Sunday Seven

Well, another weekend is gone already and tomorrow I will be alone for the first time in over 2 weeks...not sure how much I'm going to enjoy that! The important thing will be to remember to keep still and not try to do too much (I'm finding myself up on my feet and doing things way more than I should be lately, I still need to take it easy, at least for another 2 weeks.)

Anyway, in total random fashion I thought I'd share some random 'sevens' in my life right now:

Seven Random photos:

1. My scrap desk...still working on finishing my 52Q mini album, so far it's going well, I'm really enjoying using up my scraps (all part of the purge before moving.)

2. Speaking of moving...this is what my dining room area looks like. We're really getting down to everything non-essential being packed and I feel really good about it, just a few more areas to tackle. (Also, notice the car seat, we finally bought one!)

3. The body. It's harder to move, stiff, itchy, and impatiently waiting to go back to normal.

4. The start of my baby blanket. It took a LONG time for me to get the hang of it (pathetically long actually), but I've been knitting about 5-8 rows a day and haven't made any mistakes since my mother in law left yesterday early morning, so I'm happy! I'm going to aim to get it done by the Spring, working on it as much as possible before the baby comes.

5. Shimi being cute. As much as she bugs me sometimes I'm really glad I have her around for company during the days.

6. Another pile of cute baby clothes, this time from my friend Heather, who sent an adorable package full of clothes, a handmade owl mobile (photos to come later) and a book to keep me occupied while on bedrest. Best friend ever :)

7. And me. As I've said before, I'm quite anxious and impatient for this little one to arrive, but I know that it's better for all of us if he stays where he's at for another 2-4 weeks at least. It's very hard though, he's constantly in my thoughts, and all the kicks and rolls make me want to see those little feet and hands (and elbows and knees!) all the more.

Other random Sevens:

Seven goals for this week:
1. Call storage facilities in Sussex to get rates and availability
2. Decide what weekend Dan will move our things to storage and rent a U-haul
3. Finish up all my work tasks and tell them to shut my email down for good (eek!)
4. Pack some more
5. Finish the ball of yarn I'm using for the blanket
6. Make a list of final things we need for the baby
7. Email Jelena

Seven things I'm looking forward to in February:
1. My baby being (possibly) born!
2. Being off bedrest!
3. Moving home
4. The LOST Season 6 premiere!
5. Wearing normal clothes (depending on #1)
6. Longer daylight hours
7. My friend Sara and her little Judah's birthdays

Seven things I'm loving right now:
1. Cereal (seriously, I could eat it allll the time)
2. Bananagrams (a game Dan's mom brought last week, it's super fun!)
3. Knitting
4. Anything baby-related
5. Afternoon naps (yeah, 3rd trimester fatigue has definitely set in)
6. Having alone time with Dan
7. Amazon.ca (I ordered 2 books from the site, I should be getting them this week!)

Well that's all for now, I'll be back this week with my February Goals (can't believe it's February already!) and some more 52Qs to post. Until then, hope you all had a wonderful Sunday and enjoy your upcoming week!

Loves,
G.

Wow, more clothing options are needed...

So, I didn't notice until I was editing the pics, but my 34.5 Weeks shots have the same colour outfit as my 31.5 Weeks shots! (They are different pieces of clothing but they just look the same.) My wardrobe lately has been seriously and tragically cut down to a few pieces that I can wear and still feel comfortable in. Being on bedrest has made it so that I don't have to have maternity work clothes anymore, and since I can't go out shopping for new clothes, most days I'm just in some form of sweatpant and large shirt or sweater, with little care as to whether they match or how they look. Sad but true. I can't wait to get back into normal clothes!

Anyway, I again neglected to keep up the 2 week schedule for these shots, so from now on I guess we're moving on to 3 weeks. I still don't notice myself getting bigger but I definitely am, it's really just hard to imagine, even at this point...the denial is very strong in me.

Five and a half weeks to go, bring it on!

Happy Saturday,
G.

PS-On Thursday night Dan and I went out to supper with Dan's mom (her last night with us) and as I was walking out of the restaurant with my coat unbuttoned-because I can't button it up anymore-I heard someone behind me say "how far along are you?" I didn't know who it was so I turned around and it was a girl about my age sitting at a table with probably 6 or 8 of her friends. I went over and told her I was 34 weeks and she looked at me and said "well you look fantastic!" I was so surprised, I didn't know what to say, so I said what I always say when someone compliments me on my prego appearance: "Thanks, I feel BIG." She then said "Oh no, well you look great!" I then thanked her again and left, but it truly made my day that a complete stranger would take the time to compliment me on my appearance, especially in this state. A little bit of kindness can go a long way.

