Author Archives: Nicole

P365 Day 121 – April 30th 2008

Proud of this one – almost straight out of the camera. Just a little cropping, a defog action and voila! Of course it took about 5 minutes of me saying Thomas’ name and begging him to look at me before I was able to take the photo, but it’s all about the setup, right?

Taken at the end of a long day – capped off by Kei getting a flat tire on his bike and Thomas and I having to go and pick him up. It did mean we missed the drywallers (is that a word?) who wanted to stay late because they were on a roll. So exciting now that we almost have walls. Real walls – not the pieces of cardboard that passed themselves off as walls on our second floor before we began this adventure. Oh no, THESE walls have insulation (I think I mentioned how fantastic that stuff is).

Oh and today I have had a few contractions and a lot of aching in my lower back. I have been madly drinking water and am tempted to lie on my left side under the desk just to keep this child in. (Kei’s advice was to clench.) I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so I’ll let you know if I’m imagining things.

P365 Day 120 – April 29th 2008

I am going to have to update my locket photos pretty soon. Kei bought this for my birthday a couple of years ago and I have not changed out the photos since I added these when Thomas was about six months old. Of course the problem is going to be when I have three boys in my life and only two spaces for photos. Kei has already accepted the fact that he will have to give up his position. I think he accepted it a long time ago…

P.S. In addition to providing more variety in my photos, I also promise more focus – as in, not blurry.

P365 Day 119 – April 28th 2008

A little souvenir from my life in Japan. It seriously feels like a lifetime ago (and I guess for a ten year old, it is). This little fish has traveled from Japan to Australia and then across the world again to Portland. I hang him inside because he makes noise when you hang him in the wind and it can get a little irritating. Let’s just say that as a wind chime he works a little too well (someone in our apartment building in Australia actually asked us to take him down soon after we moved in).

OK – so I am running short on photo subjects. The difficulty is that with working five days a week, I often don’t usually remember my photo until I am in my pajama pants and unwilling to venture outside. So I have been limited to objects around my house. Objects that are right now covered in dust and, frankly, I am running out of interesting objects to photograph.  Never fear – this will all change as soon as I have this baby and am officially off work for a few months. I promise more variety – well AFTER the few thousand photos I post of the baby and his brother (and the inside of the hospital) of course.

Moving Along

Exciting things happening with the house. The insulation is in and they start on the drywall today. You can’t imagine how much difference it makes having insulation (REAL insulation) on the second floor for the very first time.

Yes, they had something up there before but it more closely resembelled a rat’s nest rather than a product designed to keep the heat in and the cold out.

And anyone who has been on our second floor in the peak summer months could tell you that it was difficult to even find any air to breathe, never mind a cool place to hide. The air just did not move up there. But now it will thanks to the modern miracles of well-placed ventilation and those big pink (well beige) pieces of who-knows-what that manage to keep our heating bill in the “I can actually pay it” range.

The amazing thing is that the difference is INSTANTANEOUS! Amazing, amazing stuff. (My dad actually worked for a company in Australia that made insulation for about 20 years. He has always been a stong proponent and will be so impressed by my excitement. It may make up for the fact that I failed chemistry in year 12 – he is a Chemical Engineer.)

Ok moving on. I have a LO to share and I have to say it is one of my favourite LOs for a long time. Sometimes I see LOs in the galleries and they have so much STUFF on them. I love the way they look but I have a really hard time going through my files and finding the right stuff. Then I get frustrated and I am not happy with the result and… you get the gist.

So I am giving myself permission to keep it simple. Here’s the result.

View credits by clicking on the image.

ETA – Just found out I am on the catwalk at SISTV. So exciting!

In other news – think I have been having some Braxton Hicks contractions the last couple of days. Hard to tell, but I feeling uncomfortable today. This baby is not allowed to come early – we have a house building schedule to adhere to and it would mess things up. OK – he could come the week after next if he really wanted to. As long as the hardwoods are installed while we are in the hospital. Not too much to ask right?

Have a very happy humpday.

