a proper real tiny baby! for real!

moving around, scratching its head, clasping its hands!
it seemed so unreal but the ultrasound technician assured me, it's really mine, in my belly! i couldn't quite connect the two, the picture of a baby on the screen and that it really should be inside me, i can't feel anything yet! and there's no real bump either!
it's about 9 cm big now.
i also got assessed for the midwifery led unit and 'passed'! that doesn't neccessarily mean i will give birth there, but at least i've got the chance.
time to get organised for yoga classes, and 'gentle birth' classes, err, are there breastfeeding classes!?

PS should i be worried about the baby's big belly?? the ultrasound technician didn't seem worried, but she was very rushed and didn't have much time (a little disappointing seeing as this is my only official scan... if my GP didn't happen to have a machine it would be the only scan for the whole 9 months! but of course as a GP he's not fully equipped and trained to measure and spot problems, he does it just for a bit of reassurance that the baby's moving and its heart is beating)

BBQs

4 BBQs in 7 days! we're making the most of the weather, you never know how long it lasts in this country... i'm pretty wasted now, spent all day finishing the ironing, and tidying up, and cooking, then we sat out with our neighbours and ate, a lot... chicken skewers, pork skewers, burgers, tomato salad, potato salad, corn on the cob... and now, an hour later, i still managed a mars ice cream bar... savage! it was lovely and laid back, just 4 grown ups and a baby, so there was no hassle getting food ready for everybody at the same time.

in germany it was mother's day today, i have a cute old photo scanned, but i don't have it to hand... maybe later this week! (13.05.08: i found it! here it is!)
(I wasn't the prettiest baby, i admit, i got a little cuter for the following 4 years or so, honest!)


tomorrow i have my 'booking appointment at the hospital. i'm really nervous. i'm really hoping the baby is still there, and alive and healthy! i'm also hoping i will get into the midwife led unit, but i'm fairly healthy and a good weight and haven't had any complications so far, so fingers crossed!

shattered now, i think it's nearly bedtime for me, want to be well rested for tomorrow, a friend said it might take all day! and the last two nights i hardly slept, lots of nightmares to do with hospitals and giving birth...

money matters...

Do you ever wonder if you save enough money or give enough to charity? Or if you should be spending this much on a new pair of shoes? I was just reading this post on how to divide up your money on apron thrift girl and I think it's a great concept. I've heard about it before, and while i won't be keeping my money in jars I think I might calculate how much I 'should' be saving and spending on different things, and compare it to what I actually spend it on... Every now and then I keep track of what I spend, but I usually give up very quickly as it's sickening to see how much goes on coffees and lunches every day, I've never mastered the packed lunch for any serious length of time, it usually goes well for a few weeks and then I fall off the wagon. And I do enjoy those take away coffees immensely, they give me this 'girl about town' feeling, when i walk into the office with my latte and croissant!
We're off to a friend's house this afternoon, so I better stop reading blogs and musing about take away coffees and get that ironing done before we go!

green kitchen photos

the kitchen, in crown 'tropical green'



dining area





these 5 tulips are all i got this year...


the fig tree actually has figs! after an atrocious summer last year and a long winter that only really ended 2 weeks ago! i don't really know how figs work, i didn't even think it would survive the winter, i never noticed any blossoms! (maybe because i didn't go out much in the awful weather)


evening sun on the patio

soakers?

i know i'm probably being really naive that i'll be able to cope with looking after a baby and still have time to consider using cloth nappies, but don't these soakers look ever so cute? there are 220 projects on ravelry, it must be a good pattern... i wonder will i knit one in newborn size or should i go up one size as i won't have time to dress myself never mind do extra loads of washing and try folding muslin for nappies? what about allergies, what are these soaked in? i have quite sensitive skin, i wonder would my baby be able to wear wool? how often do you (hand?)wash the wool soakers?

garden photos ...and little cotton socks

fig, it survived the winter


stock, sowed 2 years ago, i think it keeps resowing itself, it actually had a few blossoms even in winter!


gooseberries



tomato plants


sage


rosemary, in blossom, i wonder at what point i have to trim it, i think possibly after blossoming?


oregano, and a stray thyme sprig in the background, it seeded itself, so i'm leaving it be and when it's big enough it'll get its own pot, and maybe go to a friend. or to replace it's mother plant, which is getting very big and woody.


cress, radishes, peas (i think, i really should have labelled them...)