Random thoughts on this whole *parenting* thing [@ 34 Weeks]

I know that:

*I'll say that I won't let my baby watch TV until after he's 2....but he will.

*I'll say that I won't give in and use bribes/threats to get him to behave...but I will.

*I'll say that he will only play with educational, natural, pretty toys...but he won't.

*I'll say that he'll breastfeed exclusively until he's 6 months and breastfeed until he's at least 1...but we'll see.

*I'll say that he'll never come into the bed with us...but he will.

*I'll say that he'll only eat healthy and will never touch a chip, cookie or hamburger until he's older...but he will.

*I'll say that he'll always be cutely dressed with his face and hands clean...but he won't.

*I'll say that Dan and I won't just talk about the kids all the time...but we will (for awhile at least).

*I'll say that I will make an effort to not look frumpy or too "mom-ish"...but I might not.

*I'll say that I can handle all the housework, side jobs, budgeting and primary parenting on my own...but I won't be able to.

I also know that:

*I'll use the car seat as a place for him to sleep if it works.

*I'll stick him in front of the TV or some other form of media to get a few minutes of quiet.

*I'll feel frustrated at times and will wish for my non-kid life (and free time) again.

*I'll feel guilty for leaving him to go out at times. Then I'll feel dumb about feeling guilty.

*I'll get discouraged when I find myself struggling to speak to him in French.

*I'll be constantly judging myself and comparing myself to other moms.

*I'll wonder if I'm doing a good job.

*I'll overlook something kind of serious because I'd rather "assume everything is ok".

And yet I know:

*I'll read to him and expose him to as much music and art as possible.

*I will never switch over to English with him. Ever.

*He will be surrounded by his family and our friends who will love him.

*Dan and I will make time for each other.

*I won't be afraid to hug him or tell him I love him. Or to kiss Dan in front of him.

*We will go outside as much as possible.

*He will be photographed A LOT.

*I will continue to enjoy the things I enjoy now like photography, scrapbooking, blogging, etc (maybe just not as much).

*I'll be a good mother to him.

52Qs-Another batch

Last week while my mom was here I managed to get 4 more of my 52Qs done, so I thought I'd share them real quick on this rainy, gray January day.

Here we go:

Question 21: If I had 1 day with no restrictions, what would I do?

I had this leftover cardboard packaging from some chipboard clocks I bought for my DD, and I knew right away that I wanted to use it in some sort of way, so I decided to fill in each circle with things I would do if I had a free day off (ironically they aren't all that unusual from my daily life!)

Question 6: If I could do it all over again, would I change anything?

This is one of the tougher questions for me, and I knew that I wanted to journal quite a bit about it so I decided to add an envelope and tuck the journaling inside...the journaling is yet to be written, but I will do it soon, I promise!

Question 29: Do I have a recurring dream?

My dreams have been scattered and weird lately, but one thing I kept dreaming about last week was my water breaking (usually it just made me wake up and have to pee though). I think it had to do with all the worrying I was doing of going into labour while Dan was away. Now they're back to just being weird or blank.

Question 33: What am I crossing my fingers for?

Pretty easy answer, I'm crossing my fingers for a healthy baby and easy labour! (I noticed afterwards that the design for this card is really similar to the dream card, both using belly shots...weird.)

Anyway, I'm slowly catching up on these, I think I'm over half finished at this point, so I hope to do a few more this week and get them done soon! I love how the album is turning out, I look through it and see the story of my life over the last year and I'm glad that I captured as much as I did. One of my fav projects for sure :)

This week Dan's mom is here for a visit so we're taking it pretty easy. Tonight we're going for a tour of the hospital where I'll be giving birth, that should be interesting and will really bring home the fact that I'm going to having this baby in 6 weeks or less! Oddly I'm more excited than worried/scared at this point, I'm really anxious to see him/meet him, but as soon as my water breaks that'll probably change completely, lol. I'm trying to stay positive though, not to fear it but to welcome it and accept that it has to happen but that I'm made to do it and that everything will be fine. Positive hippie stuff, you know.

Alright, off to knit and watch some LOST! Hopefully I'll be back later this week, I feel like I have some rambling I want to do but I'm not sure if this is the best place to do it, so we shall see.

Have a good week everyone!

My week...

...has consisted of 3 things mostly:

1. Watching these shows. I have never seen Project Runway so my mom and I re-watched Season 4 and it was pretty good! I really liked Rami (sooo handsome). And of course there's LOST, which I've been re-watching for about a month now and am now on Season 3.

