Non-trickery

So I am an idiot.

And this time I can not blame sadistic cold medication packagers, this one was all me, baby.

Approximately five minutes in to my third to last shift at work and I burn the ever loving crap out of my hand.  Making tea.  For someone else.  I guess I wasn't paying attention when I was pouring the water or something, moved the cup and near boiling water went all over my left hand.  If anyone works with any kind of coffee brewing machine, the "red tap" might be a familiar term?  Basically it's just that, a red tap that spurts out 200 degree water.

This is what it looks like after seven hours.  Seven hours spent wrapped in a bandage that resembled an oven mitt to hold in the cooling gel pad in place, so I could actually, you know, finish my shift instead of standing with my hand under a tap of cool water.  When it first happened, it was much redder and angrier and swollener (yea, that just happened). But now it seems to just be in between my middle and ring, and ring and pinky fingers, which while still painful is nothing compared to the fiery death it felt like earlier.

I'm so ready to be done with work. 

Trickery

So I am an idiot.

Or Tylenol is evil.  Yep, that one.

Last week I had a horrible sinus cold (thanks big brother) and bought a pack of Tylenol cold and flu so I could make it through work without demanding them to dim the lights and cut the music because my head just may explode.  And, for the most part, it worked.  I was actually able to breathe and (mostly) hear when people were trying to talk to me.  I was a little tired, but I just chalked it up to being eighty million weeks pregnant.

Then nighttime came around, so I popped a nighttime pill and expected a lovely, restful nights sleep.

Hah!  I could breathe through my nose, sure, but I was awake until about 4am reading Amalah's archived blog entries.  I react backwards to medication sometimes so I just thought that's what it was.  I did this two nights in a row.

Fast forward a week.  I am mostly recovered, but have passed this lovely sickness onto N.  After four days of him being deathly sick, I remembered the little magic pills I had bought.

Last night:

"Here, take one of these, they totally work."

N. Starts to pop out one of the white pills.

"No, no, take one of the nighttime ones, the blue ones."

"Uh, babe? The white ones are the nighttime ones, the blue ones are the daytime ones."

...what?

Sure enough, right there on the front of the package (and one the back of the blister packs) - Cold & Sinus Daytime = blue pill, Cold & Sinus Nighttime = white pill.

What.  The.  Fuck.

Whose crazy logic was that?  Don't the people at Tylenol know anything about marketing?  If you were to give anyone a blue pill and a white pill and say "Okay, one of these is meant for night and one for day, which is which?"  The answer would always be blue for night!  Even on their packaging, day is all yellow and sunny and night is all dark and starry and blue.  BLUE!

Tylenol is evil and sadistic and I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose to trick sick and sleepy knocked up chicks.  Those dicks.

I'm Dying

Not really, but I'm sick.

At least it's not the flu, only a head cold.  Yeah, Only a head cold, I was saying earlier today.  Except now it's 2AM and I'm still awake because I can't seem to breathe out of my nose and my lips are starting to crack because of all the slack-jawed mouth breathing.  And my head hurts from blowing my nose so often.  And I can't get comfortable because any way I try to postition myself I either feel like I have to pee (even though I just went), my hip starts to hurt so bad I want to tear my own leg off or I get attacks of the worst heartburn anyone has ever had.  And my feet are really hot.

I'm usually not such a baby when I'm sick, but being sick and seven* months pregnant is a whole different game.  Plus I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning and I just know I'm going to get flack for not getting a flu shot.  Even though I don't have the flu.  (I have a thing against flu shots after years and years of watching my mom forced into getting them because of her job, and then getting sick for three weeks right after, every single time.  And me?  Never had one and have had two cases of a mild, 24 hour stomach flu in the past five years.  Take that medical science!)

To top it off, there is a man sprawled out in the dead centre of the bed, using up half my pillows, and snoring so lightly and sweetly I'm sure he's dreaming of puppies and rainbows just to rub it in. I'll have to ask him about that tomorrow.

* eight.  33 weeks is eight months, I just googled it.  Told you I was awesome at pregnancy math.

