I made a pumpkin out of stash quilting fabric from a free pattern I found online, and I’m really pleased. It turned out very cute. I’ve been wanting to make some of these for years, but never got around to it. I’m going to make it some friends in different sizes.

Here it is sunning itself on the top step.

PS: I am not buying those insanely expensive shoes from England. If anyone sees any dyeable vintage-style white/ivory shoes, let me know. I’m planning to dye my dress and shoes after the wedding so I can keep wearing them.

I think I’ve found the perfect shoes. They’re made by Harriet Wilde in the UK and with currency conversion would cost about $320. *sob* Shipping to the US is a mere £40. Waaaaahhhh.

I couldn’t help myself. I emailed to see if they would even be able to ship in time.

As if the baby wasn’t enough, me and Jag are in the midst of planning a very small, immediate-family-only wedding four weeks from now. We have an officiant and a location, my dress is ordered, and the honeymoon reservations are made, but we’re still working on pinning down the plans for dinner, cake, flowers, and photography. And oh yeah, we still need marriage licenses, and our jeweler, who is in the midst of making my custom engagement/wedding ring set, keeps pushing back the date it will be ready, which is stressing me out to no end. I also still need to find shoes that will look right with my vintage-y 20s style dress. (I think you have to female to understand that the shoe thing is almost as panic-inducing as the other stuff.)

Jag took some pictures of the location, the historic McCown-Mangum house at West Point on the Eno. This is the room where the ceremony will happen. I think it’s lovely. With luck, the trees will still have some nice colorful foliage and we’ll get some good outdoor shots as well.

We got to hear The Bean’s heartbeat today; the bpm was down into the 150s, which is a good sign, as the heartbeat starts high in the early stages of growth and slows down to 120-140 at full term. (It was 171 at the 12-week ultrasound, which was a little on the high side). My blood pressure is still normal and everything seems to be going just fine. Monday after next, we’ll have the Level II anatomical ultrasound and most likely get a confirmation of the gender, as well as a good long look at The Bean. A couple weeks after that we’ll spring for one of the non-diagnostic 3D/4D ultrasounds to get an even better look. 🙂

One unexpected side effect of pregnancy is that despite getting over the morning sickness, I just can’t eat much food at one time. I haven’t put on any weight so far; I’m still 5lbs lighter than my pre-pregnancy weight! I ate about 1/8 of a chimichanga at Bandito’s last night, and tonight I ate about 6 spoonfuls of chili before I felt like I was going to barf. It looks like lots of small meals will be the way to go. And doggie bags from restaurants!

This was a very busy and tiring but ultimately productive weekend.

On Saturday, we got ready, ate, fed Miranda, and managed to leave the house before 9 to drive to Raleigh to pick up the cargo van we’d rented to haul the last of the trash and junk from my old townhouse. Once again, I got to drive the giant van! Whee! We drove to my old place and loaded up the van with about 25 bags of garbage, my old rusty deck furniture, gross old litterboxes, and other assorted junk. We managed to fit everything into one load and headed for the dump. When we got there, the long line of waiting cars was a bad sign, but it wasn’t until I’d finally backed the van into a spot near the compactor that the operators bothered to tell us that the equipment was down and wouldn’t be running again for at least an hour and a half. Great.

At this point it was about 11, so we got back on the road and called my parents to invite them to lunch nearby. We stopped at Kohl’s to buy me a few belts to hold up my still slightly too big maternity jeans, and then ate a nice lunch at Courtney’s with my mom and dad. It was around 12:30 by this point, so we drove back to the dump for attempt #2 at emptying the van. We were greeted once again by a long line of cars, but this time people were busily flinging stuff into the compactor, so we settled in to wait our turn. Once a spot freed up, we unloaded the van in record time and headed back to the car rental place. We squeaked in just before the 2pm closing.

After that, we headed back to my old place to fill up my car with stuff to take home and for Goodwill, and made a long trip home via Goodwill, Barnes & Noble (for magazines), Earth Fare (for Miranda’s favorite cat food) and then to ATC, where Jag had left his car overnight so we could drive to Geek Beer together the night before. We drove home separately; I stopped at the grocery store and Jag stopped at a friend’s house to drop off a little gift, and then we collapsed at home. I was in bed by 9:30.

Today I filled up some plastic storage bins with quilting fabric as part of the Great Craft Room to Nursery Conversion Project, then spent several hours in the study cleaning out filing cabinets and shredding old bills and checks from as far back as the mid-90s. I had to empty the shredder bin 4 times, and I’m not even close to done yet. On the positive side, once I’m finished I’ll finally be able to unpack my boxes of office supplies and financial records and clear up more space to move in all the crafting stuff.

The weekend wasn’t all bad; we took a nice walk this morning, and I gathered a handful of adorable tiny green acorns to put around my fairy door.

I had been craving donuts all morning, so after our walk I drove us to the only Dunkin Donuts in Durham (all the way down at Erwin Terrace) and sent poor Jag in to get my fix (I hadn’t showered yet!).

Mmmm, vanilla creme.

I had planned on making something nice for dinner, but in the late afternoon I started jonesing for good french fries with mayonnaise (I know, very healthy cravings here), so we jumped into the car again and headed down to The Federal. I got my usual, pork carnitas, and, um, a side of fries. At least the pico, guac and lettuce weren’t too bad for me.

Tonight for dinner I made homemade beef and cheese chimichangas. They turned out very yummy, but the first two just about exploded due to overfilling and me not preheating/moistening the tortillas enough to keep them from cracking. Keep this advice in mind for all of your upcoming chimichanga projects.

