Lookie what I made

Ummm... so I made a baby hat today. I used this pattern, and it turned out a little smaller than the measurements say, but it is very stretchy so I'm pretty sure it'll fit a newborn. And I can work w/ the yarn size and hook size. I'm so excited about it. I added a flower. (I put the hat on notebook paper to prove I also did homework today. Really, I did.)



And here's a pic of Scott in his birthday shirt from cool uncle Steve. Unfortch I don't know how to write all that in binary. For those blog readers who aren't tremendous geeks, it says DAD in zeros and ones. Which is Binary. Which is a computer thing. And Monkey's due date is 01-10 so I guess that means I'm giving birth to a big nerd (I mean, the DNA is in her favor there, right? Says the girl who crochets all afternoon with the husband in a binary tshirt.)

"Oh God, I remember this."

Not quite sure why, but I was inspired to get out my yarn and crochet things last night. I kinda forgot just how much I had. I kind of have this knack for getting projects *thisclose* to completion and then being all like "I don't feel like crocheting for a while." And a while turns into 2 years. As a result, I have one blanket that is one panel away from being a GREAT blanket. Only problem? The panels are super complicated, and last night as part of my re-entry exercise, I had to look up what exactly a single crochet stitch is. So yeah, way to go Jamie of a few years ago. You couldn't have just finished it when you knew what the heck a hdc and decreasing stitch was????

I had a good time getting all the different types of granny squares I have going. My favorite thing to do when making a granny square blanket is to lay them end to end to form the length or width of the blanket... helps me visualize the end product. And every time I look at Scott and say "Isn't that pretty????" And he unexcitedly replies, "Yes." And the title of the post comes from one such moment last night when he replied with an eye roll "Oh God, I remember this."

This is what I want to make - does anyone have any good online free pattern sites? I've been finding that all of the free sites are sadly lacking in the usability and visual graphics departments. But free is free, I suppose. And I get these ideas in my head - like why should I pay $18 for something I can make myself??? - and then they just have to be tried. So yeah... me and my stupid ideas.

20 Weeks = Halfway = OMG.

So, instead of getting Scott to take a respectable, normal belly pic... I've decided to take you on a tour of my home with my iphone. This is the downstairs bathroom - like the new shutters? :) I like that guests can now shower without fearing Peeping Toms. It's the little things.

(And evidently I need to clean the mirror.)

This is the 20 week pic. I was on my way to go run 3 miles with my running buddies yesterday morning. I'm running way slow these days (think brisk walk), but still having fun with it! I'm actually considering doing a 5K next weekend. That's like the ultimate test of if Jamie has lost her competitive drive completely. It was a big challenge in the beginning to "run for fitness" and not time or distance or improvement... just to do it. It felt like slacking. But I do feel like I'm thinking of it differently now, so we'll see how I feel midweek.

I also wanted to officially state that we are keeping the baby name a secret until she's born. You can call her Monkey or Gertrude... we call her Monkey. It's endearing, though I might be a little petrified if she IS a monkey or something. I think we do it because of The Office, when Dwight and Angela call each other Monkey as a pet name. It's a terrible reason, but I think that's where it comes from. Gertrude, or Gert, is what we told my parents her name is. I think they bought it.

Time Traveler's Wife (Book & Movie)

The fun thing about re-re-reading a book is that each time (if it's a good book), something different will strike me. I'm always amazed by this - Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book to read over and over, but TTW is giving it a run for its money.

The theme that's really standing out to me this go-round on TTW is the difference between young and old Henry - as differentiated by long hair on the youthful, immature and selfish Henry and short hair on married, committed and loving Henry. The idea that Clare loves the older Henry more, misses him and can't wait for young Henry to become older Henry is kind of interesting. I don't really ponder it much, but do we all have a turning point at which we become a more perfect version of ourselves, before which we were a person we might not care to hangout with? Or that our spouse would spend a few hours with and miss the older version of us?

I also am completely obsessed with the idea of spending time with loved ones out of time. Henry would go back and watch is parents take care of him as a baby, and spend time with a younger version of himself. How *cool* would that be, to meet the people important to you in your life back before you knew them? Or yourself, before you really became the you you are now.

I finally finished the book last night, but after the Pillars of the Earth, I feel like I read this in a few hours. It is everything a book should be - totally absorbing and un-put-downable. EVEN knowing what happens and how and when, etc. It's just such an involved book that I could honestly read it again right now.

