Well after weeks of waiting we can now tell you - although I’m fairly certain most of you know already. Jamie and me are expecting our first baby; due 26th March 2008. We are very excited. We’re also very excited to finally be able to tell people. We had our 13 week scan yesterday and all is well.
We are hoping for a girl, but really if we get a boy we won’t mind - although some quarters are now taking bets on this! Copy of the scan will be added later. See above for the ticker tape that will keep track of progress for the coming months.
Inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre in the Philippines perform dance routines as part of their morning exericse. Below is the video of them dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller. They have done many other routines including the Village People’s YMCA. The dancing is part of their exercise because it apparently helps to control behaviour. So successful is this form of exercise that two former inmates have gone on to become professional dancers.
I was feeling pretty clever when I pre-ordered it on Amazon. Afterall, that’s what I did for the previous book in the series. Of course, I forgot that when you live in England you get post on Saturday mornings, so you have your much-awaited book to read over the weekend.
I live in Ireland now. We don’t get post on Saturday. Not only that, but it seems I didn’t pre-order early enough since my copy was only dispatched yesterday!!! Come on people!
It was all made worse by walking into eason’s yesterday where there are endless copies piled high. Taunting me.
Friends who relied on local bookstores for their copy have not only got it but finished reading it and I haven’t even received my very own copy! I feel silly and left out now.
Being optimistic the earliest I can expect my copy would be tomorrow - that’s being optimistic!!! And I work from home. How will I control myself? How will I focus on my job, when the book is sitting on the hall table, calling to me.
I should have bought it in easons on Saturday. would it really have been that silly - at least I’d know what happens and wouldn’t feel so tortured.
Yesterday was a lovely sunny evening, and Jay and I maximised it.
After work I went for a swim at Castlepark beach. To say it was refreshing would be an understatement; that water was cold, but I’m still glad I went for the swim. After sitting on the beach for a while, we got freshly picked gooseberries from Jay’s Mum. Then we went home and had a BBQ.
After the BBQ I staked my sunflowers. They have all now been replanted; some to a bed in the garden, others to various boxes and pots. They are doing really well after early wories that I may have killed tham following weeks of torture in pots far too small. I think I even spotted a flower bud on one this morning! I have also replanted the redcurrant plant which is thriving in its new home. I do feel that my mini trailing petunias are suffering in their pot - they just don’t look as healthy as they used to and the leaves look all bitten but I can’t find what’s eating them. To give everything a boost I sprayed them all with Miracle grow last night. Let’s see what happens.
I definitely think we need a few more sunny days and sunny evenings!
Update: It is with some embarrassment that I admit that the ‘flower bud’ I saw this morning on one of my sunflowers, was in fact a spider, making a little nest for herself. I sorted her out, though. I also sorted out that giant bloody slug that thought he was moving into my window box of sunflowers too - over the wall with him!
Congratulations to Jamie, who’s entry to the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind Calendar Competition has been selected for the 2008 calendar. This will be Jamie’s first published photograph and it is well deserved. Well done, babe!
We have booked a holiday for the summer. It is very exciting as this will be our first foreign holiday in 4 years
We are not counting trips from england to Ireland as foreign, or holidays; since it’s not that far and we were coming home to see family, friends and organise a wedding. This is a proper holiday - you know, a getting-away-from-it-all type holiday.
We’re heading to Tobago in September. Don’t ask me how we chose Tobago out of all the places in the Caribbean; I leave these things to Jamie as there’s usually more he wants to get out of a trip than me. It would be unfair to say he’s picky, but all I’m looking for a is a beach for swimming and sitting on while reading, which is convienently located for the bar. Jamie, on the other hand, likes activities. We will be snorkelling, maybe a sailing trip or two and getting photos of all the tropical birds on the Island - and apparently it is quite unspoilt.
We booked it through these guys, as they are apparently the experts on the caribbean in Ireland. What a cushty job that is. The on-hold recording tells you that all of their advisors have personally inspected all of the destinations and accomodations they offer. By the time I got through I wanted to apply for a job, not boko a holiday.
No doubt there will be blog posts and phtotos on our return. Wahoo!
When writing a blog post I often find myself searching for related articles, you know, things that might help the understanding of the story or add credence to something a little strange.
While writing one post earlier today, unbelievable as this may sound, I searched for related articles and I came across this forum.