I ordered some maternity capri jeans and regular jeans from Old Navy’s online store this weekend; they had a sale going on and I really needed to get some more comfortable pants to wear, since everything I own is ranging from painfully to uncomfortably tight these days. These jeans ride low and have wide elastic all around without any kind of a front panel, so they can be worn for all 9 months. They have a fake fly so you don’t look like Weird Elastic Pants Woman, and OMG they are so so comfortable. I can’t wait to start wearing these tomorrow, no more tummy aches due to tight waistbands!

Today turned out to be a pretty good day despite me being home recovering from some very unfortunate non-pregnancy-related tummy issues (I am eyeing your tacos al pastor and carnitas with suspicion, Chubby’s Tacos on 9th Street!).

This morning I got a call from the genetic counselor at Duke, with some great news about the nuchal translucency ultrasound and quad screen blood test we had done last week. Everything was in normal range, and the chances of the most common genetic problems are now estimated at below 0.17%, which is pretty awesome for an old chick like me.

However, the chances of the baby looking like Strongbad are apparently closer to 99%.

I’m now into the 13th week of being preggers, which is either the last week of the 1st trimester or the first week of the 2nd, depending on which web sites you read. Either way, I feel extremely fortunate that things have been going so well for so long during an unplanned first pregnancy at the age of 37. It’s about 3 weeks until my next appointment, so we’ll just have to think happy Thorbean(a) Monsterbeard thoughts until we get to hear the heartbeat again on the 25th.

I’ve been very slowly knitting on my Carol’s Clever Little Shawl and it’s now maybe 1/4 done. This is about all the knitting I’ve managed in the past few weeks.

I spent this afternoon laying on the couch, watching episodes of “Birth Day” on Discovery Health and getting weepy. I am so very lame.

Today I’m supposed to be at 12 weeks, 2 days. However, at today’s diagnostic ultrasound, The Bean once again measured large, at 13 weeks, 4 days, which is now nine days ahead of my original due date. I’m going to have a chat with the doctor at my next visit about whether we need to move me up a week!

Here’s the latest image of The Bean at 12 (or is it 13?) weeks, in profile:

While the sonography tech was viewing the baby from every which angle to take various measurements, Jag noticed something poking out in one particular area. The tech very obligingly did a little extra imaging, and while it’s still really too early to be sure, she told us that we have a 70% chance of a little boy Bean, based on her findings. See marked area below (the tech did the labelling, not us!):

This weekend I finished spinning 4-5oz of Merino that I had planned to spin for the Tour de Fleece before that whole project got derailed by the unexpected appearance of The Bean. For those into food size comparisons, the Bean, formerly the size of a fig, will be the size of a lime this coming week, aka week 12, the last week of the first trimester. Whew! (My tummy has been feeling steadily better, although the constant fatigue/intense sleepiness is still a real issue.)

I used this:

To spin these low-twist thick and thin singles with the intention of making some faux Mmmmmalabrigo.

This stuff was so incredibly soft and squooshy I could barely keep my hands off it. Here’s how it looked when not under tension, all sproingy and puffy.

I shocked and fulled it to within an inch of its life, and it’s currently hanging up to dry. I’m very interested in comparing the before and after pictures, since it looks very different now.

I briefly thought about making some kind of baby thing with it, since it’s so amazingly soft, but even I’m not insane enough to use mega-feltable Merino for baby stuff, so I think this will be a Crofter’s Cowl for me. The pattern calls for Malabrigo and should be a good fit for the yarn.

…including this giant 9×13 chicken noodle casserole I made on Monday because I was uncontrollably craving chicken noodle casserole. I don’t think I’ve ever made chicken noodle casserole before and haven’t made a habit of eating it, but I sure wanted some earlier this week, created in the traditional manner with 2 kinds of Cream of Glop Soup (low-fat!), sour cream (low-fat!), egg noodles, poached chicken breast, lots of peas and carrots and a crunchy topping that might have used up most of a stick of butter (not low-fat!).

Luckily it turned out well and Jag loved it enough for 3 meals. We polished it off this evening. *erp.* We will miss you, chicken noodle casserole.

I haven’t been blogging much because I have been totally exhausted in the evenings and just want to get dinner eaten and cleaned up, get the Mirandakitty fed, and then head to bed at 9 after a little while poking around online. At least I’m mostly through the nauseous stage! To fill the blogging void, here are some cute pictures of one of Perl’s common morning routines whenever I’m having cereal, yogurt, or anything else that contains any type of dairy.

Step 1: The Giant Pleading Eyeballs of Ultimate Cuteness

Step 2: Paws on the Chair, Eyes on the Prize

Step 3: SCORE! (mommy is a sucker)

I seem to have gotten at least some of my spinning and knitting mojo back. I finished plying up around 300 yards of the blue/gray handspun today, which added to the first bobbin of approximately 250 yards, should be enough to make a Carol’s Clever Little Shawl. Here it is in the very early stages.

I’m really happy that you can see the blue color shifts after the yarn is knitted up. It should be a subtle but interesting effect in the shawl.

I’m also at the point where I need to divide the front of the Lutea Lace-Shoulder Shell to start the eponymous lace shoulder bits. I tried it on for the first time today and the fit is fine; I could have gone down a needle size, in fact, but maybe a little extra ease won’t be a bad thing in the next few months.

On another topic that’s occupying my mind this weekend, if someone had told me 3 months ago that I would be rigorously researching the pros and cons of all-in-one, prefold, pocket, and fitted cloth diapers, bookmarking patterns for nursing pads, reading up on swaddling techniques, and comparing different types of baby slings, I’d have told you that you were out of your flipping MIND.

Jag is to blame for this, since he left his copy of The Sagas of Icelanders laying around where I could find it and start reading in total fascination, but the working name for the little bean is Thorbeana for a girl, and Thorbean Monsterbeard for a boy. 😀 (There totally was a historical Thorolf Monster-beard. Icelandic nicknames were the coolest.)