Am I Nesting?

I've either lost my mind completely or else this is what I've heard people refer to as "nesting". I'm not exactly sure but it's 2:30 in the afternoon and this is what I've done so far:

8:30am - Woke up. Not because I wanted to wake up but because Antonis' cell rang, the gypsy's were outside yelling about the cheap crap they had for sale and there was a fly buzzing around my head. Oh, and I had to pee but that really goes without saying these days

9:00am - Went to the store because I needed bread, eggs, fruit and chocolate milk...yes I did NEED chocolate milk, I did not just WANT it. Don't judge me.

9:15am - Home. Excited for a glass of chocolate milk

9:16am - The chocolate milk is rank!! It's not out of date but it's definitely curdled to oblivion. I'm sad. But I won't stand for this! Back to the store!

9:30am - Drinking chocolate milk and eating toast and eggs while watching Love in The Wild. That Jesse guy is a total douche and I hope he gets malaria while in The Wild.

10:30am - break out The Mother of All Lists and start ticking stuff off! Since we're up early, we might as well be productive! WOOO HOOO! I can't tell if I'm excited about being productive or if I'm having a bit of a sugar rush from the chocolate milk but whatever WOOO HOOO LETS DO THIS!! YEAH!! CLEANING!! YEAH!!!

10:31am - 2:00pm:

• washed dishes
• swept the floors
• mopped the floors
• pulled everything out of the pots and pans cupboard, scrubbed it down with lemony scented cleaner, caught the giant spider that's been living in there for 3 months and threw her outside, then placed everything back in neatly after throwing out anything that looked too disgusting to keep (just some old plastic containers that smelled funny and probably had spaghetti sauce in them at some point...I was more sad about saying good bye to the spider)
• finally convinced Antonis that he needs to take the stack of dusty menu covers to the restaurant so he can deal with them there and I don't have to keep looking at them here anymore
• cleaned the microwave...now that was an undertaking and a half! But I have the best tip ever for cleaning microwaves: put about a tablespoon of vinegar into a bowl and heat it in the microwave for about a minute. No matter how much disgusting, stuck on crap you have in there, after this it will wipe right off. Your kitchen will smell like vinegar for a little while after but it works like a charm! And I should know because I never cover anything that I reheat in the microwave so it usually looks like a murder scene in there....
• washed some windows....not all, just some. I'm not a big fan of washing windows so if I do it a little bit at a time then I don't hate it as much. Actually I shouldn't make it sound like cleaned a lot of windows today...I cleaned one. But it's 4 little panels so sometimes I think I can get away with the exaggeration because technically it was 4 separate pieces of glass. Anyway whatever I cleaned some glass today, lets just leave it at that
• cleaned out a book case that was full of dusty useless crap, threw away the crap, dusted the stuff that was less useless and found appropriate homes for them. Then I put Antonis' conspiracy theory books, that don't fit in the main bookcase, neatly and organized according to edition in here so they're not in the baby's room anymore, on the floor, in dusty plastic bags. I was really proud of this one because he drives me INSANE with these conspiracy theory books yet I still managed to handle each one with care. Yes I did want to take a red pen and write my opinions all over the margins. Some of them I just wanted to huck over the balcony. But I didn't. And now they have their happy little home all neatly tucked away in a bookcase so they can feel just as important as every other book we own.  
• anything that has been living on the kitchen counter that doesn't need to be living on the kitchen counter is now living in a cupboard
• anything that has been living on the kitchen counter that gets used often and is useful living on the kitchen counter, has now been dusted and cords are neatly rolled up with twist ties
• kitchen counter scrub down of the century!
• a complete overhaul on the pantry (which is just a cupboard actually but pantry sounds so grown up). I did basically the same thing here that I did with the pots and pan cupboard and the bookcase: pulled everything out, washed it all down with lemony smelling cleaner, killed all the ants, threw away anything that looked gross (like the icing sugar bag that was FULL of ants...so gross!) and then put everything back in again neatly
• HERE'S THE WEIRD ONE that, after everything else, finally made me wonder if this cleaning spree is nesting....I polished all the handles on the cupboard doors...???? I didn't even know if they were dirty or not but I was wiping down the cupboards anyway so I thought why not give them a little scrub and see what happens. They're metal, not sure what kind of metal though, and they looked black. As far as I knew that was the colour they were supposed to be. But being the clever little housewife I am (actually the Pintrest addicted housewife is more like it) I took a piece of aluminum foil and put a bit of baking soda in it and drop of water to make a paste. With my sponge I wet down the handle first and then I took the aluminum foil/soda/water and rubbed it on the handle.....they went from black to bronze immediately! It was amazing! If you have silver jewelery or cutlery or anything silver that is turning black and needs to be cleaned, you put them in a bowl or a bucket or whatever lined with aluminum foil, filled with water and sprinkled with baking soda. Then you rub everything against the aluminum foil and they come out shiny and new. So that's where I got the idea from and apparently that works on other kinds of metal and not just silver (DISCLAIMER: please don't take my word on this if you have some fancy jewelry that you want to shine that's NOT silver. Please talk to an expert first because I don't have a job and I won't be replacing your great great grandmother's gold necklace)
• finally....I organized my shoes. This one was fun. I love shoes. It was nice to visit all my old friends again that my poor swollen feet have not been acquainted with for quite some time. Even if it was just to dust them off and find a new place to put them. For the last few months I've had them just sitting on the floor in the baby's room because I thought I'd be cleaning out the closet they were living in before, and then throwing away that closet to make some room in our house. Now I'm realizing how much I desperately need this closet (or else I'd have to throw away A LOT of shoes which I just cannot do. Sorry. This might not be the most practical thing to do but it is what it is. Don't judge me.) I did throw away a couple pairs though. A cute little pair of black and gold sandals...tan coloured skate shoes that I'd used for olive picking and didn't really like anyway so nothing lost there...cute little black and grey stripped tennis shoes that started to pull away from the sole...a killer pair of black and silver stilettos that have a removable ankle strap, but I lost one of the ankle straps and they don't stay on it (kind of a stupid design but then I guess if you want practical shoes then you want ugly shoes so there you go)

So that was my day. And again I'll ask you, am I nesting? Or should I be a little concerned that I took so much pleasure in scrubbing cupboard door handles with aluminum foil and baking soda? 

I wish I was able to take some before and after pictures for you but unfortunately my baby brain was acting up again and just when I was about to start the 'Before' photo session, that's when I realized I still haven't recharged my camera battery from Sunday's dirty poem and bonfire festival. 

