Ick.

A sick 18 month old is pretty gross. Especially when they will not let you tie their hair up away from their nose and mouth. My little poppet is snuffly and headachy (I'm actually wondering if it's teeth) and whingy as all get out. Thankfully she is asleep now, so hopefully she'll feel better when she gets up.
I have an illustrator for my kids book! YAY! She's offered me what I think is a very reasonable rate and will start sending over preliminary sketches soon. How exciting - I've had this story sitting around for years and now it looks like I may finally get it published :)
I've found out that I can sell self-published books on Etsy.com; there are a few conditions, but I can meet those without a problem. I may possibly even make a little dosh out of this venture, which would be nice! Actually, just breaking even would be great too..

Eeek, it's 2013!

Okay so it's a year and a half since my last post and I just had the Dickens of a time trying to log in and create a new post. You would think I would have learned after I got kicked out of my last blog for not writing regularly enough. What's happened since I last wrote on here? Let's see.
I'm back at work part time and found I have considerable talent as a juggler. Not of traditional balls per se, but of my baby, my husband, the single family car that we share, friends, work, a second pregnancy (yay!) and a potential business venture for when I go on maternity leave again. I will admit that although I'm learning I've been dropping a few of those balls recently.
 Our new baby is due at the start of Winter; we've nicknamed it Grommit. That's because it rhymes with... well, let's just say the morning sickness has been significantly worse this time around.
With all the time I'm spending juggling, I don't seem to have any time for personal interests and since I finished uni last year I do miss that. Not that I would change a thing, but while the bub is sleeping right now, I'm tempted to look up some old half finished manuscripts from my school days and "have at" them. Or write a song. Or a poem.
On the other hand, I could potentially be asleep right now and beauty sleep is sooo much more valuable to me than it used to be! But here's a resolution for someone who resolved to start the New Year without any: I will blog again!

To chop or not to chop..
Wow, it's about 2 months since my last post and so much has happened!! I am a mum now. My little girl is 6 weeks old & we're still trying to get used to it - there are no real patterns with sleeping & eating, because every time we think we've figured it out it changes. What I mean is: she was really erratic Tuesday, sooky & refusing to sleep. Billions of nappy changes. Wednesday she was fine, I was even able to go to a friend's house for coffee - our first outing, just the two of us. Then yesterday she was pretty good during the day, but wouldn't sleep after 3 pm until about 11pm. Today looks set to be the same as yesterday but who can tell? Makes it really hard to make plans. Nevertheless, I have booked a haircut Monday morning & I'm thinking of getting the lot off. I'm lucky to get time for a shower in the mornings, let alone spend any time doing my hair. Also my blonde roots are growing back, and when you're a brunette that just looks like you're going grey! My sister had a point - if I hate it, I can pretty much just hibernate for the next 6 months until it grows back & no one will notice. What better time to have a bold change??
:)
Will let you know how it goes.

Kitchen floors are in, phew! Nearly a catastrophe, the floor guys accidentally mixed in a box of the wrong tiles but they noticed that some were shiny & some weren't before the glue dried.. Lucky!! So they got the wrong ones out & fixed everything & it looks great now. They just need to come back on Monday to put the little strips in between the tiles & the timber floor in the lounge room. Two weeks to go until bub is due, so we got the floor in just in time :)

New Kitchen Floors!
Our new vinyl floor is being installed today, very exciting! Once it's finished we can put the dishwasher, oven & fridge back and have a working kitchen again! Eating microwaved food or takeaway every night is fun for a week or two but it gets old pretty quickly. I'm hankering for a big bowl of pasta. Eventually we'll need new bench tops too, but that can wait a bit. We're getting the floors done just in time - Rex is due in about 15 days and seems to have run out of room. There's lots of movement & trying to get comfy. Can't be long now. Also, once the floors are done we can get all the server stuff out of the nursery & finally set that up properly.
Went to see "Babies" at Dendy yesterday. It was ok, but since it wasn't actually a documentary with a storyline, I think it was a bit long. It was basically an hour and a half of baby footage. That's it. Another one that we saw this week was "Firebreather", which I quite liked. Probably aimed at young teenagers, but that's ok. Speaking of movies for teens, I'm really looking forward to the next Twilight but I don't think it's out until November.

Family Wedding.
Wow, what a weekend. It was beautiful and I'm so glad we went but it really took it out of me. No more long car trips before Rex comes, I think. Only a month to go! I went to the hospital today & they said they won't induce me unless I reach 40 weeks which is great. Everything's going well, Moda's giving me insulin twice a day (and he's much better at it than I am). The bub is apparently 2 and a half kilos now.
2 days into mat leave - this "not working" caper is great. I've done a bit of housework & spent two mornings at the hospital just having checkups but otherwise I've just been pottering around the house. It's really nice! I'll call the kitchen floor guys now & try to find out why they never got back to us with a quote. Can't wait to get the new floor in!

Phwoar! Where is the year going? There are only 7 weeks left until Rex is due, I have two weeks left of work before I go on maternity leave, I have one assignment due in about a week and then I'm done with school for the semester (YAY)! I can't believe how quickly the time is flying by.
We still have some rennos to do in the kitchen but otherwise we're pretty much set & ready to go. Next steps are vinyl for the floor and caesar stone for the bench tops.. I actually wouldn't mind a weekend away at Lake Burrinjuck over the next few weeks if there's time too. Oh yeah! Moda & I saw two gang-gangs out the front of my work on Friday afternoon, that was pretty cool. Have pasted a pic up the top here. You don't seen them all that often - I think they're pretty rare. They make a creaking sound like a rusty gate but they're very pretty. Gave me a thrill, anyway.
A massive spider has moved into our front courtyard (we initially called it Barry but have been told it's probably more like Barriet). Ick. I will take a pic & post it up here later. She's a bit too big for my liking - I'm afraid she has to go. If anyone would like to come and collect her, Barriet is absolutely free to a good home.

Hermes

I named my little car Hermes when I first bought it, although a few people mis-heard me and asked why I would call my car herpes. So I don't call him that very much any more. Anyway, little Hermes is in the shop today for repairs. Was not my fault. I love my Nissan Micra, but the bumper bar at the front sticks out quite a long way past the headlights and people keep putting dings in it.
Looks lovely outside, last night was quite cold. We bought a little machine which makes steam & humidifies the room (a humidifier?) and used eucalyptus oil in it. It seems to have cleared up my cold really well! Not much of a cough left which is great :)
I am not looking forward to Winter, although I'm looking forward to meeting my baby & that will happen in Winter so I guess that makes it worthwhile.

Fatoush and Sumac and Fukushima.
A few months ago I tasted what is possibly the most delicious salad around. It's called Fatoush & it's lebanese. Now unfortunately, when I Googled "lebanese restaurants" in our little burg all that came up was Ali Baba. I can not believe we don't have any lebanese restaurants here, I thought we had just about every cuisine possible! So while I was sick & away from work last week I had the brilliant idea to look up a recipe on the net and make it myself. One of the essential ingredients for Fatoush is the spice Sumac (which are those pretty little purple flakes they sprinkle on everything lebanese). The web said I could get it at my local grocer. Well, Coles didn't have it. So I drove out to the Indian Spice Centre only to find that it has shut down! Can't believe it - it's been there for years and the one time I need it they've closed :(
So I went home and ordered it on the internet. With any luck, I'll be making Fatoush on the weekend.
Yum! Otherwise I'm going to have a lot of radish, parsley, mint, spring onions and cucumber that I'll have to find some other recipe for,.
Also, we're getting a lot of news reports that "safe" levels of radiation from Fukushima are being measured in the US and lots of other places. I didn't know there was any such thing as a "safe" level. They're saying there isn't any immediate health danger, but I understand the half-life of this stuff is like, 500 years. So If it's anything like interest at the bank, say 7% per year times 500 years is like 350%. So I'm guessing in a few generations it may not be so safe any more? I'd be interested to know a little more about it. I mean I'm probably totally way off & have no idea what I'm talking about because I'm not a scientist but ignorance is Not bliss. Use this opportunity to educate the people, governments!

Clunker.
Our possum is getting used to having us around, we sometimes put fruit scraps (apple cores etc) up in front of her box and she sticks a little paw out to grab them & pull them in. Very cute. I'll have to get a pic of her. She seems to love grapes & plums best. My only concern is that she might get a bit excited when we put fruit up there & accidentally scratch us while she's grabbing the fruit. So I might have to make Moda do it from now on. It's also getting tricky for me to get up and balance on the rickety plastic chair to reach her veranda.
I'm really looking forward to finishing up at work in May. 7 weeks to go! It's weird but I just can't focus on work right now. I'm also very very tired, 6 to 8 loo breaks a night will do that to you. Apparently it's my body's way of getting me used to interrupted sleep. Fantastic.

