Preludes And Nocturnes

*much ecstatic bouncing up and down of Bears*

Beeb was born last night, May 13, at 9:16–a month early but still weighing in at a solid 6 pounds, 10 ounces! Baby Boy and Mom are both doing great.

Beeb still doesn’t have a name other than Beeb, as Jenn and Jim thought they had another month to figure that out.

Beeb catching some rays on the baby warming thingie

Beeb and Mom resting the following morning

Either I just peed myself multiple times in multiple puddles… or I think my water is in the process of breaking.

I HAD PLANS TODAY!

My class is supposed to start today.  I should be going to the hospital, but I seem to be in denial.  Yeah, I’m heading out in a few minutes. No bag packed. No carseat installed. No crip set up.

But my syllabus is printed and stapled and my course is ready.

In previous posts, my growing belly. And so, some more.

For comparison, 26 weeks:

28 Weeks:

30Weeks:

32 Weeks:

33 Weeks:

34 Weeks taken by my auntie shirl (I think her camera makes me look bigger than I am, although others assure me this is how huge I’ve become):

35 weeks (this pictures kinda confirmed it might not be the cameras, but me):

Yeah, I think I’ve kinda exploded with beeb the last two/three weeks.

Okay, 10am (well, 10:30 now as I had to have some toast before posting) and we’re doing okay with the new house thing.  Today and yesterday I was able to do more stuff as the GRADES HAVE BEEN UPLOADED!

*small cheering section here*

So did stuff we did.  (Yeah yeah, I teach English.) We packed some boxes, we got some stuff done here at the rental place, and we headed over to the new house (now called NH).  I should think up something else to call the NH, like Betsy or something.

We confirmed this and that with the builder, chatted with the tile dude and worked out the backsplash, and headed out to get our towel things and toilet paper holders and whatnot.  Also went to my chiro appointment where my chiro had to comment at one point “for such a little thing, you have the most stubborn middle back!” after trying to adjust it three times.  Last night saw me spending some quality time with a tennis ball in a sock trying to unstick my shoulder blades from my spine. I may want to consider that prenatal dvd sitting next to the tv.. but, well, WHEN would I do that?

So after chiro we headed over to Builder Store where we picked out random things, found house numbers, and realised that mailboxes are not as straight forward as one might suppose.  We need one less than 12 3/4” wide and most are wider.  There are the more narrow (in theory), but try finding them…   We got home close to five without a mailbox (oh how we think this should be an easy errand!) and then kinda bagged out for a bit. Started watching Battlestar Galactica (Mini-series) as we’ve been told to get into this show.  Night before we watched first two episodes of Big Love.  Big Love gets a “meh” from Jim and I, but we might give it one more disc.  BoostooGooLooTiCoo (did I get that?) is doing well.  We’ll watch the last two hours today some time.

This morning had a nice 7:30 am start with appliances being delivered from Sears (squeeee!!!!!!!!!), the not-perfect-but-will-do mailbox being bought when the one I wanted couldn’t be found, and some more confirming of things at the house.  And so I shall give you pictures:

Back of house:

Front:

Fireplace:

Kitchen:

Mainfloor:

Powder Room:

Master Bedroom:

Beeb’s Room:

Office:

Main Bath:

Basement:

And there are more pictures on Flickr!

In a previous post I did a little timeline to date (weeks up to 18). So I’ll catch us up from there as today I officially enter the 3rd trimester!

Whoo!

Week 19:

Week 20:

Week 21.5 and Leone’s mad skills in sweater-making!

Week 22 .5

Week 24:

Week 25.5

Week 26:

Week 26.5 (a comparison of standing and sitting):

Please note - my link is in the sidebar (oh, and I have a new link button I need to upload.. one day) - but here it is here too.

Okay, I’ve now made a listing for both a 3×3 and a 2×2 set of notecards. I’m wondering about if I need to include a perspective shot to really illustrate HOW CUTE the cards are!

Observe the 3×3 and 2×2 next to a regular 4.25×5.5 card:

The 2×2 I’ve listed at $4.50 for 10. I offer to stamp Thank You, I love you, or best wishes for free in the 2×2. I’ve also offered custom content in the 3×3 for a small fee - such as “handmade by rather crafty” or whatever as long as it will fit.

So questions:

What do I charge for the custom content?

Are these prices making sense?

And if you have a business, would you want something like this to send out with your products? (Please note, I’m not asking if you want me to make you cards, I’m asking if this is something people would like in theory. I don’t want anyone feeling like if they say “yes, this is good” that will mean I’ll send them an invoice… if you would like a set for real I’ll offer all my blog readers a special if they let me know they are wanting to have a set made.)

Actually, I’m wanting to get a bit more listed this month and then I’m going to offer all my bloggy type friends a discount if they’d like to buy from the shop. I’m just working on getting the listings up, getting my regular prices established, and THEN I’ll figure out all this other stuff

Good thing to remember, at any time I can alter my prices in the shop and people cannot see what I used to charge. I know one friend who soon saw that she was undercharging and just changed everything. This is good for me to remember that I’m not set in stone for all of eternity!

I have just posted some cute little mini-cards on my etsy shop.  Can you all please give me feedback on the price?  I listed them at $5 but have considered pricing them a little higher.  No envelopes with these ones, just 10 little cards (3×3) with the option of something stamped inside.

I’ll be asking you guys a variety of questions over the next little while.  I’m wanting to list a bunch more single cards and then have an option for buying three for a discount.  I am listing my single cards at $4 and figured I’d do sets of three for $10 - ie: buy two and get the third for half price.

What I wondered then is if I should bump my sets of three to $10 *or* leave them as a “discount” because they are already a set.

Or.. do I slowly just start relisting my various cards as singles as they expire and get rid of the sets completely?

Okay, more questions will come.. but this will get us all started.

xxoo

A few pictures for you all! You can see the crazy effects of morning sickness weeks 7+ and then as those influences fade and that beeb starts taking over my belly at around week 12. This week is week 18. Today I am 18w2day. I get the anatomy scan (boy or girl!!) in four weeks!

Week Five:

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 11

Week 12.5

Week 13

Week 14.5 (I kinda jump from here as weeks 15 & 16 were busy)

Week 17:

Week 18:

I just made a pregnancy picture folder and, really, when looking at them all together I can tell why I was somewhat quirking an eyebrow early on. I have a few weeks in there where I must have been crazy bloated because when going week to week it is not the progression you’d think. Also makes a huge difference what outfit I’m wearing. Note to self, white shirt makes you look a bit dumpy. I was going to do some comparison shots, but my ego is not in the mood to show you all my dumpy photos - know what I mean? So here are the pics from this morning after I had shoveled the walkway (hence no makeup and somewhat scrunky hair).

And I can’t do it. I can’t seem to get the shot ready, look up and smile and then manage to take a picture of anything other than the towel rack or the lino or my lower left knee. I have gotten as far as actually getting my head up, but at the last second I have to look back down as I take the picture. This pregnancy will be a period of me perfecting the mirror shot, as well as other exciting events.

Kitties were given gushy food as to avoid the whole “rupert attacking me as I take the photo” fiasco.

Mom and I had a crafty day today.  She wanted to have homemade Christmas cards this year so we met up at the crafty store, mocked the store for their “prefered customer” sign (hmm, I guess we are the undesired customers), and bought the supplies for 40 cards.

We had a nice little session of cutting, stamping, afixin, cutting, and some more stamping.  So far we’ve completed half the cards and will maybe finish them up tomorrow.  Here’s the completed product:

Aren’t they cute?