I must've lied!

According to www.41q.com, and after filling out a questionnaire of 41 questions, here's my personality type:


Warm-hearted, popular, and conscientious. Tend to put the needs of others over their own needs. Feel strong sense of responsibility and duty. Value traditions and security. Interested in serving others. Need positive reinforcement to feel good about themselves. Well-developed sense of space and function.

Careers that could fit Jen includes:

Home economics, nursing, teaching, administrators, child care, family practice physician, clergy, office managers, counselers, social workers, bookkeeping, accounting, secretaries, organization leaders, dental assistants, homemakers, radiological technologists, receptionists, religious educators, speech pathologists.

...Clergy? Home ec? Counselor? Religious educator? Who do these people think I am?

Here's the full link:
http://www.41q.com/type.41q?p=13675537&n=Jen

You should try it, too, even though I think mine was a bit off.

A nice fall afternoon...

Patrick and I decided to celebrate our last day of vacation (more on our awesome Toronto trip later) by taking a quick road trip to Ann Arbor. We popped by a small photo display of Parisian scenes at one of the local libraries there, and then stopped at a little market to grab some apples. (I can't resist bags of apples in the fall.)

After stocking up on some Honeycrisp, we also grabbed a few items for lunch. I had the sushi (with imitation crab meat, of course), and Patrick grabbed a yummy chicken pita wrap with rosemary mayonnaise.

Those items, and a giant brownie to split, made the perfect lunch.

We dined on a stone wall near the downtown and then strolled along the shops, bookstores, etc., before heading back home for a late-season grilling event of honey-glazed pork tenderloin and red pepper on skewers, corn and rice. We ended with... what else?! The beautiful apple dessert you see here.


It's a baked apple with almond, apple, and cranberry filling topped with a cinnamon-oat crispy crust. On the side is a delicious scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. Mmmmmm. I plan to finish off the evening with the New York Times Sunday Styles section. What a day!

Weeks 18 to 20

I'm around this point.

You can never post too many salsa videos!

Anyway, that's what my brother said after I showed him the above clip. I wholeheartedly agree.

Whoo hoo!

This may sound crazy, but I'm pretty sure I felt the baby move for the first time today. In fact, it actually felt like she (or he) did a somersault. That might be a little dramatic, but it was close to something like that.

For a brief second I thought, "Well, it could have just been my intestine or something, I guess." Call it mother's instinct, but I felt confident it was actually the baby jostling around in there. So I turned to the best source possible -- Google. And I found this on a health site:

From the fourth month of pregnancy, the baby moves, kicks, sleeps, wakes, swallows, and passes urine. Your baby is now sleeping for about 20 to 30 minutes at a time. Fetal movement will be most obvious when you're sitting or lying down. You may start to feel a slight sensation of movement in your lower abdomen. This feeling is like bubbles or fluttering. When you first feel the baby's movement (called quickening), write down the date. This date helps the doctor determine when your baby is due.

Your baby also becomes much more active, rolling from side to side and turning upside down and back (editor's note: kind of like a somersault). He or she also begins to suck its thumb.

Someday this could be us...

MamboTribe's Sunday Salsa Social - Busy Long Week-end

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Purr-fect fit

Sleeping Bear dunes

As part of our lovely weekend in northern Michigan, we visited the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes near Traverse City.

I spent many summers climbing those sand dunes as a kid and could not believe how the memories just flooded back. We used to climb all the way to the top of the first dune (above) and run down like maniacs, trying not to fall flat on our faces. (I tried to convince Patrick to do it, but he refused. He had some excuse about not wanting to fall flat on his face, I think.)

The challenge of the dunes is to make the two hour trek across them to Lake Michigan...and back. We used to do it every year, and honestly, I have no idea how we did.

Yes, I'm pregnant and had just finished a 13-mile bike ride before our trip up the dunes, but I could only make it over about three of them before we decided to head back. (And thank goodness we did, because we got back to the B&B just in time for me to take a quick shower while Patrick grabbed take-out at a local restaurant. Those little towns button up early, after all.)

But we want to go back sometime to make the full journey. There was always something immensely satisfying about climbing those dunes and braving the heat, the sand in your swimsuit and the body aches so we could reach the cool, tall waters of Lake Michigan at the other end.

As a kid, I also loved (but was terribly saddened by) the Sleeping Bear legend, which follows below from the U.S. National Park site and another source.

The Legend of Sleeping Bear

Long ago, along the Wisconsin shoreline, a mother bear and her two cubs were driven into Lake Michigan by a raging forest fire. The bears swam for many hours, but eventually the cubs tired and lagged behind. Mother bear reached the shore and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. Too tired to continue, the cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit Manitou takes pity on her and raises her cubs up from the depths, forming North and South Manitou Islands. Knowing that her cubs were safe, she fell asleep. The Great Spirit covered their mother with sand to keep her warm, and she now watches over her cubs from her spot atop the giant hill made of sand.

(I like the above version better, but the one I knew ended more like this one...)

They swam for several days, but the cubs became confused in the smoke. Before reaching the land, their strength gave out. The mother bear, who was ahead, paced the shore for days. She called in vain for her cubs, until she, too, became exhausted and fell asleep. Sand swept over her and there she still lies, looking out upon the lake. To reward her devotion, the Great Spirit created North and South Manitou Islands where the cubs sank from sight. Here they remain to this day, as do the dunes that are in the likeness of the sleeping mother bear.

Aww.