2. Crafting. I managed to get 2 52Qs done and 1 layout, which I hardly ever do anymore, so it was fun. My mom also got a page done (in a week, which is super fast for her!) and I think that I've convinced her to attempt her very first mini, so that's really fun too. I didn't scan my cards yet but here's the layout, about my muse (who I am now officially missing):

And I'm quite proud to say that I have FINALLY, after 26 years, learned how to knit. It was a struggle at first (I think my mom wanted to tell me to quit on several occasions, haha), but I eventually got the hang of it and am now working on a 'practice scarf' (below). Today we also bought all the yarn I need to make my first baby blanket (which I'm going to aim to finish by this fall...) I think this is something I could really get into!

3. Watching Shimi and Félix 'duke it out' (meaning avoiding each other at all costs and giving each other long looks-see below.)

The closest they have gotten to each other all week.

I also had a doctor's appointment, slept in most mornings, drank a ton of tea, started a new puzzle and just chilled with my mom. I'm really glad we had the chance to do this, even under these circumstances (being a prisoner and whatnot.) I'll be really happy when Dan gets home though, then I won't have to worry about going into labour without him!

Have a great end of week everyone...any weekend plans?

Quickie hello

My first puzzle, finished in 6 days.

Well, Dan is officially off to Florida, so my mom is here visiting/helping out for the week, which is really nice. We'll be spending lots of time scrapping (she brought her entire Stash with her, which is about 3 or 4 times bigger than mine!), I'll be starting my 2nd puzzle, she'll be helping me clean/pack up a bit more (only 7 more weeks 'til we're outta here!), I'll be starting Season 3 of LOST and learning to knit (I hope!) and we'll just be hanging out to see if Shimi and Félix ever get along. Should be good time :)

Newly organized embellies...I'm determined to use up some of this Stash!

Not sure how much I'll be on this week, things are pretty quiet around here now that I don't get out of the house, but I'm learning to enjoy and savour these last few weeks before the joys (and pains) of new parenthood take over. I may be back to share some scrappies later this week, so until then, please everyone cross you fingers that I don't go into early labour this week!

Peace,
G.

Not many more left to do...

The official countdown is on: only 8 weeks left to go! Here's my latest bump shot, we got off track a little because of the holidays so this is me at 31.5 Weeks instead of 30.5 Weeks. Really though I can't see much of a difference between this and 28.5 Weeks, but maybe I'm delusional...

Also, here's my latest rambling, now more ramblier than ever! Enjoy.

Weeks 26-32 from Genevieve Flynn on Vimeo.

Why I look so evil (seductive??) I don't know, I think Vimeo enjoys choosing the worse screen caps for your videos, they get a kick out of it or something.

Be back with some more random thoughts later, until then...
G.

PS-Here's another peek at the beast., if you dare...

Nursery Dreams (again)

**Note: I must precede this post by saying that I am NOT a sketcher or drawer of any kind, so please excuse my childlike doodles...

With only 8 weeks (max) left before this little one comes I'm once again thinking about a dream nursery (one that I'm thinking I'll only attempt once we get our house), so one night in my bedrest driven boredom I actually tried to draw my ideal nursery (or one wall of it anyway.)

I picture it being a moderate size room (nothing huge) in an old house with tall ceilings, white wainscoting along the bottom half of the room, pear green walls, lots of light coming in from a fairly big window, dark wood floors (dark chocolate brown) and lots of cute decorations. On this wall in particular (the one I picture a change table of some sort being on) I wanted to create a wall full of prints, cute items and lots of pics. I'll probably get some floating white shelves from Ikea and add a picture wire underneath one of the shelves, with a triptych of hand painted canvases under the other. The items on the shelves will probably change with the season and as the baby gets bigger, but this is how I picture it now.

Here's a little collage of some of the items I mention in my sketch (plus some others I just like...all of these items can be found in my Etsy Favs if you're interested in the particular shops):

PDF printable calendar, birth announcement print, an inspiration for the triptych, green poms to float from the ceiling, my fav plush fox, an Ashleyg print (I already have this one), Black Apple print, spray painted owl, another cute fox print.

I've also been thinking a lot about the newborn shots and shoots I'll be doing once he arrives and I'm thinking that this little bear hat would be perfect for them:

Beyond adorable, right?

Well that's all for now, just thought I'd share where my brain currently resides (when it's not frantically thinking of do-to lists, that is.)

Be back soon with my latest belly shot/v-log and some more random baby thoughts (and then I promise I'll try to blog about something else!)

What's an ideal nursery look like to you, for all the moms and moms-to-be out there? Am I being realistic in my design aspirations?