I think the most important thing that happened today though wasn't the cleaning I did but how the cleaning finally may have motivated Antonis to help me fix up the baby's room. We have quite a few big things that need to be carried to his parents house for storage. It's not far away, just around the corner but it is UPHILL around the corner and on cobblestone stairs so we can't use a car or something like that to take a load and be done with it. Each piece has to be carried by hand, uphill, in the heat. It'll only take about an hour or so but it's going to be a hard hour....but it needs to done and then I can basically do the rest of the room myself. Well, maybe not the painting. Can I paint while I'm pregnant? I don't know...doesn't seem like the best idea with the paint fumes and everything. I'll look into that. Or let me know if you know anything about that. Anyway, Antonis was really impressed to see everything that I got accomplished today so I think now we can finally start to devise our plan of attack for Eleni's room. Or more likely, I'll tell him my plan and he can agree with it....right??? We'll see

That's all for today guys, I'm exhausted and feeling a bit stiff so I plan on putting my feet up and watching reality tv for the rest of the night (I started this post at 2:30 but then I took a break, went to the beach, came home, ate a hot dog and now I'm back writing again at 8:30pm...if you're wondering how I time warped). Hopefully The Real Housewives of Orange County has finally been uploaded somewhere so I can watch that...it's part 2 of the "to be continued" episode last week and I can't handle the suspense any longer!!

BUT just a little "to be continued" for all of you.......WE HAVE A MIDDLE NAME FOR ELENI!!

But I can't tell you yet. I have to tell my mom first and then I can spill it on here. So as soon as I talk to my mom I'll let you know what we decided on and how we decided.

Good night! Kalinikta!

Bonfires and Dirty Poems?

I've said this before and I know I'll say it again....

I will never understand this place!

So Sunday night there was a small festival for Saint Yiannis, or as we know him, St. John the Baptist. St. John is a pretty big deal for a lot of people. He was around a little while before Jesus came onto the scene, but just a very little while because it's thought that St. John was the one who baptized Jesus. It's also believed the St. John foretold the coming of Jesus and a few even say the Jesus studied under St. John. Anyway the point is that Saint John, or Saint Yiannis as he's called in Greek, is a pretty important figure and not just in the Greek Orthodox religion. He's so important that the Greeks celebrate him on three different days throughout the year. The first is on January 7th (hmmmm, I think this day is significant for another reason too....) which is his official Saint Day and also the day that anyone named after him will celebrate their name day. If you're a man that will be Ioannis or the more common Yiannis.  If you're a woman Ioanna is more common but you'll also hear Yianna as well. Notice that they're the same names just slightly changed to sound more feminine or masculine? That's the same with all Greek names, there is always a matching male and female version of the name. The second Saint Yiannis day was this festival but I was told that the actual Saint Day wasn't Sunday, they just had the festival on Sunday because it was easier. No one could give me an exact day though so lets just say it's around June 24th. And the third day...well I got answers all over the calendar for that one from between February to November so clearly the third St. John Day is not as big of a deal...at least by the people that I asked anyway.

I also couldn't get a clear answer as to why they were doing the "rituals" they were doing. I use the word "rituals" loosely because there didn't seem to be anything sacred or even remotely religious about them. Usually on a festival day there's some weird stuff going on but there's always some connection to an ancient ritual or religious rite or something. But this....as far as I could tell it was just for fun.

So first there was a massive bonfire. Everyone was seated or standing or wandering around the fire. There were a ton of young kids there so it was definitely meant to be a family thing with parents bringing their kids and even the grandparents along. I noticed a few suspicious-looking people waiting around by the edge of the fire. As soon as the fire would die down a bit, they would run and jump over the fire. Why? I have no idea. It seemed pretty harmless actually until our friend's Dad jumped over and one of the sparks landed in his hair....some guy ran up and started hitting him over the head to put the flame out but it took Yorgos a few seconds to figure out what the guy was doing to him! For a moment there things looked a little heated....OHHHHHH knee slapper. No it wasn't. Sorry about that, I couldn't help myself. Anyway, in all seriousness I guess if you're an avid hairspray user you should steer clear of the fire jumping...which probably explains why I didn't see any Greek women jumping.

This jumping over the fire business went on for about an hour I guess, and just as I was ready to leave they brought out the clay jug. If you read my last post I mentioned that I'd seen some posters advertising this festival, so I was starting to wonder why the only thing that was happening was this bonfire, but finally the jug came out so I stayed a little longer. So the jug was apparently put somewhere the day before so people could come down and put something inside it. I was told you can put anything you want inside but it has to be small because the jug isn't very big. The next day, the festival day, the jug would be opened and you can get your stuff back. The only thing I saw come out of the jug was a plastic toy Sylvester the cat from Bugs Bunny. There were some other things too but I couldn't see them. So why would you put Sylvester in the jug overnight and pick him up the next day???? NO IDEA! But while they were taking all these little nic-nac things out of the jug, a microphone was being passed around throughout the audience and people took turns telling dirty poems.....yes...I'm not kidding....dirty poems!! Why? Again, I wish I knew. Most of the poems I would only catch a word here or there that I knew, or I'd make out whole sentences but couldn't even begin to make sense of the meaning because Greeks are notorious for having strange sayings for things that when they're translated into English...they still might as well be Greek because they make absolutely no logical sense. For example if you and your friend are walking down the street and you hear "Ah, the rolling pot met the lid" it means that you're the same, you fit together like a pot and its lid. It's a joke but in a slightly negative way because it's meant to infer that you're both trouble, kind of like when we say our best friend is our partner in crime. Of if you say "He/she is for the festivals!" it's an insult. It means you think they're crazy and not the good kind of crazy but actually certifiably crazy. I won't go on because I'd be here for years but anyway my point is that I can't even  translate a poem here for you because I seriously couldn't make much sense of them. But I did hear the words for "penis" and "breasts" and "testicles" being thrown at times, and sometimes being referenced to things like "lemons" or other food...I wish I could tell you more than that but that's all I got. And of course the minute I took out my camera that night I had a dead battery! So sad! Otherwise I could just get someone to translate from a video but unfortunately I only managed to get 3 pictures from the whole thing. Anyhoo, I could tell they were dirty because I heard a lot of references to the human anatomy and I could tell they were poems because they rhymed and sounded like limericks. Kind of strange though since the majority of the audience was under 10 years old.........no judgement though! I'm just sayin'.....

I finally decided to call it a night after the crazy old lady from next door sat beside me with two of her crazy old lady friends and they started gossiping horribly about everyone that was there. And not good gossip either, most of it was downright mean. This is the same crazy neighbour that told my mother in law 2 years ago that she was going to be a grandma because she listened outside our door one day when Antonis and I were talking about future plans to have kids. Yeah, she's a delight! The nice thing to say would be that she could use a refresher course for her English grammar but actually, I think she's for the festivals.....

