Six Months

(has anyone ever perfected the self-portrait shot without a tripod?  Nope, thought not.)

...I'm now six months pregnant.  It's gone past so so quickly so far.  I can't believe in three months time I'll get to meet the little guy/girl that's been wriggling inside me for these past few months.

Here are some of my experiences so far:

*  Feeling baby kick is the best thing in the world.  I live for it's little kicks.  Except when it thinks my bladder or kidneys are drums.  Then it's just downright uncomfortable.

*  Baby got a case of the hiccups the other day.  Feeling it's little body hiccup was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

*  I'm currently perfecting my best pregnant lady waddle.  Even my boss commented on my waddle.

*  I've put on eight pounds.  I have a suspicion that this is one pound baby, two pounds uterus and five pounds boob.

*  This five pounds of boob makes me feel like Pamela Anderson.  People pay thousands of pounds for boobs like mine: I just keep asking my midwife when they'll start to deflate, and if they'll ever look how they looked pre-pregnancy (I can live in hope, can't I?!).

*  Gestational diabetes sucks big time.  Oh to have some chocolate.  Or chips.  Or french fries.  Or garlic bread.

*  Morning sickness has come back with a vengeance after a month long breather.

*  I am disappointed to report I have no cravings.  My appetite hasn't gone up much either.  I thought I'd be running midnight trips to the fridge.  Sadly not.

*  My father keeps commenting on my pregnancy 'glow'.  He is sadly misled - this 'glow' he reports is due to my face coming out in a glowing red rash every time I try to use any facial product on it (moisturiser, face wash, toner, anything).  If you need a visual, this is what I look like post moisturisation, toner usage or anything else:

Yes, I get the face of an Oompa Loompa.  I hear it's the new trend for Autumn 2011.  I'm just ahead of my time.

*  Hair hair, lots of hair.  Everywhere.

*  I have had to download an app for my phone called WC Finder.  WC Finder is my saviour.  Except when it has a meltdown and tells me the nearest WC's are 2km away when I know fine well there are closer ones somewhere.  Then I want to cry.

*  Speaking of waterworks, I can now cry at the drop of a hat.  I was always pretty good at that before but it's been taken to a whole new level now.

*  It's a myth that you get more energy in the second trimester.  Since being pregnant there has not been enough sleep in the world for me.

*  I've also been finding out that pregnancy does lots of other strange strange things to your body: things that nobody tells you about and leaves you wondering if you are normal.  Who knows what people did before the internet because some things are just too downright embarrassing to even ask the midwife!

xx

Saturday Night...

...saw us watching Pulp live at the Reading Festival.  After spending my early teenage years right through to my mid twenties attending music festivals in various fields in Scotland and Europe, I've kind of grown out of them.  The idea of standing knee deep in mud and finding that someone has stolen the tent pegs (or worse) no longer appeals to me.  Thankfully Boyfriend has grown out of festivals too (after years of playing at them).  So we watch them on TV instead, like the rock and rollers that we are.

Back to Pulp...  Jarvis Cocker is something of a hero in our house.  His Sunday afternoon radio show is a particular treat - I could listen to his voice for hours on end.  And imagine our delight when he popped up in Fantastic Mr Fox, one of my favourite movies.

So we watched Pulp.  Reminisced what it was like to be teenagers again (Pulp was the soundtrack to both of our teenage years, even though we didn't know each other then).  Winced at some of our memories ("You did that?  What were you thinking?!").  And enjoyed Jarvis's dance moves.  He's a bit of a mover and a shaker.

After watching Pulp I proceeded to sing this song to Boyfriend over and over again (I'm good like that):

It's an old favourite of ours.  

I never imagined, when I listened to this as a teenager, that one day I would listening to it again, sat beside the one I love, with a little baby of our own kicking in my belly.

xx

Our non-holiday...

...The other week we were due to have our one holiday of the year - camping on the Isle of Arran.  We were really looking forward to getting away from our building site of a house, and from work, but sadly, due to bad weather we had to cancel the trip.  Camping in the rain in a place, no matter how beautiful, is just not fun.  

In an ideal world we would have got away somewhere on holiday, but we don't live a perfect life, nor do we have unlimited finances, so staying at home was the best alternative we could muster.  It turned out to be a good call - it poured with rain the entire time we were due to be on Arran.  But Boyfriend and I, seeing as we had both booked a week off of work, were determined to enjoy our non-holiday holiday, bad weather and all.