Handmade Holiday (kinda)

This post is coming super late, but I wanted to document the fact that I did make a lot of the gifts I gave this year, which was fun and stressful at the same time. I also tried to shop either on Etsy or locally for any presents that I did buy, so in the end I only ended up buying a few "from the mall" gifts, which is good.

So here we go, a short list of what I made:

I made 2 necklace and earring sets for my friends Heather and Anna this year, this is a shot of Heather's (I didn't take a photo of Anna's, maybe she'll have to take one for me...hint hint) ;)

Aside: Jewelry making is HARD! From choosing the design and getting the supplies to actually doing it, I now have a new appreciation for why people charge 'so much' on their Etsys for necklaces and stuff!

I (with lots of help from my mom and grand mama again) made this baby blanket for my friend Sara (who had her little son Eli this past Wednesday, yay!) I got the fabric off Etsy back in June and then used leftover scraps my mom had and some locally bought fabric for the backing/binding. I still have tons of the fabric left, I think I may make something for my little bébé with the rest :)


I didn't do a lot of baking over the holiday (besides a turkey dinner I made for Dan and I), but I did manage to make Dan's mother the Candied citrus peels and Winter bark I read about in the Dec. '06 Martha Stewart magazine...they were both delicious, I'll definitely be making them again next year (for myself!) The peels were so easy and tasted just like orange Jujubes!

For my sister in law I got her a personalized print of her 2 boys Noah and Jonas from lepapierstudios on Etsy. (Hers had a picture of smaller boys and was chocolate brown.) I'll probably get one of my own once I have my 2 kids in a couple of years...

This isn't handmade but I wanted to talk about it anyway. I bought this book for my sister and her hubby, it's all about raising your own animals and having a garden and living more like they did 'back in the olden days', which they are all about ever since they bought their house in the country last summer. It's a really awesome book, I hope that it'll come in handy for her this spring when she plants her gardens and gets some chickens (so excited for that!!) I also got her 4-5 other gardening type books from a thrift store, so she has plenty of info to help her along!


For my newest little nephew (who isn't born yet, due in March), Dan and I made this Rockabye Baby mix CD with the songs that we enjoyed the most from a few of the different groups. I'll be using this mix as well when our little one arrives, I love it and it's so soothing (might put me to sleep instead of him!)

Hmm, I think that might be it, there's probably something I'm forgetting. I made my father in law a photo album of all his grandchildren (not handmade or local, but I still put it together), bought my 2 little nephews in Cali a gift certificate to a local independent bookstore in their neighbourhood, bought my other 2 little nephews a world map from a local map store, my mom some stamping supplies from a local art supplies store, and I did my best at wrapping everything with materials I had at home (I did not buy a single piece of wrapping paper, I'm proud to say.) There's one project I didn't get done though (a mini for a friend), but I'm hoping to get it done before I have the baby, we'll see...

So overall, not too bad! I think the key was to the keep it simple and keep it small, 'cause if I had of tried huge, time-consuming projects doing things that I didn't already know how to do (like knitting), then maybe everything wouldn't have gotten done, but these were manageable, even in my frenzied preggo state. I'm excited to try the same thing next year :)

How did you handmade holiday go? If you did a post on it link me up, I'd love to hear!

Happy Sunday to you,
G.

52Qs X4

Happy Friday everyone! To be honest the days are kind of running together for me now so it doesn't make much of a difference that it's Friday, the only good part about it is that Dan will be around tomorrow and Sunday, so hopefully the days won't seem so long. I'm thinking that I need some sort of out-of-the-box activity to do so that I don't fall too much in a rut/slump, I'll let you know how it goes!

Anyway, over the past week I've been working on my 52Qs, which I'm ridiculously behind on (only about 50-60% of them done), but I'm having a good time making them so I don't mind having them to do. Here are my latest 4:

Question 42: What's my favourite holiday?
I didn't have any Halloween themed stuff left except for the small bit of paper, but I tried to capture the general feeling of Halloween in the colours and collage stuff (plus the gross green paint).


Question 45: What song do I have on repeat?
Easy answer, I've been obsessed with these 2 songs for months and months now.


Question 50: What do I love most about where I live?
There could have been so many answers to this question, but what stuck out to me the most was the fact that we have 4 very distinct and wonderful seasons and that we have sooo much space (something I've really been missing since living in Hali).


Question 52: What magical thing happened to me this year?
Easiest answer ever :)

Ok that's all for now, I'll probably aim to get 4 or 5 done a week from now on so hopefully they will be all done before I have to pack up my scrap space in Feb. I technically didn't start this project until Feb-Mar last year, so technically I'm not behind, it hasn't been a full year yet, right? Technically...

