24 December 2005

Go back to sleep, or maybe do some blogging...

Well the past few weeks has been a rollercoaster ride to the 25th December! Highlights include: - possibly giving and getting the best office kris kringle presents ever (I don't usually join in as I think it's a bit wasteful, but this year knew exactly what to get the 55+ year old man whose name I drew out of the hat, and he seemed to like what I chose beyond just being polite, and I got some ripper chunky earrings, possibly from India, which will go beautifully with the blue beaded fringe top Seagreen lent me to wear :)
- getting all our gift shopping done weeks ago, planning our food a few weeks back, and buying everything we could then so all we had to do was buy fresh stuff yesterday and last minute things like bread today (pleased as the mercury tips 38 degrees today)
- C-chan's parents arriving from 'delaide with stuff from them and my parents... baby blankets, baby towels, bassinet, sheets etc etc, which they held on to for all these years since I was a bub and are in OK condition!! Bassinet is big enough for baby to sleep in until it starts rolling around too much, so we won't have to get a cot for quite a while.
- Getting lovely cards from people, even though we have been too tired and busy to get many out ourselves in time (oops).

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This morning I was woken from my strange dream* by C-chan flailing his arms about madly trying to swot away mosquitos. Poor thing seems to have a fear of getting bitten (well, more so than the average person, and I suppose I shouldn't judge, as he does tend to get bitten more than me). Once I magically found the insect repellent and made them go away, I realised I was hungry, thirsty, and unable to sleep.

I am sipping on Gastrolyte, as I had gastro this week and lost another 2 kg. Almost slimmer of the month except I don't want to lose weight. Had to go to the Drs for a shot of something to stop me being sick, and took 2 days off work (so much for getting everything done at work). Dr seems to think everything is OK, just need to take it easy and drink lots. Oh, and rebuild my gut flora. My poor stomach has shrunk in capacity, and I desparately want to knock back 600mL or so of water, but I just don't have the room for it.

Must go. Have a wonderful couple of days, wherever you are, whoever you're with...
xxx
meririsa

* involving going to a goth party with a breakdancing half-Japanese friend, and finding a chocolate cake in the fridge with lots of strawberries on it

18 December 2005

What!? Oh, it was all a dream...

Had a dream last night that I went into hospital to give birth, and woke up later with a baby. I'd somehow missed the whole labour process. I asked my Mum what went on, and there was some feeble excuse about something happening and me "going out like a light" and, well, here's the baby (which was miraculously already behaving like a 6-month old, and already able to respond to me with monosyllabic words!).

The next question I had for my family around me was do I have a boy or a girl, as my Mum had respected our wishes and kindly dressed the bub in Unisex clothes. They kind of looked at each other, then told me that we didn't know - this one had even the Dr stumped. In the dream, I deduced that the baby was either intergender, or a female with larger than usual genetalia. However, it wasn't that great an issue, as now I had this cute baby to play with and feed, and in my dream I was experimenting with express pumps and showing the baby off to work collegues (not at the same time). Of course, everyone was asking whether it was a boy or girl, and I said we didn't know yet, and we didn't have a name for it either.

How interesting. I think this was my subconscious playing "what if..." with me. I have the 18-19 week ultrasound coming up in a few weeks, and we might be able to find out the gender of the child - I wasn't sure I wanted/needed to know, but after having that dream I suddenly want to know!!

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This morning is a cool, breezy respite from the hot mugginess we've had for the past couple of days. Might cool down the hot-heads organising riots around the country (it's spread to Melbourne now, with a couple of Santa's getting bashed up on Lygon St). The great thing about this weather is you can wash all your bedding and get it all dry in a couple of hours - not an easy thing for someone who has no back yard, let alone Hills hoist, and has philosophical objections to using the clothes dryer that came with the flat (not to mention a summer aversion the extra heat it generates).

At this time of the week (before 7am Sundays) Newtown is at its quietest. A similar kind of not-a-soul-to-be-found eerieness that was on the streets just before the Olympic opening ceremony. What am I doing up? Well at present I'm a timezone freakozoid, crashing on the couch soon after 8:30pm and waking up with the sun between 5 and 6am. Can't help it - might as well get up and get stuff done. I'm so behind on my xmas cards this year, that I'm going to resort on some last minute xmas emails, that will take more time than sending cards, but will at least reach people in time. Or maybe I'll just send late cards and hope people don't feel unloved in between xmas day and when the cards finally arrive? At least we have made, painted and erected our cardboard xmas tree! It slots together and is sitting on our coffee table. With luck, we'll be able to dissemble it without wrecking it, and store it flat for next year!

