Hello From Sunny Florida

Well, hello there! I am taking a break from working, trying to settle down a little before bed, so I thought I'd check in with my blog friends. Here I am in my hotel room with my cup of mint tea, trying to keep my nausea at bay.

My trip to Florida was easy peasy - oh my gosh, traveling without children is AWESOME! Reading books, listening to music, all that sitting around and waiting, it's glorious. (Although flying with a cold - wow - I thought my ears would explode!) Some of my friends here went out last night, but I watched Lifetime movies on Hulu in my pajamas and went to bed early. Love it!

But tomorrow - AAK - I am speaking. Normally public speaking doesn't wig me out, but there are 280 people signed up for my session, and some of them I respect very highly. Plus work has been so crazy that I haven't had as much time to prepare for my talk as I'd like, so that's what I've been working on tonight. It will be fine I'm sure. No one in the audience has tomatoes to throw. I hope.

I went out and had the most amazing sushi for dinner, I made myself totally sick I ate so much! And yes, I do eat sushi while pregnant (like every pregnant woman in Japan). I have a microbiology degree and I know that the risk of getting sick from sushi is actually not greater than getting sick from something like handling the outside of a package of chicken, probably less so because fish here is flash frozen before it is served. In a study of US OBs, 82% said they thought eating raw fish during pregnancy was unsafe, but only 19% knew that flash freezing kills all parasites in fish. The health benefits of eating (low mercury) fish are SO great, totally worth it! I'm not sure what the weird U.S. taboo about sushi during pregnancy is (I once had a stranger come chew me out while I ate sushi at a restaurant when I was pregnant with Henry!), because it's really not supported by anything other than hypothetical dangers, and it's unfortunate because sushi is so much healthier than the processed foods so many Americans eat. Stepping off the soap box now.

I miss my kiddos, though they seem to be doing a-okay without me. I loved hearing Sophia tell me that she had an "extremely awesome" day at school today! Henry took five steps yesterday yay!!! He took four steps for me on Saturday, and we made such a huge deal over it, he kept standing up and taking one step, looking around to make sure everyone saw him, and then sitting down and clapping for himself ha ha! Amelia was so busy, she hasn't been able to make time to talk to me on the phone. I hear she's working on it - maybe I can get her assistant to pencil me in.

I am thankfully feeling better. I have a little bit of a stuffy nose, but not too bad. I was worried that the 95 degree temperatures here would wear me out, but luckily they keep the hotel at -30 degrees, so when I step outside it feels good. Like a good defrost cycle before I go back inside.

Hope you had a great Monday!