saturday

Today is quiet. I've cleaned the house from bottom to top, swept the cobwebs off the ceiling (then got mud on the carpet, oh well) and now I'm sat with an hour to spare. Peace.

And I'm going to go upstairs and carry on the clear out upstairs in the soon to be babies room. Yesterday I got rid of all my cardboard stash (what, you don't have a cardboard stash? Lovely large pristine bits of corrugated cardboard, no stickers or dints or print or writing, just waiting to be turned into packaging or storage boxes or who knows what... but also taking up about half of the wardrobe...) Its gone in the garden to be used to cover the veg beds in spring, the half built veg beds, oh well. Perhaps I'm starting to accept I won't use these things I keep just in case; that its better to use them now or to pass them on rather than to keep them there and have to keep track of them in my mind. Maybe my priorities are going to change, I want life to be simple.

 2012 is going to be interesting...

wednesday

Coco is home and looking much better (apart from a shaved patch, oh dear!) I think she'd kept the rest of the patients awake all night miaowing (she's a noisy one) but hopefully she'll be ok, back for a check on Friday (sorry Coco, cat box again). If only I could explain to her whats going on... oh well.

Photos from a walk across the park to the midwife today, muddy and very windy. Baby has jiggled himself head down, so all is well, and only a month and a bit to go of feet wedged between my ribs (hurray!)

On the way home there were hundreds of these birds, all picking at the moss and sitting in the trees and wandering about. They took no notice as I walked through them, then a few minutes later they all took off at once, filling the sky. I like birds.

tuesday

What a day. My little cat Coco is in the cat hospital tonight. She's been having kind of coughing fits for the last few days and I thought she perhaps had a hairball. She then started having trouble breathing so I took her to the emergency vets where she's had x-rays and scans and all sorts and been diagnosed with asthma. So I'm grateful it wasn't her heart or anything terminal, but it means medication for the rest of her life :(

She is a bit of a stress head anyway, and I feel so sad thinking about her in a cage at the vets all alone, can't wait until tomorrow when she's back home with me. Hope you're ok Coco.

friday

Well, the shortest day is over, and what a beautiful one. Sunshine, blue skies, unusual clouds... 

Today it's raining, but the mood lifting effects of the sunshine linger on. That combined with time off work, spending time with lovely friends and family and feeling my little baby swizzle around in my belly (trying and nearly succeeding to spill my cup of tea). More and more daylight now until I meet him...

tuesday

All the invitations are printed, and all that remains is to decorate them with tiny paper bunting, a task I'm actually looking forward to. I like fiddly repetitive activities and it's a good excuse to use up some of the contents of my 'white paper' draw (perhaps my favourite draw, who knows?)

These are just a few of the variations I printed as test pieces; three different card stocks, 4 background alternatives, three colours of ink. I'm terrible at making decisions about this kind of thing and usually just go for trying to do all the options, but I managed to narrow it down. It's really worth making test pieces like this (for me at least) as often things turn out very differently to how I expect. Even though it took me all morning I think it's time well spent as the final one I chose is definitely the right one. Although I didn't narrow down the backgrounds really, and ended up using 3 of them, oh well!

The actual screen printing went surprisingly smoothly. In the past when I've printed wedding invitations for others or large print runs there has always been a blocked bit of screen, or a break down, or botched prints with faint bits, bled bits, blurry bits. But today out of nearly 400 prints (two colours on the front, one on the back) only one went wrong and had to be binned. Very unusual. I'd made double of every screen in anticipation of problems, but really this ended up being a luxury as I didn't have to wait for screens to dry between layers, and instead of being stressful (like printing in a limited amount of time usually is) it's was actually quite enjoyable. Could've been because I had the workshop to myself and could sing as loudly as I wanted...

monday

Started work on printing my wedding invitations today...

It's hard to draw neatly when someone is kicking the table from inside your belly...

wintry workshop

Lovely workshop at the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery today, pop up Christmas cards inspired by some of the paintings and prints of wintry scenes in their current exhibition. A real mix of people, both adults and children (and even a 2 month old baby who was very cute indeed), and some fantastic cards made. I'm always so excited to see the results at the end of these workshops, they're always so imaginative and carefully done and individual, they put my examples to shame!

My shocking quality photos don't do them justice by the way. My camera has broken and phone pics in a subtly lit room are never going to come out very well :( Oh well, still a good day. Now I'm off to thread fuzzy balls on a string as my house is looking distinctly un-christmassy.

Last day of teaching before maternity leave. I still have a week or so to go but there'll be no students around, so it felt like a last day, that strange feeling as I walked out the door. And apart from a late start due to a fall on the ice this morning (baby's ok, I'm ok) it's been a good day. A reminder-of-what-I enjoy-about-my-job day. I hope when I go back in a year I can remember how to do it!

Anyway,  I've got thoughts of how I want to spend the next month before the baby arrives. Thoughts of tidying and organising; so many unfinished jobs around the house, so many brown stalks in the garden, a room full of books and paper and cloth and whoknowswhat that needs turning into a room full space for a new person. I'm a massive hoarder but I can feel a purge coming on, and that feeling doesn't come very often so I want to take advantage of it. I'm feeling inspired by the fact that the total worldly possessions of this small person inside me can currently fit into one medium box, and whilst I'm fully aware that these things change drastically it's made me wonder how I've accumulated so much stuff in my life. Its too easy isn't it. So off it goes.

I'm on a precipice.

ps spot the chicken