rest time

I've decided, now that I am 30 weeks pregnant, not to open the shop on wednesdays anymore. I feel that this is a good enough reason, as I am becoming oh so tired now, even just walking seems like an effort! The other main reason for this break is to spend some more time with this little guy, before he goes off and leaves me for big school next year.He is so torn between being a big boy and my baby at the moment. We've had lots of tears at pre-school drop-off time, some of which resulted in mamma tears at pre school last week. There's nothing like having a good cry in front of a whole bunch of strangers. Luckily, we go to a very warm and friendly pre-school, where the kids are all treated like one big family, and the teacher made me a cup of tea and looked after me. Still, I think I freaked the kids out a bit! It's funny how some people look at me like, "why are you working so hard, you're pregnant, remember?", and then others are completely oblivious to it, like the ones that come into my shop and say "I'll bring in my pants for you to fix". None of this "do you do alterations?" I guess that's what you get for having a sewing machine set up in your shop, people just assume that you're there to fix things. I used to be really weak, and couldn't say no to people, and as a result ended up doing some really annoying mending jobs, which nearly killed my machine. These days, I don't find it so hard to say no. It also helps having the phone number of local lady who does do alterations!

breakfast capers

the joys of pregnancy

finally, a shot of me pregnant that I feel is worthy of putting up here...probably something to do with the fact that it was taken on film by my talented husband, while we were on holidays. I'm about 29 weeks now, and feeeling and looking quite large, people look very surprised (and sympathetic) when I tell them how long I still have to go. However, everything is on track, and apparently "normal", and although I feel cumbersome, I don't necessarily feel huge. I think it's just that I'm normally so little, when people see me with this huge bowling-ball belly, they get quite alarmed!

I've had an anxious couple of days waiting to find out whether I had developed gestational diabetes, after my routine glucose tolerance test results were high. I had to go in for a further test yesterday, and thankfully, everything is ok. Of course, when presented with the possibility of having something wrong, straight to the books I go (because, lets face it, I don't look at them any other time), and I found out that having GD can create a "fat baby". Yes, that's exactly the term that they used. Now, I'm thinking that maybe there is a more appropriate way of saying that your baby may become overweight due to excess blood sugar, some way that doesn't conjure up images like this:

The thing that was worrying me most about having said "fat baby"was not the fact that it might be fat, but that it may make it necessary to have a caesarian, a thought that scares the hell out of me, having had two stress-free natural births so far. I really don't relish the thought of medical intervention in any way, having to be on a drip is bad enough. I'll never forget the male doctor who did a five minute appearance while I was in labour with willow asking me if I'd like some pethadine, and upon being told a flat answer of "no", asked me why I wouldn't want to save myself all that pain. Um, I think I'll be the judge of just how much pain I can endure before reaching for the drugs. Needless to say, the doctor disappeared, and the midwives did a fantastic job of delivering our little one with as little intervention as possible. God bless midwives. I just hope that I'm lucky enough to have it go so smoothly again this time around. (Please note, I am in no way against people having pain relief during labour, I realise that it's needed a lot of the time, I just haven't felt that I've needed it myself so far, but I'm open to the fact that all that could change). p.s. I made the holiday dress from an old sheet a couple of weeks ago, it also served well as my "anniversary dress", as I couldn't squeeze myself into my wedding dress for the occasion!

ten years plus one

tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary, and since I plan to be busy doing nice things tomorrow, I'm writing this post now. It's funny celebrating our "first" anniversary, since we'd been together for a bit over ten years before that. We decided (well, actually, there wasn't any real planning involved) to do everything backwards. We had a baby, then bought a house, then a had another baby, and then a while later, we thought we'd get married. I did write about this happy event a year ago, but I feel like going back there again, as it remains the one of the most special days of my life, second only to the days when my children were born. We chose not to have a big wedding, it just wasn't "us". Instead, we gathered together our immediate family and two close friends (gave them a couple of weeks notice) and dragged them all up to a huge rock in the middle of the national park near where we live, one of the first places arran used to take me when we first met, and which has panoramic views over the whole area. It was the most perfect october day, sunshine, a gentle breeze and blue sky as far as you could see. We had a simple, no fuss, five minute ceremony and then cracked the champagne and spent the next two days celebrating with friends and family, none of whom we had told, and who were all blown away, as you can imagine. And here we are a year on, and so much has happened during that time. I have my own shop (sometimes I still can't quite get my head around that one), arran made his first surfboard, and I must say, just quietly, did a darn good job of it, which is quite a relief considering there are 25 blanks sitting in our shed just waiting to be turned into boards, as soon as the "shed transformation" is complete...but that is a story for another day. Our children continue to amaze and inspire us as they prepare for a new little soul to come and join them, fin especially has become quite the responsible young man, and is skateboarding like a pro...willow continues to entertain us. Of course, so much happens every year, but this year it has felt special, because our family feels complete (well, there's still room for one more), and I am married to the most wonderful man in the world.

