06 September 2011

Seedling



The mystery tree is starting to do stuff. 
I started doing stuff. With all the growing around here it just made sense to plant seedlings while I'm waiting. 






I got some lovely heirloom seeds and used easy-peasy Jiffy Pods to plant the seeds.
Now they are covered and sitting by the window waiting to sprout.
I am covered with a blanket sitting on the couch waiting as well. 


02 September 2011

39 weeks


Some shots my photographer friend Laura took - I'm glad she talked me into it! x


01 September 2011


It's official - we are having a spring baby! 
In between taking baths and naps and visiting the acupuncturist to needle the baby out, I've not been doing much. I have really gone into my quiet little cocoon space in my own head just waiting for the baby. I am noticeably impatient with others and have very little capacity to listen to anyone. I think it's just my brain and body focussing and the most important task that's coming up. Most fantastically everyone seems to understand (with the odd exception of course).


I have been watching this tree in our garden. I can't figure out what kind it is. It's in our yard and it's big and it has black buds. I'm waiting for the baby, and waiting for the buds of the tree to open so I can see!

{Been obsessively making things with my circular cutter and paper!} 
Been watching old Friends and Season 2 of Parenthood.} 
Been making this really delicious and easy Apple Streusel slice.}
Been reading this great blog!} 

(My friend Laura came over to visit me and we had cake and tea and she took some belly shots. She is a photographer and they turned out amazing. I'm glad she talked me into it! She also explained my Canon 550D to me, I have been using the auto mode because I am technically so challenged, but I'm getting a bit more creative with it now I understand the basics and it's great fun!}

30 August 2011

Yummy lamb mince and hummus flatbreads!



This is a super quick and very delicious dinner that I've invented recently, using a recipe in the Moro Cookbook as inspiration. If you do not like lamb mince you can use beef mince too or a Vegetarian faux-mince! 

You could also make the hummus yourself but I didn't - for the sake of speediness. Plus I reckon the hummus we get from the market is pretty delicious anyways.

what you need to make 4 serves
1 onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, chopped
250g minced lamb - or more if you like it meaty
hummus (about a 250g tub will be enough)
4-6 flatbreads
pinenuts
olive oil
black pepper
sea salt
2 tbs sweet paprika
chopped fresh parsley
chopped fresh mint
Serve with fresh lettuce leaves or make a salad with lettuce, red peppers and feta cheese! 

how to make
Pop the flatbreads in the oven for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees to heat them.
Meanwhile heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a small frying pan and fry the onions and garlic until tender. Add the lamb mince, season with salt, pepper and sweet paprika (also some dried coriander if you like it).
Use a fork to break the lamb up as it cooks. Take your flatbreads out of the oven and spread hummus on generously. Then sprinkle the cooked lamb mince mix over the hummus. Sprinkle pine nuts and a generous serving of parsley and mint over the top. Finish off with a bit of sweet paprika and serve with a lovely fresh salad! 

Flatbread

23 August 2011

18 August 2011

Summer...

I am a huge fan of UK fairtrade clothes company PeopleTree and I would totally like to buy all of these dresses immediately. Not that I could fit into them right now, but with the right lottery win, size reduction due to birth, and fake tan these would be a winner for summer don't you think! It's amazing the time you can waste online when you're on the couch with a huge baby belly... I think the phone rang three times and I am just too sleepy to answer, let alone have a conversation of the sense-making kind!







from Peopletree

16 August 2011

Nursery Craft






Here are some shots of the nursery! We did not really need to spend much money on the baby's room. We got the change table and crib as family hand me downs, and the cabinet I picked up second hand, same with the chair (it's an Ikea chair that was recommended to me for breastfeeding).
I made all the blankets and wraps. I also made the cute little fabric circles above the crib. I also made the curtains from Ikea fabric. All in all we spent about 200 dollars on the room I think. I am really in love with it and so happy how it turned out!

08 August 2011

35 Weeks


Yup, that's us.

I am totally out of sorts this week. Last week I went to hospital every single day. It was exhausting.
I finally got a diagnosis for my heart issue and it consists of fancy Latin words that essentially mean I have a form of tachicardia which can potentially be fixed after pregnancy with a small procedure. On my heart.
I do find that a bit frightening. I found it frightening to sit in a hospital so far away from home and be told in words I barely understand (I don't really get medical English) what they were going to potentially do, or not. It made me want to jump on a plane. I was just worried about the baby to be honest, but this condition I have is not that bad, and I have been assured by my sister I don't need to worry about it.