So that is the festival of Bonfires and Dirty Poems. Hopefully I can get some kind of clarification as to why they do these things and how/if they relate to St. Yiannis....especially the dirty poem part. That one just seems out of left field to me. Oh, another clue I did manage to get is that super religious people are actually really disgusted by this festival. One girl said "St. John would be so angry if he saw what was happening down there, they should be ashamed of themselves!!"....now I don't know if that's just the ramblings of a religious fanatic or not. I guess I'll have to wait and see if I can get some more information, but even if I do get more information it probably won't help because like I said....

I will never understand this place!

Greece Vs. Germany

Good Morning! Kalimera!

Hmmmm, that greeting felt a little enthusiastic. After the results of last night's soccer game, enthusiasm will likely NOT be the word of the day. Remember when the Canucks were fighting for the Stanley Cup last year and we almost won it...but then we didn't? If you forgot about that then you should probably be packing your bags right now and moving to somewhere where hockey doesn't matter....like Toronto. Anyway, remember that? Even if you never watch hockey, you don't understand it, you don't know who any of the players are or even if you think they play with a "funny little black ball" rather than a puck it doesn't matter, when they lost we all felt it. It was a sad sad day. Well that's how the Greeks feel today after losing HORRIBLY to the Germans last night in the Euro Cup...or whatever the hell they call these soccer tournaments over here (What?! I'm a HUGE fan, what are you talking about? That black and white thing is totally a ball, not a puck. See? Super Fan.)

Ok, so maybe I'm not the biggest fan of football. SOCCER!! Damn it, it's soccer! I keep doing that. If at some point in this blog you see the word 'football', just tell yourself it's soccer and know that I apologize. No one says soccer but us North Americans so I've sort of adopted the word football by accident...but it bugs me that I can't switch back and forth between the two without thinking about it first. Anyway. So I'm busted, I'm not the biggest fan out there. Honestly I don't even know what this tournament is all about other than all the teams come from European countries, so the winner will likely feel like they're the best country in all of Europe (naturally). I guess that's a pretty big deal for any of those patriotic types, which Greeks DEFINITELY are. I don't have a problem with that at all because I'm fairly patriotic myself. As far as I'm concerned, Canada is THE best country in the world and I will even go as far as saying that Pamela Anderson is awesome simply because she's Canadian, even if she is completely made of plastic and kind of a twit. Anyway, Canada of course isn't in this tournament but my second favourite country in the world is (or was) so even though I may not be a soccer fanatic, I had to watch the game and cheer on my boys in blue and white.

 The One and Only German in a Sea of Greeks watching the game last night at the restaurant

Actually this game was probably watched by most Europeans last night because it had some political undertones going on. Here's the short version of the story: Germany is one of the more powerful and financially well off countries in the European Union. Greece....well you've probably heard a little something about how Greece is in some serious trouble these days. Since Germany is pretty much holding pole position in the EU, they have a lot of the power to decide how to help Greece out of with their debt and get them on the right track to recovery from this mess. Angela Merkel is the Chancellor of Germany so she's the face of the German people right now. Putting it simply: Greeks. Hate. Merkel. She's had some tough things to say that a lot of Greeks don't really agree with so unfortunately this translates into: Greeks. Hate. Germany.

That's too harsh actually, I'm using far too strong a word to describe their feelings towards Germany. It's probably better to say that there is some tension between Greeks and Germans right now. For the sake of this conversation...which is in writing and can therefore be used against me very easily...I will now insert the following disclaimer:

I REMAIN NEUTRAL ON THIS SUBJECT! 

Except when it comes to the soccer game...in which case, I was Greece all the way (sorry Charlotte!)

But sadly....we lost 4-1. My poor Greeks. I was really hoping for a win just to boost their spirits a bit. It's been rough for them lately, was kicking some German ass just too much to ask for? I suppose so. I know I don't know much about football but it was pretty clear that the German team played really well and once the game was over every Greek in the restaurant gave a respectful applause for their opponent (and probably for our good friend Rolf, the lone German at the restaurant that night whom everyone loves no matter what team he cheers for).

Here's a look at the aftermath:

 Broken hearts mended with beer, cigarettes, and talk about what the Greek coach SHOULD HAVE done....an international ritual, not just a Greek thing

My brother in law Lefteris...what the Greek coach SHOULD HAVE done was get a goal keeper the size of him. We'd be undefeated!

Such sad faces :( Except Andreas in the back ground. He's upset about the results too but he's already onto the next thing which is 'drink a few beer here and then off to Congas to chat up some ladies'. Good for him! That's the right attitude to have: life goes on! And there are always pretty ladies out there somewhere to make you feel better? Maybe that was a step too far...

Babis Squared 

They're both named Babis...when I told this joke last night it flopped because no one knew what I meant by 'squared', so I'm trying it out again here even though I basically just over explained the punch line and killed the joke. Haha?

Ok, it's time for the fat lady to go home. I've had too much 'champagne' and heard enough soccer talk for one night.

I found this poster on a tree on the way home. Apparently there's some kind of celebration happening tonight that I might go check out. The picture on the right is a guy dressed up in traditional festival dress dancing over a pretty raging bonfire. That peaked my interest. The picture on the left explains this clay jug that's surrounded by flowers, called a Kildonas. It said: "The Kildonas. The jug where personal items are thrown in and collected the next day while singing naughty poems"....???? really? So dirty jokes and fire walking? Yeah I gotta see this. That's tonight around 9pm as long as I have the energy I'll go down and check that out and report back tomorrow.

This is the bakery. It's about 2am and it's prime baking time...the whole neighbourhood smelled like cinnamon raisin buns!

And I'm home. This is our way overgrown garden at night. I just took this picture because I wanted to test some different setting on my camera for night and some other things but I thought I'd throw it in here too with the rest of them. Why not?

Have a good weekend!

More Pics from the Baby Shower

Good Morning!

What is that blowing through my window? A cool breeze???? You mean I might actually get through one day without complaining?? It can't be possible!

So a couple of friends from my surprise baby shower have emailed me some extra pictures from the party and I thought, why not share them with everyone! It's not everyday we get to see me eating baby food blind folded or digging into a 'dirty' diaper with a fork.....

Guess What's in the Diaper game! They were all chocolate, but I had to guess what kind of chocolate...

Even though I knew it was chocolate, there was still something super gross about digging around in a diaper with a fork...

See! It's gross, right?

Guess What's in the Baby Food game...oh my GOD so disgusting!

No Charlotte, I will not open my mouth wider to allow that vile concoction near my taste buds!

