Crunch time

...and I'm not just talking about the caramel corn.

Because I made a delicious batch of caramel corn.  It's light and fluffy and crispy and buttery and sweet.  I'm wondering how the second half ziploc bag is going to make it to Colorado.  It will have to be by sheer will power.  Anyway, if interested, I found the recipe on allrecipes.com.  It's called My Amish Friends Caramel Corn.  It calls for 7 quarts of popped corn...and I had no idea how to get exactly 7 quarts.  So I popped up two batches of corn using 1/2 cup of unpopped corn each batch.  Perfect.  Also, we got a non stick roasting pan for chickens and the like.  As it turns out, it works great for caramel corn as well.

Anyway, we leave in 2 days!  I still have to make more snacks and some shortbread for dad.  It looks like today will be a baking day.  I'm not complaining as it's cold outside.
I wandered around most of November wondering when it was going to snow in the QCA and enjoying 60 and 70 degree weather.  Now I remember Midwest winters....boo.  BUT, if we are still considering Alaska, then I best get used to COLD.  I can not WAIT until that job list comes out!!

In other ponderings...in all my free time fritting about the house and being a housewife (which will end at the end of the year, I just know it), I have been thinking about kids.  In my head, I planned to get preggers about 18 months after we got married to give us lots of newlywed time.  Lately, I have been thinking it would be OK if we moved that up a bit.  John and I have been talking about what new car to get after my car is paid off (and, honestly, I'm fine with keeping a paid-off car for a while) and timing kidlets with his career (which is always difficult when you have monkey wrenches thrown in your plans from all angles), and I had been thinking sooner would be OK.  I wonder if this is a newlywed side effect?  "You're married!  Go have babies!"

Until the past couple of days when I thought I was pregnant.  I had no real basis for these thoughts other than paranoia.  And I was interpreting my PMS as early pregnancy symptoms.  Although I had weird nausea at night before I went to sleep.  Anyway, I was more uneasy and scared than joyous.  I'm not sure exactly why or if this is an ingrained response from those years when I was not married and did NOT want to be pregnant.  Or if it was just the fact that John and I have not discussed that now is a good time to be not trying to not get pregnant.  (Ha!  Make sense of that sentence!  We're so passive aggressive.  I predict we won't "try" to have kids, we'll "not try" to be safe anymore.  There is so much pressure once you've declared that you're "trying".)

Anyway, the relief I felt this morning, when it was confirmed that I was NOT pregnant, was just a sign that we have more newlywed time to enjoy.  More discussions to have.  More monkey wrenches to work out.  Before we decide to not try.

In the meantime, I'm going to bake and clean the house.  And get a job.