Too Late – Tainted

About that ‘not wanting to taint child with bad language’ thing. Seems I not only have to be careful what I say now, but also with what I read. Just now I was checking out various updated blogs and sites from my RSS list… and popped over to Go Fug Yourself to check out the latest. A minute or so later, small voice beside me pops up

“FUG ME!”

(which is written on a button on the left side of the site, if you’re wondering)

Yes dear readers, the boy can read. We are all in trouble now! Thankfully he didn’t require me to explain what ‘fug’ means, he was too amused by me splitting my sides laughing at him :giggle:

The News

The Daily Muse
Source

It’s Not You, It’s Me

I haven’t been here lately because I have been in an utterly foul mood, and I didn’t want to say something I might later regret! I’d like to go ahead and blame it all on the hormones, if I may :giggle: I don’t remember being so pissy when I was pregnant with Finn, but for the last two weeks, I have felt like I’ve had permanent PMT. Not good. Pity the fools who cut me off on the road! (Ummm, before you go ahead and flame me, I am actually doing my very best not to taint my child with bad language, so I just let my road rage simmer). But that guy – that one in the shopping centre the other day who stood in front of my shopping trolley (which was, at 5pm, being pushed by an equally irritable 3 year old) to ask if I’d participate in somesurveyorother – after he had just seen me decline the offer (politely) from his colleague, not 3 metres away… don’t pity him :grr: He deserved far more than the black scowl he got. I mean – looking like I did that day, in my daggiest tracksuit and unwashed hair, with my enormous belly weighing me down… did he really think I was just hankering to get my teeth into some marketing research? Yeah. Right.

You get the idea. So I’m staying away until I have something slightly better to report. Hopefully that will include a couple of exchange happy dances – once they arrive at their destinations, anyway.

Later edit: I just realised. It just hit me right out of the blue – the reason I was probably not so cranky last pregnancy was because I was allowed to eat sugar! I was no doubt getting cranky, but bingeing it away with good stuff like Tim Tams! Damn!

Reallyreally T-i-i-i-i-r-e-d

I didn’t even do any of the physical ‘stuff’, but after six days of living amongst chaos, I am completely exhausted. I just wanted to check in and say all is well, the major construction works are done. Works slow to a crawl now, as the patching, painting and tiling are all up to OtherHalf and I, so don’t expect them to be finished in a hurry :giggle: But the kitchen/living area is already a much better place to be, so I’m happy.

I am also very happy about the state of Things Gestational. She’s not breech! We have one head-down, bum-up baby, which is wonderful news. I tentatively drafted a post two days ago in which I speculated that might be the case, but I decided not to tempt fate, and wait until today’s growth scan. Words like ‘perfect’ and ‘beautiful’ were murmured by the sonographer (wheee!), and the growth estimate puts Small at just above average – as in, not ginormous :giggle: Combined with a BP of 110/80 last week, and great blood glucose levels for the last three weeks, things are at last looking smooth (touchwood-touchwood-touchwood!). If only it weren’t for that darned 40-week deadline. We shall see… I’m through making any predictions with this one!

I’m Very Impressed

Not one single one of you felt the need to point out that starting to renovate one’s kitchen when one is 33 weeks pregnant might not be the smartest thing in the world to do? Especially when one turns green at the mere thought of DIY renovations – and that’s on a good day?

You would, of course, have been right :giggle:

It’s OK. It really is. The wall is down, and the roof has not caved in. I will survive, even if my sanity does not.

Small Stuff

The Hiccup Stuff
Or more accurately, the hiccoughs. They have started. Finn hiccoughed in utero for about the last two months. (Didn’t stop for about a month afterwards, either). Looks like Small will be following suit. I think it’s so cute! Much cuter than my abdominal bits are feeling and looking lately, anyway.

The Wall Stuff
The Wall, it comes down this weekend. Be afraid. Be very afraid. You know, I’d really like to take Before and After photographs, I would. If only I could get the kitchen and living areas clean enough to do so first! (Actually, I’ll probably have to, since the tearing down of said wall will necessitate some tidiness, after all).

The Dyeing Stuff
#1 – I’m very sad at the loss of my dyeing space, due to Wall-goings-on and the rest of the kitchen ‘rearrangement’. Am going to see if I can manage enough space in our stupid tiny laundry area to set up, but it may well be that my dyes go away for the forseeable future.
#2 – Hoping to squeeze this in before packing the dye-bits’n’pices away. Mum gave me some yarn to try dyeing. I picked up a couple of Landscape dyes (easy-peasy no-extra-acids-needed wool dyes) from Kraftkolour on the day they were closing their doors (sob! They went mail order only, how sad). So I’m going to try a couple of vareigated yarns. I don’t really knit – I can manage a scarf or a cushion though, so I’ll let you know how it turns out.
#3 – Also on the dyeing, I just wanted to remind those of you who’ve bought some floss that you probably should rinse it in cool/lukewarm water prior to stitching with it. I do rinse fairly extensively after dyeing, but there is always a chance of some excess dye left clinging. I’ll add this suggestion into my sale page shortly.