"mexican orange blossom", they have a lovely smell


little cotton socks for my friend's baby, made with LIDL cotton on 3.5mm needles

travelling

i was travelling for work last week, and couldn't resist pointing the camera at the windscreen a few times, look at those skyes!

lunchtime in the park

a few photos i took on the first day of may...

tired!!!

still so tired! still waiting for that 2nd trimester energy! had today off after two 12 hour days, and i had so many plans; work in the garden, bake a cake, tidy up, iron, cook dinner, some knitting or sewing... i did none of them...
instead i slept in, had rice pudding and rhubarb (just boiled with sugar) for my breakfast (i figured it's not much different to porridge with fruit and therefore healthy), caught up with some blog reading, had a little lunch (which i nearly threw up, but i just about kept it down, i think i had let myself get too hungry beforehand) and a nap, went for a cycle to buy fruit at the local fruit'n'veg shop, met my neighbour for tea... the only productive thing i did was laundry and dishes... not very impressive. hopefully this downtime will have restored my energy levels to survive another two days in the office.
i read up on growing potatoes in a tyre stack, amongst other sites here
would love to try it, though it might be a little late for that, plus i would want a prettier stacking solution, our garden is too small for stacks of tyres not to make a bad impression... our veggie garden is not taking off so well yet, it's been so cold! and we've neglected the fruit bushes and trees completely. the truth is, i don't really know how to prune and feed them. i pruned the damson tree and it's taken it badly... no blossoms whatsoever. we did nothing to the cherry tree, no blossoms either! i think the gooseberries and redcurrant could have done with some loosening of the soil and some kind of plant food...
i also read some rollercoaster posts, but whenever i read about birth and labour i get very panicky and fearful, it all seems to be so totally out of my control once i get into hospital! 'actively managed labour' seems to still be the norm in ireland, from all i've heard from germany and other european contries it's different there...
i have a funny taste in my mouth from dinner, my brother in law cooked lasagne for us, accompanied by oven chips (i don't get this, chips with lasagne! there's already pasta in it, i wouldn't have spaghetti with spuds either, can anybody explain this to me? is it an irish thing? a canteen thing?) the lasagne was from a 'kit' with 2 jars of sauce and the lasagne sheets. you just add mince. i didn't realise that i haven't eaten food like that in ages, it just didn't taste right, the tomato sauce was as sweet as ketchup, the white sauce strangely salty, plus this strange 'artificial taste', is it msg? it's nice of him to cook every now and then, but it really makes us realise how well we usually eat! (another dinner he cooked once was spuds and carrots and steak, cooked entirely without salt or pepper or any flavourings, with the potatoes and steaks overcooked to take the last bit of goodness and natural flavour out of them. it's the kind of food that really depresses me, i know that's ever so healthy. but i really love my food seasoned!)
Gee, bitchy me, i should be grateful for any night that i'm not cooking (i haven't cooked much at all lately due to ridiculous tiredness) and i am, but i'm really looking forward to not being so crushed tired and cooking a healthy and flavourful meal again... P cooked a lovely chili con carne yesterday by the way, so i'm not all complaints.

the news....

we're expecting a baby!!! this is exciting news, i can finally tell because i'm over the 'mystical' 12 week mark, although i know that doesn't neccessarily mean all will be well... the last pregnancy ended with a (missed) miscarriage at 8 weeks on christmas day, so we're delighted to actually get to see a baby and a heartbeat on the ultrasound this time.

but if you think i'm done worrying now you're wrong... I am very worried the baby might be too small, i had an ultrasound at a GP and it wasn't a very good machine, but on the printout it says 14cm and there are two marks, so technical me assumes that that is the scale of the image so i couldn't resist measuring the baby. on the day of the ultrasound it was supposed to be around 48mm but according to the scale on the printout it's only 34mm, which is nearly two weeks to small! i've been trying to contact the GP since to find out did he take an actual measurement during the scan and are the 14cm on the ultrasound picture an actual scale... but he hasn't called back yet. he's probably sick of me worrying... do any of you know anything about measuring babys on ultrasounds??

how am i feeling? still quite tired, but not as bad as a few weeks ago, a little nauseous, but not really, i get a gagging reflex a lot of the time, when it's bad it makes my stomach contract as well and i probably could get sick quite easily, but it only actually happened once, when i decided to gurgle with mouthwash, maybe not the smartest idea seeing as even just brushing my teeth is the number one gagging trigger! i get exhausted quite easily when i have a stressful day at work, but when it's not too bad i sometimes have the energy to cook dinner or tidy up, but most days i just refuse to see the dust motes and am happy enough to just have a yoghurt for my dinner. the husband unfortunately doesn't care as much about dinners as i, he'd quite happily live on takeouts and frozen pizzas...

i maybe have put on half a kilo now, although i already carried an extra 2 kilos from the last pregnancy, i didn't try to lose it because i thought a bit of extra fat might help me get pregnant again more quickly (and maybe it worked, it only took 2 months) disappointingly i haven't put on a cup size yet! i'm quite sure i got better endowed, but when i went to M&S to get measured for a non wired bra (non existent in a pityful 34B's wardrobe, i heavily rely on padded and wired to balance out my bottom heavy figure), instead of the usual 34B i was measured 32B! i either have been wearing the wrong bra size all along or i actually got thinner... in fact, thinking of my wedding, i was measured 32B then, which surprised me then, and I lost a bit more of my womanly figure after the wedding when i stopped taking the pill... however, the lady in the shop recommended the 34B bras because i'd only get bigger. the maternity ones she showed me were awful, thin cotton things with no support whatsoever! in the end i bought so called 't-shirt' bras, which are comfy and give a nice shape under tops, and give me a nice bit of support. i definitely got nicer cleavage now, whatever the woman's measuring tape says...