This must have been before the game started...or else I wouldn't have been smiling

EWWWWWWWW SICK! Did that one have chicken in it?? Gross!

Quick, get a napkin! There's no way I'm swallowing this! Just a little tip: if the mom you're having a baby shower for is still pregnant and feeling even slightly queezy....DO NOT PLAY THIS GAME! Luckily I got all my queezy-ness out during the first trimester 24-7 Sickness morning sickness, but this may have triggered a second round....

Blind-folded Diapering. This was fun!

 UnBlind-folded Cloth Diapering. Still fun but nowhere near as successful!

I'm not actually holding this cake in my hands. It's propped on top of my ginormous belly! It's all an optical illusion!

The Mother of all Lists

Hey!

So I'm sure you've all noticed that I've slowed down on the blog posts. I was thinking that the heat wave would lift and I'd get back to writing everyday. The good news is: the heat wave is over for now. The bad news is: it's summer, this is Greece, so it's still friggen hot! I still will try my absolute best to write everyday because I notice I feel much better on these days. I don't know why, but I do. Maybe it's a small sense of accomplishment? I don't know. Whatever it is, it's good...so I will try. That being said, some days I just won't have it in me. Sometimes it's just too hot and I'm just too uncomfortable, so finding a way to relieve that becomes priority number one. And I just have to accept that. I know you guys won't really mind all that much, even if pretty much all of you have been SO kind to write me and tell me how much you love to read everyday (which is so nice of you by the way! I have the best family and friends in the world! THANK YOU!!). It's ME who will have a much harder time dealing with the fact that this is just another one of those things that I can't do so easily anymore (and I promise I'm not about to launch into yet another rant about limitations or frustrations in pregnancy).

Just so you know, everything is absolutely fine with the pregnancy. I feel great other than the fact that I'm just having a lot of trouble coping with the heat. That's it. If I was in Canada right now, I'm 100% confident that I'd be able to work...probably even full time, because that's how good I feel. It's just the 30 and above temperatures and high humidity that have me on my ass. Literally. Sometimes my feet are so swollen by midday that the only thing I can do is sit on my ass with my feet up in the air! Sweating like a pig is not the most comfortable or attractive thing either. So, that being said...you will probably notice a small decrease in blog posts. Maybe I'll still manage to write pretty much everyday, but maybe I'll just cut down on the content a bit so I don't find myself sitting at the computer for longer than a half hour or something like that. This way I'm not putting too much pressure on myself everyday. I tend to do that to myself with everything I do, which can be a good quality BUT during pregnancy....meh. Throw it out the window! I just don't think there's any need for pressure at any time during pregnancy. Except for maybe labour...but then that's a whole different kind of pressure.

My poor little swollen sausages. 

Note to self: get someone to paint my toenails florescent pink. People are gonna notice my feet anyway because they're like hoofs right now, so maybe bright pink toe nails will distract them enough they won't even notice the puffiness

SO moving on to what I've been up to lately.....

Since it's been so flippin' hot I've been finding myself indoors, under the air conditioning quite a bit. That means, I haven't been doing a whole heck of a lot other than watching The Bachellorette and various other reality tv shows online. What I HAVE done (as in, what is actually worth talking about so I don't look like a lazy ass...but the Bachelorette was pretty good this week so maybe that is worth talking about? probably not...) is make a massive list of things I want to accomplish in the house before the baby gets here.

Yesterday I walked around the house with a pen and paper and made a note of EVERYTHING, big or small that needs to be taken care of in the next 2 months. So slowly, everyday, I'll try to do at least one thing from this list. Also, now that Antonis is aware of how much needs to be done...maybe this will get his butt moving into nesting mode along with me so I can get some help with some of the the bigger project (example: THE BABY'S ROOM!)

Here's what my list looks like:

Livingroom

• organize desk (I did this yesterday. 1 thing down, 1,000,000,000,000,0000000 to go)
• wash windows
• organize bookcase that has become Antonis' junk shelves...there is absolutely no need to keep that many old newspapers EVER
• finish painting (just inside the sunken windows and balcony door and the wood around the door)

Kitchen

• shelves under the oven
• menus...garbage or take them to the restaurant
• paint materials...USE THEM! and stop storing them here
• give Olympia back all her dishes and make it clear that she has to STOP bringing food here because he's making me fat and I'm sick of hoarding her dishes....how does she even have any dishes to eat off of anyway? Seriously! Note to self: next time I go to her house, see if she's started using paper plates...
• clean fridge
• organize all the cupboards (yes, this means Mr. Giant Spider hanging out in the pots and pans cupboard will need to find a new place to live soon)
• clean the microwave
• finish painting (just a little bit of trim that needs to be fixed because I'm a perfectionist and I'm sick of looking at that corner that isn't perfect...make it perfect!)

Bedroom

• organize the toiletry shelf because it looks like Costco blew up over there
• organize the dresser (job for Antonis because I refuse to continue dusting his empty bottles of cologne...why the hell to Greek men insist on keeping EMPTY bottles of cologne? In Canada, guys usually collect their empty booze bottles and display them proudly around their bachelor pads...this is the only way I can make some minute sense out of this weird hobby)
• organize the night table (job for me because I refuse to continue dusting all of the crap that I pile on there)
• take out the carpets...maybe throw them away when no one's looking because they're hideous and should never have been made, let alone bought and used (I didn't buy them...I have absolutely nothing in common with old Greek women when it comes to interior decorating and unfortunately they seem to think it's cool to 'help' with this all the time)
• get rid of the spider webs
• finish painting (this needs to be redone completely. It was the last room to be done when we repainted and it looks slapped together. This has FOREVER been a piss off and I can't take it anymore)

Bathroom

• BURN IT DOWN AND START FROM SCRATCH!. Period.

Baby's Room

This part of the list is just WAY too massive and a lot of it won't make any sense right now so I think I will make this it's own blog post another day...as I promised a long time ago and have since done nothing except for what got done that rainy day

So as you can see I've done ONE thing on my list. YAY ME. I'll pick something else to take care of tonight...probably the spider webs in the bedroom because that's freaking me out a bit at night to be honest. We get some honking huge spiders over here and these are honking huge webs so...I'd really rather not wake up with a spider the size of my face ON my face. If I don't get rid of the webs that is. So tonight I'm on spider web duty I guess. I'd pick something else because theoretically this should only take a few seconds. But realistically I'm probably going to see that hippopotamus sized spider and there will be screaming and flailing around and things will get knocked over and broken and it's just going to be a big dramatic mess that will probably take more like 45 minutes so....that's what's on the schedule for tonight. And to think I used to sit in the moonlight drinking wine, eating various little Greek snacks and smoking cigarettes....pfffft, I used to be so lame! (no offence wine and little Greek snacks, we will be together again someday. Cigarettes, you may want to take offence)

Good night!

