Easter Sunday

Had dinner with family today. Which was fine, but some days I regret making the life-decision at 15 to never drink alcohol. Some days I can see how it would make so many things (dinner with family for example), go by much quicker.

On the up side, Patrick had a fabulous day. He got chocolate, and ice cream, which meant, from his point of view, it was pretty much Christmas. But boy, was he tired by the time we got home!

Back to work tomorrow. For me, I mean. Not the toddler.

Fragmented posting, but it's getting late. All I want to do is crawl into bed and get some sleep.

I shall now suit actions to words.

Happy Easter.

Sigh

Back to work tomorrow. It's been nice, being at home, but I don't feel especially rested or rejuvenated. Just tired, really.

We're entering into the tantrum phase, which is fun for everyone, if your definiton of "fun" is having needles drilled into the base of your skull. It's hard to believe that face is capable of screams that sometimes only dogs can hear.

Sigh. Most of it, I think, is just nearly-two frustration. Our features editor says it's because they find out they're not telekinetic after all and can't just make things (TV remotes, for example) fall into their hands.

And of course, the rest of the time he's being ridiculously cute. One day last week he ran around the living room in circles saying "peeka peeka peeka". And it's nearly impossible not to laugh when he quite solemnly imitates one of us, or points at one of the cats and tells them off _ in toddler-speak, of course.

What else. I'm still stitching on La Ghirlandata, which I'm really enjoying at the moment.

Um. That's it. Sigh.

One long party

Well, okay. That's not true. Mostly I sit around alternating between watching TV and watching Patrick. That really does sum up my day at the moment.

In my defense, sort of, I am on holiday. And the weather's been crap. So I hang out with the boy while Jeremy is off tinkering with obscure things _ computers usually. Then when hanging with the toddler gets a bit much, I get Jeremy to make me a cup of tea and he alternates between watching TV and watching Patrick for a while.

As you can see by the pic, Patrick is as steady as you like on his feet now although he'll still do a drop-and-crawl occasionally.

He likes to pick up books and "read" them; he does the same thing with the TV Guide. I'd love to get a photo of him doing it, but as soon as he hears the camera, he's right up in your face _ Patrick loves having his photo taken.

As I said, I'm on holiday, so haven't been doing a lot of anything. Reading. TV. Movies (Slumdog Millionaire and Zack and Miri Make a Porno, so far), hanging out with my boys and my cats. Stitching.

Um .... yep, that sums it up.

Stitching-wise I've been making fairly good progress on Circe, but I've decided to swap it out for a while, before I get tired of the blues and greens. So now I'm working on La Ghirlandata, by Jan Eaton, based on a painting by Dante Rossetti. I've switched blues and greens for rich reds and browns; very appropo, considering we're going into autumn.

That's it. Not a lot to be said, or done, when you're mooching at home, on holiday. :)

Write it down

Our Features Editor is very intersted in Patrick's progress. He has a son, although his boy is ... eight? nine?

Anyway, I was telling him (the features editor that is) about the words Patrick is saying and what he's doing, and he said write it down, because otherwise I'd forget.

Good advice, I think.

Patrick can say mumumumumum - all run on like that; byedaddy, or da, or byeee, but for some reason never just daddy. If you ask him a question: "do you want your drink? do you want a bikkie?" he gets a big grin on his face and says "geh geh".

He's pretty much walking now, holding one hand up in the air, which reminds me of an orangutan.

He likes throwing things, that seems to be his main interest, when he's not trying to play with my mouse and keyboard. He eats pretty well, if messily at times (but don't we all?) and likes to throw his toast on the floor (sigh). He's figured out (nearly) how to bodysurf the coffee tables, which I'm not delighted about, and seems to have got over his fear of grass.

My bestie from high school, who lives in Australia (near Brisbane) was over last week for a wedding. A flying visit, she said, and I bumped into her in Starbucks, of all places. So we, along with another friend of ours, all went out for dinner on Sunday night and had sooo much fun. The food was good, the company even better. She's gone back to Aussie now, with no ETA on a return visit.

I'm still (apparently) working on Circe; not that you would know it. I also had a (small) spend up on Amazon recently _ something I haven't done for ... a couple of years? Twas fun :)
I bought the Twilight saga _ mostly because it's been too hard to get hold of copies here - either at the library, or the bookstore. So I got tired of waiting. I also bought A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce, which I haven't read yet, but am very much looking forward to. I know her. Well. We post on the same message board. Ipso facto - I know her :)

I got Hogging all the Covers by Band From TV, which is a lot of fun, and I splashed out on a couple of cross stitch books, which I don't usually do _ usually I stick with UK magazines and Jill Oxton's Cross Stitch and Beading for charts, but I couldn't pass up Joan Elliott's Bewitching Cross Stitch, or Ancient Egyptian Cross Stitch, by Barbara Hammet.