13 December 2005

but this makes me sick...

This article in the SMH summed up what I suspected was happening... I never hear this radio show, but saw the same DJ on the television with a slightly toned down version of him making a gang issue into a racial one in the middle of last week. I would call for a boycott of his shows, but suspect my readers avoid him like the plague anyway...

06 December 2005

Gooooooooooooodbye Norshia!!! (i hope...)

Fingers, arms, and toes crossed, it seems my nausea has gone for the time being. Really seems I need to listen to my grandma and stereotypical old men when they tell me to take it easy in "my condition". Whenever I have gone swimming in the evening, or just done too much (late night, over exerted self), I have been ill the next day - sometimes for the whole day. That seems to have eased somewhat now, thank goodness. No sickness for over 10 days.

Weighed self at the gym the other week. Contrary to what I thought would happen, I have lost weight (about 1kg) compared with 2-3 months ago. Looked up "weight loss" in "What to expect when you're expecting" (published by Angus&Robertson in Australia) and read in the index the following:
See also: eating disorders

I mean, really!! They know how to temporarily alarm a girl!! I know my weight loss is probably because I have been eating a little less than usual (which is usually lots), and more importantly, my exercise routine has fallen to the side due to excessive tiredness, so it is likely to be a little muscle loss and also a bit of excess fat loss. I doubt this will keep happening, especially now my appetite is more healthy.

After a hiatus in dreaming, I have been having wierd-ass dreams. In one dream the other night, I had a small octopus lodge itself in my bikini top when swimming in the ocean. Caused a big drama (in the dream, I mean...,), I assure you!

02 December 2005

A rainy holiday and other adventures...

We took a long weekend on the weekend. Went up to the Hunter Valley to see what we could see! I know what you're thinking - she's pregnant*, why on earth did they go to the Hunter for a holiday?? Well there's more to wine districts than wineries. There's breweries too. But avoiding alcohol entirely, there's art galleries, food, restaurants, scenery, and much much more. Rambling country roads, cows, fruit groves, and C-chan's Uncle. I happen to think that the Hunter is a bit too obviously developed with tourism in mind. Lacks much of the charm of the South Australian wine valleys (Barossa, McLaren and Clare). But it was a nice break anyway.

After the Hunter, we took the road less travelled to the Blue Mountains to visit Seagreen on the last night of our mini-break. We wound our way along the outskirts of the Sydney Basin past countless citrus groves and stone fruit orchards. We crossed the Hawkesbury river by ferry, then made our way up into the mountains. Seagreen's house was a welcome end point, with a pot of chai and nibbles quickly rustled up (thanks for your wonderful hospitality again!). But $%^# it was cold!! 13 degree days in late November - that's just not normal.

* news out of the bag now, so thought large print was appropriate

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Today I went to a women's networking thing run by my employer's women's group. I haven't been to one before, and wasn't sure what to think. The topic of the talk today was work life balance for women. It wasn't just about balancing raising children with work, it was about society as a whole and balancing caring and family in general with work and of course, questioning whether we all need to have as much money as we seem to think we do. Nothing mindblowing was said, but I didn't realise that not only do women bear more responsibility at home when it comes to housework and kid-rearing, but the same is also true of caring for elderly parents or relatives. The talk discussed lots of angles really briefly, including how do we as a society make it more "acceptable" to employers for men to request similar flexibilities to care for their families. The place I work for has some seriously well qualified women when it comes to feminist theory, equal opportunities and law. Ran into someone I knew vaguely but got to know that little bit better, which was nice.

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Am having a day off today, and was therefore home to watch the media circus on telly surrounding the execution of an Australian in Singapore. I theorise that somewhere in the past week or 2, the Australian dialect has shifted, and the word "vigil" has taken on a new pronounciation: "vigual". There are so many issues surrounding this execution that I don't want to get into here, but I was saddened - that the death penalty still exists, that 50% of Australians seem to have forgotten why the death penalty was abolished here, and that our PM, apart from getting a furrowed brow when he wasn't informed directly of the execution date a few weeks back, did too little too late to stop this happening. It was, after all, an Australian caught in the act of being about to break Australian customs law. Other Governments have successfully intervened to extradite their citizens from Singapore in the past.