Sun Burnt Cheeks

I'm feelin' the burn!

Not a good exercise burn though...just too much sun unfortunately.

The good news is:  it's just one cheek.

The bad news is: it's not a cheek on my face.

Yup.

I'll be honest, I haven't been wearing sunscreen this summer. But before you all freak out and send me email lectures, let me explain.

There are a lot of ingredients in sunscreen (the typical chemically saturated grocery store brands) that can be potentially harmful to developing babies. Some brands even say right on the bottle that pregnant women shouldn't use the product. At first I thought this was probably just another case of people over reacting, and after I did some research....it could still very well be people over reacting. There actually hasn't been any definite proof that these ingredients (I won't bother listing them because there's a ton and they're all hard to pronounce and impossible to spell) will cause birth defects or miscarriage or premature labour etc, but there is some support for the claim. Enough for some brands to be concerned enough to put a warning on their label (some European brands...I haven't checked brands like Coppertone or Hawaiian Tropics that are available everywhere because honestly these brands are RIDICULOUSLY expensive over here and I won't be buying them anyway. Like $20 a bottle expensive!) So I decided I'm not going to risk it. I'm not supposed to be eating deli meat either...but that one I do risk. For the 'once in a blue moon' craving I get for salami, I give in. There's a small chance, very very VERY small chance, that salami and other deli meats could have a harmful bacteria on it that could cause complications....but I've still eaten salami about 5 times my whole pregnancy. The risks are so tiny anyway that I feel ok with this decision. BUT when it comes to the sunscreen issue, something tells me to go with my gut and heed the warnings. Besides, it wouldn't be just 5 times in my whole pregnancy that I slather on some sunscreen. It would be everyday for 4 or 5 months out of the 9....personally I think that's just asking for it.

Now I know you're still thinking about 2 big words........SKIN CANCER! What are you doing about that smart ass???!!!

Don't worry, I'm still being careful. 

First of all, I NEVER sit in the sun. If I'm at the beach I'm always in the shade. I can't stand the sun anyway, I get way to hot these days...I'm fat remember. The heat is not my friend right now! 

Second, my face moisturizer is all natural and contains 15 SPF so my face is protected at all times without using any horrible chemicals that are bad for Eleni. 

Third, I have a giant floppy hat that is so Sex and the City chic. I can't really see where I'm going when I wear it because it's that big, but at least my face and shoulders are protected from the sun AND I look amazing while making everyone around me jealous. Fab!

Fourth, I never go to the beach before 2:00pm. Ok I can't say I NEVER go before 2 because I've done it twice now, but most of the time I go after 3:00pm or 4:00pm because the....what the hell is it called? the UV index or something?? ugh, I can't remember...anyway the sun is at it's strongest from 10am-2pm. Ok, I think I sun burnt my brain today too...

Fifth, I'm still on the look out for an all natural sunscreen that is reasonably priced. Unfortunately that's not an easy task here though because our options are VERY limited and being that this is a tourist destination for beach goers in particular...sun screen prices are jacked way up! A very important tip if you ever come here to visit me: buy sun screen from home and bring it with you! Actually that's probably a good recommendation if you're visiting anywhere in Europe that has beaches, is hot, and uses the Euro (which as of yesterday's election, will still be our currency but I'm so not in the right mood or frame of mind to discuss Greek politics right now)

So, that's what I've been doing to save myself from sun burns and so far it's worked perfectly.....until today. I haven't had ANY sunburns at all this summer until today. We were up super early today because I had a doctor's appointment. I'm not going to go into detail right now about how Greek hospitals operate and how Greek people behave in hospitals...I promise I will eventually though because this is a story worth telling....but for now lets just say that sitting in the health center for not even an hour was more exhausting than the piddly 3 hours of sleep I got last night. Anyway, the point is I was exhausted and I accidentally fell asleep on the beach. Before I fell asleep, I was in the shade. When I woke up...my butt was in the direct sunlight. Just my bum. Nothing else. 

And that's the story of my sun burnt right bum cheek.

Here's a couple of pictures from the beach today. OH, the doctor's appointment went well by the way. He just checked out my ultrasound pics that you saw yesterday and he was really happy with what he saw so everything is good there. The nurse had a go at me about my weight....I've now gained 28lbs. 3lbs up from last month. Whatever. I'm so over talking about my weight. Besides, that nurse was no athlete herself. By this time next year, it won't just be my hat she's jealous of! I had to do the usual pee test and blood test, check my blood pressure, check Eleni's heart beat and everything is A-OK with baby! My appointment next month apparently has to happen at the hospital because my doctor will be doing some tests that he can only do at the hospital. I have no idea what that means but actually I wanted my next appointment to be at the hospital anyway because I want to do a tour of the delivery room and I have a massive list of questions to attack him with. So  it all works out.

And finally....here's a couple of pictures from the beach today...

 We went to Psiriara (the NUDEY BEACH!) because we had a car today for the doctor's appointment so we just kept it a little longer so we could get to, and back home again from, our favourite beach. Just a reminder, or FYI for those who haven't read the past post about this beach...yes it's a nude beach, no we don't get naked, no we don't love it because it's a nude beach, we love it because it has beautiful soft sand, there isn't usually any screaming kids running around (for now, HA!) and an amazing view of Molyvos. And they've finally put out their umbrellas and sunbeds which is perfect for me because laying in the sand is not so easy anymore...

I don't know this guy but he was having such a good time with his dogs that it made me miss my Brasco. Aw, it's ok. Brasco's not a big beach bum anyway. Fresh water yes, salt water no. He's a smart dog but for some reason he's never learned that if you drink the salt water you're gonna get sick....and he doesn't just drink it, he guzzles it! Then he throws up everywhere or he gets diarrhea, or if we're really lucky he gets both at the same time. One time at the Beach Bar, with a ton of people around watching, after he went for a swim and drank every drop of water that came into contact with his mouth, we had a diarrhea situation....and you would think that would be the embarrassing part. Nope! Suddenly the diarrhea stopped but I could tell by his face and his stance that something else was still going on in there...and he wouldn't move from the spot he was in because I guess he was too busy concentrating on what was going on in there (he's over 100lbs too so I couldn't just pick him up and run him out of there) ....when suddenly...a tampon came shooting out! OH MY GOD I thought I would die! Everyone was looking and pointing and asking each other "did you see that? did that dog just $*@# out a tampon?"....then they started actually coming up to me and asking me if my dog had, in fact, pooped a tampon. Yes, yes he did, thanks very much for asking now if you wouldn't mind I have a sick dog I need to take care of. No I don't FEED him tampons, I have no idea how he got it or why he ate it you moron! He was perfectly fine after that and he trotted home with a big smile on his face the whole way...and of course I was so glad he was fine but needless to say I never took him back to that beach during the busy time again. And I found a new place to keep my tampons after that....That was a really gross story, sorry for sharing that guys but these dogs made me think of him and our times at the beach and....that happened to be one of our times at the beach so....don't drink salt water and eat tampons?

