Working mama?

I applied for a job, well I've applied for a few, but this one is a full time real job.  I have been saying for a while that I would like to work part time unless something came up that really compelled me. My plan has been to mommy nanny once we get settled that way I can bring little man with me.  This job would mean day care, which I am fine with especially considering Husbands schedule.  Husband's schedule changes month to month and day to day so there would be some weeks Little Man would be there full time, but others it might only be 3 days.

My career never really found its footing after we moved to St. Louis.   After we moved I fell down the stairs and had surgery and about 9 months if rehab and the recession started.  Boom!  I nannied because I could get a job doing that fairly easily and I love kids and enjoyed it.  Then I had a baby and now we are here. I did the short version there. 

We will see what happens here in Cincinnati.

Edge of Change

These past two months have been full of change.  With the baby of course, but also buying our house, moving, graduation, and travel.  We are now all settled in Cincinnati.  Husband starts residency tomorrow, so it will just be me and the baby at home after 6 months of us mostly being together.


We had his class over Saturday night to meet everyone.  It is very strange meeting these new people knowing that some of them will become our very good friends and some merely friendly acquaintances (at least for me).  Husband will work with these people intensely over the next 4 years.  All of those things were floating around my mind will we were sitting out on our deck having get to know you conversations.

I am of course over analyzing the situation, trying very early on who will fit where and what our lives will be like.  I need to relax and let it happen.  

Car Seat Shenanigans

Yesterday I went to 4 stores to buy an infant seat for Little Man.  He is 3 months old and 15lbs. So why am  I am just now buying an infant seat?

Initially I was very against the infant seat for us.  I have used them plenty as a nanny and they are so heavy especially considering our second floor apartment.  I also knew we would have a sizable baby and figured he would outgrow it quickly.  I figured that our money would be better put towards a nicer convertible car seat.

I did a ton of research for the convertible carseat.  Then we went to Babies R Us and tried them in our car.  Now we have an average sized car, a Toyota Matrix.  None of the seats fit.  We put the car seat behind the passenger seat because of the way the seats fold in the car (we use this feature a lot).  We left  very frustrated.  We ended up going to a boutique store and finding the Pria.  We love love love this car seat.  It is a convertible with an infant insert for tiny babies.  Little Man has already outgrown the infant insert.

So this spring is crazy for us.  We are going on a road trip, a plane trip, and moving with the baby.  We decided it would be nice to have somewhere to be able to park Little Man while we were at the wedding we are going to in California or when we are at social functions meeting new people in Cincinnati.  This hunt took me to 4 stores in one day in search of the best deal I could find.

We ended up getting a relatively cheap Evenflo infant seat that is purple and black.  Little Man now has a purple car seat and stroller.  It seemed like the best car seat for the price (it goes to 35lbs!) and it was the color they had. He doesn't care.  We have had it a day and are already loving having an infant seat.

Lamb Cake

This year I got to make the lamb cake for Easter because my grandma is driving back from Florida the day before Easter.  Challenge accepted!

Background
The lamb mold originally belonged to my great-great-grandmother and she would make the cake for Easter.  I love the history of it.  My grandma has been making the cake as long as I can remember.  She is not a baker.  She is part of the generation that celebrated the invention of boxed cake mixes.  She has made the cake with a Betty Crocker mix and my guess is not kept up the seasoning on the cast iron.  I love to bake and the idea of making the cake from scratch excited me, especially with my new kitchen aid.

Random notes:

• Originally pound cake was a pound each of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar.
• http://atgrandmastable.wordpress.com/2011/01/13/traditional-lamb-cake-recipe-from-griswold-vintage-mold-insert/
  
  This blog gives a history and seasoning instructions.  They also link to the original recipe and another recipe with instructions.

Trial Cake = Cake Fail
I started by doing a trial cake on Wednesday before easter with a lemon sour cream pound cake recipe I found on Epicurious.  The cake was amazing tasting, but I learned many things.  First that recipe was way too light and fluffy.  Half of it spilled out of the mold and the left the mold partially empty.  I needed something very hefty.  I also figured out my mold needed to be seasoned, which meant the cake stuck.  It was ugly, but yummy.

I also emailed my mother-in-law for her lemon pound cake recipe.  It is a very heavy pound cake, which turned out to be perfect.

Success!

The cake turned out much better the second time around.  I placed toothpicks in the neck and ears before I baked it as was recommended on a few websites.  I also used twine to tie the two parts of the mold together, which I think really helped the process.

The extra batter went towards making cupcakes.  After you pull the lamb out of the oven you let it cool, then pull the back off.  The back came off so easily it surprised me, I guess the seasoning process really worked.  The front was a little bit harder to get off, especially the face and ears.  The ears got a little crispy.  It seems inevitable since they are so thin compared to the body of the lamb.  The neck tore slightly and one ear fell off, but I was able to repair it with toothpicks.

