| Less is more? |
[May. 23rd, 2012|09:52 am] |
Something that I've become a lot less neurotic about since the baby took root is how I look. I mean, I know I'm supposed to be slowly inflating. I know things are supposed to change. I know I'm supposed to be eating what amounts to an extra meal a day for me (300 calories--I usually eat a very light breakfast, spread my lunch out, and have a more substantial dinner, when I say "extra meal" I mean an extra breakfast or lunch).
All the same, the changes--the visible and invisible ones--are kind of freaky, and there are times when I look at myself and see the beginning baby bump and can't believe it's me. After a lifetime of trying to be skinny(er), it's surprisingly uncomfortable to suddenly get bigger--and I'm not even that "big" yet--and even more uncomfortable knowing that I'm not supposed to do anything about it.
I mean, I'm not stupid: I'm not trying to go on a diet, and I'm still eating mostly-healthy foods, and getting gentle exercise. But it's still strange, and even stranger is that it should still feel this strange, even after 3 1/2 months. I kind of envy the women who fall in love with their pregnant bodies and relish everything about their pregnancies. For me, there hasn't really been anything to relish yet--I've still got another 3 or 4 weeks until I might be able to feel it kick, and until then, I've got a changing figure but no sensation--no morning sickness, no strange cravings (now that I've started eating meat again, cravings have completely disappeared, replaced instead by being hungry every few hours), no improvement in my skin, no mood swings--to show for it. |
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| Just a touch of schadenfreude |
[May. 20th, 2012|12:23 pm] |
On Friday night, after posting here, on my blog, and sending out a gazillion emails to everybody and their grandmother (emails went to: the dean of the FHMLS, the medical ethics committe, most of the authors of the paper, and the two other members of the department), I received a phone call from one of the professors who'd worked with An.
Turns out, she is in a sh*t-ton of hot water with Maastricht already. It's all heresay, though, so I don't know how much of it is true, but if any of it has any figment of truth behind, it, you'd think that she'd have known better than to confess that leaving my name out of the paper was a "carefully considered decision" made jointly by all of the other co-authors.
I imagine that even the university that she's been hired at will have second thoughts about this after everything is illuminated... |
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| Nuchal folds and maternity clothes |
[May. 12th, 2012|12:02 pm] |
Apparently the neck fold is a reliable indicator of birth defects (the trisomies--21, 18, 13). The smaller, the better, at least that's what google says. Ours is 1.5, which is good, but we still have to wait for the results of the blood test.
In less-downer news, I've received a package of maternity clothes from my mom. Let's just say that I never thought I'd actually look good during the 9 months, but wow I have rarely been so happy to be so wrong. And the jeans, ridiculous though they look, are actually quite comfortable. Small blessings to be thankful for: The rest of me is more-or-less the same size as I've always been, so sizing is quite easy. And that the C1000 is just across the street, so that when a random ice-cream craving hits me at 7 pm, I know where to go... |
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| Whip it |
[Apr. 21st, 2012|11:45 am] |
Making dinner tonight for a friend and us:
Asparagus and Hollandaise sauce
Spinach
Potato-smoked-salmon salad.
I still haven't worked out the planning. I have only the vaguest idea of how to make a Hollandaise sauce. I'm not sure if I have enough pots. And I'm questioning if I've bought enough asparagus.
This is probably not quite what foodies have in mind when they say "cook adventurously". |
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| I never thought |
[Apr. 11th, 2012|10:44 pm] |
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Well, I kinda did...but I don't think I ever fully appreciated the difficulty involved in getting enough protein for a Little It. I was indifferent to the smell of meat before; now I get a whiff of reheated spaghetti sauce and I just want to kill a f*cking cow. |
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| Spinach quiche |
[Apr. 8th, 2012|08:46 am] |
I'd decided to make a spinach quiche earlier this week, and so I got the ingredients that I needed (spinach, cream) and picked up Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking and looked up how to make a quiche.