Kittens sleeping on oranges. So cute! Let this visual replace the last visual I gave you...take a deep breath...think of kittens....and breath out...awwwwww kittens on oranges. That's better!

The moment I realized my bum was burnt.

GIANT BELLY!! My feet look so far away. Weird. Because as you all know, I'm really not that tall. Anyway, as you can see my belly is huge but my belly button is still, miraculously, in its rightful place. For now. 

So, sun burn aside it was a really good day. The water was FREEZING, like Canadian mountain lake freezing which was a bit of a surprise but it's so hot that a swim in really cold water is actually refreshing and welcome. 

And now I gotta go because I'm having a harsh craving for pineapple and I can't be bothered with typing anymore. In fact I'm not even going to edit this that's how much of a hurry I'm in. 

MUST HAVE PINEAPPLE!!!!!

4D Ultrasound Pictures!

Good Morning!

So it's still hotter than heck over here and I'm sweating like crazy but even if it was 1000 degrees I'd still be sitting in front of the computer right now because this proud mommy has pictures to show!!

 Just to bring you up to date if you're not already, we did the ultrasound yesterday and as of yesterday I was 30 weeks...so about 10 more weeks to go! You'll notice her expression is pretty similar in every picture...no it's not the same picture over and over again. She was sleeping. We tried to wake her up but she wasn't having it...I don't blame her. After that long car ride to Mytilini WITHOUT air conditioning, even I fell asleep in the waiting room just before this part. But I was definitely awake for the ultrasound! I wasn't missing a second of that!

So here she is!

Look at those cheeks!

She totally has Antonis' mouth, which we noticed in the last ultrasound pictures. And I think she  definitely has the McClure chin...it's strong gene, I would've been surprised if she didn't get it...

The doctor said she looks very serious...she's probably planning her escape...

The umbilical cord was in front of her face the whole time so her mouth looks a little funny in some of the pictures because it kind of works like a window that needs to be cleaned...you can see through it but not 100% clearly. The doctor had to reassure me on that because I freaked out a little bit at first. Only because a couple of nights ago I had a dream that she was born with a cleft palate, which is not a big deal and they can fix it but still...I think it's normal to hope that your baby is born without anything that may need attention because you just don't want them to go through something like that. But the doctor was confident and very reassuring that she's absolutely perfect!

Turning away a little...she's probably getting annoyed at the thing poking her in the face. I would be.

And a little bit of a smile :)

More smiles!

For anyone who is interested, this was the outcome of the ultrasound. Actually I forgot there was a reason we were doing the ultrasound other than to see her cute little face, but of course they want to see that she's developing normally and that the placenta and fluids are all operating normally. So the green line in each graph, the middle line, represents the average developmental rate. The red dot represents where Eleni's developmental rate is compared to the average. So the main point is that she's slightly above average in everything, or in other words she's developing just a bit faster than the average. And still in other words....in GREEK words, keep in mind....she's a big baby. But I still don't see what the big deal is (no pun intended). If you look at the graph on the bottom left you'll see a blue dot just above the green line at the 40 week mark...this is the doctor's estimate of what Eleni will weigh when she's born, according to what she weighs right now. Right now, she's about 1.67 kilos (or about 3.7 pounds). By 40 weeks the doctor thinks she'll be about 3.75 kilos, which is about 8lbs 1ounce.....I'd say that's a good, healthy size! Not BIIIIG like everyone here seems to think. The doctor even asked me if my sugars are normal....he's the ultrasound doctor by the way, not my regular doctor and by sugars he means "do you have gestational diabetes?" because women with GD tend to have much bigger babies. I've been tested and no I don't have gestational diabetes. I know these are all just estimates at this point and we won't really know anything until she's born but I think I would just be happier if everyone just replaced the word "big" with the word "healthy". Using the word "big" somehow makes me feel like I'm being judged and that I've done something wrong. But looking at these results I would say that I've done a lot of things right and she's doing really well because of it.

This is just more results, mostly the same as the above but with a few extras. The red dots represent Eleni's development and the average developmental rate is the line in the middle of the bar..so again the red dot is slightly above the average EXCEPT her brain size which was exactly at average. That is, of course, a good thing but I, of course, had to ask about it because "if everything else is developing faster than why isn't her brain????!!!!" Calm down Tara. She's healthy. She's normal. There's nothing to worry about. And besides, brain size doesn't have anything to do with intelligence anyway....if it did then the cavemen would have been WAY smarter than us. They had massive brains and they thought wearing wearing a loin cloth was fashionable choice. Enough said. 

*I should probably apologize to all my super intelligent Archaeologist friends out there because there's a good possibility that I may have just made this whole 'brain size' theory up. I took Arch 105 in first year university because I needed credit outside of my Psych major (and also because I really like monkeys), but that was about 5 years ago so feel free to correct me...I should also apologize to my cavemen friends out there....

So that's our first look at baby Eleni! It won't be long until we REALLY get to see her!

Have a good weekend!

I'm Alive....

Long time no talk!

As some of you have noticed, I've taken a few days off. No I didn't have the baby, everything is totally fine, nothing to worry about, it's simply just too.damn.hot!

Yesterday it was 32 degrees by 9am....I don't mean to beat a dead horse but THIS HEAT IS KILLING ME! Ugh! It's terrible! I actually found myself seriously considering shaving my head at one point. Seriously.

I'm surviving though, but only by either staying in the sea, a pool or constantly taking cold showers. Today I broke down and turned on the air conditioning for a while which was heavenly but I can't be doing that everyday because it's just way too expensive. But sitting at my computer waiting for photos to upload while finding something interesting to write about.....hasn't been working well. 

House hot. Brain slow. Tara want bath in mint chocolate chip ice cream...???

As soon as this heat wave passes I'll get back to writing consistently again. Not much is happening anyway because I wasn't kidding when I said I'm either in the sea, a pool or the shower. And my camera isn't waterproof....totally not compatible with the current lifestyle. 

Anyway, just a couple of updates and then I'm off to bed!

