Christmas Eve ...

... and it's raining. It was sooooooooo hot yesterday; today, not so much. Go figure.
I'm finally going to put the tree up today. I've either been too tired/busy/grumpy to do it before. But at least it'll be up before Christmas! I have today off, working tomorrow, then I have Wednesday off. So we're having our Christmas dinner on Boxing Day because we'll both be home.
Patrick is doing well, apart from a habit of waking up at 5.30am lately. 5.30am!!!! That's just ... uncivilised! It's the teeth and the heat, I guess. But sometimes it's hard to be patient, you know?
Jeremy's not home from work yet, but I think he's out braving the crowds to get the rest of my Christmas present. I know what part of it is, but I want a surprise as well. I'm a very recent convert to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman is one of my favourite authors. I happened to see Good Omens in hardback in one of the bookstores, pointed it out, and that's my main present. Heh ... I predict much reading tomorrow. Well. Before I have to go to work, anyway.
We set a limit of about $50 on each other and his is all wrapped up and ready to go, as is Patrick's. At least his was easy _ some books and a couple of toys. I have a feeling he'll be more interested in the wrapping paper!
Not sure if I"ll get much stitching done today, after having such an early start, but I'm working on Circe by Jill Oxton. Well. Right now I am anyway!
Merry Christmas!

Five nights!

Only five more nights of work to go. I can do this. I can. Now that I'm in the home straight, I can I can I can!
I might be a little bit excited. I'm just over the whole work thing for now. Especially since there were dramaramas last week. Nothing to do with me; happened on my night off, but you hear about them, you know? Didn't do a lot over Easter; I was working anyway. We had to take Fagin to the vet on Tuesday, he had an abcess on the side of his face that burst before we took him out. Of course, the vet surgery was packed and poor Fagin, the ick was going all over the cage. And my gosh, the smell! Luckily (apparently) I'm not sensitive to bad smells at the moment. I was just thinking ew _ along with everyone else in the surgery, I'm sure _ and not ew, I'm going to throw up. So that was something at least. A shunt, and $100 later; he's still feeling pretty sorry for himself, the poor boy.
We saw 300 this week, went to the movies on my day off; I'm trying to get as much use out of my media pass as I can while I still can.
It was a lot of fun. Gratuitous violence, and fit men running around in capes and undies _ see, now, that's a chick flick!
I got a little more stitching done on the Iris for my friend's wedding; I'm kind of superstitious to post it until it's finished for some reason. But I'm hopeful I'll get it done in a timely fashion. I didn't do any stitching yesterday at all, I wanted to work on something, but it wasn't the Iris and I wasn't sure what I felt like (I certainly have plenty of WIPs) so I ended up stitching on nothing. We caught up on some TV programmes and watched The Prestige, which was quite good but I found it a little ... try hard with all the twists and things.
J inventoried all the stuff we have so far for baby; nappies and wipes and things, and I had a Moment. I haven't had one for a while and I thought I'd come to terms with it all but nooooo ... apparently in order to trigger a meltdown, I just have to see the stuff strewn across the living room. Gah!
I'm okay today, though. Now that the stuff is tidily put away and I don't have to look at it.
Still.
Best Not To Think About It!

Huh?

That's how I feel most of the time at the moment. Huh? Also I keep forgetting words. Just normal, everyday words. I'd better get my brain back from this baby!

Anyway. Ten more days of work to go; it sounds a lot better than saying two weeks! So I'm just hoping I can get through it _ and in one piece. It doesn't help that the air conditioners were switched off week before last because of some kind of work they were doing outside. Our building is only three stories, but we work on the top floor so the heat just sort of ... settles. AND most of the windows don't open. *Sigh*. I nearly went home on Friday night, it was so bad, but a walk in the fresh air at break time and kicking off my shoes helped a bit.

Yesterday we had a big family/Easter lunch-type thing, with my WHOLE family. Which meant noise noise noise noise noise. But we don't all get together very often; maybe twice a year and its always nice to see the nieces and nephews :)

I have strict instructions from family members about the baby:
My brother T and his family will be in Oz and get back on the 8th. He expects me to be in two pieces by then (youch!) _ baby is due on the 6th
My sister B is going to be in Christchurch when he's due, and wants me to wait until they get back, which I think is around the 8th
Oh, and I can't have him on a Tuesday night, because that's my mother's bridge night and she won't be home until late ... *facepalm*
And for myself, I can't have him on the 6th, because that's my midwife's weekend off; there's only two of them in the practice at the moment and they alternate weekends.
Poor baby ... so small, yet with so many expectations already!
Well, when he comes will be up to him. I don't really care, as long as he's healthy and has all the required digits. :)

I've been stitching a bit, mostly on the Iris for my friend's wedding _ now that the weather has FINALLY cooled down, it's not too bad to work on the black. Reading a bit, too; I'm trying (still) to ge through some review books for work. And I've started having what am I going to do when I'm off before I have the baby???? I get bored being home two days in a row. Never mind the possibility of up to a month! Ooooh, poor J!

We've started talking about packing a bag for the hospital; and I've got as far as a change of clothes (for me), a nightgown, nursing pads and maternity pads (ick), clothes (and nappies? do we need to take nappies?) for baby; digital camera, ipod for distraction, a book and maybe a project ... after that, I turn back into stupid.

Oh, and we need to arrange for someone to feed the cats, depending on how long I'm in, so poor J isn't running to and fro too much.

Oy! Roll on April 19!

Bump bump bump

This is me on Saturday at 30 weeks and five days. We'd gone to my sister's for a combined family birthday and I was standing on her front doorstep, talking to my mother and sister and watching my 5 year old niece B make 'volcanos'. My BIL S took the pictures; I had no idea. But I wanted some 'bump' pictures and I think I prefer ones like this than me staring self-consciously at the camera thinking about how fat I feel and how grey my hair is. :) Of course, he also snuck pictures of J and my other sister crashed out sleeping in their living room after lunch!
I've decided on my March goals; actually I only have one: stay in one piece!

Gah!

I hate when this happens. I was merrily stitching away on a small Pisces design for J's birthday, which is tomorrow, when I realised I'd made a colossal mistake. I'd stitched the top fin of one fish, then the bottom fin of the other fish. I was stitching away on the top fish, when I realised that I'd run out of fish before I got to the bottom fin _ I was three rows out! Grrrrr.... it was too much to unpick and start over, and it's just a small design, so wasn't really worth it.
Now, of course, I'm stuck for a birthday present idea!
The midwife came on Tuesday, and my glucose levels are normal. Yay, no fasting blood test! Iron levels low, though so I have lovely iron tablets to take ... woo hoo. I'm measuring well, and the baby co-operated by 'bumping' the midwife's hand when she was checking for him.
His occipital is anterior, which is good, apparently. What we don't want is posterior. Go baby! My blood pressure is the same as last time, and I haven't had much swelling at all. I'm so very lucky, I keep expecting the other shoe to drop!
Marx had his shunt out ... last week? week before? and looks like himself again (aw).
Now we have to take Leo in to get groomed; we can't do it, his knots seem to be growing along his body rather than out from, and I don't want to hurt him. The safest recourse is to take him to the vets so they can knock him out. And now our mad cat, Scouty, has a bung eye. Hand on my heart, we cannot take her to the vet! The last time she was there, when we had her anxiety diagnosed, she freaked out really badly and I'm just not willing to risk it for the sake of an eye. An emergency is different of course, all bets are off, but I'm hoping we can treat this one ourselves. Any ideas?
What else. Ooh, I need to review February goals and do some for March, but I start work early today, so I'll do that tomorrow.
If I remember!