i know, i'm getting unusually chatty here, i just can't help myself, it's all so exciting!

string bag 1.1 photos

excuse the bad quality, i had trouble using the flash as it completely overexposed the images (see saturday's) . I must invest in a proper camera. but i think a real SLR is out of the question. Anybody got any experience with the 'nearly SLRs'?

string bag 1.1

progress!
i think i figured out how to make this, it doesn't really look anything like the bag i linked to, but then i'm not actually doing that exact stitch. I am now doing round after round of *yo, k2tog* and am getting a tidy looking result. i have 1 thread separating the 'holes', (like on that one row that was a mistake on the previous version, so i now know what i'd done wrong there, i'd missed one knit row). the previous pattern would make for a sturdier bag, but this one is much easier to keep track of, and to see if there have been any mistakes. i think i may have an uneven number of stitches, which means i have no visible line where i go to the next round, i am always yo and then ktog having the yo of the previous row on the left, and the stitch on the right.
I took some photos showing what the pattern looks like and how i knit it but i must have left my camera cable at work :-( hopefully i will find it there tomorrow morning and i can then upload them, in case anybody is interested!

string bag 1.0

i started on a string bag and just ripped it back to the crochet base! i'm using this method where on the first round you wrap one and knit two together, then a knit round, then one round of wrap one - k2tog again, but shifted by one stitch, then again a knit row. but somehow, maybe i because i want to knit in the round, it's not as straight forward as it sounds. after about ten rows i noticed i'd accidentally increased a few times, causing messy bits, and also i had half a round of a weird looking stitch, where i didn't have two twisted strands separating the 'holes' but only one! anyhow, i ripped back and now i'm going to try 'Turkish Stitch', like in this bag i think it'll also be more 'netty'! the stitch i was doing was a bit bulky.

interesting posts

i would like to post interesting and up to date things, yet, at this moment there isn't much i can post about...


so instead i will show you pictures of a birthday cake i made for my sister in law, it had 30 candles on it! unfortunately i don't have any pictures of it with the candles lit, they were blown out so fast! it's a chocolate sponge with cherries, fresh cream (about two pints!) and dark chocolate shavings. baked the cake at home, and then assembled it in longford, while the SIL went for a hair appointment. even though we'd had a big feed of sausages, wings and sandwiches, at nine o'clock at night, the cake went down well, there were only three pieces left after about twenty minutes, which we brought into the kitchen for my brother in law's wife and kids to have the next day, but his mother in law ate them late at night and didn't leave a crumb for them! three large pieces of a 3-layer-cake!




























i like cream cakes! proper real fresh dairy cream, not uht, not from a spray can, no sugar and vanilla in it...

rhubarb crumble

mmh... i just put the 1st rhubarb crumble of the year into the oven! we had to cut back our rhubarb plant allready, it started growing over the path (our garden is small so everything is small and narrow and close together). my mother in law's in longford has only just started sprouting, i didn't realise there was such a difference in climate! we're lucky though, our garden is south facing and quite sheltered.

we also did a little trip to woodies yesterday and bought a patio set: two chairs and a table. the table was put together quick enough despite the usual useless drawings and instructions, i mean, why do they have to label the pieces a1 and b2 and so on, why not just say outer left leg, inner right leg etc. it would save all the guessing and turning each piece every way to figure out whether it's a1 or b2! anyhow, for the 2 chairs we got 3 left arm rests and one right... so today i had to go back and swap one of them, it took the customer service girl, a boy, a manager and another boy, and some animated discussions amongst them, to get me the right piece, good job i brought the drawing with me, only after i showed that to one of them did they understand what i meant by 'i would like to exchange this left armrest for a right armrest'.


not many crafty news here, i have been extremely tired lately, i still haven't finished the cream wool clapotis scarf, or the mirasol sulka hat, but i've started a flannel blanket (just 2 pieces of flannel and a blanket stitch edging) and a granny square blanket, from a mixture of rialto, sublime cashmere merino and some other similar leftover yarn. i started 25 squares during our little easter getaway, i've used some pale grey and sage green so far, and a dark fuchsia. i will see how far i get. with what i have and then maybe buy some more in a matching colour to make borders for them all. i had initially thought i might make my usual 'giant granny square' but with every round in a different colour, but i thought if the different types of wool shrink differently in the wash it'll be nicer if each square has slight bumps than if the whole blanket's structure is uneven.



oh, and i cut up an unshapely cardigan in a lovely dusky pink soft loose knit, and made a thin scarf and a head band from the sleeves. i still have the body part, a strange round shape, to make something with! must take some pics. every time i dug this out of the wardrobe i though ' why am i not wearing this lovely soft cardi in that beautiful colour more often, only to realise after i've left the house in it, that it makes my arse look huge (it is quite big but not THAT BIG).


i would also like to make this blanket and this scarf, but with my current energy levels they will be projects for next winter.