First: Papou had his surgery, he's apparently feeling good and they will all be home sometime tomorrow! I was so surprised to hear that they'd be back so soon! They're taking the ferry though, which is a 12 hour overnight ride...not sure how he feels about that but maybe it will be more comfortable for him since he'll be able to lay down in a bed and sleep the whole way home if he wants. So, we're all looking forward to giving him a big hug when he gets home! Well, the boys haven't said that because they're manly men of course and manly men don't talk like that....but I know they're thinking it. 

Second: 3D ULTRA SOUND TOMORROW MORNING!!!!! I'm sooo excited! I'll be 30 weeks along and I can't wait to check in on her. Antonis even said he's really excited about it....the manly man broke character for half a minute! They'll give us a print out of all the pictures so I'll be putting up a blog post either tomorrow evening or Saturday morning to show you the ultrasound pictures. No matter how hot it is, I'll put up the ultrasound photos. Promise! 

I'll get Antonis to take some new baby bump pictures sometime this week as well. 

SO, now that I'm yawning more than I'm typing I'm going to stop here and get myself into bed so I'm up and ready to go bright and early to see baby Eleni in the morning!!!

Good night!

Ouzo Beans?

I hate to repeat myself for the hundredth time but OH MY GOD IT'S HOT!! Now it's not just me saying that, everyone is starting to get a bit run down from the heat wave. I'm sitting at the restaurant right now writing this because it's just way too hot at our house. This time of day it's like an oven there because the sun shines right through the balcony doors into our living room. At least here at the restaurant we have a small terrace with some shade. There's a slight breeze too which is helping. 

Actually today I had intended to come down to have breakfast and coffee with Antonis because he started at 9am this morning. His parents are off to Athens with his grandfather for his surgery so Antonis will be opening the restaurant every morning until they get back (Good luck Papou! Come home soon!). But now it's 1:30 so my breakfast plan has turned into lunch...I don't know how I did it but I slept until noon! I didn't even hear Antonis get up and get ready for work at 8:30. I've been sleeping in a bit lately but I've never managed to sleep all the way through until noon. I usually wake up at least every 10 minutes to pee (yes I'm exaggerating again...it's usually about every 2-3 hours) Oh well, I'm not going to feel guilty about it because everyone's been telling me I'm supposed to be getting as much sleep as possible these days anyway. 

It's starting to get a bit busy here right now. I guess the tourists have decided it's lunch time to so maybe my breakfast turned lunch plan has now turned into a late lunch plan...or maybe I just need to get off my butt and go make my own lunch. It might come to that actually. Well I'll tell you about last night first and then when thinking of food becomes unbearable I'll give up on blogging for the day and go eat something.  

Our plan last night was to get some friends together and have a typical Greek meze and ouzo, but the restaurant was too busy last night to make that happen, thankfully! We're always happy when the restaurant is busy of course! Antonis, Lefteris (our waiter) and I did end up having meze and ouzo together after everyone had left but that was around 11:30pm last night so of course that was a little late to be inviting friends to join us. Although Greeks do typically eat late at night so it wouldn't be totally weird but we figured everyone would have eaten by then so we just went ahead the 3 of us. 

While the boys drank ouzo I had sparkling water in a wine glass...I pretended it was champagne. Although you wouldn't normally think of pairing fried fish with champagne, in this case it worked nicely...

So meze is the Greek word for appetizers or tapas basically. This is how Greeks usually eat when they get together with friends, lots of small plates of different things like salads, vegetables prepared in tons of other ways, usually you'll have some kind of cheese but we didn't last night, fish or grilled meat or beans if you want to go vegetarian (the gigantes recipe from yesterday is a nice meze dish). Usually whatever is in season and whatever is local is what you'll find on the table. And of course you need to drink ouzo, or wine or retsina which is kind of like wine but with a slightly herbal scent and taste. People who don't like it usually compare retsina to Pinsol...those who like it don't notice herbs at all and say it's just like white wine.. so it's a matter of taste. Ouzo tastes like black licorice because one of its main ingredients is anise seed. It's usually the drink of choice for Greeks, especially with the people of Lesvos because this is where ouzo is made. Some drink it straight...the hardcore old guys usually...but the common way is in a small glass with a couple of ice cubes and a bit of water. 

I titled this post Ouzo Beans? because my first winter here a guy from another village was having meze with us one night and he looked at me and said what I thought was "Ouzo beans?"....there was ouzo on the table and beans on the table so I pointed to them and said "ouzo...beans???"...I had no idea what he was talking about. But suddenly everyone burst out laughing! I was totally confused! "What's so funny??" Antonis said, "He said, ouzo peines, which in Greek means do you drink ouzo. But he's from Stipsi hahahaha"...and they laughed some more. I still didn't really get it. Anyway, after living here a little while I came to understand that there are a ton of different dialects of Greek on this island and one of the most prominent, and most made fun of, come from the people of Stipsi. So the fact that this guy from Stipsi said "peines" (you drink) but it sounded just like "beans" to me was some kind of hilarious proof that people from Stipsi don't talk properly. I guess. It's not very nice but honestly I just tried to have a conversation with this same guy yesterday and I STILL couldn't figure out what the hell he was saying....and of course, this was still funny to everyone else.

We had a typical salad (tomato, cucumber, olives, green pepper, onion) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Actually this isn't that typical. Usually it would only be dressed with olive oil but I'm slightly obsessed with balsamic vinegar these days so that means when a craving strikes in the company of others, they have no choice but to follow along...I swear I'm not difficult about it, it just seems that no one ever argues with a pregnant woman....
The fish is salted tuna with a little bit of fresh lemon juice and olive oil over it. My 'champagne' and fried fish may have worked nicely together but the best pairing is salty fish with ouzo...I can't have either right now but I've already told Antonis that as soon as I'm able to do it, my first night out after the baby's born MUST involve salty fish and ouzo. I'm not sure if all salty fish are prepared in exactly the same way but tuna anyway is stored in salt for 3 days and then it's ready to eat. It's not technically raw since it's been salted, so I could eat it actually but I prefer not to take any chances...and it's really just not worth it if you can't wash it down with some ouzo anyway so I'll wait...

We also had horta...that's the Greek name for it and I honestly don't know what it's called in English. It's a dark green, leafy vegetable, slightly bitter taste, and it grows in wild in fields. Some varieties look something like the leafy greens you'd find in bags of mixed green salad back home but there are so many different varieties. Maybe it can be compared to something like a collard green? I'm not sure, if anyone else has any ideas let me know. Anyway, I've never heard of anyone actually planting horta in their vegetable garden because it's grows like crazy in the wild, so we just go off into the forest or the mountains or where ever we find a field and pick it. The goal is to get it before the sheep do! We steam it and then cover it in lemon juice and a bit of olive oil. Greek people always tell me it's really good for you, full of vitamins and minerals...I believe it. It tastes healthy, but in a good way.

