Hambrick's-Party of Four!-8/1/11
On August 24th of last year, I wrote a innocuous little post on this blog about my husband being a good sport about my creative culinary exploits. And then....nothing....for over 11 months. What happened, you may ask? Well, the picture at left tells a rather significant part of the story but not the whole thing so I'll try to summarize here in case another 11 months go by before I post again. (Okay, I will seriously try not to do that!) The year 2010 started off on the wrong foot with the loss of our fourth pregnancy (Thankfully, pregnancy #2 had resulted in Eyrleigh!) at 18 weeks. We were still reeling from the devastation of that event when my only sibling, my brother Ben, committed suicide at the end of February. Then in April, Richard's company hired a new CEO and things professionally went south from there for him. Since a blog is a public format and could therefor be accessed by anyone, including this individual, let me suffice it to say that after 9 years with the company, Richard knew his days were numbered. In November, this was further clarified by an incredibly unbelievable event that left our family and many of Richard's co-workers shaking their heads. Richard began the job search in earnest and in March of this year, took a job with a new company. Despite a very upsetting November for us on a professional level, on November 9th, Richard's 34th birthday, we found out we were pregnant again for the final time. Some may ask how we knew this would be the final time...we knew. We had decided after the last miscarriage that we would try until the end of 2010 to have another child and if we were not pregnant or had another pregnancy loss, Richard would have surgery to make sure we were done. The stress involved in the process was not something we wanted to feel indefinately. So less than 2 months from our deadline, we began to think that Baby #2 might actually happen.
After our past experience, this pregnancy was even more anxiety producing than the last four. I gave myself blood thinner shots daily and increased some levels of hormones and vitamins. I saw not only a regular ob, but also a high-risk specialist to make sure everything was going fine. At 32 weeks, we found out that our little girl had a sizable cyst on her ovary but it shrunk as she grew and is no longer a concern. Throughout the whole pregnancy I had an incredibly limited diet because of severe acid indigestion so my cooking creativity came screeching to a halt.I tell all this not to say I didn't cook at all for over 11 months but to show that life began to take on a higher level of intensity and creative cooking, and therefore the blog, faded into the background. I actually looked back at my calendar for August 24th of last year and that day was the Back to School Fair for Eyrleigh's preschool. I was a room mom in Eyrleigh's class and even subbed a few times at the preschool. I really miss the creative aspects of teaching and the adult interaction of work. It was on a much lesser scale but I loved being on the "mom" side of school.
On July 8th, Rylynn Candace Hambrick was born and after several weeks of family in town and numerous meals brought by friends (some are still coming!), Saturday night was the first night we really got creative again and I was reminded of my delinquency in regards to this blog. I say "we" because the initial inspiration was Richard's. He mentioned that he felt like shrimp po'boys. At first, I was nonplussed but when he did the legwork, downloaded a recipe, and headed to the store with a list, I was getting excited. Richard actually found his recipe on the The Food Network site at this url http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aarti-sequeira/shrimp-and-pineapple-not-so-po-boys-recipe/index.html .
Shrimp and Pineapple Not So Po'Boy Sandwich (foodnetwork.com)- A
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