we have a tradition of going around the dinner table and making announcements. I mixed things up a little by announcing Jen and Anil were expecting(!), and JenO announced Matt and I were expecting. We’re both due in July. My Mom got up and walked outside in complete shock. It was awesome.
4. Did you and JenO plan to get pregnant at the same time? Yes. We also asked 13 of our close friends to get pregnant and they did. (Ok, not exactly, but we’re really happy it’s worked out that way!)
5. Any weird cravings? Nothing too crazy, but eggs, bananas, cheese and frozen yogurt rank high on the shopping list these days.
6. Why do you call the baby Poco? During the early months the doctor referred to him/her as “the POC”, for Product Of Conception. Naturally, I added the O. Added bonus: poco also means “little” in spanish.
7. Are you showing? I’m huge and expect to become a perfect sphere before too long. Think Violet Beauregarde after the three-course dinner gum.
8. Any movement? I didn’t feel anything definitive until last week, when Poco woke me up, kicking. Minutes later an earthquake rocked Illinois and our house shook for about 10 seconds. A pretty surreal experience to have such unusual internal & external rumblings going on.
9. Are you going to find out the sex? We have it in a sealed envelope. Stay tuned for further announcements. [Update: it's a boy!]
10. Are you happy? Yes! Very, very, very happy, very hopeful, and very grateful. Like the last two years, we are super excited to see what changes this year has in store for us!

A sentimental nod to Dex, who passed away one year ago today.

Once again, I’m stuck on a big post which prevents me from writing any other little posts in the meantime. The big post in question this time is our wedding, which I could easily write pages about, or so I thought. Capturing everything that went on — the atmosphere, the people, the joy and the hundreds of side stories and amusing details — has turned out to be a greater literary feat than I’m capable of documenting, at least with any eloquence. I set an ‘end of 2009′ deadline for myself, so as midnight draws near, it seems a slightly condensed version may be in order. Pronto.

Starting at the beginning, and to give perspective to just how crazy the summer was, we signed the contract for a venue May 18th, giving us about 10 weeks to make most of the arrangements for our July 25 wedding. Note: this is not enough time to plan a wedding. Unaware, we forged ahead. We had been tipped off to our venue, Hilltop, located in Spring Green, WI, by my friend and photography colleague Jeff Miller, whose cousin had been married there the year before. Jeff was really helpful in connecting us with his cousin’s wife (also a designer, as it turns out), who showed us photos, gave us a tour of the grounds in March and put in a good word for us since the venue is private and usually only available to “friends”. Hilltop was originally owned by Herb Fritz, a colleague of Frank Lloyd Wright who designed several buildings on the site and used the area as a farm and later a girls’ camp until he passed the land on to his son. Even with snow everywhere and minimal greenery, we loved the place, and specifically the huge catalpa tree on top of the hill. Getting the contract signed was another matter… suffice it to say Janelle (Fritz’s daughter-in-law) is a fun, free-thinking, very energetic person but doesn’t think much of things like standard business practices, computers, or paperwork, preferring to do business “the old fashioned way”. Thus the late contract date.

The rest began to fall into place, quickly and not-so-surely. One of the most difficult aspects of the entire wedding was the guest list… by the time you’re our age it turns out you know a lot of people, and a lot of those people have kids. It was with much regret that we eliminated our cousins (at a count of 75 without guests!), most children, and dozens of friends and colleagues. I’m sure everyone struggles with this, but it’s one of those things you don’t think about until you have to do it. It’s awkward and it sucks. The upside of being old and knowing so many people is that even with short notice we ended up with fantastic food, photography, cake, music and flowers, thanks mainly to our friends in or attached to these businesses. In particular I’d like to thank our caterer and next-door neighbor, Marigold Kitchens; our awesome DJ Nick Nice, a friend of Matt’s family; Bob Klebba at Morningwood Farm, who grew our centerpieces and most of our herbs; Laura Burns with Quartessence, our amazing string quartet; Mandie Haberman our photographer from Red Gecko Studio (thanks Jenny K. for the recommendation!), and Felly’s flowers and Molly and David Walsh for the beautiful wedding bouquets and boutonnieres. We also have three more huge thank yous to Mike Mikkelson (i.e. Big Mike), our friend who moonlights as a professional photographer and surprised us with additional photos, Deb Lease, our friend and professional chef who made our wedding cake as her gift to us, and our great friend Hugh Sugar, who served as our reverend. They made our wedding unique, and more importantly, uniquely ‘us’.