And now... the movie. I'm disappointed, which I knew I would be as I've acknowledged multiple times that my expectations were pretty unrealistic. I was disappointed that they left SO much out. Yes, it's a movie and they're never going to include it all, and some things were included but kind of modified which I was ok with, but it was such an intricate and interconnected book and I was disappointed they didn't really do much w/ that in the movie. It seemed like there were NO characters but Henry and Clare. Gomez was just a passing role, which sucked bc Rob Livingston was great in the role! I think the overarching worst thing about the movie in my opinion was the melodrama. I felt like the whole time it was either *sad* acting or *we're so in love, let's talk about how in love we are*. Not very realistic, sorry. Also not how the book is. I will say the ending was MUCH sadder to watch than it was to read. I originally really liked the casting of Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana as Clare and Henry, but now I'm kind of lukewarm about it. The movie was mediocre at best, and I don't think I'll ever feel the need to watch it again. Which makes me sad, but I do have the book forever and will most likely read it again and again. :)

Well, it *feels* bigger.

18 week belly pic.

Excuse the swimming paraphernilia drying on the tub and my makeup-less and expression-less face. And in obvious news that I didn't realize, taking pics in a miror makes my bathroom look reversed. And the apple logo.

A Girl!

AAAAAH! We had a great appointment yesterday, got a nice long ultrasound where we got to see our teeny baby GIRL (from all angles!) It was amazing. It was the most fun day, I feel like a grinning fool. In some ways, yesterday was even more fun than the day I found out I was pregnant - I'm further along and it all just feels more REAL now. I'm so, so, so excited.

The ultrasound tech had me all greased up and was showing us various body parts and all of the sudden she's like "here the legs are spread, yup, it's a girl. You see, there's here labia." And I have to say, part of me thought Scott might want to run and hide outside, I mean, anatomical terms like that - ESPECIALLY in reference to his daughter? I just didn't thin

k the ultrasound tech would get away with that. But honestly, he didn't flinch. And he made me text that we had a pic of the labia to his sister. I think he's growing up... :) *sniff sniff*

I also feel like in the movies when they do this ultrasound, the women are usually WAY more pregnant than I am. There you go again, never trust Hollywood.

Also, you can't trust polls on blogs, evidently. 54% of you were wrong :)

After the appointment, we went out for lunch and went to a nice little baby boutique and bought a pink lovey. I don't intend to buy much from a boutique for me and the child -we figure a savings account might be more beneficial to our daughter than a $45 onesie - but I'm excited to have an adorable lovey with the memory of when we found out she was a she attached to it. We're overjoyed.

"And my feet won't touch the ground,

It's such, it's such a perfect day."

-Strawberry Swing, Coldplay

Here's some pics of our girl :)

A profile, full body. (Head at top, you can see the brain. Whoa.)

Now she's LOOKING AT YOU! In all honesty, this one kind of weirds me out.

An up-close of the profile. This is just the head, though you can see her heart (that small black dot at the far left.

Her little feet! Isn't it the sweetest?

It shall become He or She... tomorrow

I'm SO excited for that - giving my child a respectable pronoun referrant (dangit, I wish I remembered what I learned in Linguistics last year...) So yeah - we have our big ultrasound tomorrow! Pray that the child isn't all demure and leg crossing. That will make the "news" substantially less newsworthy.

I'll update the blog tomorrow evening, and I should warn you, voting ends tonight at midnight in the poll over there-->. So if you've been holding off on voting... 'tis your last chance. And it will make a difference.

I still don't have much of a belly to speak of... my friend Kathleen said she noticed a difference on Saturday, but I think she was just feeling bad for me (although I appreciated it). I think I'm still stuck in the "Gosh, that girl must eat a lot of pizza" phase. Which, let's be honest, I really do. Like... a lot. I'll get another bump pic up soon :)

Pillars of the Earth

I. Finally. Finished. I have no words for how freaking long that book was - 973 pages. It's the longest book I've ever read. I'm not quite sure what compelled me to want to take that on, maybe just a personal goal or something. But I did it, and I'm so excited to be done.

Ok, so first off. The title and length makes it sound SOO BORING, doesn't it? Well, it's actually quite readable and moves along really well. It's about building a cathedral, back in the 1100's. I can't remember anything I've ever read from that time period so it was educational and cool in that way. There were a few really great characters too. And all kinds of multiple storylines and interconnectedness. I mean, when you have 973 pages to play with, there better be some depth, right?

I gave it 3 stars on Shelfari... I probably would have liked to give it 3 1/2 if that were possible. It was great, but here's my main beef with it: too graphic. I may never hear the words "rape and pillage" the same again... which I guess in a way might be good, I don't want to get desensitized to the way things were and the struggles of former eras, blah blah. But yeah, a little graphic. And I guess at times the writing got a little tedious, so that's the extra half a star off. :)

I think part of why I was so antsy to finish is I am re-re-reading the Time Traveler's Wife this week - under the deadline of the movie release. I'm So. Excited to go see it and cry my eyes out reading the book. I can't really explain it. I get so happy just thinking about it.

