38 Weeks!

One might ask, "What does a 38 week pregnant woman do all day at home while you sit and wait for the arrival of your first child?" The answer is quite simple, I sleep. My days have fallen into a routine of sleeping until 10 am, eating breakfast, taking long showers, reading books, taking an afternoon nap, watching movies, enjoying NFL preseason football on ESPN America, taking my daily 30 minute walk in the woods, laundry, cooking, and organizing everything that I can get my hands on. In addition I take 15+ bathroom breaks a day, drink as much water as possible, and try to find the perfect balance between keeping my feet up to reduce swelling and being a little bit productive. I've done enough extra cooking that we now have a fully stocked freezer with an inventory list of ready to eat meals. I have been doing pretty much anything and everything that I can think of to make life easier when we bring Peanut home from the hospital. In addition to home preparations I have also been enjoying educating myself on breastfeeding and newborn care through the amazing world wide web and all of the wonderful videos that they have out there for parents today. I feel comfortable and confident that we can do it. I've found an inner peace of mind that the baby will come when he/she is ready and there is nothing I can do about it. I have faith that everything will turn out ok and that I can do all things through him who gives me strength. God helped us survive India so this should be a walk in the park. Despite the fact that I have been an impatient person the majority of my life I feel very relaxed at this stage in the game. I would be lying if I said I wasn't anxious to meet our first child, however find that it doesn't help the situation to sit and wait all day. It is better to keep myself occupied with other mundane tasks and let nature take its course. On Sunday I roped Herr Stabe into helping me make homemade salsa for the first time in life. My tomato plants continue to bring beautiful red tomatoes faster than we can eat them so I have been cooking everything I can think of with tomatoes. The salsa turned out quite well for our first attempt and we were able to can 4 jars of it. We created our own recipe after researching several suggested recipes, therefore I can not post the actual recipe that we used. However, some of the main ingredients included around 7 cups of tomatoes, 1 red onion, 1 white onion, 6 stalks of green onion, diced peppers, 6 cloves of garlic, fresh chopped parsley, and seasonings. Cilantro is a difficult herb to find in Germany therefore, we had to compromise. Last night we enjoyed tasting our final product during taco night. Very tasty in comparison to any kind of salsa that you would buy in the grocery store around here and also much healthier.