Any scrap (or other crafty) projects that you're currently trying to catch up on?

G.

We Feel Fine

So, way back early last year I got this random email in my Flickr mail from a person representing the people doing the "We Feel Fine" project, asking if they could use one of my photos in their upcoming book. I had no idea what they were talking about and figured it was spam so I didn't reply, but they eventually emailed me back asking again, so I checked into it a bit more and saw that it was a legitimate (and quite large) project that had started in 2005 and that they were 'for real', so I eventually gave permission for the photo to be used, not thinking anything would come of it. I would receive random emails over the next year telling me about this or that to do with the book but again I ignored it for the most part, until yesterday when I got this package in the mail from Amazon.com and had no idea what it was. Turns out they sent me a copy of the book! Which was pretty neat to see the final result, it's quite impressive all the work that must have gone into it, there are hundreds and hundreds of pics and stats on human emotions, I haven't gone through it all yet but it's definitely a cool book!

Anyway, here's the photo they wanted to use, it's #19 of my 365 project, taken on April 18th, 2008:

Umm, yeah, not the best pic of me by any means. The only reason it was chosen was because the title (or caption) of the photo said "I feel like this", which is how it came up in their search. (And PS-It goes without saying, but in no way was I being serious about the gun to my head, I was just trying to think of something to do for the 365 and I was suffering from cabin fever mixed with moving stresses and apartment loathing, it was more of an exasperated gesture than anything.)

So that's the photo they used, and here is the layout in the book:

It's actually one of the first intro pages, right after the title page, which is kind of cool :)

So yeah, just thought I'd share and ask if anyone else was involved in this project? Were you asked to be in the book? If so let me know so that I can look you up! What do you think of the project in general, if you know anything about it?

It's Thursday already, holy. I've been on bedrest a whole week, and kind of sadly, I'm getting used to it...the trick now is to keep the productivity alive and not turn into a big pregnant blob. Wish me luck on that one!

Loves,
G.

The sunshine of your love

Since it's so gray and cloudy and snowy out, I thought I would brighten up my day by going through all the pics I've been collecting for the past few weeks for my friend Heather (no, I'm not getting married again, lol) She's getting married in August (!!) and chose yellow and white as her wedding colours (tentatively anyway). Ever since then I've been scouring wedding sites trying to find all things yellow and bright, and wow, there are some beautiful things out there! Above is a collage of images I found on The Knot, my go-to site when I got married back in '06, and Green Wedding Shoes, one of many amazing blogs with all sorts of wedding eye candy (including all the photos below, sorry I didn't save individual links!)

One of the biggest regrets I have from my wedding (not that there were many), was that I didn't invest in a professional photographer (I had my neighbour's mother do our shots and she did a great job for what she had to work with, but it wasn't pro by any means.) I wasn't as interested in photography back then so I didn't realize how important to me it would be become to have those amazing, artsy, fun and beautiful shots that you see all over the place today. To me, it's the best way to remember the day (especially when your memory is as bad as mine!) So I'm telling Heather, over and over, to make sure she's got a good photographer booked and to be bold with her choices (go beyond the traditional poses, go romantic, go goofy, go big!) I'm hoping that she and I will get to do our own shoot after the wedding as well, and I'm already dreaming about what we could do (trash the dress, another dress sessions, post-wedding engagement session, ha)

Here are some shots that I find simply stunning (including some with yellow, of course):

Sigh. I'd love to have another wedding (maybe for a 10 year anniversary...)

I've also been checking Etsy for accessories, invites, etc, since supporting handmade is always great and there are so many creative options out there for weddings. Again, I'm probably being a bit bolder with my choices for Heather than I was with myself, but I guess looking back I'm realizing that you only get one chance at a wedding (hopefully!), so it's no time to not have fun, do what you want and make as magical as you can.

Here are a few Etsy find I've made lately...

Birdcage veil with flower from PishPoshes

Yellow Pom poms from orangekisses
(I'm thinking of getting some of these for the baby's room too)

I'm So Happy print from theloveshop

Beautiful yellow earings from MagPieCollections

Interesting and pretty crocheted necklaces/lariats from Big Frozen Melon

For after the ceremony, a beautiful shawl by mucar

Love this haircomb for 'something blue' by whichgoose

There are so many more (I didn't even get into all the paper products!!) but that's just a start :)

I'll probably be updating throughout the year with more wedding fun (for Heather to see as much as anything), but if any of you are getting married this year and have any great links, please let me know, I'm having a great time being a fake wedding planner!

Until next time, stay bright,
G.