The week before the wedding we were treated to the arrival of numerous friends and family, all of whom came early to help out. It is not an exaggeration to say that the wedding wouldn’t have been nearly as nice (and quite possibly wouldn’t have happened at all) without their contributions. Friday afternoon we all headed to Spring Green, through major traffic delays and foul weather, to arrive at Hilltop for the rehearsal. With most of the wedding party in rain gear, we did a quick run-through outdoors and a more detailed run-through indoors, in preparation for the worst. No one voiced the concern but I think it quickly became clear to everyone that the next day might be a major disaster if similar weather conditions prevailed.

From there we drove just a few miles to the Riverview Terrace Cafe, another Frank Lloyd Wright creation, for an intimate dinner courtesy of Matt’s parents, Mary and Bob. We had great food and wine, wonderful toasts and were treated to brilliant sunshine which emerged after the storm. [Photos from the rehearsal and dinner]

Our wedding day dawned with beautiful blue skies and last-minute preparations began soon after. Stace, Jen, Anil and I spent the morning at the Usonian Inn being beautified (well, not Anil, although he did get a pedicure with Jen and me a few days beforehand!) We all arrived early for photos, and then I snuck away to a secret room where I could watch the guests arrive and mingle as they sipped mojitos. From there on, the day was somewhat of a blur, but most importantly we said our vows (with only a few drops of good-luck rain), then ate well, had more fun and funny toasts, laughed hard and danced until well after the stars came out. It was a fantastic, amazing and even magical day for us.

For the play-by-play, you can check out our photo slideshow on Flickr.

Having just flown in from Naples, Florida, yesterday, we’ve been treated to a constant flurry of snow for the last 24 hours. So far… 18″ and counting. A few fun links of life on campus for those of you missing the winter wonderland:

• From the New York Times: Blizzard Paralyzes Much of Midwest, with quotes by my coworker John Lucas.
• Students build giant snowball – the best part of this story is that they’re in the middle of University Avenue – normally a very high-traffic area.
• Traying down the hill off Observatory Drive
• Snowmen on Gilman – Madison city plowers face a conundrum.
• Snowball fight on Bascom Hill with 3,000+ students participating.

I’m back. As you can read in the last post, the summer got a little crazy. I thought after the wedding things would return to normal, but they did not. August was almost as busy with the closing of Matt’s house, the departure of our first tenant William, moving Bob in upstairs, finishing up my master gardener classwork & exam, a few more weddings we happily attended as guests (which included a quick trip out east), a slow trip down the Wisconsin River (our mini-honeymoon), my 20th high school reunion (ack), big projects at work, the revival of our neglected yard and garden, and myriad other tasks we failed to attend to during the pre-wedding frenzy.

I have fewer excuses for slacking off in September. I mostly just needed some downtime, which I was finally afforded via a good case of the flu — an effective if not desirable means of getting some rest. Unfortunately this came right in the midst of Andy (Matt’s brother) and Tasha’s wedding, so I missed out on the reception, but the ceremony, held at the capitol, was intimate and charming. The Olsen fam also expanded by one, causing big excitement later in the month, but I’ll have to save that, along with our wedding synopsis, for separate posts.

If you’re reading this, that tells me you use RSS because non-RSS users have most assuredly stopped checking my woefully out-of-date blog by now. Our preconceived notions of what “busy” means have been pulverized… selling two houses while working full time, running two additional side businesses and taking classes is nothing. Planning a wedding in three months while doing all this… now that’s busy, and arguably an effective means of torture at times via sleep deprivation. We’re finally getting to some of the fun stuff though, so I thought I’d recap the last week or so’s events just so you know there’s a reason this blog has been so neglected. Here we go:

Thursday, June 18: The arrival of JenO from Portland and my first wedding event: the ladies shower. Huge thanks to my Mom, Jen and Sue, who hosted the event at Sue’s house with her amazing gardens — very apropro given the garden theme. It was fantastic to see everyone, the food was awesome, flowers were everywhere, and Matt and I now have the best-stocked garden shed (and living room) on the block!