Fun and games all round!

Another week

Went for a walk this morning and I'm on lates tonight, so I'll be starting at 5. In a cruel twist, I'm doing a day shift tomorrow (bleh) but I won't be starting until 11.30 at the earliest.

In happier news, I finished Mum's Christmas present. Now I just need to take it to the framers and hope it'll be done before Christmas. This is it here (it's a little fuzzy):

It's a wee chart out of one of those little books you get free with Cross Stitch magazines sometimes. It shows a book and a cup of tea on a table with a vase of flowers. It's very Mum and I hope she likes it.

More later.
Probably.

This is the week ahead

It's my day off tomorrow (woo hoo) but I have Stuff to do. Nothing drastic and hopefully nothing that will take too long.
I have The Diving Bell and the Butterfly out on DVD to watch, during which I can't stitch because it's in French and subtitled. But I've been waiting to watch it for months so once Patrick goes down for a sleep ... it's just me and my DVD. :)
I've been doing okay with the walking _ going about three days a week. I'm hoping to up that to five this week. I'm planning on starting my week off the right way. Plus also, it'll be a bonus not to have to go in to work tomorrow night. I can relax, and breathe. Ah ...
Our house sold a few weeks ago and the handover between the landlords is supposed to happen this Friday but we haven't heard anything from the new overlords yet. I kind of need to know, so I can, like, you know, pay rent? Yeah.
Patrick is doing well. Eating on his own, finally. Which is really more about parental laziness than his development. And when I say "eating", I mean with his hands mostly. He has a spoon but it's really more of a token spoon. So, of course, he makes a mess. Hey, he's a little boy. It's what they do.
I'm working on a very small picture that I'm going to have put in a photo frame for my mother. It's ver cute, of a little table in front of a window, with a book and a vase of flowers. It's very Mum and if I get it put in a photo frame, she can just put it on the table, where she can see it.
So hopefully I'll work on that some tomorrow. :)

Oh, no! Grass!

Have I mentioned that Patrick is scared of grass? It was a beautiful spring day here today, so I took him outside after lunch for a bit, and watching him try to keep his hands _ and his feet (very tricky) _ off the grass was worth the price of admission.

I suppose I should be more sympathetic, but ... it's grass and he'll have to get used to it sooner or later. On the other hand, maybe I should make the most of it _ enjoy the fear before he starts digging away in it looking for disgusting things _ or eating it, even.

Apart from the grass issue, he's highly entertaining at the moment. I'm making the most of how much fun he is, because the 2s are just around the corner, well, May next year, but time is going so fast at the moment it'll be here before I know it!

Hard to imagine. :)

I'm managing to get some stitching done most days when Patrick's in his cot, having a mid-morning break. It's the only time I can do it _ after work is too late, and doing it while Patrick is up and about, is just asking for trouble. If it's mine, then it's his. Doesn't matter what it is. If I have it, he has to have it, or we have meltdown.

What else. Work is still ... work for now. The people who are going will be leaving in a couple of weeks, then we're upgrading to a new system.

Family good. Life good. Work ... okay.

And the beat goes on ...

... It's funny to think that life-changing events are just around the corner. Announcements about work are supposed to be made this week, and yet we just .... go on. We put the paper out the same; we cover the Olympics, we work ... but it's like working under a raincloud that just follows you everywhere.
Ugh.
I just wish we knew already, so that we could get on with things. Living under this ... pause button is really stressful.

It's been a while ...

... although I've been updating my book blog regularly. Just goes to show ... something ...
Winter has finally arrived, after taking an extended break. It obviously feels like it has something to make up for and it is COLD!!!! And wet.
Chloe is sitting on my computer desk, watching the doorway into the kitchen. I'm not sure what she thinks she's going to do ...
I've mostly been reading; working; doing a little stitching _ after about five years I finally finished the first page of Jill Oxton's Circe, and I've added a letter to Patrick's dinosaur alphabet. I feel almost virtuous! So now I'm working on a simple Tuscan picture from Quick & Easy Cross Stitch. It's basically rows of colours, so it can get a little tedious, but it's mostly restful.
Patrick's had a bit of a cold this week, that seemed to develop into croup for a couple of nights, but he's over it now.
I took him outside on ... Monday? Tuesday? Whichever of them was the last fine day here.
He hasn't had a heck of a lot of exposure to our backyard, so thought it would be nice for him to explore.
Well. He's scared of grass.
I had a rug on the ground for him to lie on, but as soon as it remotely looked like his fingers would touch the grass, he was up on his elbows, and crying. We stayed outside for a little bit, and I was going to take him outside for a little bit for the rest of this week to hopefully get him used to it, but of course, the weather packed in.
It was really funny watching him, though, trying to crawl around on his elbows. Must. Not. Touch. Grass!
I'll take him out again on the next fine day. I'm sure a year from now he'll be digging up hideous things from the garden, and won't even care.
Work's going fine; although there are Changes Afoot. I'll have to wait and see what comes of them.
Let's see. What else. Oh. That's it for now. :)

Situation normal ...

