10 Nov 2009 | 9:20am

The shall-we-find-out-the-gender issue resolved itself when the baby refused to flash us in either anatomy scan. At least in the second scan yesterday morning it had moved/grown enough to allow verification of all the important stuff that was hidden in the first, so it appears we have a healthy (if mysterious and awkward) baby.

At one point the tech did say "I think it's a boy... no, wait... no, I really wouldn't like to say" so our current view is likely-though-not-necessarily a son. I think JSR is a little disappointed not to find out, and my Mum certainly is, but I still don't mind either way. It will all be revealed eventually!

My belly is getting round now, and starting to feel quite awkward, in a pleasantly bumbling way. I'm generally feeling very good, with only minor niggles that may not even be pregnancy-related (and a few bizarre things, like feeling really uncomfortable breathing in steamy air and hating the smell of bath towels - showering is not the best part of my day).

We're coming up on 24 weeks, which is just over half-way between when we found out and when the baby should arrive. I am so impatient, it feels like we've already been waiting forever. But the next couple of months will be very busy for N&B, and after that I'll be preparing as much new work as I can ahead of time, so at least I have tasks to occupy me.

06 Oct 2009 | 5:52pm

Baby percolation proceeds apace, 18 weeks now. It is brilliant not to feel sick any more - I've had a few random smell-triggered incidents, but I'll take a sudden hwarf over constant nausea any day. I haven't had the second trimester burst of energy yet and still need a lot of long sleeps and naps, but let's face it, I wasn't a jumping bean to start with :)

My belly is definitely growing now. Quickly. It's going to be crazy in another five months! I will be the blorpiest of the seal pups. I'm starting to feel a little movement as well, no defined kicks just yet but I get little flutters and waves, particularly when I'm lying in bed at night.

We have our anatomy scan at the end of next week. I still can't decide if I want to know the gender or not, though JSR does, and maybe + yes = yes so I expect we will ask. I have no preference, but find myself assuming it's a girl, and would not want to ingrain that for six months and then be wrong. (We had enough trouble mentally re-gendering Monty the kitten after four days!)

Speaking of the kittens, they are getting so big I feel I ought to call them cattens. They are goblin babies, but their purrs and soft fur make up for every shred of naughtiness.

In other news, it was our 10-year anniversary last Saturday which makes me very happy. We don't make a big deal of anniversaries, but I like to remember the date and be extra smooshy and think about how lucky we are. We were invited to a dinner with friends that night, so we celebrated by consuming delicious schnitzels at Der Metz. Ah! I am looking forward to the next ten!

13 Aug 2009 | 10:28am

We had a scare this week when I started bleeding on Tuesday. It was fairly light and didn't last long, but still very worrying.

Fortunately an ultrasound this morning did not find any problems. The baby measures just the right size, it has a good heartbeat, and it WIGGLED. They looked all around and couldn't see any reason for me to be bleeding, apparently it just happens sometimes.

I got a little teary at the movement; last time we saw in there it was just a floating bean and now it has a head and arms and jumps about. The next scan is in two weeks and that's going to be another big leap. I have been looking at development pictures online and the growth rate is crazy, like one day the baby has nubbinstumps on the end of its arms and three days later it has perfect, fully formed hands.

Thinking about having a wriggly mouse in my belly is still very strange indeed.

29 Jul 2009 | 8:00pm

I'm gestating! Bean emerges March 2010.

So so so happy.

10 Jun 2009 | 1:58pm

( Clearing out my perfume box again - Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, Arcana, Possets, Cobalt Blends, Nocturne Alchemy & more for sale )

04 Apr 2009 | 6:46pm

If events go to plan we should be moving rather soon, so I have more things to give away (or send to you for cost of postage). Quick pickups are appreciated so I can get this stuff out of the way, though I will hold things for a wee while on request :)

( Magazines & cardboard )

Also, if you claimed something from my last post and haven't picked it up or sent me an address yet please let me know if you're still keen or not!

26 Mar 2009 | 4:40pm

Our apartment is suddenly on the market, and we're preparing to move - possibly even twice, if we need to rent temporarily before we buy a house - so I'm clearing out as much as I can.

All this stuff is FREE for the taking if you come and pick it up ASAP. I'm also happy to send it to you for cost of postage. Anything that doesn't go in the next day or two we'll be taking to an op shop or something.

( all gone )

Speaking of donations, does anyone know who might have use for a bunch of old towels (with fraying, bleached spots, etc) - they're not good enough for an op shop, but I was thinking perhaps an animal shelter might be interested?

21 Mar 2009 | 8:14pm

I think some people missed my move to writing over on Nut and Bee, so here is a quick reminder :)

Tags of recent interest include wedding and tokyo; plus I post my drawings and other bits and pieces there regularly.

There's RSS if you're so inclined!

(The content is also syndicated at nutandbeefeed, but if you're going to use that then please don't leave comments there! I can't get those comments mailed to me, so I tend to miss them; it splits discussion between two sites which is a bit messy; and most importantly LiveJournal only stores the most recent entries for syndicated feeds, so the comments disappear forever after a couple of weeks. Frankly I wish LJ would improve the way RSS feeds are handled, or do away with them, but I don't see either option happening. I could block them from syndicating my content, but I don't want to annoy anyone :/)

22 Feb 2009 | 9:37pm

We are married now!

We won’t have the professional photos until we get back from honeymoon, but this is one taken by fishie. I’ll write a full post about the wedding later on - it has been an exhausting day - but it was a lovely ceremony and we are very happy :)

25 Jan 2009 | 4:08pm

I've decided it's time to integrate my blog and website, so from now on I'm going to be posting all my blog entries and the Sketchbook Sweeties over on Nut and Bee. I've made a nifty new Wordpress-based site with comments and all that fancy stuff!

I'm keeping this LiveJournal for occasional personal use but won't be posting much here, so please follow my main site if you'd like to keep up with me :)

I'd highly recommend using the RSS feed for convenience! If you're already reading this through an RSS reader please change it to the new feed URL: http://www.nutandbee.com/feed/rss2/

P.S. andricongirl has made nutandbeefeed, which is the content from the new site fed back to LJ. It might be convenient for some of you, though please note that I will not see any comments left there. Also the formatting is unruly and it's generating some links that don't exist. (I wish LJ would fix the way they handle feeds, but that's a topic for another day!)