Tuesday 29 January 2008

A random thought...

In book 7, where were Crookshanks and Pig?

I will expand in the comments - don't read the comments unless you have read all 7 Harry Potter books, because there will be at least one fairly significant spoiler in my own comment. If you have read the books, please discuss...

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Saturday 26 January 2008

Jan 25

Jan 25


Graeme went to fifteen for lunch today with work. I got to make my own sandwiches, which I didn't even finish eating because one and a bit sandwiches filled me up. Of course, I was hungry again like an hour later...

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Jan 1-15

Finally catching up on those photos I owe you. As I just wrote in my description of this set on flickr, the real purpose of this exercise is to document my year, more than try and take a masterpiece every day. Though hopefully there'll be a few great photos along the way...

Click through to the photos for more description.

Jan 1-15


1. Jan 1, 2. Jan 2, 3. Jan 3, 4. Jan 4, 5. Jan 5, 6. Jan 6, 7. Jan 7, 8. Jan 8, 9. Jan 9, 10. Jan 10, 11. Jan 11, 12. Jan 12, 13. Jan 13, 14. Jan 14, 15. Jan 15

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Wednesday 23 January 2008

January 16

I do have a photo for every day this year, but for today, you just get to see the 16th, because I got my butt in gear and uploaded those ones. This is another 'Day in the Life' series. Click through to see the full set.

January 16

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21 weeks

I always thought I'd get really into the whole pregnancy thing - taking way too many photos of my growing belly, keeping a journal as soon as I found out, bugging everyone around me with constant talk of the baby, that sort of thing. But so far that hasn't been the case. I was feeling bad about it but I'd still keep putting it off because it felt really dumb to start doing something like that at some random point. Then I decided to start at 20 weeks, you know, kinda the halfway point and on the day it ticked over to 20 weeks I felt like rubbish and didn't want to say anything to anyone, let alone the world at large or this little thing growing inside me. And finally, sometime last week, I realised it really doesn't matter and it's not worth stressing over. Maybe this is part of my attempt to get more prepared for motherhood - I am trying to be a little less of a perfectionist and not let the small things bug me so much. It's a fairly new goal for me, so no real idea how well it'll work out. Anyway, on Sunday, when the little counter thing I have told me I was 21 weeks pregnant, I made Graeme take a photo, and here it is:

21 weeks

We have attempted to take photos before this, but none of them came out that great - at least now we've found a spot in the house to take them...

Uh, yeah, so some random things I am discovering:

Morning sickness can last much longer than you think, especially if you let yourself get hungry or tired, and then, when you finally think it's gone, it can randomly hit you again one day for no apparent reason and you will just chuck your guts up. Thankfully, by this point, you will have become an expert at knowing when your body plans to projectile vomit and can make sure you are in a suitable room.

Your brain simply does not function the way it should. I usually have an awesome memory and some days I forget things 5 minutes after I've heard/read them. Words and sentences do not come out the way you think they should. Everytime I have cut up tomatoes in the last couple months, I have referred to them as strawberries :)

One day, your top (t-shirt, jacket, whatever) will fit. The next day, it won't. The problem won't just be your tummy, but also your boobs, which have suddenly become massive.

Maternity clothes are hard to find, often ugly and usually way too expensive for the fact that they definitely have a limited use. H&M is my new best friend, especially after the sales.

You get really sick of trying to work out how to refer to the baby. 'It' seems way too impersonal, but you don't want to label it with a gender, because then people will assume you know what it is. For the record, we don't plan on finding out the sex, but we still usually refer to it as 'he', since the odds are high that that is what we'll get. Either that, or Squishy :)
"I shall call him squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my squishy!" -Dory in Finding Nemo

The fact that you have passed the first trimester doesn't really do much to alleviate your fears that something will go wrong. Much better are the little kicks that tell you the baby is having a party in your uterus (or, as Graeme said, building extensions), even if it prompts a sudden urge to pee. I am also hanging out for my ultrasound and midwife's appointment next week to get some extra reassurance that everything's fine. I'll also have a picture of Squishy to show you then.

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Wednesday 16 January 2008

OK, so...

I have my new computer. Yay.
Unfortunately, I am still going through the process of getting things the way I like them - installing all the programs, trying to decide what needs to get copied across and what can just stay on backups, starting to do stuff and realising I don't have the files or programs I need in order to do it, getting annoyed with it all and having to just put the computer down and not look at it for a couple of hours. I really want to start all my file sorting and whatnot off right on this computer, because my last one was a bit of a mess, which means even copying my data back across seems to take ages. My to do list keeps growing rather than shrinking.

I have been taking photos every day, but I haven't viewed any of them other than on the camera's LCD, so some of them are likely pretty awful, since the weather has been miserable, there's hardly any natural light and I haven't been doing all that much so most of them have been taken in and around the house.

Anyway, while you're all waiting for me to do a proper update, you can do something to help me out. Send me an email to kate [at] kateandgraeme [dot] com and include as much of the following as you're happy for me to have:

Your name (AND your screenname, if that's how I know you)
Your postal address
Your contact numbers
Your birthday and the birthdays of the rest of your family (year too, if you're willing)
Anything else you really think I should know?

Through moving and not staying on top of things and all that, I have lost (or never had) some of these details for a large number of people and I feel the need to rectify that. So I want to start pretty much from scratch. If you are reading this, I want to know this stuff, ok? I don't want to make promises I can't keep, but I would like to become one of those people who actually sends out proper mail and birthday cards and stuff again - I rely too much on email and it's just not as personal. If you like mail, send me your details. Oh, and if you are related to me and want to send details of other people I should know about, that'd be cool too.

OK, back to getting this computer doing what it should.

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Tuesday 1 January 2008

Almost 2008...

still alive...

My computer sucks too much right now to spend much time on it. We re-installed Windows and Graeme did some thing where he told it to avoid the dodgy bit of the hard-drive so it isn't crashing anymore. But it isn't doing much else either, since I don't want to go to the effort of setting it back up properly when my new computer has been ordered, plus it'll probably explode if I ask it to do too much.

What this means:
  • I never sent out Christmas cards - the outside bits are made, but I never got around to finishing and printing the thing for inside.
  • I still haven't typed up a report on our trip to Italy.
  • I can't edit/sort/upload any photos, because they're all being stored elsewhere (thus the pretty Paint picture above).
  • I've been spending way too much time playing Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii.

The only thing of interest I really have to tell you is that I plan on attempting to take and share at least one photo every day in 2008. I tell you this to make myself more accountable. Of course, you won't know if I'm actually doing it until I can show you evidence, which according to Dell should be in about a week and a half. Hopefully, that'll also make me take some fat pregnant belly shots.

Oh, and if you're paying attention to the date and time of this post, you'll notice it's not far off 2008. We're totally boring and staying home, which is where we've spent most of Graeme's week and a half of holidays. It's been great.

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