... and all that jazz. I was going to blog about how I haven't been stitching much lately because I lost my coffee table to the baby cause: it's being used as a temporary heater guard, so I had nowhere to set my pattern up. However, we have two coffee tables, so I'm back in the game, as it were.
I'm not getting a lot done really, but more than I was. I even finally finished the first page of my Jill Oxton Circe pattern _ five years after I started it *ahem*.
Patrick is good; he's still commando crawling, although every so often he gets up on his hands and knees and rocks for a bit. It's very cute to watch. While I'm encouraging him out loud when he does it; I'm also looking around for possible hazards once he is up and crawling properly.
A mother's work is never done. :)
I'm sure I have lots of wonderfully insightful things to say. But I've already been on the computer too long.
Maybe next time.

How galling!

I had a gallstone attack yesterday. Bad enough to keep me home from work. I won't go into the gory details, but ... ugh. Ugh.

I finished the other star sign picture on ... Friday? I think. Then promptly forgot to give them to my mother when we went to see her on Sunday, even though I had remembered to put them in my bag. Oops. Anyway. Ta da ... sorry, the bull's a bit fuzzy. But you get the idea:

The Great Procrastinator

Well, I've done nothing at all so far about any kind of daycare; or finding classes that Patrick and I could both go to. I know there are Mainly Music lessons, and the library has activities _ whether for littlies like Patrick or older children I'm not sure. Oh yes, I'm the Great Procrastinator.
He's still rolling everywhere, and not really showing a lot of interest in crawling, or sitting, or standing. He will stick his bum in the air sometimes when he's doing his daily roll-around but that's as far as we've got. And when he's sitting _ in his highchair, or the corner of the couch _ he arches his back and slumps down. So "sitting" is not on his list of hobbies. I figure there's not a lot I can do if he's not ready. So I'm trying to be patient.
Situation normal the past week. Work is frustrating at the moment and it's something I can't do much about. The home front is fine, although Jeremy and I seem to be bickering a lot lately. But I think that's because the work situation is leaking out the sides and affecting everything else. I've decided I need to take a deep breath, a step back, and think before I open my trap!
I had yesterday off, and I was going to go to the movies, but I felt like I was talking myself into it, so I stayed home and just mooched. Watched TV, took care of Patrick, read; I even got some stitching done! I'm working on the birthday presents for my niece and nephew that my mother has commissioned. They're small designs of their star signs. I still need some threads, and I'm working around that at the moment which is a little annoying.
Pretty good day overall. :)

Sleep, perchance ...

... ah, sleep! Patrick was waking up really early, and then crying and fussing until I hauled butt to go get him. Then Jeremy hung an old bedspread behind his curtains to block some of the morning sun (Patrick's room faces east) and we have very different mornings around here! Patrick sleeps a bit longer, and even when he does wake up, he doesn't cry anymore. He just sort of hangs out in his cot until I get up. It's made such a big difference, I can't believe it.

I've been picking away at my January 08 project, although I haven't really had a lot of time lately. I'm reluctant to stitch after work because the bit I'm working on has a lot of colour changes, and that takes a bit of concentration. My plan is to work on this for all of January, spend February working on (small) gifts; then in March do another letter of Patrick's dinosaur alphabet before returning to Circe and the January 08 start. It's a plan. I haven't got any further than March yet.

I went to the movies on Tuesday (day off) and saw I Am Legend. I thought it was pretty good; not fantastically great, but pretty good. Will Smith was as likable as always, but oh my gosh, that gorgeous dog nearly stole the whole movie from him! I really want to see American Gangster next, but I promised myself (and Jeremy) that I'd only go to the movies every second week, and not every week. Or I'll go for a bit of shameless begging. We'll see.

We bought a portacot this week, to use as a playpen. Patrick's not crawling yet, but he rolls everywhere. And sooner or later, he fetches up against things. Like the coffee table, or the TV cabinet. So we've not so much baby-proofed the living room, as we've living room-proofed the baby. And he quite likes it.

That's all I have for now.

I hate it when that happens!

