Introducing...

Oona Mary Elizabeth Pirate!

Born on the day I saw the very first daffodils of spring (while walking to McDonald's for lunch while I was in labor!), and Pirate saw the first cherry blossoms (while walking home from work to take me to the birthing center).

And yes, that is a Star Wars T-shirt I'm wearing. I used the Force. It helped.


She weighed 8 lbs, 7.5 oz. Don't ask me how long she was, they don't do that measurement here so I have no idea.

We didn't go to a hospital, we we went to a midwife-led birthing centre. It was marvelous and peaceful. I was the only mother there, and I was waited on hand and foot by two fantastic midwives who had been working as a team for 30 years, knew each other inside and out, and had great humor and bantor, and by a materinity assistant, who did all the non-medical stuff like make me tea and draw me a bath after. I couldn't have received better care if I'd been the queen.

I stayed overnight with Oona in bed with me. They offered to let Pirate stay as well, since he was falling asleep on the tile floor of the delivery room. Poor wee Pirate; he was all pooped out after 11 hours of labor! *snort*

I'll post the whole story with the gorey details later, if any of you maternal vultures are interested. Right now I have to put the bed together for my maternal pirate-in-law, who is coming to stay for a few days to lend a hand so Pirate can go back to swashbuckling.

WHY THE FUCK AM I STILL PREGNANT?!?!?!?!

My due date was Friday. This is shit. This is NOT the German efficiency (and I'm 25% German, so that should count for something.)

I'm huge. I can't sleep. I can't sit comfortably, stand comfortably, walk comfortably, or lie down comfortably. And I'm fed up with swapping one discomfort for another just for variety's sake.

Also, I'm exhausted. I can't sleep. I have to pee every 45 minutes (until about 4 am by which time I'm sufficiently dehydrated that I can go about 2 hours between weeing. If only my uterus was as keen as my fucking kidneys.) And my RLS* has become unbearable. I lie in bed at night jerking like a mule that's undergone army experimentation, thus guaranteeing that the Pirate isn't getting any meaningful sleep, either. (And he hasn't whinged about it once, bless his tighty whities.)

We went to see Brendon Burns in Oxford on Thursday night, hoping to laugh the kid loose. Nearly worked, too. Had a couple contractions before the show began, and after 90 minutes of solid belly laughter I carried on contracting strongly, if erradically, until about 2 am. Then it all fizzled out and died and I've had nothing since. Bah.

Tomorrow is my nephew's birthday. He'll be 1. Keep your fingers crossed that something kicks off tonight so the cousins can share a birthday. That would be cool.


*Don't laugh. It's real, and it SUCKS.

I am California

2 days from D-Day. Lots of little tremors, just sitting here waiting for The Big One.

Watch this space...

I'm back.

But that's not the big news. THIS is the big news:


And this photo is a couple months old already. I'm T minus 2 weeks, and boy am I ready to pop. My mom and doc don't think I'll make it to 40 weeks, which is good, because I'm SO FREAKIN' SICK OF BEING PREGNANT!!!! (I know I know, after I wanted to be pregnant soooooo badly. So I'm a hypocrite. Shoot me.)

In other developments, Pirate and I no longer reside in sunny Cornwall. Now we're living in bloody Swindon. Thank fuck it's only temporary. We'll be out of here in July.

So why the sudden return to blogging? You can thank First Nations for that. I saw that she was back on line again and it inspired me. That, and Pirate has been bugging me to get back in the blogging saddle for a while. He's scared I'll get hit with post-partum depression (a legit fear, with my family history and my own history of depression) and knows how supportive all my imaginary friends have been in the past, and figures one more safety net can't be a bad thing. Plus all kinds of zany crap keeps happening to us, and he's constantly saying shit like "this would make an awesome blog post." And he's right.

So watch this space...

Announcing Yakee Cakes!

I finally did it! I have a business! A real one, with a website and everything. Check it out:

www.yankeecakes.co.uk

Now, my technical advisor (Pirate) informs me that for my website to be known to search engines there have to be lots of links to it on other websites. I've created a couple business listings in places like yell.com, but it would really help if each of you would just whack a link to my business in your blog. It doesn't matter what continent you're on, there just need to be a ton of links out there in the ether.

Pirate explained a new website is like a walled garden, and every link you create is gate in the wall. Make enough gates, and eventually Google will notice you exist.

(For the techies who are now rolling their eyes, we've already done the meta data and keywords in the html code.)

Now get linking and send me some business!

(and if you know of any one in the soutwest who's getting married, point them my way.)

Stripper

Last week the Pirate and I were given a load of second-hand furniture by the parents of some friends of ours. They are moving and downsizing from a 5K square foot house to a 2.2K square foot mansion flat. So, naturally, some furniture had to go. For the £130 we spent on van rental we made out like bandits.

We are now the proud owners of a 7 foot-long sofa, 2 chests of drawers and matching beside tables from Habitat and accompanying mirror, 4 teak folding patio chairs, and two solid wood bedside tables.

It's these latter bedside tables which are of interest. They were in the shed in the garden (the shed in this case being larger than our dining room) and we were told, "Oh you don't want those; they're awful and full of mold and woodworm. We're going to burn them." They were painted white and while plain and in need of some TLC, were discovered to be rather sturdily built.

"Oh please let us have them!" we begged. Since they were marked for the woodpile we were told we welcome to them, but it was implied we were more than a little silly for wanting them.

We got them home and went to work on them. It's amazing what you can do with a can of Nitromors, a pair of neoprene gloves, and a week of Olympic TV coverage.

I should have the last bits of the decorative molding I'm adding on this afternoon, and then i'll put the pics up. I think you'll agree: I've got a new carreer cut out as a stripper.

Yay! Also, Oops.

I've done it; I've started Kingfisher Cakes. The website will be online shortly. (I hope.)

I'm extremely excited about this. I began this with the view that it would just be a little cottage industry, something to help me earn a little pin money. But looking at the way the website is shaping up (I'm making it in MS Publisher), it looks ruddy professional. Now I'm thinking, the sky's the limit. Who knows how far this could go? How far do I want to take it? I don't even know, but I'm open to much bigger possibilities that I was a few months ago.

I've also just realized that in telling y'all the name of the business you'll be able to go to my website and find the real me. Now all you cyber-crazies can find me in meat-space. Oops. Oh well. I'll have to take my chances. It never occured to me when I began discussing this with you that I was crossing over my real and virtual personalities. Now you know. Too late.

And for your edification and delight, here are some photos of cakes I have made recently:

First up is a double-chocolate, 10-inch square layer cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, decorated in a solar-system theme with hand-piped buttercream.

Next is this awesome R2-D2 cake. Fully 18" across, the sponge is chocolate, covered with white buttercram frosting and decorated with hand-piped buttercream and silver sugar balls (which you can't really see in the photo but looked great in person).

Lastly is my own wedding cake. Two tiers of lemon drizzle layer cake, 2 tiers of carrot layer cake, all covered with cream cheese frosting and decorated with real pansies and rose petals which had been crystallized by hand by yours truly, and all of which were completely edible.

So whadda ya think? Would you pay money for one of my cakes? (Oh, and I have learned how to do marzipan and sugarpaste, so if that's the look you're going for, I can does that, too.)