Jikana Damaru: 08/18/11

today is

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{this was an entry of mine showcasing a little piece of my world a lane way in Melbourne Australia}

35 weeks

Days shy of being 9 months pregnant!

Less than two weeks until I am full term!!

Five weeks until she should be here!!!

I feel a lot larger than I look!

I'm getting terrible at pregnancy updates these days, but here we go! As of last Thursday (one week ago today) my doctor estimates little girl to weigh a whopping 5lbs! And she is still head down. All great news. Her tiny bum and feet like to get in my ribs now which can be super uncomfortable. Still way worth it just to feel her move around though! She also has the hiccups at least twice a day now and they have the power to make my stomach repeatedly jump. I feel good for being this far along. I thought it would be worse being pregnant during the summer. It's definitely harder to maneuver but I'm managing well. I've been getting pretty painful leg cramps. They usually only last a minute or so though. I'm also having braxton hicks contractions, mostly at nights, but they can be as close as five minutes apart! Overall, I really can't and shouldn't complain, everything is going wonderfully. Next Thursday I start weekly doctors appointments! It's getting down to the wire here :)

Hubby and I went to a child birth class at the hospital I'm delivering at a couple weeks ago. I really recommend this to any first time parents. Even though I already knew most of the information from reading, researching, and asking other moms, I still learned a lot. I think it was more beneficial for Hub though, so he will know what's going on!

Her room is nearly finished. I'll take some photos soon to share! We bought a storage cube in white on sale for $37, regularly $49! It's perfect for miscellaneous items and super cute with pink canvas drawers. It will help keep her room organized and acts as a mantle to put cute stuff on.

There isn't a whole lot left to do besides get our maternity photos done, put the play yard & swing together, sterilize paci's, and pack hospital bags! Car seat is installed and the stroller is ready in the trunk. All of her clothes, blankets, sheets, bibs, etc. are washed. That's been one of the most exciting things to do...the smell of Dreft is wonderful :) I'm sure more miscellaneous tasks will come up but for now I'm feeling nearly prepared for the first time!

What would Karl Pilkington do?

Writing about travel and the Spinx Effect the other night put Karl Pilkington back in my head. And now I can't get him out.

Every now and then you watch a show on television that stays with you. LOML and I nearly choked laughing at An Idiot Abroad on SBS a little while back. For the sake of the children, it got to the point where, like plane travel, we considered whether it might be best if we watched the show separately.

We got sucked into what was really a very long, very involved, rather absurd practical joke disguised as a travel show. Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant sent their morose, 'everyman' mate, Karl Pilkington, well out of his comfort zone and around the Seven Wonders of the World. He's the sort of guy who you could imagine living his whole life within a 2 block radius of where he grew up. It's nice there, why would you go any further?

Clearly, he was never meant to travel. He is obviously intelligent, but he's funny because he is so utterly unadabtable to the situations he finds himself in. He's a lot like the Blues Point Tower on Sydney Harbour, actually.

I think his honesty is what makes him such an unlikely star. We're not used to seeing someone on the tele who calls a spade a spade. Doesn't want to talk it into being a shovel. Doesn't want to dress it up with a bow. It's just a spade - what's wrong with that? He is keenly observant and responds to the world without any trace of irony or filter. The world comes to Karl, he doesn't go to the world. Of the Great Wall of China he said "not that great, to be honest – if I named it, it’d be the All right Wall" and "Just goes for miles and miles....but so does the M6." You can find many other classic 'Karls' here. He's such a phenomenon that he even has his own 'Pilkipedia'.

He is indeed an unlikely poet. Karl is basically what would happen if you stripped away every trace of political correctness or cultural understanding in the world and then made the world about five years old. While most of us are adaptable chameleons, Karl is a dugong.

Karl would definitely understand the Sphinx Effect. I think Karl's whole life is probably best described by the Sphinx Effect. This is the man who decided not to walk the last 100 metres to stand at Machu Picchu because "the view is better from here". He is both refreshing and depressing in equal parts. Refreshing because it's just so grand to see someone so blatantly honest and unbound by societal convention (and he's funny, whether intentional or not). Depressing because, well, he really, really is.

Have you met Karl?

Do you find him oddly refreshing?

Do you know anyone like Karl? Can I meet them?

[Image can be found here]

Cocoa Confections

This week on "Wonderful World of Etsy" I bring you the adorable coloured chocolate confections from Etsy Store, Cocoa Confections. I love their use of colour and detail especially in the chocolate owl lollipops.

Have a sweet day!

"Busy Bags"... the instant, mobile BOREDOM BUSTER!

Completely by chance while playing about on Facebook, I stumbled upon a local photography business called The Storehouse Project. I liked what I saw and probed further, visiting Emma's blog. Turned out I visited at just the right time, because Emma was seeking volunteers for a "busy bag" swap. Until then, I'd never heard of a "busy bag" but five seconds later I decided it was the world's best initiative and signed myself up!

What is a busy bag, you ask? Why, it is a little zip-lock bag of creative goodness stowed away in your handbag/ car/ anywhere in fact... that you can pull out and entertain your dear small offspring at a moment's notice!

The bags contain a simple activity - something your young child can create or do that afterward, you can simply zip-lock back again for future emergencies!

You're liking this already aren't you?

The swap I have held my own hand up for involves 12 volunteers -- each of us constructing 12 little busy-bags of our own choice. Each person chose a unique activity so that next week -- on swap night -- we bring our activities along and swap with one another so that we each end up with not one but 12 delightful busy-bags to hide smugly away, knowing that at a moment's notice, we can pull one out and get a half-hour or so of reprieve!

You can imagine just how useful these would be at the doctors surgery... on an airplane (oh gawd I wish I'd had one of these last week for Elliott on the plane to NZ!)... in a restaurant... and in any number of other situations!

A little stumped on what to make for my own busy-bag, I did a web search and unveiled some of the following ideas:

from here

Button Snake from here

If you love this idea and want to host your own local busy-bag swap, I found this link with a bunch of really great activity ideas to get you started. Another good one, complete with a linky-thingamy is this one, with tons of pages of cool and creative activities for kids!

Wondering what I'm going to make for my bag?

Well I'll share with you... I plan to make some mini-chalkboards! I am somewhat chalk obsessed at the mo so it seemed kinda obvious... Not entirely sure how I'm going to do it yet but I will need to sort it out quick-smart, because the swap is on Monday night! I'll post pics of my masterpieces over the weekend once I've made them, if you are interested.

Aside from having a tiny bit of stage fright about rocking up to somebody's house that I don't know and meeting a bunch of girl's that I also don't know to exchange these bags, I am quite excited about it, and isn't it a great way to meet new people!

I'll report on how I fare next week - should I be brave enough to bring my camera along to the swap?

snap happy

I don't know about you but when we embark on a road trip I love to sit in the passengers seat, control the stereo, hand out the snacks, keep an eye on the speedo! & snap away with my camera to capture the memories. Yes I even take photos of passing traffic.

When we stop to stretch all 8 legs I still have the camera in hand to continue the story.

Now you can have a little taste of our recent road trip, up a mountain covered in tree ferns & bushland. It was a great weekend getaway. & next time you are a passenger in a car - get snap happy too!