Flours and Diamonds

This is Jo Montana. We call her Montana. She's also affectionately called: Mawma, Monty, JoMo, Brat, Pretty Girl, and Montana Good Girl. Today is Montana's 2nd birthday. Montana had a rough start to life. She was born in the middle of her litter - 4 females and 1 male. Her mother died when she was just 5 weeks old, and her humans decided to surrender her entire litter to a kill-shelter in Madera. Fortunately, a rescue group here in the South Bay heard about this litter and partnered with Humane Society Silicon Valley to arrange pick-up and foster care for the litter. Montana was fostered with 2 of the females: Jerry Rice and Daisy. We had only lived in our house for a few months when we found this litter. We were originally after the 1 male, but miraculously, we ended up with our girl, Montana. When we adopted Montana, our friends and family teased us that we were "practicing" for when we had a child. They certainly didn't mean anything by it, but they definitely

It's widely known that I work for the American Cancer Society. And by widely known, I mean most of the people in my immediate circle know that. But my name gets out there through the event I manage. My "official" title is: Senior Community Development Manager, MSABC Mega Events If that isn't overly long, I don't know what is... So what does it mean? What do I do? Primarily, I'm the event manager for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer of Silicon Valley (MSBAC/Strides/Making Strides, etc.). Our Strides event is the only breast cancer awareness walk serving the Peninsula, South Bay, and Central Valley communities. In 2017, Making Strides of Silicon Valley raised just over $950,000 and hosted about 13,000 walkers. This year, we're slated to raise over $1M and host 15,000 walkers. As the Community Development manager I work with companies to secure sponsorship and steward the community champions from those companies, act as a resource for folks who w

Yo - infertility is EXPENSIVE, y'all! Like, this is our first round of trying with medical assistance, and it's cost us over $300 this month. If we don't end up pregnant in about 2 weeks, we'll go through the process again, but this time it should only cost us about $200... only...   For crap sakes! Real talk, the HSG is terrible and I felt like a disgusting, bloated mess for 2 days afterward. It's a graphic procedure that I won't fully describe here, but if you want to know what they do, you can check out this article on WebMD. Basically, it's a test to make sure your fallopian tubes are open. Fortunately, mine were and my uterus is healthy. Also, apparently, I can't follow directions. I started using a different ovulation predictor kit (OPK) for this cycle on 5/31 (I had been using one from August 2017-March 2018). Yesterday was the first day since December that the OPK was positive. I can't follow directions because I bought the wrong one.

Ok. It's been a long while, like a year and a half. Whatever. It happens. That's Real life... When I started Flours & Diamonds I had hoped to fill it up with all kinds of recipes, adventures, anecdotes, etc. And maybe for a while, I did that. But now I think it's time to turn another page... November 2014 we found out I was pregnant. December 2014 we told our families January 2, 2015 we found I was having a miscarriage January 27, 2015 I shared that with all of you Post-miscarriage life wasn't easy for me. I was angry, felt alone for some pieces because Frank doesn't outwardly grieve and I felt I needed that from him. I felt I needed to know he was affected, too. I sought counseling, struggled when I heard people close to me were pregnant, and broke down at the mere mention of someone asking me if/when we were having kids. Life was real, and I hated most of it. It took about 2 years for me to fully recover and feel "ok" with my lot in life a

5:47am -- Because I am CRAZY, I wake up at 5:20am every Saturday morning to work a 6am-10am air shift at my radio station. The saving grace in this is that I don't have to get ready. I go to the bathroom, rinse my face with cool water, get dressed, grab some breakfast, and head out the door. I consider a quick Starbucks order, but skip the coffee this morning... sometimes it hypes me up too much and I talk too fast on the air... oops! Today I pack a GF bagel with cream cheese, pear, and apple sauce for breakfast. I have to be careful what time I eat because otherwise I will be starving by the time I get off at 10am. 8:03am -- I have eaten my bagel and apple sauce. I am eyeing my pear, but making myself have restraint. During the election on Tuesday night I needed a distraction... A local news station posted a live Facebook video of puppies at the Oakland Animal Shelter. They showcased a 5 month old blue nose pit bull named Lincoln (my husband's favorite historical figure). No

7:16am -- I woke up at my normal time, 6:30am, and went about my routine, but a bit different. I go to the bathroom and have my shower, but sit in the living room and watch the news for a while because my husband is still in bed since he has the day off. My on-air boss texts me about my shift for Thanksgiving weekend and we negotiate whether I need time off to go down to Oceanside to potentially meet our new niece (if she makes her debut early). We come to an amicable agreement and she compliments me about my presence on-air. It gives me a little validation that I didn't totally know I needed. 8:53am -- I skipped my regular breakfast at home, so I choked down a protein bar at the office. I decide I need coffee so I venture to the kitchen to make an iced mocha to find that someone has used the rest of the creamer I brought in last week... I use powdered cream and just deal with it. As I walk back to my office I catch one of my bosses in the hallway and we start chatting and joking