School, school, school.
I have one presentation to give in about a week, then I'll have one short essay (1000 words), one long essay (3000 words) and one creative project (4500 words) and I'll be done for the semester!! Yay! Then Rex will be here and I don't know where I'll get time to finish my degree..... but after these two units I'll only have another two to go. I can totally see the light at the end of the tunnel. How awesome. Monday is a public holiday which is lovely. Moda will be doing rennos so I think I'll need to go to Mum's to study. Otherwise it'll be noisy & even though I can't help much, I'll still have to go and get light tools or hold measuring tapes or help with figuring out angles and all those kinds of things that I get into trouble for (because I do them wrong, I'll be the first to admit it).
We'll have an overnight trip to SYD this weekend too, to catch up with family which I'm looking forward to. I made a home-made insect repellent for the garden - some recipe off the internet:
3 large onions, a whole bunch of garlic and two hot chillies all sliced up. Then you soak it in a bucket of water over night & the next day you strain it & spray the juice on the garden. My house reeks. Don't know if it will work on the mozzies but it'll keep people away for sure!! The poor princess was getting eaten alive so I had to do something & didn't really want to use poisons at the moment. We'll see if she's less itchy over the next few days...

20 week scan.
OK I now have a pregnancy blog, but since I put my 12 week pic of Rex up here, I couldn't resist putting the 20 week one up here too. So cute! Will it be a karate expert like Dad or a dancer like Mum? Maybe a little of both :)
So everything went well, little heartbeat is strong, seems to have the usual number of legs and arms, and poor little blighter appears to have my profile too.

Band Camp
Moda & I & some good friends of ours spent the last week in Bellingen at Camp Creative. It was great! Apparently about 1200 people in 60 classes this year. We both did singing lessons - my lessons were for "gypsy rom a capella". I learned that the term gypsy is actually derogatory and they prefer to be called "Romany" people. We were very lucky in the recent floods that caned QLD & much of northern NSW. The Bellingen river flooded on Tuesday and we couldn't get across the bridge into town so we spent that day at the cottage & missed out on our lesson. But it was only one day and it was such a lovely place so we really didn't mind at all.
I can't believe I'm back at work tomorrow. It's great to be home, but it was a fantastic holiday. If we can afford it, I'd like to go again next year.
We saw so much wildlife - there was even a big diamond python basking in the sun just outside the cottage door on one of the days. Tree frogs and a giant grasshopper jammed with us on the porch at night. Moda picked up two leeches (on his clothes) in a rainforest and got absolutely eaten alive by mozzies. They love him!! If you're ever in the area I'd highly recommend the Maddesford cottages.
There were several concerts held during the week and David Helfgott (a patron of the camp) played for us on the Wednesday night. Ever seen the movie "Shine"? He is a very, very unique man. Very distracted & touchy-feely. But a wonderful musician. Moda & I, & our songwriting friend also performed. If the footage is any good I might even post it on here.
Was also a perfect chance to catch up with family that we don't often get to see. We had a beautiful salad with them on the way up (that I must learn to make) and then a week later had morning tea on the way home. Shame we couldn't take a bit longer & drive up to Brissie to see the rest of them!

D'oh!
I'm blaming pregnancy brain; I've lost my pregnancy diary. So I haven't made an entry in weeks.. darnit. I guess all the best intentions don't mean much if you can't see them through. I'll find it eventually, but I'll have to write them up somewhere else in the meantime. Oh well.
New Year's Eve was lovely, even though we didn't (I didn't) quite last until midnight. Our friends had a Barbie with a little blow-up swimming pool and we just sat around for ages and talked. I think Moda & I went home at about 10pm.
Can't believe we're back at work already; the week went so quickly. Next week will be Band Camp and I can't wait! I'm taking gypsy a capella singing lessons.
Have also started buying baby things :) we've ordered a pram & car capsule, and people have already started giving us pressies for the baby!
OK back to it. More later.

Another Year Over.
It's been a quiet but good year overall and 2011 promises to be even better. I've gotten a great new job, fallen preggers, got some awesome new curtains in the front room (which are keeping the house nice and cool in this summer heat BTW), got a pet possum in the backyard, and been shown how lucky I am to have so many amazing and beautiful people in my life. Next year I'll have a little son or daughter, get to catch up with some special friends in Tassie and maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to fit in enough school to finish my degree. We'll have to see.
So it's about 32 degrees outside & they've forecast 34 for tomorrow. We've gone through a lot of ice blocks over the last couple of days!
Our dishwasher packed it in this week so we bought a cool new Bosch one & it got delivered yesterday. It has a cutlery tray in the top. I love it!
I think my morning sickness is over too, I get twinges of nausea from time to time but as long as I eat regularly I'm fine. I'm starting to get a little bit of energy back too yay! Just hanging out for a big belly.. I know I might take that back in a few months but at the moment I can't wait to show a bit more.
Moda got eaten alive by mozzies the night before last poor thing, they've come up into massive hives; I've never seen anything like it. I think he must be allergic - it looks like an allergic reaction to me. We went to a little asian grocer yesterday & got a tiny pot of dragon & tiger balm which seems to be helping a bit. He's struggling to get any sleep though.
We'll dose up on the "Rid" tonight before we head out to the music factory's BBQ. Can't wait!