The fried fish were sardines and a few small mackerel. YUM! I had told Antonis earlier yesterday that during the third trimester of the pregnancy the baby's brain is developing in more detail now so if we want her to be really smart, and if he wants her to be the future president of Greece that finally gets us out of the mess this country's in, then we should give her 1-2 servings of sardines and/or anchovies a week (because of the healthy fat, DHA, found in them). I prefer grilled fish over fried but anyway, he clearly listened and is looking forward to being the proud father of the future president.

Yamas! (cheers)

Gigantes

Good Morning!

Well it's not really morning here anymore, it's almost 2:00pm but I woke up at noon and have been doing my usual breakfast/tea/blog perusing ritual. And it's Sunday so I let this ritual go on much longer than should ever be allowed.

I'm just going to do a quick post for today because it is again SUPER hot outside. I'm sitting here in a pair of shorts and a sports bra and I'm sweating...maybe I'm typing a little too vigorously? I don't think so. It's just flippin' hot. So I really need to get down to the beach, find myself a comfy beach chair in the shade and alternate between reading and swimming for the rest of the day. Sorry Lindsey! I know I promised I'd cut down on the beach talk but I swear I'm not trying to rub it in. At this temperature it's a matter of survival! Ok, maybe I'm over exaggerating. I won't die if I'm not at the beach but I certainly won't be comfortable anywhere else. I've noticed that I'm not only completely miserable when it gets too hot, but I actually feel really sick....faint, nauseous, headache, dizziness...all the symptoms you'd expect from overheating or sunstroke except it happens really fast these days. I don't actually have sunstroke, maybe I'm slightly overheated by this point but probably not, it's just the usual pregnancy fragility which is normal and all for a good cause but it can be a little frustrating. Sometimes I just wish I could still do all the things I could do before I was pregnant without the feeling that I'm made of glass. It's like there's 2 lists: a list of all the things that are perfectly ok to do while pregnant,  and a list of things that you have to be careful about or that you can do but just not in the same capacity as you could before you became massive or that you just have to forget about because you can't do it at all. That second list seems to be a lot longer than the first and that really bugs me sometimes. It's not a bad thing. I accept it and I'm absolutely happy about why I have all these limitations for now...but it doesn't mean that sometimes I don't want to throw things and scream get a little bit irritated because I can't go for a run on the beach or have a margarita (or 10) and sushi in the blazing sun while I pet stray cats. Ok, sushi's not that easy to get around here anyway and you probably shouldn't go around petting stray cats but when they look up at you with those big eyes because they know you're an animal lover and you can't even give them a little rub on the top of the head because you might catch something...sad. Anyway, I meant to make this a short post and now I've gone off on a tangent again but clearly I needed to let that out. I'm not complaining...it's just pregnancy isn't easy sometimes no matter what people say and if I hold my frustrations in and don't talk about them..things can get ugly! So thank you for helping me avoid an ugly situation in the future! I'm sure Antonis would thank you too since he usually takes the brunt of those ugly situations...

Anyhoo, before I pack my beach bag I want to give you my recipe for Gigantes (you were probably wondering what that title was all about and when I'd get too it....rambling should also be considered a serious symptom of pregnancy). Gigantes are giant white beans in tomato sauce and they're DELISH!

This photo really does not help my declaration of how amazing these are but it was the only photo I took because I just wanted to eat them haha! I couldn't be bothered with light and angles and fancy dishes and wiping extra tomato sauce off the sides...but then I'm never really bothered by these things because food is ready when it's ready and when it's ready I want to eat it! Period!

Here's what a soaked, ready to be cooked giant bean looks like....(I just added this link for the picture, not whatever else is on that page)
http://www.gaiashope.com/red-carrots-and-prespas-white-kidney-beans/2008/06/17/

It may be hard to find these at your local grocery store, you may have to visit a specialty shop, like a Mediterranean deli or something to pick them up. But I recommend grabbing a bag if you do happen to find any in your travels. If you can't find them or just simply don't want to bother with running around town trying to find something like it, you can just use white navy beans instead. I think navy beans are even easy to find canned so then you can skip the whole 'soak over night' stage. It's still yummy with the smaller navy beans but it's not quite the same as the gigantes. There's just something fun and childlike about chewing on a bean that's nearly the size of your hand! Really!

So here's my recipe for Gigantes:

• 1 (16 ounce) package dried giant white beans
• 2 (16 ounce) cans chopped tomatoes with juice
• 1 cup olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2-3 carrots
• 1-2 stalks of celery
• chicken stock (I've never measured this, I just add it as it looked like the beans need more moisture...sorry!)
• salt and pepper to taste
• sugar to taste (again I haven't measured this, but I know it's just a little bit)
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh dill
• pinch of oregano

Directions

1.     Place the beans in a large saucepan. Pour enough water to fill to 2 inches above top of the beans. Allow to soak overnight.

2.     Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).

3.     Place the saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 20 minutes; drain. Pour the beans into a 9 x 13 baking dish. Add the tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, carrots, celery, salt, pepper, sugar, oregano and dill; stir.

4.     cook the vegetables, beans and tomato sauce together in the pan until the vegetables soften slightly and tomatoes begin to blend

5.     Bake in preheated oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally and adding chicken stock if the mixture appears dry. How dry or saucy you want it is really up to you. The Greek way is to have enough sauce to cover the beans and maybe a bit extra to sop up with some bread but you don't want to have so much sauce that you're eating it with a spoon...but if that's the way you like it than go for it. 

I've never tried this recipe with canned beans before so if you use canned beans you'll have to adjust the cooking time obviously so they don't turn to mush. Also, Greeks don't usually add carrots or celery to their gigantes but I'm a firm believer in adding vegetables to everything because it's good for you and it tastes good...if you like vegetables of course. I've also added zucchini or onions or whatever veggie I have in the fridge at the time but carrots and celery always seem to get the best reaction so usually I'll stick to this. Also because the first time I made these Antonis told me that these were the best giant beans he'd ever tasted...I celebrated inwardly without being too obvious when I heard that, but it was a pretty proud moment. Like I just passed a test at becoming a Greek citizen or something. Are you Greek? Why yes I am. Not by blood but I can cook a mean Gigantes thank you very much!

Tonight I think the plan is to get some friends together at the restaurant for ouzo and meze which should be fun. Obviously I can't drink the ouzo (sad face...but not too sad because I had my rant today) but I'll definitely eat until I can't eat anymore. I'll take my camera and tell you about it tomorrow. 

And now I'm off to the beach!

Have a great Sunday!