I'm a little late to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Whoops! So, instead I'll jump the gun and wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year, and a great Year of the Rabbit. Haha!
Not a whole lot for me to report craft-wise. I've been busy getting some stuff ready that I'll hopefully get to talk about in another post once everything is officially settled. I do intend to get back to crafting very soon though. I've gotten back to that blanket that needs finishing, and I'm making it my goal to get it done before the end of Feb.
As I'm typing this, Jamie is resting on the couch re-watching Battlestar Galactica, and it's a bit distracting. He's getting over some sort of stomach bug, so I've been doing a little cooking. I made a potato soup thinking that it would be fine for him, but he didn't seem interested in the end. Oh well. More for me! I also made some really insane cookies.
They look pretty innocuous, but don't be fooled. They are actually 3 cookies in 1. Observe what happens when you cut it open.
Forgive the blurry photo, but you'll notice that nestled within the chocolate chip cookie dough is an Oreo cookie. I ate one after they were baked, and seriously don't think I could handle eating more than one or two a day, they are that rich and powerful. But man, are they yummy cookies!
Now I'm off to check up on the little man. I put him to bed a little while ago, but I know he wasn't asleep. Can you believe he's already 9 months old?! Here's a couple shots of him that we took fairly recently.
He actually enjoys banging at the piano quite a lot. We'll see if he actually wants to take piano lessons when he's older.
Feeding himself is not something he's very good at just yet.
Being a cutie while trying to look serious.
Can't wait to see what else he gets up to in the next little while!
Well, in answer to the lovely Alice's question that she left me in the last post, no baby yet but we're still waiting patiently. Sorta. Going for an ultrasound tomorrow, which will be officially 1 week overdue, just to make sure things are still okay. If things are starting to look risky, I could very well be induced right there. Yikes! While I've got my bag packed, I think I'm going to have to pack another bag of things to help pass the time, just in case. Also need to pack a variety of snacks; hubby's only got one type of granola bar packed, and I think I might want more of a variety. Guess we're coming down to the wire.
To pass the time this weekend, I made my first non-knit, non-crochet plushie since grade 7/8 sewing class.
In a conversation with Jamie, we thought it would be nice idea to make one of those for Baby. After all, what parent wouldn't want their kid to have an extra life stashed away somewhere just in case? I made it out of felt and sewed the whole thing by hand. No real pattern - just sketched out a 1-up mushroom, cut out pieces accordingly, and just gave it a go. I have to say that making these little guys is kinda addictive. Here are some photos so you can get a sense of scale, and see the front and back.
I've got some red felt as well, so Jamie and I were debating the merits of making a red mushroom too. I wasn't so sure about it; after all, wouldn't that be like wanting Baby to grow up in an instant? But Jamie pointed out that it would also mean that if Baby got dinged by anything, it wouldn't be an instant Game Over. Haha! What silly discussions we have. What do you all think?
In addition to making plushies, I did some baking this weekend too.
Honey Cranberry Cornmeal Quick Loaf, as suggested to me by my good friend Becky. I froze the whole lot of it so that I can eat it after Baby is born. Yum!
I've been really wanting to put in some serious time on that baby blanket for my friend Carolyn, but have hit an unfortunate road block. I'm finding that crocheting is seriously aggravating the usually mild, pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel syndrome that I've developed. Argh! I can get a border on about half a square before my right wrist feels like it's on fire. Somehow, knitting doesn't produce the same effects. Must be the way I hold my crochet hook. Sigh. I've only got about 7 squares done, there's still a whole whack to go, and the clock is a-ticking.
Baby is now officially 2 days overdue, which means that I am in need of things to do to pass the time while we wait. I know it sounds like I should be getting lots of knitting and crocheting done, but that hasn't been the case. For one thing, Jamie and I have been going on walks to see if we can get labour going. And these aren't just little walks either; they're 4 hour epics which render me quite tired by the end of it. Still, I'm not going to complain because I do get some nice contractions while we're walking. I'm happy that he's accompanying me on these treks since it can't be a picnic for him to do that much walking either. Sure, he's not carrying a watermelon around with him 24/7, but he rarely does that much walking in a day.
On one of these walks, we decided to go to High Park, which is not too far from where we live. It was a good thing we decided to do that because we were able to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom.
We'd been by that same way about 3 weeks prior, and there was nothing on the trees at all. I called my parents to let them know about it. They had recently gone to Japan in the hopes of catching some cherry blossoms there, but didn't have much luck. So, they were quite happy to see these ones.
Seeing these reminded me of cotton candy. Mmm...cotton candy...
And this is me playing with the macro mode on my camera. The flowers are quite pretty though.
Still with the idea of trying to keep the contractions coming, I decided that the more time I spend standing at home, the better. It's been the case that as long as I'm on my feet, I get more contractions. Since it's not that convenient to knit/crochet while standing, I've been baking. That might seem weird since I was diagnosed with impaired glucose tolerance in my third trimester (which basically means I eat like a diabetic, but don't take insulin), but I enjoy it, so I decided to do it anyway.
I recently attempted a new recipe for double chocolate cookies that starts with cake mix. I usually don't use cake mix for anything, but it was sitting in the cupboard, so I just felt I should use it up. Plus it saved me from having to make a trip out to the grocery store to pick up missing ingredients. Having no experience with making cookies from cake mix, I wasn't sure how they'd turn out.
I'm guessing this is what I should have ended up with.
However, thanks to my idiocy, this is what I ended up with.
I really should have taken a picture when they'd just come out of the oven, before I separated them all. It was a solid sheet of cookie, and seriously looked pretty ridiculous. I fail, really I do. Still, I sent Jamie to work with the lot of them, and from the sounds of it, they were quite popular. Lesson learned. Next time, I will make the cookies smaller, or put more space between them. Sigh.