And you know what? We ended up having a great week.  We managed to fit in lots of fun activities that revolved mainly around food:

*  We took in the West End Arts and Crafts Fair, spoke to lots of talented artists and crafters, and fell in love with lots of fantastic pieces.

*  We explored The Shore in Leith.  We've both never been down there before (I know!) but had lots of fun  exploring, taking in the old buildings and boats, and filling our bellies with good food.  Even though poor Boyfriend did get mistaken  for a girl by the waitress!

The Shore, photo from here.

*  Friends and family came to visit.

*  I enjoyed some thrift shopping in Stockbridge, and can say with some conviction that wet weekdays are the best time to go thrifting.  And that Stockbridge is home to the best thrift stores in Edinburgh.  And that it;s home to great little cafes, like Henri's, where you feel like you have stepped into a Parisian deli.

*  We took family to Linlithgow and enjoyed a day at the Palace and then lunch at the Four Marys.  We love the Four Marys (where Boyfriend did not get mistaken for a lady).

*  We enjoyed a day in Glasgow, wandering around the city centre and then spending the afternoon hanging out in the 13th Note Cafe (they do some great vegetarian food).

*  We visited my parents on the west coast, and celebrated my dad's birthday with a fantastic meal in Adesso in Irvine.  We also got to catch up with my grandad, which is always a treat.  He's a great storyteller.

So yes, our holidays mostly involved eating!  We don't often eat out very often, so it was good to do something we normally feel guilty about.  That's what holidays are about, aren't they - doing the things you don't normally do or would normally feel guilty about?!

And believe it or not we managed to fit in lots of chilling-out time, which was very much needed.  We really enjoyed the lack of pressure that you normally feel on holiday - you know the "we've paid good money to be here, so we better get busy and do as much as we can while we're here" feeling, that has you trying to take in as many attractions and sights you can manage.

I was also very aware of the need to live in the now and be present.  As our last 'holiday' as a couple, I wanted to enjoy myself fully and concentrate of spending quality time with Boyfriend.  As such I managed to take a grand total of zero photos.  Sorry folks.

Would we do it again?  Definitely.  Though next year we'd like to be able to get away from home, just the once!

xx

Stylish Maternity Clothes on a Budget

 I've found out that maternity clothes shopping is pretty depressing.  Everything is so frumpy.  It seems that clothes manufacturers think that because you're about to become a mum, then you want to dress like a fifty year old.  Which isn't the case.  I'm still in my twenties (just) and want to dress my age.

The best maternity range I've found so far is at Asos Maternity:

Horse print dress

Printed midi dress

Arran cardigan

Waterfall Blouse

While Topshop Maternity has some good stuff, I've found it to be super pricey, and New Look Maternity just seems, well, aimed at teenagers.  I mean, look at this, and this and tell me you don't agree with me!  So Asos wins hands down - I could totally imagine myself wearing all of these items.  

However, and it's a big however, I really baulk at spending lots of money on clothes I'll only be able to wear for a few months.  In my head I just can't justify the cost, especially when we've still got some baby gear to get and home renovations to finish.  I don't want to rack up loads of credit either, as I'm going to be on maternity leave for 9 months, and while for the first six weeks maternity pay is pretty good, for the rest of the time it's pretty low.   So I've set myself a super tight budget.

I thought it would be difficult, but shopping for stylish maternity clothes on a tight budget has actually been not as bad as I first thought.  So far I've bought a couple of secondhand Asos Maternity pieces on Ebay, which I got for less than half the price.  I adore the dresses, and the beauty of Ebay is that because maternity wear is worn for such a short period of time you can almost guarantee it's going to be in immaculate condition.  And the chances are high that I'll be able to re-sell them on Ebay once I'm done with them, and make back what I spent on them.

And as I haven't put on much weight (the one upshot of having gestational diabetes and it's associated sugar/starchy/junk food ban) I've been able to still fit into quite a few of my normal clothes.  I haven't attempted to wear my jeans (I know fine well I wouldn't be able to fasten them), so I've been living in skirts and dresses (much more forgiving).  