2 more swimming workouts

I know I've said it already, but swimming rocks. It's definitely the right exercise at the right time. I'm trying to go twice a week now, and have for the past 2 weeks, to keep my cardio workouts up to snuff. It's quite honestly, more fun than the Arc Trainer and *shudder* the treadmill. And the freaking heat/humidity/misery of NC August makes running outside a thing of the past for the most part. I'm not keen on waking up super early or going right before bed (plus it storms like daily these days). Meh, it seems to be naturally happening, that swimming is replacing running as my primary cardio activity. I'm cool with that. I do need a new bathing suit though.

So here are the two workouts I did this week. If it's not very obvious, I'm aiming to swim 2000 yards in each workout, which takes about 50-60 minutes depending on how much rest I take/need in between sets. I am having more fun than I thought I would thinking up exciting workouts... it's funny how some of the types of sets that annoyed the crap out of me in HS and college are now creeping their way back into my mind and my workouts. I like to keep it interesting and I think having sets helps to break it all up and keep it interesting. I think I'd rather sit on the couch than just go and swim for 50 minutes. Bo-ring. The counting and the changing of strokes helps pass the time. It's just enough to think about - I am focused on the activity at hand but able to let my mind wander to other more pressing things in my life.



Swimming workout 2
2000 Yards


200 warm up

8x125 (broken as follows: first 75 alternating between back or breaststroke, last 50 recovery freestyle. Rest 10 seconds in between the 75 and 50, 20 seconds between 125's)

8x75 free (Fast 50 into a recovery 25)

200 warm down



Swimming Workout 3
2000 Yards

*this is my "boring" workout. :)

200 Warm Up

10x150 - straight free

300 Warm Down

Edited 9/8
(I'm just going to keep adding on to this post, bc I know swimming workouts aren't all that interesting, but I need them all in one place:) )

Workout 4:
*involves little thinking.
200 w/u
500 swim (alternate 100 free, 100 back to help keep count, for all of the '00 sets below)
50 easy
400 swim
50 easy
300 swim
50 easy
200 swim
50 easy
100 warm down

Workout 5:

200 warm up
1x400 (alt free and back each 100)
4x200 ( 125 swim, rest 10 sec, 25 butterfly kick, 50 recovery)
4x100 IM (I one-armed the butterfly)
200 Warm down

-Edit 9/22
Workout 6:
Total: 1950

200 Warm Up

Main set:
250 free
200 back
150 - 50 swim, 50 butterfly kick, 50 swim
100 free
50 recovery

Repeat, knocking off the largest leg each time (#2 is minus the 250, #3 minus the 200)

200 Warm Down

-- 10/28 edit
Workout 7: (stolen from Masters swim team practice board) :)
300 swim/300 kick
200 pull
100 kick hard

Main set:
100 hard
100 easy
100 hard
2x50 pull
(all that x2)

200 warm down

Workout:

250 warm up
3x500's
Ideas on breaking up the 500's:
Ladder:
25/50/75/100/100/75/50/25 (rest 10-15 sec in btwn)
Dec:
150/125/100/75
Drill (combo of pull & kick w/ pull buoy and kick board)

I'm sorry but...

Really, journalist from the AP (or maybe Yahoo, I could see Yahoo doing this)? I read the article and to me, being "fed bad food" wasn't the most salient and horrific thing going on in the North Korean prison camps. This is the worst dumbing down I've seen in a while. Headline FAIL!

A Note To Self:

Dear Jamie from a few months ago,

NICE job on freezing a few servings of that baked spaghetti casserole. I think I recall you were "so sick of it" because it makes like 14 servings, but saving the last 2 in serving size containers in the freezer was a stroke of genius. It warmed up perfectly. Truly, you should do that more often. It was *worlds* better than my usual Smart Ones or Lean Cuisine meal.

I'm going to follow your lead on that here in the present.

You are awesome, Jamie from a few months ago,
Jamie from Now

Oh Belly, Where Art Thou?

This is me at 17 weeks, in the bathroom at work, taking a quick pic in case someone would enter the bathroom & catch me. I think I'm plateauing in the "spare tire" phase just a little. I'm well into maternity pants (and loving it) but not much of a bump to speak of.

In other baby news/updates, we are likely buying some furniture this weekend! I think ideally we'd wait until we know the gender to choose, BUT the NC Tax Free weekend is this coming weekend and well... we're thinking gender neutral anyway (so no white, basically). And who among us would choose to pay taxes if you could avoid them by shopping on a certain weekend? Anyone? Yeah, me too.

And we find out next week! If you haven't yet voted, please do :) I was a little surprised at how heavily the poll was skewing toward boy, but it seems to have evened out a little. We don't care, as long as it's healthy (smug face).*

*I can't figure out how to embed this video, but you should watch the "Pregnant Women are Smug" video on You Tube if you haven't already http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJRzBpFjJS8