The third trimester

Winter bump.

So. 7 and a half months pregs. Golly. 

I can safely say that I love being pregnant. Like, love it. Which sort of surprises me. In fact most things about being pregnant have surprised me, mostly (but not entirely) for the better. I'm much more relaxed about everything than I thought I'd be. It's not without its ache's and pains and complications but growing a baby is pretty, well, brilliant. 

What else?

• I am no longer aware of the outer limits of my body. Hence the accidental throwing of hairbrushes, the bumping into door frames, tripping over pavement slabs,  dropping of plates, food, glasses...
• When the wind is whipping my hair around my face, and the rain is soaking my shoes, I love thinking about the bubs, cocooned inside the warmth of my body.
• I'm having to sleep propped up like an old lady.
• It still feels like magic. I'm making a cup of tea, but at the same time  there's a baby in my belly! Applying deodorant, yes, but I'm also growing a human being! Nope, I'm not just walking, I'm also growing another persons ORGANS. 
• Current favourite pregnancy hobby: saying 'Badoing' whilst popping my belly out of my t shirt. Only at home. Ahem...
• The baby is about 42cm long. Which is, quite frankly, unfathomable. 
• I miss running but my achey body seems to love walking, so we've been doing lots of it. Back and forth to our antenatal classes and doctors appointments, to work and back again, around our local park. Time to chew the fat to the rhythm of our feet.  
• I love what this pregnancy has done to our mariage. I cant quite put it in to words, and though it's been tough at times, we've never felt closer, or more like us. 
• If you've ever wondered what pregnancy feels like, its like this......

 

                          ...in your belly. All. The. Time.

P.S My summer bump is here, Autumn bump here (quite a difference between Autumn and winter!)

The blanket. Ongoing.

So, life.

A 50th birthday and my Grandad's funeral in one weekend;  leaving me reeling with mixed emotions. Flying high in the whoosh of a ceilidh, hysterically laughing, blinking away tears during honest, heart wrenching speeches. Feeling full of love for my lovely auntie.

My auntie; the Birthday girl. Rocking 50. 

Me, ceilidhing, unimpressed, apparently!

Then the funeral. Hearing the stories of my Pompa's life; his determination to woo my nanna, and build his business from scratch, in having five children when they really couldn't afford it (!) How he wove music into the very fabric of my family. Old ladies with purple hair, long hugs, old wrinkly hands squeezing mine. Hearing his best friend's respect for him and his heart- breaking grief. Story after story, open mic style, of his life from so many people that loved him.

Leaving me feeling sad and happy and incredibly grateful all at once.

A couple of my Grandad's favourite pieces of  music, played at his funeral. Pretty beautiful.

Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Giuseppe Verdi's "Nabucco."

Sung by the Westminster Choir directed by John Finlay with the NBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. Recorded for January 31, 1943 NBC Radio broadcast.

1950 recording of The Pearl Fishers Duet sung by Jussi Björling and Robert Merrill. Conducted by Renato Cellini leading the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra.

Lionheart Magazine

I've been a little tardy with this post, but before Christmas my copy of Lionheart, the brain child of Hels Martin, arrived on my doorstep. I contributed a couple of pieces back in the summer, one is a quilt tutorial and one is piece on cake bunting. 

The theme of the first issue is bravery, and its full of inspirational writing, illustrations and images. One of my favourite features is a piece on Freya Hardy called '7 steps to utter fearlessness' which lists 7 things which really scare her and the ways she beat those challenges. I also really like Fritha's piece on being pregnant, and Jessica's piece about leaving Norway (I always love Jessica's writing)

So, of course I'm going to say the magazine is wonderful; i'm in it. ahem. You'll just have to buy yourself a copy to see if I'm right...

P.s apologies for the short blogging absence, my Grandad died last week so I've been having a bit of unplanned down time from the internet. Normal service will resume soon.

Merry and Bright: Home made Christmas

December bustled by in a flurry of crafting, baking and Christmas cooking. Evenings were spent making batches of biscotti, stamping labels, crocheting and making big batches of mincemeat. Instead of rushing our cooking, as we usually do, we spent time over it; planning meals, testing recipe's, taking time to enjoy the process, to allow flavours to properly mingle,  to taste as we go (lots), to experiment. Weekends were spent holed up in our flat with the sewing machine a-whirring and the oven a-pinging and lots of plan hatching over countless cups of tea. Some of the results of our crafting and baking below...