After it cooled I frosted it and then added a layer of textured frosting for a woolly effect.  I realized I need a cake decorating kit at some point.  I quickly decorated the cupcakes like chicks, although they admittedly look a little goofy.

Jane's Lemon Pound Cake Recipe
Lemon Pound Cake

1 cup butter or margarine
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup buttermilk

3 1/4 cups cake flour   OR 3 cups regular flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

4 Tablespoons lemon juice


Beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, beat some more. Mix soda
with the flour  and add alternately with buttermilk  to wet stuff .
Mix between additions. Add lemon juice and mix well.

Bake in greased tube pan for  60 minutes at 325 or til toothpick comes
out clean.

• I used butter, regular flour, fresh lemon juice and added a bit of rind (probably 1tbsp) because why not.  I greased the mold with the butter wrappers and dusted with flour and cooked for 60 minutes then added 5 minutes at a time until the cupcakes were golden.  The cupcakes were a perfect indicator of when the lamb was done because my mold had no toothpick holes.  Apparently the "newer" models have holes.  

House Hunting

Last week we went house hunting in Cincinnati.  It was a crazy whirlwind experience.  I was so pumped!  I spent countless hours researching, not to mention all the hours and hours I have devoted to watching HGTV as prep.  After we found our realtor (we found them through a physician loan program) we were set up with an mls portal.  Through this the realtors were able to load houses that fit into our criteria with all the fancy mls data (more stuff than is on zillow).  I combed through about 150 houses before we even met with the realtors and had narrowed it down to about 30 houses.

Wait back up, how are we buying a house we have no money?
Correct, correct.  Someone had the genius idea to create a mortgage product specifically for new doctors betting on the fact that they were a really low risk pool.  I thank this person.  Basically coming out of med school you have no money and debt (all kinds) up to your ears.  There are banks that say here we shall give you 100% financing like before the housing bubble burst.  I feel like it is the universe finally giving us a break in the $ department after 4 years of med school suckage.

So finding the house...
We drove out to Cincinnati with 2.5 days to find a house.  We needed to be under contract by the time we returned to St. Louis.  Oh yes, we also had our baby.  Luckily the residency program hooked us up with some amazing people to stay with who are our new friends.

We focused on three neighborhoods, turns out we did not like what we thought were our top two.  That was stressful for a few hours, then we moved on.

Strange things we encountered:
Smells: Smoke was the most common.  I think this should be listed with all the other house info, such a waste of time for everyone involved.  I probably didn't even walk into at least 4 or 5 houses based on smell at the door.  It was gross.

Fish:  One house had a very strange fish filtration? system in the basement that connected to tanks on all the floors.  All the tanks were filthy and only contained snails.

Dead Squirrel: One house did indeed have a one in the back yard, upside down.

Neighbors:  All kinds of strange, from falling down houses next door to sketchy apartment buildings.  Most of these we didn't even get out of the car for.  One house we really liked had neighbors with a compound that had probably 6 structures on it including a house, trailer (for people living), above ground pool, and several green houses.


In the end doing second looks at our favorite houses helped to clarify everything and we found the house.  Our realtors are amazing and wonderful and every superlative I can think of.  More on house later.

Intro Post

I suppose I should do a first post, even though I already wrote my actual first post (it is just waiting for pictures and to be published).

I have been meaning to write a blog for a while now.  I tried writing one when I was wedding planning, but then we got married and I fell down the steps.  That was no fun to blog about, so that went belly up (I will write about that at some point).

About me:  I am Lisa, 28, live in St. Louis, moving to Cincinnati in June, married to a med student soon to be resident, new mommy, former nanny, geologist by training, bassoonist, reader of many blogs, handbell ringer, crafter, TV connoisseur, dog and rabbit lover.

I have been constructing blog posts in my head for about a year, but I couldn't come up with a blog name.  My husband suggested this and it is perfect.  It is a problem my dog Winston suffers from, too many kisses.  He loves us and our baby too much he smothers us in big lab kisses.  We tell him this on a daily basis.  I am also very exuberant and can come on a little strong myself, so it is very fitting.

Just a preview of things I plan to blog about over the next few months (when I'm not traveling, buying a house, or moving):

• being married to a med student/resident and that whole deal
• being a SAHM for now, and holy shit, how did I go from attending an Ivy league school to getting my Mrs. degree to being a full time mommy?
• lots of baby tips, I have opinions, many of them 
• baking, crafting, and generally being domestic
• also my thoughts on pop culture, tv, and fashion