(no subject)

Yesterday was such a calm, peaceful day. I woke up early for some obscure reason, so I had plenty of time to relax and read before church. Went to church, listened to a pretty good talk on genetic surgery, destiny, and human nature (in lieu of sermon), chatted with friends for a while, came home.

In the afternoon, curiousangel and I lounged about on the couch, watching the Orioles game (until it got too depressing), reading (him), doing needlework (me), napping (him), and generally just enjoying being close to each other.

I tried a new recipe for dinner. I mixed together six minced cloves of garlic, four good-sized sprigs of rosemary chopped into smaller pieces, some salt, and the zest of a lemon, and rubbed it into a lamb roast. Then I browned the lamb and put it into the slow cooker with some potatoes and white wine. It smelled fabulous all afternoon. I reduced the cooking time called for in the recipe, but the lamb still got a bit overdone - I think perhaps the recipe intended to call for a much larger leg-of-lamb than the 3-pound roast I bought. So the meat was just a trifle dry, but it was still tasty - and the potatoes were amazing.

It was just the kind of day I needed, after our long and busy month of July.

(no subject)

Today's fascinating new symptom: weepiness.

I cried on Saturday in response to two stressful situations, and thought at the time that I seemed to be more emotionally volatile than usual. But it's only 10:17am, and already tears have come to my eyes twice: for a baby hippo I saw on TV while I was eating my breakfast, and for a sentimental Hallmark card I saw while picking out a "Get Well" card for my sister. No, really. Got to love those hormonal surges.

Also: at the moment I have completely lost my taste for alcohol, black tea, and sweets. (Not that I've tried alcohol, obviously, but it seems unappealing when I think about it.) I have retrospectively decided that I might as well give up caffeine for the first trimester. I thought quitting would be too hard to justify the very sketchy evidence for fetal benefit, but I don't miss tea at all.

Unfortunately, I have not developed the kind of abnormal craving that would induce me to want four servings of high-calcium foods a day.