— 1 —

Okay, maybe that’s hyperbole. But SCIENCE says that women tend to have allergies and auto-immune diseases at a statistically higher rate than men, perhaps because they don’t get exposed to as much immune-system-boosting mud and dirt as children.

So here my girls are, boosting their immune systems. Mud pies for the win.

This girl’s probably going to be good, too, immune-system-wise:

It is possible that she’ll have some attachment issues though.

— 2 —

And hey, speaking of science, I hate drinking water. Seriously, I really don’t like it. I ran Division I track and cross country in college drinking almost exclusively Mountain Dew.

I found this water bottle at Costco (after a blogger recommended the kids’ version, but I don’t remember who it was): and it has really made a difference. Somehow I don’t mind water nearly as much out of this bottle as I do in a cup. And it keeps the water cold all day long. So I’ve been drinking 1 or 2 of these per day of water, because I’m pregnant and all.

But NOW it turns out that all the 8 glasses of water stuff was a bunch of hooey anyway, (Big Water strikes again, amirite?) and that most people get plenty of water from the foods we eat, and that we only need to drink if we feel thirsty.

But really, I like this bottle so much, I MAY just continue drinking water anyway.

Look out people, I’m about to lay another professional segue on you (and I spelled segue right on my first try, woo!). . . 

— 3 —

Speaking of ignoring medical advice during pregnancy, I do. Nearly all of it. And I wrote a post about it that I was just certain was going to shock and horrify the world.

And it totally didn’t. At ALL.

I have written stuff on this blog that has elicited some less than charitable comments (some of which are still there, but many of which I have deleted). I expected it on some posts, like the red equals sign one. Some surprised me at the time, but if I had spent more time reading comments on other blogs I guess I would have seen them coming, like on my posts about bringing young kids to Mass. Some have been totally out of left field for me, for instance, there are people who seem to hate my guts for not liking a particular movie (not you Bonnie!).

But it turns out that I can tell people that I totally disregard almost all of the conventional medical advice for pregnancy in the English-speaking world and get not one negative comment. 

(I do realize I’m jinxing myself here, but I’ll continue to be amazed even if it was just the first couple thousand people who read it who, if they didn’t have anything nice to say, didn’t say anything at all.) 

And, I’m out of segues . . . 

Pop Culture minute:

I tried not to write (or think) about Miley Cyrus, but then I did anyway. I needed to tell her that it’s ALL HER FAULT.

Wasn’t it better when everyone was talking about Batman? Remember? That was great.

But I have to say, I’m with the nerds on this one. He doesn’t seem like Batman. He’s not dark and edgy. I hope they’re not planning to go Adam West, Michael Keaton, slightly campy Batman. That’s not who Batman is. From the beginning, he was gritty and conflicted and in need of redemption.

They’ve already missed the mark recently with a Superman who KILLS someone, even though Superman’s defining characteristic is being SO powerful that he doesn’t NEED to kill anyone.

I don’t mind moviemakers putting their own stamp on a famous character, but he needs to still BE that character. Otherwise, why not just make a movie called Damaged-hero-man or Really-powerful-man and do whatever you want with it? (answer: because money)

This was a great week for feasts, with St. Monica on Tuesday, St. Augustine on Wednesday and St. John the Baptist on Thursday. Lots of desserts around here. But OUR Augustine has been in San Diego all week (with Anita) getting some quality time with Nana and Grandad, so we missed celebrating his nameday with him. 

Don’t feel too bad for ol’ Gus though. I hear he spent the day at Legoland.

Here’s something I made for him on a previous nameday celebration:

CatholicCulture.org says that lions are appropriate for celebrating St. Augustine’s day, honestly, I don’t really get why, but the pizza turned out cute.

I had EVERY INTENTION of serving actual crickets to my family for dessert for St. John the Baptist (since, to my knowledge, locusts are not indigenous to the greater Los Angeles Area). I even found a website that told me how to prepare them. We have a kiddie basketball hoop outside that is cricket central. You tip the thing up and crickets galore come hopping out, our neighbors used to regularly come get crickets for their lizard. But TODAY? Nary a cricket.

So I had to make my Cricket*, Almond and Wild Honey Clusters with only almonds. <sigh> 

Not nearly so memorable. (I like to make the feasts memorable, see below.)

Here’s my recipe:

• combine 1 cup plain almonds in a bowl with 1/4 cup honey, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp salt 
• mix to cover
• drop three almonds each (touching) in little piles on a parchment-covered cookie sheet
• optional, add one prepared (frozen, then boiled, then roasted) cricket to each pile
• microwave 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips until melted and smooth (30 seconds at a time)
• spoon melted chocolate over each almond/honey/cricket pile
• refrigerate to set

And since we were busy in San Diego buying our new BIG van last Saturday, we missed doing our traditional Tierney family St. Bartholomew’s Day celebration, which is: Going apple picking (in our front yard) and SKINNING hundreds of apples for freezing and canning (get it? GET IT?) because we are totally awesome or totally creepy and either way my kids are going to remember the feast days.

So we did the big apple-pick on Monday instead (sans Gus and Anita):

eight freezer packs of sliced apples for pies or apple pancakes, eleven jars of applesauce, and four jars of apple butter which is soooooo easy and so good and I think that’s what I’m going to make more of if we remember to get out there and do another pick in a week or so for the stragglers (which sometimes we don’t).

The recipe I used is here, and it is awesome.

Oh, and all those cores and peels went to the chickens.

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Have a great weekend everyone, and a great holiday weekend to my fellow Americans. Drive safe, everybody!