How Much Bed is Too Much Bed?

Well, with two months of baby-growing to go, I've been grounded. As of two weeks ago, that is. Yuppers, bedrest. It's taken me some time to wrap my head around this crazy turn of events. I had imagined that I'd be working right up until the first contractions, a sort of living laboratory for my students (and as a bonus, a really good reminder of why it's OK to wait on the whole sex thing, kids). But alas, I won't be getting much more mileage out of my cute maternity shirts (or the blank ones that I'd ordered with plans to freezer paper stencil them). Instead, I've finally caved on the years-long debate we've had running in our home over whether or not to get cable, and I've discovered that there IS such a thing as Too Much Bed.

So, while I can't go to work and my social interactions have been limited to Andrew, my cat (the master of how to do bedrest), the occasional visitor who doesn't mind hanging out in my bedroom, and the entire cast of designers of HGTV, I've been trying to keep moderately crafty. The problem is that I have almost no patience for putting together nice photographs. This has made blogging seem like no fun. What a dilemma - - much in the way of crafty goodness to show, yet no drive to actually get the camera out and show it. I'll try to find a way to take good looking photos from bed, and then maybe I'll post some of the handmade goodness.

For now, here's a fantastic shot of the silver polish, doing her punk rock thing. We are acclimating Kateski to the new girls, and things are going smoothly. Kateski isn't pecking much, instead, she shows her authority by insisting on pushing the chicks out of the way and pecking the ground that they were working on...even when we've thrown food all around the coop. It's sort of like siblings fighting over toy turf or something like that (never having had a sibling, I can only imagine that there is some parallel between humans and chickens in this respect).

And with that, back to bed and the land of 30 minute room renovations (man, do I have big plans for our kitchen now...)

Busy Busy

There has been lots going on in our house lately! I've been growing a baby, we've been raising new baby chicks (in what will be the nursery...yes, I currently have livestock in our future nursery...), there has been crafting and baby shower planning and a new gym membership so that I can get my bloated self into a swimming pool. Yuppers, lots going on. With all of the activity, I haven't found the energy to photograph much. However, today is the first real beautiful Spring day on a weekend and we took the new chicks out to get their first taste of outdoor life.

You may remember that our white crested black polish, Kateski, had a severe injury a while back that required local anesthesia and stitches (which, like idiots, we agreed to go ahead and pay for on a chicken). Kateski's absence from the coop caused the other two non-crested chickens to forget about her and then peck her relentlessly upon her return. So those two were relocated to my mom and dad's coop where they are happily integrated. Poor Kateski has been by herself and being the wee chicken that she is, we've had to bring her inside each and every night during the cold, cold winter we've had (I already mentioned that we're idiots, right?) We needed more chickens and they needed to be of the crested variety so here we have the newbies:

Anastasia on the right, the silkie on the left (it's impossible to get a single shot of the silkie because she's constantly glued to the hip of one of the other chicks...that sounds like hen behavior, right?!)
Amelia (foreground) and K2. Little punks.
The mohawk money shot.

Anastasia is the only one who is currently named and she's the black and white one with the fantastic black mohawk. She's a silver polish. There is another white crested black polish (we've been calling her K2 for Kateski the second, so maybe that'll stick), and a black silkie. The silkie isn't crested, but we got her and K2 because three of the four crested chicks we ordered died right after delivery (and we couldn't get to them fast enough to get them hundreds of dollars worth of general anesthesia and stitches). So, technically two of the three chicks we have right now aren't sexed and could be roosters. Oh my. We are sending some serious XX chromosome vibes to these chicks every day, so hopefully it'll all work out...we spend a lot of time trying to analyze chicken behavior ("hey, K2 is wandering off on her own, do you think that's because she's a rooster?" or "that chirp didn't sound very dainty...do you think it's a rooster chirp?").

So those are the new girls. That's right, I said girls.

In baby craft news, I've finished the quilt top for the baby quilt (no photo yet, coming soon) so I'm deciding whether I want to try to do the quilting myself or send it out. In either case, I'm trying an eco-friendly bamboo batting which I'm excited about. I've also got some blank maternity shirts ordered and I plan to try out freezer paper stencils on them.

Stay tuned (or not, I know I can be slow about this blog thing...)!