Corsages, which I learnt to make at a Craft class at Liberty for a Grazia article

Turban headbands (I combined a few different tutorials to make these, I can show you how if you like)

Friendship bracelets, thanks to this very useful tutorial

Button Necklace using this Martha tutorial

Leather iPhone cases made by my mister thanks to this Instructables tutorial .Made from the leather of a favourite pair of boots that salvaged before I had to throw them away! They were also stamped with the recipients names too, using the letters from my type writer. 

Home made mince Pies

Home made chocolates (recipe coming up)

Bags of biscotti

A hamper we gave to Ray and Phil to thank them for hosting Christmas (containing home made breadsticks, cinder toffee, biscotti, chocolates, and real hot chocolate etc)

A kitchen garland- part of the hamper

And our wrapping. This year I went with a 'Merry and Bright' theme. I used recycled tissue paper potato stamped with colourful tree shapes. I then used washi tape and ribbon to prettify the packages, and hand stamped some matching tags. I spent far too long on my wrapping but I happen to find these things thoroughly enjoyable, much to my families bemusement!

Busy? definitely, but very satisfying, and most importantly budget friendly too (big tick).   Between us, my mister and I can be pretty handy which I am very grateful for.  Presents were made using items I already had in the house (the benefits of being a hoarder) which was great for the pennies, and we love making stuff so really enjoyed it too. I find the more I bake, cook and craft the more confident in my skills I become and the more I am likely to experiment. My mister always says that creativity is like a muscle; the more you use it the stronger it becomes. So true.

Ok, that's it with the Christmas posts now! Hello 2012...

P.S This song was my Christmas crafting theme tune. "Pretty paper, pretty ribbons of blue, pretty pencils to write I love you..." Roy Orbison is a legend, no?!

Recipe's: Home made cleaning supplies

My kit* 

One of the things we manged to tick off our list during those inbetweeny days after Christmas and before New Year was to make up large batches of our cleaning supplies. We've been making our own for a couple of years now and couldn't be happier with the results. We save a lot (seriously loads) of money, we eliminate harmful chemicals in our home, we're sure of what exactly we're sloshing around, and we get to pretend we're scientists mixing up potions.... ahem.  

I've honed my recipe's over the last couple of years and here's a few of my current favourites.

Washing powder
This is my recipe, which began with Soule Mama's but has been refined for my hard water, budget and scent preference.

3 cups vegetable soap flakes, instead of grating bars of Dr Bronners or olive oil soap. Soap flakes are much cheaper and easier. 
2 cups borax
2 cups soda crystals
2 cups of bicarbonate of soda
30 or 40 drops of lemon essential oil which has antibacterial properties and smells lovely (just drop it on the surface of the powder and mix it in) I've also used tea tree, peppermint and grapefruit oil too.

Mix together with a spoon then funnel into your container. You might have to wiggle the container to get it to squeeze in. 
This is exactly enough to fill our 1000ml Ecover bottles (see image above)
We add a small capful (see image above) which is about a table spoon,to each wash. This will last ages- approx 30 washes.

Fabric conditioner
Vinegar with 30 drops of lemon oil. 

I add a small capful (see image above) to each wash. This will also last ages approx 15-20 washes.

Dishwasher rinse aid 
Vinegar with 30 drops of lemon oil
(we haven't yet cracked a dishwasher powder recipe so for now we use Ecover tablets)

Floor cleaner concentrate
I put the following In a 1 litre bottle:
1/2 cup borax
2 cups vinegar
1/2 cup of Dr Bronners liquid castille soap (I'm currently looking for a cheaper liquid castille soap, do you know of one?) EDIT: Summer Naturals now stocks its own brand liquid castille soap.
Essential oil of choice

Then I top it up with warm water to help it dissolve. A kebab skewer can be useful to mix it if the powder has settled to the bottom. I give it a good shake then glug approx half a cup in the bottom of a bucket then fill with very hot water.