Two Months

Yesterday was the 26th of February.  Yesterday I realized that in (approximately) two months I am going to be a mom.  I honestly haven't been that good at "keeping track" of my pregnancy.  When people would ask me "oh, how far along are you?" I would stammer out my best guess.  

"Uhmm, 25 weeks?"   "How many months is that?"   "Oh, Uhmm, I... Well... I'm due on April 26th if that helps."

Definitely not one of those moms-to-be who can tell you the time to the minute since they conceived, or how much longer they have to go without doing half assed math in their head.  

But yesterday.  Yesterday there was a definite number I could tell people.  Two months.  I. Will. Be. Having. A. Child. In. Two. Months. 

Super weird.  

V-Day Love

Happy Belated Valentine's Day!

- insert paper hearts and cupids and a dump truck of red confetti here -


Actually, I'm not all that big a fan of the Ol' V-Day.  I figure there are four types of people on Valentine's Day:

1) The single guy or gal who is absolutely devastated that they are alone on this made up day.  Think sad movies, boxes of kleenex and pints of ice cream.  (I don't actually know anyone like this, I think, but I'm sure they're real.)

These are also the same people who, when in a relationship, expect the most absolute, over-the-top, chocolate and flower and romance filled day imaginable.  And when that shockingly doesn't pan out as planned, revert to the snivelling ice cream eater they were pre-relationship.  (And I do know some of these people...)

2) The "anti-Valentiners".  Those who will tell you in no uncertain terms what a crock of shit Valentines Day is and how it is a made-up hallmark holiday.  Which is pretty much true, but they are so vehemently against it, that you know they are just pissed off because they don't have a date.

3) This one is mostly exclusive to the ladies and they are the "Galentiners".  They go out in groups or pairs for a nice dinner and maybe a couple of drinks.  Lady-dates.  Not entirely unhappy with their single status but still want to go out and celebrate.  Cute.

4) The ones who pretty much just don't care that it's Valentine's Day at all whether single or taken.  Really.

I am squarely a number 4 and so is the bf.  It really is just another day.  So imagine my surprise when I get home from work at ten at night to a call from the bedroom.  "I have a chocolate and a surprise for you."  He then handed me a Kinder Surprise which we split, and proceeded to piece together a weird flying palm tree thing.  Super Sweet.

And then this morning, there was breakfast (not in bed, we don't have any sort of tray and, as he was all to happy to point out, my belly wouldn't have fit under it anyway)  and a picnic at the lake later.  And even though it totally rained on us at the lake and my hips started to hurt because of the little walk to get there it was a really nice date day.  Maybe he's turning me into a bit of a Valentine's Day fan... or a February 15th fan at any rate.

Keurig Woes

I got a keurig machine a couple months ago as a hand me down from my mom's work and it worked fine for a little while, but then it started pouring out only half cups of really terrible, bitter coffee so for the majority of the time I've owned it it's been a nice piece of art decorating the (limited) counter space in our kitchen.

Today I finally got around to cleaning it to try and make it better.  NOTHING. WORKED.  I tried descaling it with ultra powered urn cleaner from work, rinsed through two jugs of water and still... Really shitty coffee.  So I googled it and came across this ingenious solution.  Just turn it over and smack it really hard, aptly named the "Slap and Burp".

Really?  Just hit it?  Well I am sitting here drinking a (full) cup of (delicious) coffee, so yes, really.

embroiderKNITTING

I was scrolling down my Facebook news feed a bit listlessly this evening when I stumbled upon something truly wonderful -- a tutorial for embroidery that looks like knitting!  Taking two beloved fibre arts and combining them together?  What will they think of next?

This sweet little tutorial comes from Goodknits, a great knitting/crocheting blog and shop that I've been a fan of for a long time now.  (The doily blankets are just amazing!)  Be sure to head over there to learn how to knit without actually learning how to knit, but still make something awesome that make it look like you know how to knit... or something.

A Weekend of Data Analysis

Last weekend my sister Katie and I went out to a friend's house in White Rock while she was away on vacation, set up our computers in front of a beautiful view of the bay (even though it was a pretty ugly and grey day) and did about 8 hours straight of data analysis for our business Pip & Pin.  

