take your pick:

• prime rib: grilled to perfection served with mushrooms and a marsala wine glaze.
• chicken northern woods: breaded boneless breast of chicken stuffed with wild rice, dried michigan cherries, pecans, and chevre cheese, topped with a raspberry demiglace.

this saturday is my office's annual formal party. for the last three years, i have been charged with the responsibility of planning it. it should be fun. i've hired a casino company to come in and set up, well, a casino. complete with tiffany lamps, dealers, craps, poker, blackjack, etc. they even bring in a dj.

but the food. oh the food. i always get nervous when it comes to the food choices. well, the beef option wasn't really that difficult. i love prime rib, therefore, the choice is prime rib. but chicken...man. so many chicken dishes to choose from. you can't get chicken with proscuitto, because that would disappoint the people that chose chicken solely for the purpose of avoiding red meat. and then there are nut allergies, aversions to mushrooms, cheese likes and dislikes. sigh. and it's not like you can choose chicken picatta or chicken dijon, which will look so plain and sad next to a huge piece of prime rib. so chicken northern woods it is. i've consulted with a few select co-workers, and that is the consensus. i think that the chicken dish will generally go over well. i'm just afraid of the people that it will disappoint, because i sure don't want to be on the receiving end of their *opinion* (to put it nicely).

it scares the crap out of me when i'm walking down a city street, and this person that has been walking two feet in front of me, in the same direction as me, for over a block suddenly turns to me and asks for money. dude. if you're going to ask me for money, at least approach me. don't turn around and be all unexpected like that.

i never know what to do when people on the street ask me for money. they say they're asking for money for food, but what if you just gave them money to feed their drug addiction? that would do them no good. if i had food on me, i would totally give it to them. i must have been asked at least 5 times for money on the 2-block walk to my car from city hall, and every time, i said no or ignored them. but then i think of Matthew 24: 37-40 and wonder if i just passed Jesus and left him hanging...

i dont' know how people live the "go go go" kind of work life. always super busy, always barely making deadlines, people always wanting stuff from you. when work gets that crazy, i go to sleep thinking about work, have nightmares about work, wake up and immediately think about work...i can only take so much of it before i feel my head falling off. i guess that's what you're supposed to do when you're young? work your ass off while you can before you have a priority other than yourself? i feel that my office manager expects us younger engineers to have that mentality. i don't think i'll ever buy into it. there are way too many things more important than advancing my place in a stupid company. maybe i just have small ambitions. all i want to do is go home to hang out with eric and isaiah. anyway...if you want to check out the latest on everything isaiah, you can.

the drive into work was more excruciating than usual this morning. it took me nearly an hour and a half. but all has been made right with the delivery of...girl scout cookies! thin mints anyone?

p.s. on a completely different note: how sad is it that michelle kwan has withdrawn from the olympics?

watch out, world. a second baby agustin boy is on the way. ethan and isaiah are going to be causing all kinds of trouble, i know it. i hope they are great pals. it makes me happy that isaiah loves little babies right now. he's always trying to kiss them. i hope he doesn't grow out of it before july.

by the way, if you ever get pregnant, don't listen to what anyone tells you about what they think the sex of your baby is gonna be. it's all crap. all of it!! i was SO SURE that this one was gonna be a girl. there was a general consensus. there were confirmatory dreams from more than one source. even when the ultrasound tech was scanning me and commenting on how well behaved the baby was being during the scan, i was POSITIVE that it was my well-mannered little girl. *surprise!* there was no mistaking that the baby in my belly was a boy. eric spared the "it's huge!" this time....instead left his mouth gaping open. i think mine was too. i was so surprised. i shouldn't have been. this is exactly what happened when we found out isaiah was a boy. i must say that i am very relieved that the baby is doing well. right now he's about 19cm long and about 6oz. ultrasounds are so cool.

well, baby ethan. we love you so much already! can't wait to see you in july!

i am trying my darndest to drink 40 oz. of fluid before my ultrasound. not an easy task to accomplish in one hour. i basically just chugged a 20 oz. of gatorade. drinking large amounts of liquid makes me want to throw up.

will it be a gracie or an ethan? anyone? i hope (s)he cooperates with the ultrasound!

habitat for humanity superBUILD.

40 house frames constructed in 5 days. 100 volunteers a day. 8 hour days.

we volunteered on the kick-off day. i love the energy at huge volunteer projects like this. it's a rare opportunity to be immersed in a warehouse full of positive people. i think that volunteering is so good for the soul. people just want to feel special. i think that you feel special just knowing that you've done something that will tell a complete stranger, "hey, i think that you're worth something. in fact, you're worth my rare free saturday and the sore muscles i got from the ridiculous amount of manual labor i gave." and of course the recipient totally thinks that *you* are special for giving up your saturday to build them a house, so it's a joyous circle.

i'm always overwhelmed by human kindness on projects like these. SO many people making life better for someone else who needs it. plus it keeps us grounded. it reminds us that we don't *need* much. and, wow, we have a LOT. anyway, it was a great experience and something i'm really glad that a bunch of us could do together (even if i did have to volunteer in the non-building sector of the project). deck 1 punched out two house frames more than two hours ahead of schedule. good job, guys! i'll leave you with a picture from the build...