Shameless

So I stole this directly from Jodie’s blog. Reminds me of one of my favourite quotes: “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources” – Albert Einstein – hey, if it’s good enough for Al…

I digress.

Here are the rules for a little blog post about me:
1. go to http://www.flickr.com
2. type in your answer to the question in the “search” box (just use one word, with the exception of question #5)
3. use only the first page to choose your picture
4. copy the html and paste for the answer

Easy enough? Well here goes:

1. What is your first name ?

It had to be the Aussie right?

2. Favourite Food?

3.What school did you go to?

4.What is your favourite colour?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

I bypassed some of the more gratuitous shots so had to go to page five for this one.

6.Who is your favourite Disney Princess?

7. Favourite Drink?

8.Dream Vacation?

9.Favourite Dessert?

But may change after I have this baby. It’s a craving thing.

10.What do you want to be when you grow up?

11.What do you love most in life?

12.One word to describe you?

13.What do you dream about?

 

Some of these questions were hard, but what a great way to see some amazing photography.

Link me up if you do one of your own.

A case of the Mondays

Yes – today is Monday and it started, appropriately, with a car that wouldn’t start – when I was already running late. I think we may have left an interior light on or something because the battery was nearly flat. It had just enough juice to make me think it was going to start but not enough to actually get going. Thankfully the AAA guy was able to give me a jump start and I was on my way – about an hour late but I did squeeze in a work call to London before I left so all was not lost. I think the fact that I felt like crying when the car wouldn’t start had more to do with hormones and less to do with the gravity of the situation.

We had our weekly house renovation project meeting this morning and everything is moving along swimmingly. The best news is that we won’t have to move my Mum out of the house as soon as she arrives. The timeline was indicating that we may need to move out for a couple of days while they seal the hardwoods but it now looks like we can move that up a week so it will be done just before she gets here.

More progress:

  • Plumbing, electrical and heating vents are almost all complete. Just have to put in the new hot water heater and hook everything up. In the process, absolutely every room in our house has been affected in some way except the living room. We have holes in walls and vents running through closets all over the place. It will all be nicely hidden when we are done but Kei and I are a little tired of moving things in and out of our very packed closets.
  • Kei fixed the leaky sink in the kitchen (after two years of complaining that I haven’t been able to use the sprayer). Just waiting on couple of parts and my sink will be living up to its full potential. 🙂
  • Speaking of sinks, I have a brand new Laundry sink in the basement. It replaced the original concrete monstrosity that has been here since the house was built in 1923. I can also use hot water to wash clothes for the very first time since we moved in (long story).
  • We have windows – well most of them. I think they will wait to put the last couple of windows in until the very last moment as they are currently using the windows as a doorway to the second floor. The best part is that it is so much lighter upstairs now. Oh, and now that the upstairs heating is connected we are heating the inside more, and the outside less.

The best news of all is that we are right on schedule so we should have most of the really noisy/dusty work done by the time this baby comes… IN THREE WEEKS!

Here is a new picture of the house. Not much has changed from the outside except the addition of two window. The one on the right is Thomas’ room, the boarded window in the middle is the baby’s room and the little one on the left is the bathroom. We also have new windows on either side of the house. The best thing – we will be able to open them without needing super-human strength!

 

TTFN

Nicole

P365 Day 118 – April 27th 2008

Finally starting to feel like spring. The rain even stopped for a couple of days. There are tulips all around our neighbourhood and they are so pretty. Almost makes me want to do some gardening. Almost.

P365 Day 116 – April 25th 2008

Friday night – finally the end of a very long week. So we went out for Sushi and a walk around the neighbourhood. Thomas loves traveling on Kei’s shoulders. I asked Kei what we’re going to do when we have two kids but he still has only one pair of shoulders. He didn’t have an answer either.

P365 Day 115 – April 24th 2008

Ever had that feeling when you get in the elevator and you realize you didn’t really take notice of the floor where you parked and you wonder how many floors you will have to stop and get off so you can take a look around before you finally find your car?

Happened to me tonight. And this is the most interesting photo I had the time to take. Unless you want to see pictures of an awards ceremony for the Portland Business Journal that I had to attend for work. Didn’t think so.