magazine love

is it just me, or is there a lot of eye candy around at the moment in the mags? I did a lot of poring over mags while I was away (also had to purchase the new inside out), and I must say, there was lots to look at, and be very envious of. Not that my home isn't yummy, and cosy, and interesting, but somehow other people's stuff always looks nicer, doesn't it. There's always that feeling of "oh, I could have done that, if only I'd thought of it". I'm imagining this kitchen in my church, when I purchase it, although I think those cupboards might need some doors, to stop little people unpacking them all the time. We had open shelving for a while, and let me just say, it inspired me to go and make our kitchen doors myself.
And then there's those yummy looking white rooms, where the owners insist there is no problem having kids (there are three boys, and a dad, living in the house in this picture). Right. I wouldn't let willow within ten feet of a white lounge. Still, I dream of one day painting all the walls white and having a white lounge. For now I'll stick to aubergine and snotty green, as willow likes to call it. Besides, I'll have a baby spewing on it soon as well.

I do feel inspired to declutter our house a little, and make it more summery and fresh, and less "cosy cottage filled with crap". I think being on holidays makes you realise that you can actually function quite well without all that stuff around you, in some ways it's actually liberating to just not have to look at it all for a while. I'm currently in the process of moving fin into his own room, because he's a big boy now, and I suddenly realised that the baby's room was just sitting there not being used, and the baby would probably not even end up using that room anyway, so fin's room it is. Stay tuned for updates.

home again

we have returned from our north coast adventure, feeling refreshed and ready for some serious work that needs doing around here. We had a really relaxing week, with our live-in babysitters doing lots of fun stuff with the kids, including a trip to "timbertown", which apparently hasn't changed much since I went there about 30 years ago. I guess that's how it is with these "ye olde" themepark thingys. The boys came away with the obligatory matching t-shirts, which they are most impressed with, and we were treated to pa's "bullocky songs" cd in the evening. Hmmn. There were also lots of trips to the beach and fossil hunting (pa's a geologist), which didn't go down too badly either. Of course, I took full advantage and had a little lie down at every opportunity. Being on holidays does tend to make one very tired. Oh, and there was all that op-shopping as well.

We did manage to find a lovely new home while we were away, in a quaint little country town, which I knew was perfect as soon as we drove in and spotted the oppy, with a skate park right next to it. Happy times. So, we'll be moving here just as soon as I win lotto, or maybe someone out there has a spare $430 grand they'd like to give me? No, I thought not.

north bound

we're off on holidays bright and early tomorrow morning...I'm sure the "bright and early" part won't be too difficult considering I'm wide awake by 6am these days, no need for alarm clocks. We're all very excited to be off on our north coast adventure, the boys have looked up skate parks on the net, seems like there's a good one at bonny hills (doesn't that place sound just bonny?), and I'm looking forward to scoping out some unchartered op shop territory. The car is packed, surfboard's on the roof, I have a good supply of aminals awaiting faces and also some yummy reading material in the way of the new real living and home beautiful (which is still coming in the post, thankyou), and the best part is, we're staying with arran's parents, so there is also child-minding to be had!! Oh joy! Don't worry, they're the good kind of inlaws, the easy-going kind who like to do stuff with the kids, otherwise I wouldn't be so overjoyed at the set up. So, I bid you farewell, fellow bloggos, and I'll be back soon with holiday tales to tell.

monday afternoon whip up

today has been one of those days. It all started at around 4am, with fin yelling out having had a nightmare, closely followed by willow wanting to play a game on the computer. Oh sure, would you like me to get up and turn that on for you darling? I don't know why that abrupt awakening was such a problem for me, it's not like I was really sleeping anyway...the baby is making sure that doesn't happen. So, after a long treacherous day, I finally decided the best thing to do would be to have a lie down and ignore everything for a while, so that's what I did, and when I arose, I suddenly decided that I need a new bag. My black leather one, even though I still love it, was feeling a little too serious for the warm weather we're now experiencing, and we're going on holiday next week (yay), so I whipped up this little denim number this afternoon. It's amazing how fast you can do something if you put your mind to it (and ignore whatever else is going on around you). Thankyou to mr.arran for the denim, three rolls off a chuckout, and if anyone has ever looked at my flickr page, you will notice that I have used a piece of my very favourite fabric for the pocket. Only a very small piece, mind you, I still have enough left for a couple of cushion panels.

shop update here