I also picked up a few elasticated waisted skirts at Zara quite cheaply at the very start of my pregnancy.  These will see me right through pregnancy but with the added bonus of being able to wear them after giving birth, meaning I'll get years of wear out of them.  

I've also bought a couple of thrift store skirts in a couple of sizes bigger than I would normally take.  They sit below my bump perfectly, and only cost a couple of pounds each.  I'm hoping I can take them in after I give birth too. 

The only thing I'm not skimping on is maternity/nursing bras.  A girl needs all the support she can get!

Do you have any budget friendly maternity clothing tips?  I'd love to hear them!

xx

I'm Back...

...from my 'holidays'!  Very soon I'll share what I got up to, but for now, changes are afoot at the Red Boots household which I'm very excited about:

• Ikea are coming to my house to help us plan our new kitchen today.  Yes, Ikea are coming to our house! This makes me beyond happy!  Fingers crossed that work can commence in September.
• At the same time as the kitchen, we'll redecorate our very sad looking vestibule.
• We're getting a new front door.  Bye bye draughts, rotting wood, and sticky locks.  This is happening in the next fortnight!
• When we get the front door done, the joiner is going to finish up the little bits of woodwork that need finishing (like skirting boards) in our bathroom.
• When we get the kitchen done, the plasterer is going to finish up the little bits in our bathroom that need plastering Then we'll officially have completed our bathroom.
• We're getting our chimney and roof fixed, finally, after our downstairs neighbour agreed to split the cost with us (it is a shared roof after all).  Bye bye water dripping down, and this means we can build our fireplace and finally finish the living room!  This is also happening in the next fortnight (we are busy bees)!
• Our spare room is going to become a temporary kitchen while we rip out the old kitchen and fit the new one.  Once the kitchen is done straight away we'll be start work on the nursery.  Thankfully there isn't too much to do in there (just some stripping, plastering and painting.  Oh and some electrical work too...!).

All being well we'll be done by mid-November, and this will mean most of the house will be done (apart from our bedroom and the hallway).  Hopefully I'll still be able to fit in some blogging time amongst the renovations!

xx

Holidays

I'm officially now on holiday for over a week - my first long holiday from work since Christmas.  Needless to say I am very relieved!

We had grand plans for our holiday, initially wanting to go to Cape Cod in Maine.  However a quick assessment of our finances made us realise Cape Cod was, shall we say, just a little out of our reach, so we set our sights on something closer to home.  Much closer to home.  We looked at the sunnier islands of the UK - Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man - but flights to these places all came in way over our budget too.  So we thought about York, a pretty and historic city for a nice city break.  Reasonably close to home, but turned out to be ridiculously expensive to get to by public transport, no matter how far in advance we tried to book train tickets.  

We finally we settled on a camping trip to the Isle of Arran, on the west coast of Scotland.  We could get there super cheaply (mainly thanks to my parents who live just across the water from Arran), camp cheaply on some amazing beachside campsites, and splurge on car hire (who knew car hire was so expensive!) so we could see all that this beautiful island has to offer.  

(Isle of Arran, from here)

However the great Scottish weather has put paid to our plans.  We've just had two days of torrential rain that has seen parts of Scotland flooded, and the forecast shows continued heavy rain for the next five days, seemingly concentrated on Arran.  We've camped before, in all weathers, but the prospect of spending our last baby-free holiday damp in a tent unable to enjoy the sights (as you can imagine the appeal of Arran is the outdoors) and wasting the little money we've worked so hard to save on a trip we wouldn't be able to enjoy fully wasn't filling us with joy.  So this evening we cancelled the trip with heavy hearts.  I'm a bit down about this, but I guess Arran will always be there.

Our tiny budget sadly doesn't stretch to transport and bed & breakfasts or hotels anywhere else so we've decided to take the wallet friendly option of 'staycationing' (I hate that word) at home.  It makes sense when the world's biggest arts festivals, the Edinburgh Festival, is right on our doorstep.  So we have a week to take in the best of the Festival, explore parts of our local area we've never been to and visit family.  And if the weather gets too much, we can always cuddle up on the sofa and just enjoy each other's company, just the two of us, while it's still just the two of us.

See you all next week!

xx

Courgette Explosion!

Our attempts at vegetable and herb growing this year have been mixed.  We've had the wettest "summer" (if you can call it that) that we've had in a long long time and consequently some things haven't grown well, the weeds have overtaken everything because we can't get outside to dig them out, and the rain keeps washing away the coffee grounds I put down to discourage the slugs (I don't do slug pellets).