Friday, June 19: Drinks at Sardine. This doesn’t sound all that notable, except that we haven’t gotten out in ages, and Jen was in town, and Kim & Kevin met us out AND we were there to sample a specific drink in addition to white wines and a pasta dish because Marigold is catering the wedding! Both Marigold Kitchen and Sardine are co-owned by our next-door neighbor John, who was there that night with his wife Julie, and we all had a great time. Super excited about the food and wines we’ve selected! Although I wouldn’t recommend sampling eight wines, plus drinks, at once. Like you need to be told that.

Saturday, June 20: Saturday started with a baby shower for Molly at the Madison Club, which was a lot of fun, despite my having been overserved the evening before. Great food as always and lovely ladies, but I had to depart early to get out to Spring Green to meet Janelle, our wedding venue owner, and see the place in action for a wedding there later that afternoon. This was followed by additional registering with an uber-loud scanner gun. Highly recommend not drinking the night before registering.

Sunday, June 21: Strawberry picking at Carandales with Mom, Dad and Jen. Father’s day celebration #1 with the Schroeders for brunch, #2 at the fam house for dinner, and five hours of wedding website & registry updating in between.

Monday, June 22: Work-related drama — the athletics server crashed during the student lottery for football tickets. _Very angry students_! At 4:30 we had engagement photos taken on Lake Mendota followed by more in the backyard in 90° heat. Considering we were tired, sweaty and gross, we’re super happy with the results and Mandie Haberman, our photographer/magician.

Tuesday, June 23: It was 94°. We went boating.

Wednesday, June 24: I should add throughout all these days my boss, who is one-third of the University Communications web team, was on a well-deserved vacation, which means the remaining two-thirds of the team (Peter and I) are attempting to do parts of his job — not an easy task — in addition to our own. I arrived at work Wednesday morning to find the west half of campus, including half of our department, without power due to an overheated turbine at the HVAC plant. Chaos ensued. Things got hugely better after work however, with my “not-bachelorette party” which coincided on the capitol lawn with the first Concert on the Square of the year. Exactly what I was hoping for with great friends, amazing food, good weather, excellent music and nary a fake male appendage in sight. Huge thanks to JenO! Plus, you gotta appreciate a city where you can drink wine on the capitol lawn. At least until 10 p.m. After that… not so much. (Fortunately the police officer was as willing to remove the cuffs as he was to indulge our friends’ wishes by putting them on in the first place.)

Thursday, June 25: Matt’s birthday! Friends in town. More great food. The Caribou at midnight, followed by gifts opened at home.

Friday, June 26: A break from work for lunch with JenO, before she headed home to Portland. After work, one more trip to Hilltop for another meeting with Janelle, followed by dinner in town. I fell asleep in the car twice (Matt was driving).

So go our days. The parties and (some of the) planning have been great… we feel so grateful to have so many wonderful people, fun opportunities and abundance in our lives. We really can’t wait to celebrate with our family and close friends next month.

But sleeping again will be really nice, too.

A lot has happened in the last month, and some of these deserve full-length posts. Unfortunately taking classes, trying to sell Matt’s house, being landlords, doing freelance work, planning a wedding, planting multiple gardens and working full time does not allow for a lot of blogging time. Or sleep. That said, here’s the sum up:

• Stace is married! She and Jason tied the knot in an intimate ceremony held in Napa. Stacy looked phenomenal, Jason looked dashing and both were radiating happiness. Add to that perfect weather, wonderful families, beautiful vineyard tours and a B&B that greeted us with truffles, and really, what more could you ask for? The next day they took off for a week in tropical Hawaii and are now back in Boston. Huge thanks to both Stacy and Jason and their families for including Matt and I, it was really an unforgettable weekend.
• After Stacy & Jason’s wedding, Matt and I spent a day in San Francisco with our friend Pat. We were there for a record-breaking heat wave (94°) and Pat took us to a number of establishments serving cold drinks to help us defy the heat. Looking forward to seeing him again this year, soon.
• We ran Crazylegs. It was cold and fairly miserable and I added a solid 10 minutes to my best time, but if you read the last post you know how happy I am to have finished. Afterward we met up with friends Mark and Kim and ate far too many cheese curds at Dotty’s. All good.
• I got older, amidst wood-fired pizza, red wine and lots of chocolate. The elderly should get to eat what they want, eh?
• I’m going to be an aunt! JeffO and Molly are expecting and due in September. This will be the first grandchild on both sides, so to say this child has been long-awaited is a bit of an understatement. Molly is doing great and handling the pregnancy as she does everything – with grace and humor.
• Jack almost had big news, but doesn’t… yet. Suffice it to say he’s learning a lot about real estate, quickly.
• The new veggie garden has been made and about half our plants are in. You can see the “Vilas Growings On” yet again this year on Flickr.
• Got myself a wedding dress. We haven’t decided on a florist, caterer or photographer and we’re STILL awaiting the contract with the venue before announcing the official date, but there’s a reasonable chance I’ll be married in 75 days. Crazy. At least I’ll have something to wear.
• Lastly, a belated Happy Mom’s Day to Mom and Mary, and a Happy Birthday today to Mary as well, and a BIG Happy Birthday to Molly today (numbers will not be mentioned) and Happy upcoming birthday to Dad on Saturday. ‘Tis mid-May celebration madness and I wish all of them the best!

The fun will continue this weekend with Maggie & Luke’s wedding on Stout Island near Birchwood, WI – we’re excited to celebrate with them and looking forward to an extra day off with Jenil and friends at Tagalong Resort. Party on!

I ran for 25 minutes yesterday. The last year and a half has been busy, with many achievements, but I consider this tiny feat to be one of my greatest personal accomplishments.

I have never been particularly good at running, but have always enjoyed jogging in the morning and doing 5k-10k fun runs, usually at a 8-9 minute/mile pace. [Speed records were not broken.] Beyond that, it’s also the fastest, most efficient way I know to both get in shape and de-stress. The perfect exercise twofer.

The last time I ran for 25 (or more) minutes was February 13, 2005. I know this because the next day was the day I injured my back in an aerial dance class. Within a couple years I was able to do everything I did before — except run. Even a short sprint for the bus would take me out for a couple days. Eventually I gave up on the idea and decided to just be grateful I had the option to live without back pain.

After the opportune acquisition of a treadmill last year however I changed my mind again, determined to resume jogging. I had downloaded Robert Ullrey’s “Couch to 5k” podcasts which are based on a progressive program from Cool Running. It’s a set of nine podcasts and the idea is to run each podcast 3x/week, for a total of nine weeks, at which point you should be ready to run a 5k. I had tried them out before — I liked that the music offered a tempo I could run to and loved that I didn’t have to watch the clock — but always ended up grumpy with sciatic nerve pain the following day, even after running for a mere 60 seconds.

This time I was committed — my new goal was to resume physical therapy and run each podcast as many times as necessary until my back didn’t hurt the next day. So far, I’ve spent three seasons up in the FROG, every M/W/F at 5 a.m. jogging/walking for what were (and arguably still are) microbic distances. All-in-all I think I ended up running the first podcast (which is a series of eight, 60-second runs followed by 90 seconds of walking) about 30 times before progressing to week two. Around this time I discovered Zyflamend, an herbal anti-inflammatory that actually works, is ulcer-friendly, and allowed me to progress to the next week. I ran the second podcast about a dozen times, and have continued to make strides (heh) to where I am now: week seven, running 25 minutes at a time, often without the zyflamend, and nearly pain free.

For so many many reasons this makes me happy… I’m getting cardio exercise, time to think or just space out to good music, and I’m finally starting to get to distances where the “runner’s high” kicks in… the nearly forgotten endorphin rush that convinces you you want to repeat the experience. Once Easter candy season is over, I may even lose a couple pounds. If you’re a non-runner and have any interest in jogging, I’d highly recommend these podcasts — they’re free, easy to follow and you can go at your own pace… even if that means running the first podcast 30 times.