We started this company about three years ago and are kind of at a turning point.  We have to decide how to take ourselves further without working ourselves silly.  As of right now, it is solely focused on knitting and selling those finished projects which is ridiculously time consuming and not very sustainable in the long run.  We wanted to figure out just how much of our time was going where and ultimately how much we were getting "paid" per hour to work.  

I know working for yourself is always going to be more a commitment than working for someone else, and that's half the fun of it, but the conclusions we came up with were pretty dismal.  

I wrote an abbreviated post about it on our Pip & Pin blog, with another even more in-depth post to come in the future, so check out what it really takes to own your own business over there. 

I know earlier I had stated that I was going to be stepping away from blogging at Pip & Pin (if you can even call what I do there blogging, I think I counted only 6 or 7 posts in the past year) but I have now decided to just keep things a little bit separate.  I am going to be posting most everything here, but any time a really business-y post comes up, I'm going to put all the content over there, with a little blurb and link about it here.  It'll be like I'm guest posting on another blog... except they both just happen to be owned and operated by me.  I hope you don't mind, but that's the way it's going to be because it just makes the most sense. 

What To Knit When You're Expecting

I am about 25 weeks pregnant now and I'm also a knitter which means I have been planning all of the cute little outfits I am going to stitch up in the next couple of months.

There was one hitch in my plan though... we decided not to find out what we are having.  Which isn't really so bad, there are a TON of great unisex patterns out there.  (Once my Colorwul yarn arrives in the mail, I plan on making a couple of these simple cardigans.)  But there are also sweet little dresses and manly bomber jackets and lots of stuff that, no matter what colour you decide to make it, is clearly for one or the other.

I started making the Maile Sweater from What to Knit When You're Expecting the other day in a nice mint green, thinking it could go either way, but now that I am half way through it is leaning heavily towards the "It's a Girl!" camp.  Maybe it's the lace?

But I realized something -- I can make whatever I well please!  Unisex, boy, girl, it really doesn't matter!  I don't know if it's my age or if there was something in the water 5 or so months ago but I know three other couples having kids, all within a month or two of each other.  Two of us are waiting for the surprise, one is a girl, and one is TBD.  So out of the four of us, there's a good chance there will  be at least one of each.

Now not only do I get to knit cute things for my little jellybean, I can knit up some baby shower gifts in the process!

And Another One

So I've started another one...  This may or may not be my third or forth attempt at a blog so far.

I think my issues before included a couple things:

1. I am, admittedly, fairly sporadic at posting.  My goal is going to be to post twice a week.  I think that's pretty reasonable, even for me.
2. I could never bring myself to post sub-par photographs and I would never post something without one.  So while I would write great posts, sometimes they wouldn't get posted because I could never find the extra time to edit my shoddy photography or could never find something suitable to go with it.  It would then sit collect dust in my drafts forever and ever.
   Now though, I have an amazing camera lens that it is nearly impossible to take bad pictures with, and I am also "giving myself permission" to post something without being accompanied by a 10 shot photo essay.  So there. 
3. I'm a bit perfectionist which means 140 words about a neat leaf I saw would end up taking 2 hours.  I've decided to try to not do that as well so if you see a spelling mistake or something just doesn't quite make sense, just pipe down! 
4. The biggest reason I think none of my previous blogs worked out is because I kind of lost sight of why I was doing it and giving myself restrictions on what I could and couldn't post about.  I started with a  personal blog, which morphed into my personal/business blog and then became my personal/business blog that was hosted on my business' website, Pip & Pin.

It started out fine but as I merged personal closer to business I began to worry about content.  Not that I would ever post anything overtly offensive (not on purpose anyway) but you can never tell what will turn off a potential customer.  I would never really voice my opinions on things and would mostly limit my posts to things my sister and I do (we own Pip & Pin together), cute DIYs (which I will continue to do!) and promotions and stuff.  That gets really boring, pretty fast.  So I haven't posted there in.... who knows, a long time.

I think that's the main reason.  To separate myself from Pip & Pin again and just write about whatever I feel like.

So basically what you're in for is a sporadic, spelling error and bad grammar littered blog with bad (or no!) pictures about whatever the heck I feel like writing about.

Enjoy!