The Employment Stuff
You may remember a bit ago I decided not to take on the offer of a job, as documented here? Well, my lecturer has come back to me with a modified offer – would I like to do some marking? This can (mostly) be done from home, and it won’t begin at the very start of semester, so Small should be 2-3 months by the time I start. I said yes, I’m interested. I’m probably going to slap myself later – my university is not renowned for its generosity s’far as remuneration is concerned. Nor does the time allotted to mark assignments come anywhere close to the actual time that marking takes. But… I figure, it keeps my brain alive, keeps my toe in the water. It could be a good experience.

The Stitching Stuff
Um… no :blank: Must try harder.

Meep. Where does the time go? Finn has been at kinder all morning and I have acheived nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada. Except a very ordinary blog post. Sigh.

New Stuff

Christine, your comment about crazy stash acquisition made me smile… since going off the Wagon Challenge at the end of ’05, I’ve been a bit crazy myself. I haven’t always fully confessed, but needless to say, I haven’t stuck to that ‘goal oriented’ plan I had ๐Ÿ˜ณ My latest temptation was the SB&B Easter Sale, and I’m waiting on a couple of The Cat’s Whiskers charts, Enchanted Mermaid, a Drawn Thread chart and some mesh bags. I think that’s it!

Anyway, all guilt aside – first off today, a new fabric I dyed up recently. I adore this. It’s a fat quarter of 28-count Lugana, and I dyed it with Mirabilia’s Midsummers Night Dream in mind. I have just plugged it into the fabric viewer, and it does look lovely with that design, but there’s a number of other Mirabilias it looks great for too – oddly enough, Enchanted Mermaid is one of them. I never envisaged a purple for that design.

I have a bunch of other white fabric just waiting for inspiration to strike – 2 FQs of Quaker (my personal favourite), 3 FQs of Cashel, and 2 more of Lugana. I also have a piece of Belfast I dyed but hate the results of, so I’m going to try over-dyeing that to see what I can acheive. Hopefully, if I get a bunch of satisfactory fabrics out of this lot, my desire for stash expansion will subside a little!


Next is my newest start – yet another Mirabilia – Mermaids of the Deep Blue. I seem to be going through a very definite Mirabilia phase at the moment ๐Ÿ™‚ I’d estimate there’s about 20 hours put into this so far, though I didn’t record times so far. There’s two weekends away worth of work in it, put it that way. I’m stitching this on hand-dyed Babbling Brook Jobelan – my first large piece on Jobelan, and I like it more than I thought I would, actually.

Lookie!

Edit: this post originally linked to some hand-dyed floss which I had for sale, but which is no longer available ๐Ÿ™‚

Now Go Forth and Dye!

No, I’m not being rude. I just finally finished the tutorial for dyeing your own floss, that’s all :giggle: See here. I would love to hear about (and see) any results you might have if you follow this tutorial. Let me know if you have any questions or difficulty understanding my instructions. I tried to make it short, because the process really isn’t as difficult as it sounds, but I had to keep adding in extra bits of information, so it did get quite long.

I really, really ought to get a proper website organized for myself, I know, rather than using my blog for everything. I am supposedly qualified to do that, after all! I think I need to fill out one of those 101 goals in 1001 days which are popping up all over blogland, and make that a major goal!

One Big Joke

I knew it was going to be difficult raising a girl… but I had no idea she would be causing so much trouble so soon :giggle:

So intent is Small on defying her mother’s wishes for a ‘normal’ delivery (note I’m just talking about the exit-location here – I’m totally pro-drugs!) that she is taking nothing for granted. Let’s examine the facts:

1. One previous C-section – this already stands me in good stead for a second surgical delivery. My hospital of choice is not anti-VBAC, but their policy states subsequent pregnancies should not progress further than 41 weeks, and, most importantly, no chemical inductions will be performed. I understand the reasoning for this, I do (these drugs are associated with a higher risk of uterine rupture at the previous scar site). But this one factor plays a big part in this whole situation.

2. Blood pressure ‘issues’ – currently my blood pressure has been at normal levels for about 5 weeks. This is good. However the increased BP might make a reappearance. If I do develop pre-eclampsia, making it necessary to deliver early, no chemical induction… so, straight to caesarian.

3. Gestational diabetes – currently under good control – I was not placed on insulin, the few high readings I recorded earlier in the piece were attributed to a ‘learning curve’, and all is OK on this front so far. But simply having this diagnosis means my time-limit is now 40 weeks. No GD patient will be allowed to progress past this point. Again, hospital policy. Again… no chemical induction.

These three factors considered are enough to make you (and me) fairly confident that I won’t be having a normal delivery. However, clutching at straws, I’ve requested a ‘stretch and sweep’ – kind of a ‘manual’ induction, if you like. Just to see if I can go into labor at all. (As I doubt I would go into labor naturally before 40 weeks – I was late with Finn). They have consented to do this… at 38 weeks. That early, it probably won’t make an iota of difference. Grrr.

Anyway, just in case all of this wasn’t quite enough, there’s a 4. Wait… you’re gonna love this. I did. (I think I’ve finally reached the point of a slightly resigned ‘what next…?’)

4. She’s breech.

Ahahahahaha….. hmmmm…. :blank:

(Petulant child)

We’re booked for a June 20 (surgical) birth-date. Nine weeks tomorrow… and counting ๐Ÿ™‚