Time to unwind

The weeks are just flying past - somone hit the pause button!

It's been a busy old time with me - as per. House stuff is really moving on and I feel like we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, for this phase anyway! And that is bloody good feeling.

The kitchen/dining room floor has been getting laid this week. In the meantime we have stripped our bedroom wallpaper and totally cleared the room out so that it can get a skim coat of plaster next week. Also next week in the biggest of all the bedrooms we are getting two velux windows put in as we're going to spilt the room in two and so need more light. It's all go! But next week while this is happening, we're on holiday! Whoooo fricking hoooo!

Man, do we need this holiday. It's been six months of hard graft. Poor TB just goes to work and then comes home to work on the house. It's been non stop with all our energy and money being put into the house. To have a week sitting around in the sun, relaxing, not having jobs hanging over us will be so good. The last holiday we went on was our honeymoon, in June last year. God, we need this.

When we get back, the kitchen will be pretty much done apart from a few fiddly bits and we'll be bashing on with decorating our bedroom. Easy when you've got freshly plastered walls to work with though, compared to our usual three weeks of sanding and pollyfilly prep.

Work has also been bonkers busy - cannot wait to leave that behind too.

And alongside all this - I'm getting more and more preggo. I've had the easiest time of it but now my feet are starting to get sore. Carting all this extra weight around with me is not easy and I'm beginning to feel it.

I forgot what it was like to get sore feet. To walk for more than a few miles with two stone plus on your frame - it's tough. Since I've been fitter, rushing around the place without stopping is no big deal.  Running up the stairs - easy. I totally took that for granted. At the moment I feel like don't walk,  I kind of lumber around. I'm doing my best to hold myself normally and not be OTT with it but man, I gotta sit down a lot! And it's only going to get worse. The baby is currently around 4 and a half pounds. It could double!

I've only got seven weeks left until my due date. Seven weeks! Gah! We built the crib/co sleeper up the other day and it's now next to our bed. It's been really nice to see it in place. Every time I look at it, I think to myself, soon there's going to be a wee baby in there.

If I think about it too much, I can't get my head around it. There is a fully formed baby inside me right now. It's just a matter of weeks until it's out and we have to do everything for it. Two will suddenly be three. No matter what I think I can expect, I know I've got no idea.

Fruition

Well hey guys. Hope everyone is tickety boo, fine AND dandy.

I have a very VERY sore throat but I'm feeling pretty positive so let's not mention that again. Keeping the vibe on the up, people.

On Saturday I had a glimpse of life without DIY. Sure it'll always be there when you live in an old house but there once was a time when it didn't consume our every waking moment - and we had one of those moments on Saturday. We had our first antenatal class and then decided to go for a drive and out for lunch, just the two of us. It was SO nice. And we talked about how we're looking forward to spending time as a family this summer. Actually enjoying spending time together and going to visit people, and having people visit us - and not constantly feeling like we should be painting or fixing stuff. Cannot wait.

Kitchen floor fitters, plasterer for bedroom skim coat and roofer for velux windows have all been booked. Three weeks from now that will all be done! They are all big jobs that will make a huge diff.

The antenatal class was actually quite good. I'm planning to have the baby at my local maternity unit  - just a mile away from home. Very handy! They've got an excellent reputation and the class, run by them was very reassuring about when to come in once you're in labour. The only downside in choosing a maternity unit over a labour ward is the pain relief. By choosing the former I am saying that I don't want an epidural. I don't. Right now, I don't. But when I'm in pigging agony... well - I'll have made my choice and will have to endure a 45 minute ambulance ride if I change my mind. Anyway - that's a whole 9 weeks (or more!) away. A lifetime! Hahhaaahaaa...

I feel like I've been getting on top of a few jobs that have been hanging over me forever, which feels so good. I got TB a lovely Nikkie McWilliams print for Valentine's Day. Not only is that now framed and hanging on the wall but I've got two other frames which this weekend I will be populating. One with the knot we tied during the knot tying ceremony at our wedding and the other, a collage of lots of ticket stubs, maps, postcards, pics and other delights from our honeymoon. That's a job for this weekend.

I'm still eating way too much of the wrong things. No longer is a standard chocolate bar enough, I'm buying a big sharing bag and scoffing the lot in one go. Oh dear. BUT I am feeling more positive. Yes, I'll have put on a shed load of weight but so what, I'll lose it again. It's what I do, right? If anyone can do it, then I think I can. Make a plan, get it done. And I'll have a wee baby who I want to be healthy for and with.

Break out the flags... we have made progress on the name front! Last night TB told me the top two boy names he likes. What a minute... Those are the top two names I have been mentioning since FOREVER! Seed planted, is now blossoming me thinks.

10 week countdown

10 week countdown. Even just typing those works makes me feel a bit... waaaaah haaa haaa, oh my god, we're having a baby. I might have been pregnant for what seems like a pretty long time  (well, to me it does!) but only now does it kinda feel like it's sinking in.

My bump is growing pretty rapidly now (as you can see for yourselves) and for the first time a stranger offered congratulations. I was wearing my clingy gym gear mind you, so there was no escaping it! Everyone keeps telling me how neat I am though and the midwife did comment on my strong stomach muscles. YES, thank you planking and running. 

I am really missing being the person that I was a year ago. The very active, healthy eating person. Sure, I'm pretty active for a third trimester preggo, but you know what I mean. I'm going to have to throw myself back into it (once I get over the shock of giving birth and realising I'm responsible for another life) but I'm going to be starting from a place I never though I would be again. And when I say place, I mean number. At my all time heaviest I was 15 and a half stone. I'm going to be pretty close to that, if not more, by the time I have the baby. That's a long way to go to get back down to be close to where I was. 

In recent times my heavier weight was in the high 13s. In fact, I was there a few months before we got engaged. 11 months later when we got married - after some SERIOUS hard graft (we're taking 5 workouts a week and super strict healthy eating)  - I was almost two stone lighter.  I'm going to have that to lose at least, oh and the small matter of a baby to look after. I'm going to have to do it though. I'm going to have to get my head in the game and just get on with it. I need to start our new life together as a healthy one.

In terms of how I'm feeling, the answer is totally fine. A couple of minor aches and a bit of heartburn has been the sum total of issues. I sleep like a log and generally everything is just peachy. The baby is moving about loads and yesterday I there were a couple of massive thumps that actually made me exclaim out loud. 

I still can't quite believe that right now there is a baby weighing more than 3lbs in my tummy. We've been buying more bits - changing mat, clothes, monitor - but it 's all sitting in a big pile in the spare room under a big plastic sheet so it doesn't get covered in dust. I think once we actually build the crib up (once the plastering of our bedroom and the new velux windows are in) that'll  help me to get my noggin around what the hell is going on. I'll never truly be prepared though. An impossible feat!

We've got our first antenatal class on Saturday. I had to confess one of the things I'm hoping to get out of it is not some sort of chat on which way up the baby goes (although that would be helpful) but some new friends. I'm a lucky girl with lots of friends but none that don't live more than an hour away. Someone in the vicinity would be lovely! 

Kitchen update (of course!) the first coat of the new colour is on and it is SO much better. Two more coats and then we're just about ready for the floor! Thank GAWD! Poor TB spend several hours in the pissing rain drilling a 6" hole through a sandstone wall (for the extraction hood thingy pipe) and so that's another great job done!