I am also increasingly irritable because I am now so huge and uncomfortable and the larger the size of the belly the more stupid advice I get and I really just don't want to have to listen...  I am taking time out on the couch as a result of all of this. I don't even want to call anybody, I just want to sit on the couch and wait till the world spins at a very very slow speed, just like me. 

03 August 2011

I'm weaved out




Weaved in all the ends. I do really, really hate weaving in ends.

I am loving this now it's finished. Based on the Super Easy Baby Blanket. Knitted in superwash Merino (very soft) from Morris&Sons. The colours may be crazy. But I like it a bit crazy.

01 August 2011

34 Weeks



Feeling ready. In the next weeks we will find out if there will be an early induction. Since the baby is on the 96 percentile in terms of her growth, I don't have a problem with coaxing her out early. She seems quite eager to emerge, I think the frantic kicking is her trying to find the exit. If she is like me, she will box her way out impatiently. If she is like her dad, she will hang on in there and just chill, induction hormones or not. 

I have been reading parenting books and been thinking about what our baby needs and what it doesn't need. I have been discussing some things with other mothers and looking for parenting inspiration everywhere. I have found it disappointing that people who are already parents will delight in telling you that all your parenting ideals are snotty, unachievable and pretentious. I don't want to discuss my ideals and goals with anyone who is just waiting for me to fail so I can join them on the parental bottom of the pit with a glass of bourbon. So I have stuck to friends who will be celebrating our smaller and bigger successes and be kind about our failures without that "in your face" sentiment. I have really made a point to avoid people who give me that "just you wait" attitude, rather than support me in my decisions. 

Pregnancy and having children is a minefield of opinion - I don't think I've ever even discussed any topic that people are so passionately opinionated about. That may be a good thing but it also means you have to stick to your guns and ideas even though you don't know what you're doing - yet and feel overwhelmed by so much advice and warnings and raised eyebrows. A friend of mine emailed me the the other day and said "all they need is food and nappies and lots of love in the beginning" and I felt tempted to reply "yes but do they also need a Sophie Le Giraffe teething toy?". That's when I realised I really have to stop worrying and start trusting my instincts. My instincts tell me that the baby needs me to chill the heck out. So I am. And also eat biscuits. Which I am also doing. 

27 July 2011

Baby Quilt











... and a matching cushion too. I am really happy with the end result!

The pattern and quilting was very much inspired by this quilt - I fell in love with the zig zag lines. And I am saying inspired because I could never execute anything as amazingly as Rita. And while I am writing this odd Oscars thank you speech, may I say huge props go to my machine's trusty walking foot and thanks to my machine for not quitting on me and always believing in me. Well. Mostly.

The fabrics came mainly from scraps, except the lovely elephant fabric which I completely adore! I did not make the binding - I have lost my bias tape maker so popped into Amitie this afternoon to grab some binding there. It is very dangerous to live close to Amitie. I had to sit on the floor to rummage through the bias binding basket, and had difficulty getting up again, and I'm sure everyone in there thought I was going to go into labour clutching my bias tape and that my waters would break over all the lovely quilts. Now there's a scenario to have nightmares about.

I have been spending so much time at home resting and recovering and this was the perfect little project to keep me calm and trucking along on the machine. And what a glorious day today so I could photograph the quilt in the sunshine! I hope the baby will like her heirloom. She will probably say "but mum I want barbie sheets from Target". Bad luck dude, bad luck.

25 July 2011

33 Weeks






I think the first picture says it all.

Top Marks from the style department. Please not the grey woollen socks stuffed into leggins, in turn stuck into (ill-fitting) hiking boots. All my shoes are now too small due to my feet being swollen and huge (and somehow also very flat). I can no longer fit into my maternity jeans because they hurt my belly (and I've become obsessed thinking they cut circulation off to the baby) so these days I look like a deranged gypsy. This outfit isn't actually so bad. You should have seen what I tried on before I found this dress in the wash. But this dress I ironed on a high setting and due to the high polyester content, it started burning slightly so now I am constantly smelling like burnt plastic. Pregnancy is very glamorous.

On Friday night we had to call am ambulance because I had pretty severe heart palpitations - I am used to having these, but they wouldn't ease up and I felt nauseous and shaky. I wanted husband to drive me to the emergency but he had a few beers while he was out and so it had to be the ambulance. If our private health cover fails it will have been the most expensive few beers he's ever had. Anyhow this week I have to have check ups and get this all investigated. We spent most of the weekend recovering from the late night on the couch. We came home on Saturday morning around 6am completely shattered.


22 July 2011

blogged from finland

I am in love with THIS blog. I love all the colourful things they make for their house and their kids.