AppleInsider is apparently a forum area for MAC users. So here’s a bunch of (I gathered from references) male MAC users talking about poo! Regularity, consistency, timing, you name it!! I do have to admit that there were parts I was reading and I was just crying with laughter but almost the funniest thing is that these grown men continually referred to it as poo and at one stage some guy called it #2’s.
Does this make me a hypocrite now? Aren’t girls supposed to use the politer terms for these things, but men are rough, hardy souls whose terminology is also on the rougher/cruder side?
I’m not going to worry about it, I’m going back to my sofa.
I feel like a BBC 2 programme with these sorts of posts, which is not a good thing for a woman of my young years. But I am very excited about our new house (and the garden).
We’ve rented in apartment-land for so long that it’s great to have the extra space and comfort of a whole house. We’ve also rented the new place unfurnished so we now own some nice bits of furniture, and will continue to add to our collection over time. Despite the fact that there are only two of us in a three-bedroom house, we’ve managed to fill up all the spaces - mainly with junk and boxes we are too lazy to unpack. Most of those unpacked boxes are filled with books and we have no bookcases. Although, I imagine to store our collection we would require a room of wall-to-wall book cases (MGB knows where I’m coming from). To date we have bought a bed from Swan Beds, a kitchen table and chairs from Whites on North Main Street and 2 sofas from Caseys on Oliver Plunkett Street. I’m hoping that this shameless plugging of local businesses will earn me a discount the next time I go in (note for locals and Limerick people: Caseys are beginning their Summer Sales this Thursday, June 14th). A thumbnail of one of our sofas is to the left, more photos of the interior of the house can be found here.
The other joy about our new abode is the garden! Especially on sunny days when you have a private space to sit and enjoy the sunsine, with a glass of wine and some BBQ! As an update to a previous post about gardening I have some pictures of the plants I’ve been killinggrowing.
This (left) is my ‘Money’ plant (known as Jade plant. I get pretty impatient about these things and in the last 7 days have not witness nay progress so believe that the thing is dying. Although there are no obvious signs of death on this plant, so I’m trying to be positive. These (right) are my Giant Sunflowers. They have reacted very well to the rain the last few days, so I must now be the only person in Ireland who is happy that it’s forecasted to rain for the rest of the week. The rain is doing good for my plants, it takes the pressure off me when I can blame external forces for any potential failures here. I also have some Evening Sun sunflowers, Teddy Bear sunflowers and some kind of dwarf sunflower. At this stage they all look the same except, as might be expected, the Giant sunflowers are somewhat taller and bigger.
I have been informed that the large bush in this pot is an ‘ornamental’ redcurrent plant. The most disappointing thing about this piece of news is that I am not going to get nice red berries which will make the plant look even prettier. It may not be clear in the photo but the leaves at the top have a nice redish tinge to them. And here is a close-up of the pretty mini trailing petunias that I bought in B&Q. There are also some herbs but I’m fairly certain that the chives are going to die soon (they and the parsley got severly water-logged before I managed to get them repotted) and only 2 small bits of parsely have survived so far, so I’m not holding out great hope for them. It’s kind of embarrassing since chives and parsley are some of the easiest herbs to grow and herbs are some of the easiest plants to grow.
This is one of those things that Jamie won’t allow me to tell him so, inappropriate and all as it may be, I am putting it here. I’m sure others have had similar experiences and may want to share; this could even turn ito a little online support group!
For those of you with a sensitive disposition, I am giving you fair warning, turn away now!
About a week or so ago I threw together this little salad. It was one of those really hot days and it was a nice, light meal for the evening; something just a little different. Anyway about two days later during my regular morning visit to the toilet (my father refers to this room as ‘The House of Horrors’; that has always amused me), something was amiss. I was startled to find a purple colour staining in the loo!!! I know, this is shocking - there wasn’t that much beetroot in the salad. Ok, I did have beetroot in my sandwich for lunch the next day but I thought it took copious quantities for it to change the colour of your p**. And anyway, doesn’t it change the colour of your #1’s not your #2’s?
I have looked this up - there are no definitive articles by healthcare professionals but it is widely known that beetroot can effect either #1’s or #2’s!
Jamie finds it distrubing that I noticed this at all, because he can’t understand why I would look into the loo after doing anything. I have explained to him that it’s a basic healthcheck thing. Apparently, he never does this; I find this worrying!