Happy New Year all!

PS don't forget to slip slop slap!

Midwife
We had our 1st midwife appointment yesterday - she came to the house & gave me a showbag full of nappies and rash creams and fun things like that. She was lovely :) and she brought a little machine that allowed Moda & I to listen to the baby's heartbeat for the first time! Cool. It was like a little helicopter blade. We haven't yet done the test drive to the hospital to find out how long it takes to get there. Depending of the time of day, I think it's usually about 15 mins so that's not too bad.

I think my morning sickness is officially over at week 14! YAY! I haven't been sick in over a week, so hopefully that's it. Now I need to start exercising again so I'm not a fat lump of playdough for the labour. I think I'll need to be fairly fit to make it as smooth as possible. And apparently you have a much quicker recovery afterwards.

Moda just finished building his beautiful letterbox and is now going to start work on a possum box. We have one living in our garage roller door and I think we give the poor little thing concussion every time we open the door! He took a photo of it on his phone. Very cute, poor little guy.

All day sickness..
Have had morning sickness a lot this week. In fact, I was pretty unwell until about 5:00 this afternoon. But I've since had a lovely dinner of steak with mustard & a roast potato & am now feeling much, much better. I honestly thought I'd finish my first trimester & the nausea would be over but no such luck. Hopefully it won't last too much longer.
The little girl has a vet's appointment tomorrow. I can't believe she's 7 and a 1/2 (see pic). After that I'll be going to see the new Harry Potter movie with my sisters & my mum. I'm really looking forward to it! Moda will be doing a beer tour with some friends so I'll bet he's looking forward to that too!

Hormonal..?
Feeling a bit sorry for myself lately - still tired a lot of the time, was so sick on the weekend (I'm starting to think maybe it's stress that makes me sick because I was sick after karate, sick after the exam and really sick after the scan). It's not too bad the next day if I can get my bum out of bed at 2am and eat something, but who wants to leave a warm comfy bed in the middle of the night & fool around in the kitchen in the dark? It's Moda's birthday. I bought him a cool internet toy after a friend at work got one & raved about it. Ever heard of a Chumby? I think he's having fun setting it up. We'll head to dinner tonight for a nice quiet one with a few friends. I want to spend as much quality time with him as I can before our new little person comes, because as wonderful as that's going to be, it's never really going to be just "us two" again.

Hooked on a feeling.

Had the 12 week scan today & our little baby is lovely. It sucked its thumb a few times and jiggled around in there like the Ally McBeal baby. At one point it looked like it had the hiccups.

I must say I am relieved. Until today I wasn't really sure that there'd actually be a little person in there. For all I knew, I've just had gastro for the last 2 months.

So it all seems a bit more real now. I did notice that when they prodded it, the baby moved around much more so I hope they didn't make it too uncomfortable. Poor little blighter! It did look pretty squashed in there. What a spin out.

Amazing News.

Here we go.. I was going to wait a few more days to announce this, but we've been so excited we've kind of already told most people anyway. We're having a 12 week scan of our baby this Friday. It's due next June. I've been lucky enough to get into the only birthing clinic in town; only 20 women a month can get in so we are very lucky indeed. I haven't been too sick - only a few days where I was actually sick & mostly it's just been waves of nausea & fatigue. I did have to postpone my karate grading & I've decided against going to the Neil Diamond concert next Feb. John Farnham really took it out of me a few weeks ago & I don't want to put that much pressure on little "Rex" again. We're already going to Tasmania in Feb so that'll probably be enough of an adventure for me.

So Moda & I will be parents. I'm still a little blown away. Very exciting also; my brother & sister in law are also expecting their 1st next year. So the new little cousins will only be a couple of months apart. Awesome.

Do I miss being able to eat anything? Not really - I haven't felt like alcohol at all & I'm still enjoying lovely hard cheeses. I think the only thing I've really missed is mayonnaise which is weird because I don't often have it anyway. I've been eating a lot of fruit juice iceblocks. I'm looking forward to actually looking pregnant, because even though I have a tiny potbelly it's not very noticeable yet. I also had a girlfriend drop off a heap of maternity clothes including corporate wear so I don't think I'll have to spend a penny on that either :)

I shall keep you posted on Rex's progress.