Just don't talk to me about our poor strawberries, cabbage, carrots and peas.

What has grown well, however, are our fennel (which currently stands taller than me!), chives, thyme, lettuce and courgette.  In fact our courgette is growing faster than we can pick it.

Here is Boyfriend with the latest offering from our garden:

Look at the size of that thing!  And no, that's not Boyfriend's normal face.  That's his "I've just grown a massive courgette" face.  That face doesn't appear very often, trust me.

With so many courgettes, and so many big courgettes I'm fast running out of ideas of how to cook them.  So far we've been roasting them, grilling them and stir-frying them and adding them to our staple vegetarian dishes (roast/grilled vegetables with halloumi and quinoa; stir fry vegetables; and roast vegetable pasta), but it gets a little boring after a while!

I'm thinking of trying out this River Cottage courgette polpette recipe tonight.  However that will only get us through one large courgette, so I was wondering if any of you guys have any good vegetarian courgette recipes?  If you want to call it zucchini then I'm fine with that (though I think courgette sounds cuter!).  And don't worry, as I said before, I've got me some American measuring cups so I can now do cup measurements.  Though I still don't get the stick method of measuring butter!  I think I'm going to have to just finally accept that I'm never going to get it and move on...!

But yes, recipes, if you've got them then please send them my way!

xx

This Week...

Lanterns at the Underbelly

...I Liked:

The start of the Edinburgh Festival.  We saw two shows - David O'Doherty at the Pleasance and Paul Foot at the Underbelly.  Both were so good we're still laughing at them now.

Telling my dad we were going to see some shows at the Festival.  His response?  "What festival"?! 

Seeing our baby kick, wiggle, and wave its hands at our 20 week ultrasound, and relaxing after being told everything looks fine so far.

Trips to Ikea to plan our new kitchen.  We've picked a kitchen - just waiting for the Ikea man to come out and measure up then we can get going!  I want it done by October.  

Planning our summer holiday - fingers crossed the sun comes out for us!

Planning my 30th birthday party next month.  Not so much looking forward to turning 30, but looking forward to the party!

I Didn't Like:

Not making it to Aberdeen for the hen weekend I was supposed to attend.  Extreme fatigue kicked in after working all week and going out two nights in a row for Festival shows, and I couldn't face the journey.

Maternity clothes shopping.  I've had to finally admit to myself that nothing fits, after it took two of us to get me into a dress on Friday morning.  However most maternity clothes are frumpy and boring, and the good stuff expensive, which is hard to justify for only 4 months of wear.

Edinburgh Festival frenzy when you're trying to go about your normal business in Edinburgh, like getting to and from work.  Being stopped fifty times by people trying to get you to see their shows and trying to get past slow walking, meandering tourists, when you're in a rush to catch your bus home is not good.  I do love the Festival but I just wish it was easier to get on with normal life when you're not going to see shows!

How was your week?

xx

ps: I realise I've been rather creative in terms of what constitutes a week...!  What can I say, life is rather busy at the moment!

Let's Talk About Sex...

From here.

...no, not that kind of sex, I mean gender.  You!!

We're coming up to our 20 week scan, and everyone keeps asking us if we are finding out the sex of the baby.  Which we're not. 

In my mind there are few good surprises in life, and this is one of those good surprises, so why spoil the surprise?  I really really look forward to the birth when Boyfriend tells me "it's a boy" or "it's a girl".  I can't imagine a more special moment.  And, baby should, all being well, be born around Christmas time.  It's going to be our little Christmas present, and you wouldn't open up a Christmas present early, would you?

But the main, most important reason that I don't want to find out the baby's sex is because I read this article early on in my pregnancy, and to be frank, if it's a boy then the idea of a tiny penis growing inside me, right now, freaks me out no end!

I would really love for us to have a little boy, as much as I would really love for us to have a little girl.  But for me ignorance is most definitely bliss for now!

Would you want to know early, or would you wait to find out the sex?  I would love to hear your views on this!

xx

Some Photos from the Last Wee While...

...because I've been doing lots of walking while the sun has been shining:

I wish I could paint my windows like in that last photo.  What could be cheerier, even on the dullest of days?

xx