The annoying thing about pastry crust is that you have to start it at least 2 hours before you plan on serving it: it takes 30 seconds to make (I cheat and use the food processor), but it needs to sit for at least 30 minutes in the fridge (and preferably an hour), followed by rolling it out (at least 15 minutes of work) and a pre-bake (20 minutes, give or take) before you can even think about filling it and baking the pastry (20-30 minutes). But I knew that part going in.
What I hadn't counted on was having to blanch the spinach, then squeeze out all the water left behind, and then chopping it. Then followed by sweating the onions (which had to be finely chopped), adding the spinach to the hot pan to evaporate whatever water was left, and only then could we add the eggs and cream mix. That took the better part of 2 hours--almost 30 minutes to bring that quantity of water to a boil.
Luckily, it all ended well--the quiche turned out fantastic. Even Karel liked it, and he's not usually one for spinache quiche (at least, in my pre-Julia Child incarnations thereof). And most of the steps took only 5 minutes, with a lot of waiting time in between, so I was able to do other things in the meantime. But still: if you think about how many steps were involved in making what's considered a relatively simple dish, one must wonder--do the French do anything else besides making up new ways to torture food? |
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| Dress-up |
[Apr. 2nd, 2012|04:43 pm] |
wedding dress fabric bought. Not silk, alas...though honestly, I don't think my sewing skills are that good that I could work comfortably with something as fine as silk. Also haven't got a zipper, but I figure that we'll be a while before we need that. But otherwise, for both layers (since the silky layer is virtually see-through), a scant €25 of materials, and €30 if I count the zipper and some extra ribbons which I haven't procured yet.
Hopefully I'll be able to find a few patterns online, but the design I have in mind is simple enough (even with a lace-up back) that I should be able to manage. |
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| Sewing sewing sewing |
[Mar. 28th, 2012|09:34 am] |
Going to try my hand at cloth diapering. I'm already working on a batch of wipes (flannel--I want to wipe my butt with them, damn it, they're so soft) and I'll pick up some more flannel next Monday for a second batch, as well as burp cloths and maybe some sheets, or a blanket. Flannel is expensive, alas (€8/m) but it's by far the most expensive part of the Little It projects, so I guess I don't mind...that much. In any case, it's still cheaper than one month's of diapers, and if it means the Little It toilet trains faster, well, great.
But the biggest takeaway of the week is that, if I thought the Internet was full of crazies before, it seems doubly so, now--people who use cloth diapers have their own mystical-crazy-speak. It's really bizarre, too--all the emphasis on all-natural and super-organic stuff...and then buying these super-expensive diapers (Bum Genie and what-not) made of fleece, with a gazillion snaps...
Suffice it to say that the sewing machine is going to get a workout. On top of Little It things, I've also got to make a wedding dress. It'll have an empire waist, since I don't quite know how big I'm going to be (if indeed I grow at all). If I can manage it, a lace-up back, with wide ribbons criss-crossing all the way down. No train, though I might indulge my fancy and make the ribbons long and floaty. |
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| Working it |
[Mar. 15th, 2012|09:43 am] |
Bought a color laserjet, so that I can print stuff at home and have it look nice.
And I am enjoying being able to separate business from personal expenses. If I were taxonomist (not taxidermist), I'd probably be a splitter.
Now to rearrange our living room, to make space for business things. |
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| I can breathe! |
[Mar. 13th, 2012|09:10 am] |
Living better through pharmacology:
I SLEPT last night. For the past few weeks, it's been taking me longer and longer to fall asleep--at first the coughing and wheezing was just for a few minutes, but lately it's been up to two hours. Finally, after Karel started complaining, I made an appointment to see the doctor. 5 minutes to wait in the waiting room, 5 minutes to explain what was going on, 5 minutes for the doctor to explain what was going on, 5 minutes to wait for the prescription, and 5 minutes to walk home.
God, I love socialized medicine. |
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small_chicken's journal