Gracie’s Life Experiment

Ok, so today was my day off so I thought I’d relieve the boredom by baking something.  I decided to make some flapjacks.   So after a quick look on the internet at the items that I would need I concluded that I had most of the stuff required.  Into the pan went some oil, butter, golden syrup, brown sugar and some chocolate (I had 1/2 a bar of Dark Choc & Orange from Hotel Chocolat - yummy).  Into the bowl went enough oats to do one tray and a selection of random stale biscuit crumbs (forgot to put the lid on the biscuit barrel properly leading to soggy digestives and rich teas).  Mixed it all together, kind of looked about right, spooned it onto the tray and pressed it all down.  Baked it.  Hmm it doesn’t seem to be melting at all and the edges are going black.  Decide to add a bit of water to get the oats to swell a bit and hopefully stick together.  10 mins later it’s still not looking right.  Take it out of the oven and tip the contents back into the mixing bowl (carefully snapping off the burnt edges and giving these to the dog).  Hmm it now looks a bit like flapjacks but isn’t sticky enough so I add some more golden syrup and some margarine.  Bake it all again.  Looks right this time.  Pour a layer of melted chocolate on top.  Leave to cool.  Come back an hr later and it looks right but I try and cut it up and find it’s still a bit crumbly.  Ah well it tasted OK - think needs copious amounts of butter to work (either that or some superglue).

Summary of the day;  Caught up with the washing/tidying, Messed up kitchen trying to invent flapjacks, Made tonkatsu for dinner (at least I can get that right)

Today I gave my last lecture (well at least for the forseeable future).  I lecture in Human Reliability Assessment and today managed to again more or less recycle my lecture for the 3rd or 4th year running.   Think I must be getting better at explaining what I want them to do as the students didn’t look as confused this time.  It’s a bit sad as I really am on the wind down for maternity leave.  I will really miss doing the research and dealing with the students (even though I moan about it).  I’ll miss being “useful” and will be quite upset when I have to start my career all over again in Oz and have to build a reputation from scratch.  I’ve done it once, hopefully I CAN do it again.  It is a little depressing that I have worked 6 years and am now taking a career break just when everything is taking off and I was in the best position possible.  I’m giving it up willingly though it does make me feel a bit sad.  I’m sure in August once the baby is here then I won’t even think about it (or have time to think about it).

Summary of the day:  Gave 3 hr lecture, Met hubby and friend for lunch (10 mins late), Rushed off to student meeting (5 mins late), Rushed off to meeting with other researchers (30 mins late), Went home (early!!!), Had a nice warm bath, Relaxed

Started rewriting my personal website last night and continued this morning before work (v naughty - didn’t get in till after 10am).  I think I wrote my first website back in 2000.  I don’t think my programming skills have improved much but I am getting better at doing the graphics.  It’s not that I don’t have the skills, but I just haven’t had to program anything for so long I can’t even remember how to start (hang my head in shame)!!   My personal website was created in 2003, originally hosted on brinkster (cos it was free) and last updated in 2005 - hmm a bit out of date as it didn’t even contain stuff about our furry baby Mocha or the wedding!  Also it had… shock horreur… frames.  It’s funny how things go in and out of fashion.  When I was first learning about websites frames were very de rigeur, now they are shunned by almost everyone.  We have our own server at home now so I can load things up nice and quickly and if it breaks hubby will go hit it with a hammer (the official Physicist’s solution) I would prob Ctrl+Alt+Del and reboot.

Summary of the day:  Played with my website, Went to work, Printed out a whole tree’s worth of handouts (I have a lecture to give to 40 students tomoz), Caught up with emails, Lugged all the stuff home, Made an “interesting” potato gratin (somehow it baked for an hr and the potatoes were still a bit raw), Played with website again (doing the boring bit with all the photo galleries).

Today was lovely, until about 3pm.  We went to the carvery for lunch and I think I overate.  My stomach went all tight (not too different from most days) but then it got really uncomfortable.  It felt like my upper stomach area was totally distended.  Decided to have a little lie down and nap, and then the cramps started.  Ouch.   I did start to worry a bit when the cramps came and went - checking the trusty internet I realised I wasn’t in labour at 27 weeks as the cramps were only high up and they weren’t getting longer or more frequent!  I had horrible indigestion too, but decided to hold off on taking Gavison for as long as I could as if I neutralised the acid then I wouldn’t be able to digest properly (and prob make things worse).  In the end hubby made me go have a hot bath - ah, that sorted it out.  How embarrassing would it have been to have gone to hospital and for them to diagnose that I wasn’t having a baby, but just eaten too much!!?

Conclusion is I think I probably had Braxton Hicks mixed with bad indigestion mixed with dehydration mixed with eating too much!  Won’t do that again in a hurry.

Summary of the day:  Played piano in church, Went out to carvery with friends for lunch, Tidied house, Lay down and got pains, Moaned and cried a bit, Ate 3 grapes (felt worse), Had a bath, Felt much better, Redesigned my personal website, Jam on toast for dinner at 10pm

The weather forecast said sunny and 19deg C.  We had friends coming to visit.  Great- let’s have a BBQ.  We usually end up having loads of BBQs all summer (and sometimes through till Oct) as we have a nice garden.  Gave the mutt a haircut (it’s like shearing sheep), gave hubby a haircut.  Then we got to doing a bit of light gardening.  Hubby had already mowed the lawn mid week, but there was a lot of twigs and general debris on the patios. I was armed with the broom and the hoe, hubby got the secateurs and collection duties.  It was quite therapeutic hoeing the beds - they were full of weeds but they come up nice and easily.  Over the next month we’ll start planting out the seedlings into the beds and the garden will be lovely again.  The busy lizzies are almost there (and already starting to grow flower buds).  We sowed some seeds into trays and will see what we get there.  Strawberries have started to flower in the greenhouse already and the tomato plants are about 8″ high already.  The vine had a good year’s growth last year so am hoping for at least one grape to come into fruition before we sell the house.  Have run out of pak choi seeds this year so will have to find some more from my Dad and see if I can score some lettuce or spinach too.  I love summer and growing veggies in the greenhouse.

We had the first BBQ of the year on our newly tidied garden.  Just had 6 of us so didn’t go overboard on the food.  The usual burgers and sausages, but also tried out a new recipe for Indonesian Satay (which was scrummy).  Creamy garlic mushrooms done on the BBQ.  Potato salad, green salad and garlic bread finished off the menu.  It’s lovely eating outside and it was warm yet still with some sun.  Better still we had wonderful company to share it with.  My friend Cat and her new beau Lyn (it’s a Welsh boy’s name) as well as Rach and Lou came over and we had a chilled evening.

Summary of the day:  Woke up, Sheared various family members, Tidied garden, Went for a walkies round Woodhouse, Had a BBQ, Watched Dr Who (oooh Sontarans), Played board games and wii

Today I am in the mother of all rages. From the moment I woke up and realised that hubby had only put 1/2 the recycling out for collection through the making dinner I’ve been so angry. I can’t seem to help myself. First to get the brunt was hubby with the crappy putting out of rubbish and then he left his packed lunch that I made for him the night before at home (we’re trying to save money but he always “accidentally” forgets it so he can buy some junk from his canteen). Then my student was late and he hadn’t really got anything to show as an update. Someone rang me while I was trying to eat lunch. Got home early and started tidying house (we’ve got guests visiting). Spare room was a tip - the bed linen wasn’t on the bed (just piled up in the middle waiting for the magic fairy to make the bed), there was hubby’s archery kit strewn on top of that, a whole pile of A4 folders scattered all over the floor, a rowing machine in the way, a ladder propped across the doorway, various items of clothing (bits of hubby’s work attire), lots of offcuts of polystyrene sheet (I suspect that hubby has cut something out and then left the debris behing), a bag of cables that has split open all over the cupboard floor. I was so angry that I was left to deal with all hubby’s rubbish (he uses it as a dumping ground and never notices when the magic fairy tidies it up) - if I don’t do it he will procrastinate until I get fed up and do it myself. So there I am 6 months pregnant trying to force a rowing machine (bloody heavy), guitar amp and set of ladders into the cupboard, making the double bed and crawling under it to put his archery kit away. Now my back is knackered again. Cleaned the bathroom (lots of bleaching involved). Usually this cleaning malarkey relieves my stress - today everytime I came across something that had been taken out for some reason and never put back I got more and more irate with hubby (y can’t he put things away after himself?). He finally got home and got a massive ear bashing! I think I’m a bit depressed now as I can’t imagine myself as a housewife having to trail round every day tidying up after hubby and baby. Then when dinner was ready he went outside and ignored me telling him it was ready so I served up, brought the plates through and ate by myself! How miserable.

Good news now is I’m over the rage. I think I must have had 6 months’ worth of PMT building up. I played piano for an hour (wonderful stress relief) and then we played Scrabble.

Summary of the day: Grumped!

This week’s 10 things are 10 items I think that we still need to get before baby arrives.

1. Cot sheets
2. Feeding bottles and steriliser
3. Expressing pump
4. Baby bath
5. Baby carrier/sling thing
6. Baby blanket/Sleeping bag
7. Nappy bin
8. Towel/flannel/muslin type things for wiping up stuff
9. Lotions and potions!! (had a look in supermarket and ended up bamboozled by the number of different products - what is the difference between a wash, bath, shampoo, and oil?)
10. Reusable nappies (still unsure whether to get some here, or wait till Oz)

Our nursery is already looking full of stuff. We haven’t really bought anything apart from the travel system and travel cot. People keep giving us handmedown clothes till we have so many now I doubt our baby will need to wear the same outfit more than once before we move to Oz. So note to any friends/family/other well wishers - if you must buy us a gift to welcome baby, please don’t buy clothes!! Also I don’t want a baby shower as I don’t want peple to feel like they have to give us anything - also I would feel bad giving stuff to charity as I’m not paying to export it all to Oz at the end of the year.
 
Summary of the day: Work, Student sessions all afternoon, Gave a piano lesson, Went to Tescos (ah I hate shopping there, but it is a necessity once every month or so).

Something happened last night when I went to bed.  Everything was fine and then suddenly after about 1/2 hr of lying there my back twinged.  Ow!  Then I could hardly move and was stuck like a tortoise on its back.  Couldn’t sleep much and had to wake hubby up to help me out of bed for the usual toilet stop at 4am.  It was so bad I couldn’t even roll sideways.  This morning I just about made it out of bed and propped myself on the sofa, I can roll sideways but only if I breathe in first.  Thankfully I have Wednesdays off so I didn’t have to go to work - I think I couldn’t have even got into the car.  It’s not feeling so bad now but still twinges if I reach for things and I can’t take deep breaths (bugger when u need to take your inhaler) and the twinges put me off my sneezes/belches/coughs half way through.   It really feels like I’ve twisted a muscle in my back at the base of my ribs.  Don’t think it’s baby related, but who knows what with all the changes going on with my spine (I’m pretty sure it didn’t use to bend in at a right angle in my back).  If it’s still painful in the morning I will see if I can get a doctor’s appointment.

Summary of the day:  Cried, whimpered, cried, Got back twinges, Had a shower (got stuck with one leg in and one leg out of the bath and hubby had to help me out), Played on the internet. 

As of today we have 100 days left till the baby’s due.  Of course baby’s don’t actually work like that - I think I read somewhere that only 5% of babies are actually born on their due date.  We’re hoping the baby either comes early (up to 2 weeks) as then hubby will have maximum time with baby - he’s a teacher and term ends in mid July.  Or it would be pretty cool if baby was 1 week late as it could be born on 08/08/08 which would be nice and easy to remember and also very auspicious (our baby will be 1/2 of chinese ancestry and 1/2 of irish ancestry).

I can’t believe it’s been almost 6 months already.  I imagined I would have been a lot bigger/rounder by now and had read all sorts of stories of women getting stuck in bathtubs etc by this stage.  In fact I have quite a bit of bump envy as everyone keeps saying that it isn’t very big yet (it is obviously pregnant looking though).  I’ve put on about 3kg so far (most of that in the last month) and my belly button is still an “inney” (yay - having an “outey” would be downright odd having never had one).  People telling me I look small doesn’t stop me feeling like a whale sometimes.  Ah well, it will only get worse from here.  From what I glean off the ‘net, our baby is approx 3/4 kg and is 36 cm long.

Summary of the day: Woke up late (naughty Shrimp waking me up all night), Had a meeting at work, Did some modelling, Had a reqts brainstorming afternoon, Went home and straight into nice warm bath, Did Sudokus all evening (ah so relaxing)

Today I had an unbelievably full schedule. I had 5 different meetings today at work in 2 different locations (luckily not at the same time). It was a bit depressing opening my Google Calendar to find the day full of colour.

Got home to find my bump really really taught. In the last month or so it gets extremely hard when I’m stressed or busy or trying to walk too fast. Could be something like Braxton Hicks (but it doesn’t hurt). It was particularly bad tonight. It felt like I needed an extra inch or two of skin on my midriff and was itchy like hell.

Summary of the day: Meetings, and yet more meetings! Prodded bump lots, Had a soak to relax.