Surface spray:
1 cup water
1/2 cup Vodka (bought as cheaply as possible from the local off-license)
1/2 cup  Vinegar
1/3 cup liquid Castile soap
15 ish drops Teatree  or lemon oil (has antiseptic qualities) 

I buy all of my home made cleaning supplies from the wonderful Summer Naturals web shop, which sells bulk quantities of essential oil, vinegar, borax, bicarb and lots more besides, at very reasonable prices. Its honestly one of my favourite shops!

For the rest of our cleaning supplies, we use BioD toilet cleaner which is reassuringly nostril stinging (with natural chemicals) Wheelers beeswax furniture spray,  and Earth Friendly cream cleaner.   By the way I receive no sponsorship or any other incentive for recommending these products! One day we'll see if we can make our own versions of these but for now we really love these products and have them in bulk (Oh how I love bulk buying...)

If you've been thinking about  making your own but haven't yet, I strongly encourage you to give it a try (a good new years resolution?), and if you already do I'd love to hear your experiences below; what are your favourite recipe's? Have you cracked a good dishwasher powder? Know of a cheaper liquid castille soaps? Any disasters?!

*My kit, clockwise from left: A range of essential oils, Dr Bronners liquid castille soap, a grater for the soap bars, cheap vodka (a great antiseptic for surface sprays), Borax in a jar as it goes hard otherwise, White vinegar, Soda crystals, Bicarbonate of soda in a jar, recycled Ecover containers for our washing powder and fabric conditioner, a glass bottle for our floor cleaner, a spray bottle for our surface cleaner, a large bowl for mixing powders, a spoon, a plastic funnel, bars of olive oil soap, cup measures and a steel kebab skewer (for helping to get powder lumps through the funnel, and for stirring up powders that have settled at the bottom of their jars!)

On New Years Dieting...

Source: championdontstop.com via Hannah Seeds and Stitches on Pinterest  

*

I've seen it splashed across most of January's magazines, talk shows and websites, I've overheard it on the train, between colleagues at work, and amongst friends. To make a real effort to get slim, to ditch the flab, drop the pounds, get a body like so and so, to 'sort it out' so to speak. I hate the term 'diet' because it so often comes with self- hatred, and at its core its about conforming to unrealistic celebrity beauty standards set by the diet and cosmetics industry. In fact, most women hanker after a body shape that is clinically underweight. My take on it? Aim to eat healthily, to eat intuitively and have more energy, by all means, but lets give the self hatred a rest.

I recently discovered the blog of Lisa Lynch, who has Cancer for the second time, this time incurable. A recent post of hers had me ranting to my friends and mister in agreement. She begins by saying that despite her prognosis, she has no regrets so far, apart from one;

"There is something, however, that I have, very recently, felt shamefacedly defeated into having to class as a regret; something that, to anyone not staring down the barrel of the most bullshitty of Bullshit prognoses, might seem pretty insignificant. Petty, even. But – having not just admitted to it ... but found myself noisily sobbing at the confession – let me assure you that it’s far from trivial. In fact, even as I write about this, I’m getting progressively more angry with myself. Furious, in fact, at all the time – all the precious, precious time – that I’ve squandered worrying myself into a frenzy about what I look like. Because now – in a place where, coof, am I fast realising what’s important – nothing seems like more of a criminal misuse of a life than the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months (dare I say even years?) spent fretting about my weight, my skin, the size of my arse, the circumference of my thighs, the thickness of my ankles, the shape of my belly button, the shovel-like span of my hands, the inward slant of my left knee, the… well, you get the picture. Doubtless because, in your own way, you’ve probably done it too...What a fucking drag. It’s shameful, really: if you add it all up, I’d be willing to bet my flat that I’ve spent more minutes worrying about what the outside of my body looks like than worrying about the preposterously vile things that have been happening within it. And what a stupendously idiotic waste of time."

Whoa. I know that at times I've been guilty of fretting about my body like this (although much less as I get older) and I know that most of my female friends and family members are guilty of it too. She goes on to talk about how important it is to not make food the enemy but to find joy in it, to revel in it, and appreciate the small things in life. Inspired. Read the full post here.

P.s I have one or two more Christmas posts coming up, including my home made presents, but I need to finish giving them out first!

*And the picture?! Apart from the fact that its brilliant, I'm not entirely sure why. Be proud of your body? or something?!