I rang my money this morning (pay day) and there's considerably less than I was expecting, which means something hasn't gone through, and it's too early to ring work to find out.
*Sigh*
It means there'll be more next time but between now and then I'll have banks and suchlike to contend with. So, hopefully, if I stick to my policy of being polite to them, we'll be okay for another fortnight (grrrr).
Not a lot else happening. It's cold here at the moment, though! It's starting out to be a very funny summer; we had really hot days earlier this week, now I've got the heater on!
Patrick is still cutting an eye tooth (ouch!) which isn't really much fun for any of us, but he seems to have had only one bad day on Monday with it.
Work's been okay, kind of busy with people off on holiday, but it seems to be settling back down now.
I have about 10 days off next month, and boy, am I looking forward to them!
I've started writing again _ Jeremy fixed up an old laptop for me, so I'm portable (yay!) and it seems to be working (fingers crossed).
That's really all I have for now.
Photos next time.
Maybe.

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!

Too darn hot!

We had a couple of days of rain, and the weather co-operatively cooled down. Until today. Going outside is like being smothered lovingly in a warm, wet blanket. It's Saturday, so we're going to wrangle Patrick, then go visit Mother. Exciting stuff, yup yup yup.
I told Mum we might come visit today, and her face lit up. Patrick is just pure joy to her, which is just lovely to see. He's her eighth grandchild too, but the excitement hasn't diminshed. And he really responds to that level of joy; its so nice to see.
What else. I thought of something, but it's gone looking for more interesting pastures than my brain. Oh! Right! Neighbours.
Now, there's nothing I can do if the neighbours choose to thudthudthud music at 11.30am on a Saturday. But at 7.15am? That's rude! I'd had a whole four hours sleep (woo hoo!) So I'd gone back to bed to try and catch up, but nothing doing. And I swear they know; because as soon as I was up and dressed, it stopped!
I'm sure blog topics have wandered into my brain to do some sightseeing this week. Unfortunately, it was usually when I was at work, and they wandered off again to look for better, prettier sites.
Fickle!

Rollin rollin rollin ....

Patrick:

Patrick can now roll on to his front. Unfortunately, he can't roll back the other way So it's all fun and games for about a minute, sometimes two, then the parent-in-residence has to go and roll him back. Which is fun. The first hundred times. The second ... eh. He also appears to be cutting his first tooth, the poor wee boy. He seems to be coping with it all right at the moment; just a bit more grizzly than usual. But aw ............ his first tooth!

Stitching:

I was working on a butterfly for my sister for Christmas, stitched with DMC Light Effects. That stuff, however, is the Devil's Candy. So I abandoned it. I'm going to start it over with normal DMC and give it to her for her birthday. I have some little bitty projects dotted among the large projects and I want to clear those up. Partly because I still want to do my traditional new-start for the year (not sure what yet) and partly because my mother wants me to stitch a couple of birth sign charts for a niece and nephew who are both turning 13 next year. So I'm going to go through all of my projects (yet again!) and sort out what I really want to do, and what I really feel I need to do. I'm working on a very cute cat design for Jeremy for his birthday at the moment; we'll see how that goes.

Reading:

I'm picking away at Antony and Cleopatra by Colleen McCullough, the last in her Masters of Rome series. It's very good, but very detailed, so I've started The Mesmerist by Barbara Ewing as light relief; and have some Star Trek: Voyager novels as well, for when my brain is *really* tired. I seem to be getting past the chick-lit as escapism stage, and moving on to things like Voyager and CSI novels. Hrm ...

I'm also planning to start another blog next year; for reading. Well, specific reading. I have a list of 12 classic novels _ in a variety of genres _ and my plan/hope/goal is to read one a month. I haven't set the blog up yet, but I'm thinking of calling it book zoo, to tie in with this place. I'm starting the year with Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. It's an idea I've been kicking around for a while, and now I've finally decided to do it.

Life/weight/writing:

The what now?

That's all I have.

100!

This, apparently, is my 100th post. I'm guessing I don't get a telegram from the Queen, but there should be some kind of reward, right?
Yes, I'm still in one piece. The midwife came on Tuesday, and baby's heartbeat is fine, my blood pressure is fine, so it really is just a waiting game now. I'm having my next appointment at the hospital on Monday so they can monitor activity and things a bit closer than B just using the doppler to listen to the heartbeat and we'll go from there. We're both getting VERY good at finding stuff to fill in the empty space at the moment. I keep telling myself I should enjoy it while I can but goshdarnit I'm ready to meet this baby!
On the other hand, I've been able to sell some stuff on Trade Me, and I've made some real progress on the Iris picture for my friend's wedding, so will hopefully have it finished and framed before The Big Day in August.
I actually want to give it to them before The Big Day. Otherwise it's going to get lost in amongst the flurry of the day and I want her to be able to enjoy it properly. And fulsomely praise me, obviously, for all my hard work.
I've also been reading a fair bit and I'm halfway through The Children of Hurin, which I got from work to review. I really must get on to it and finish it so I can do a timely review. I'm also re-reading The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub; haven't read it for years! That's it. That's the sum total of my days at the moment. I really am going to do a post of just cat pictures!!!!!