Yup I love it.

PS All images are from weekdaycarnival of course! 

19 July 2011

Love = Pegboards and Bloggyworld





Now will you look at what this fabulous miss has sent in the mail for me. After days of blathering in a very boring way about my inability to find pegboard hooks on Twitter, I received a whole bag of them in the mail - plus the most gorgeous vintage fabric baby girl dress! I can't believe how generous fellow bloggy world friends are. I enthusiastically spent some hours hooking things to the pegboard and daydreaming about our baby girl playing in the grass wearing this supercute outfit.
And a lovely fellow Brown owl gave me this beautiful knitted baby hat.
Way to make a girl get emotional, ladies!

Thank you. x

PS: And in case you were wondering (I am sure you were not), the overlocker is still not playing nicely so I have put it in the naughty corner. The sewing machine is working again, though. Leading by example.

18 July 2011

32 Weeks

What a Papa can do is quite amazing. He can make me fear incontinence when he makes me laugh, and he makes me laugh a lot. He can also put together shelves and drill holes into the wall and sort all his tools into a toolbox with great care. He can also be a great forklift when I am stuck in the bath. He can patiently stare at my stomach to catch a glimpse of a little foot (but never long enough so he misses out, all the time). 
He can make me tea and make me stay on the couch and pat my head when I am sobbing because I'm tired. He can also watch TV shows with dragons, dwarfs and medieval bosom ladies at a very annoying volume. He can make some very odd choices in reading material before childbirth - I mean, who would chose to read Orhan Pamuk and Cormack McCarthy 8 weeks before having a child... but that's just him. He has great hopes that you are a Timelord or that you will at least love watching Doctor Who with him and patiently listen to his explanations of how cricket works. Because I never do. We don't really mind if you are a Timelord or not but if you could somehow make time go quicker so we can meet you sooner we would appreciate it. 

15 July 2011

Finished!




Fellow crafters who have seen my pitiful attempts at finishing the baby blanket of horror won't believe me but::: I finished this today. It's a cloud baby mobile made entirely from scrap fabric and felt, and two buttons, and some fishing wire. I think it's super cute. I stuck to fairly simple colours and lots of black and white because as a smart new mother who reads too many books on baby development, I know that babies can only really see black and white and some colours at the beginning. I hope she will like to look at this. The quilted change table cover is a UFO (unfinished object) that I found in a box. It has some very nice bamboo batting on the back so it can double up as a playmat. 

PS: I had a long chat to my sewing machine and after rethreading, cleaning, oiling and punching it 
it decided to play nicely again so it will not need to be taken in to the machine hospital. Thank you, machine. That does however not resolve the issue of the unthreadable overlocker of doom.

13 July 2011

31 Weeks






1. Conversations in our house still go like this

"I am SO tired. I don't understand why I'm so tired."
"You're PREGNANT."
"Yes but why am I always so tired?"
"Because you're GROWING A HUMAN".
"Yes but I just don't understand why I'm so tired".

etc etc.

I still haven't quite figured it out yet. But it looks as though I have to slow things down a bit more, some days I'm ok and some days I'm just too tired to even go and get a glass of water. Coincidentally the baby is now moving more than ever, which is nice, but you know, at 3 in the morning I'd like her to be asleep, instead she is kicking me in the ribs as if to say "hey you boring lame peeps, entertain me". She is also digging her fingers into my sides, which feels really funny. Poke, poke.

2.This ginormous baby blanket will not finish itself. Just a note to self. Neither will the baby quilt, baby mobile, bassinet sheets and clothing. Cough. Cough.

3. From all my baby books I gather than my relationship will implode after the baby arrives - faster than I can say poopy nappy. I don't really think that's going to happen - after 10 years the boat isn't that easily rocked - but the dynamics will most certainly change. It's one of the things I've thought about the most in recent weeks. Just the fact that oddly this little creature is bonding us closer together than ever, and at the same we have to move apart to make room for her. So it's now pre-baby dating time and we are trying to get out for nice dinners, and I like getting nice native flowers occasionally, like these ones.

4. I do not understand how anyone can be of the opinion that having a baby does not require much preparation or thought. It does. And it's not that great when you can't remember any of the preparation necessary, let alone any thoughts. So I am making lists. They are everywhere. And still, I forget to take the lists to the shops, and then I stand there in Ikea, without a clue what I wanted there, and resolve the crisis by eating Ikea carrot cake and Applesinjus and staring into space. And kindly nod towards the other pregnany ladies who are also standing there with their carrot cakes staring into space, thinking exactly the same thoughts as me, I'm sure.