pinku

Half finished project (with photos)!

Wow I'm back from Australia and it's nearly June - this year is just flying by. I haven't been posting much lately and I'm not sure why but I've been working on a big project and that might have something to do with it. It's half-finished now so I can share some photos...

BTW, it's not really knitting related....although the knits will be following

Project Dudley (that's what we have been calling the embryo/fetus/baby, although I'm pretty sure we won't be sticking with this name)

Yep I'm pregnant. I can hardly believe it - 20 weeks later! We conceived the baby accidentally on purpose if you know what I mean. I ran out of the pill and one thing leads to another so to speak. So the last four and a half months of my life have involved the following:

book reading (thanks Angie!) although it has been quite limited. I totally overloaded on pregnancy-related information on the internet during the 1st trimester and that was my biggest mistake. I had a hard time emotionally and had convinced myself something terrible was going to happen. There are LOTS of sad stories on the internet. My morning sickness was not too bad. I constantly felt nauseous and dizzy but never threw up. I was tired a lot and burst into tears a number of times for no reason at traffic lights. My morning sickness finally abated at about 14/15 weeks and I felt like a new person. So much renewed energy. I could go finally go shopping. Although not for baby goods, I was still too superstitious.

Another pregnant lady at work gave me this badge. It's not the official Tokyo Metro one, but one that is given out by our health insurance company. I wear it on my bag to work. At 15 weeks people started standing up for me on the train. I find that older people are much more aware of my 'condition' and are more than eager to give up their seats even though I'm not about to take the seats of people who need to sit down more than me. Young people are the worst especially young working men - they always pretend to be asleep and wouldn't think about giving up their seat.

Here is my mother and baby book that is given out by the city where you live in Japan. I felt like a real pregnant person with a valid pregnancy once I got my book. You can collect one from the city hall once they confirm your baby's heartbeat. They had an english version but the Japanese version was much cuter so I opted for the Japanese one.

And here are just a few of the EIGHT ultrasounds I've had during the first half of my pregnancy. My pregnancy has been pretty textbook so far, but the Japanese love to give you ultrasounds. Since I haven't been pregnant before I just followed their advice, but next time I don't think I would have this many. It made me worry more sometimes. Especially in the early, early stages.

So that's my big news. Unfortunately after I got pregnant I didn't want to do anything at all, especially knitting so it has fallen by the wayside. I have a couple of projects in mind though so hopefully my knitting mojo will be on the road to recovery soon. Congrats to all the other expectant crafty ladies out there!! I know of a couple of others but they haven't made their blog announcements yet so I'll keep mum. And a big congrats to Erin and JD who just welcomed their bundle of joy - Flynn into the world.

We'll be having the baby in Tokyo, so that'll be an experience in itself. I'm worried of course - mainly about the cultural differences. My doctor has already kind of 'shown great surprise' at the size of my belly compared with Japanese women, but that's the least of my worries.

Oh and you want to see a belly shot. Do you think I look big for 20 weeks? I think I look thick - ha! I like how my butt has grown in equal proportions to my belly (in sympathy perhaps??).

Weekly wrap-up

Ok, so in less than 24 hours I'll be on a bus to Narita Airport. Exciting!

Tonight I have to squeeze in some last minute shopping and then Claire and I are going to watch the FINAL episode EVER of GG - we are preparing tissues, chilli cheese fries, and delivery pizza (that's what GG would do).

Today I also managed to do some more last minute shopping at Muji and Cibone during my lunch break. At Cibone I spotted this overpriced crochet table. I think it was selling for over $1300 - whaaaat? Maybe that should be my next project - a crochet table!!! Way to make some cash.

See you in a week!!!

RIP: The Sopranos, GG AND VMars...and shoes for sale!

Thanks for all of your emails regarding the Ravelry invites. It made me wish I had more to share, but I only had two. I did the easiest thing and gave the invites to whoever emailed first. I could have never chosen otherwise. Am sure the site will be open to everyone soon enough.

So before I continue and tell you how the CW has ripped my heart out, I wanna ask you, 'Have you seen the Discovery Channel's 'Deadliest Catch'? It is a pretty riveting show about king crab fishing in the Bering Sea. It's pretty scary actually.

Photographer/Fisherman Corey Arnold wrote up a piece about 'How to become an Alaskan Fisherman' for fecalface.com. I recommend both his photography and reading his  story. If you are in LA, you can check out Corey's solo exhibition right now at the Richard Heller Gallery in Santa Monica.

So back to the heart-ripping network of the CW. They've not only cancelled the Gilmore Girls, but also Veronica Mars. Sure I'll be the first to admit that it was kinda nearing the time for GG to be wrapped up, but so soon, so suddenly. Surely that wasn't necessary. And VMars is a whole different story - we only got three seasons. It just wasn't enough. I love singing the intro song and I can't say that about a lot of the tv shows I watch. It's hard to believe that next week's VMars episode will be the last one I'll ever watch.

All these series finales in the span of a couple of weeks is just too much. We are also down to the last two Sopranos episodes we'll ever watch - crazy. Thank goodness Entourage will be continuing - that show brings much joy and laughter into our household.

Two more days until I'm back in BrisVegas - yahoo!

ps on a completely random note, does anyone want to buy these shoes (tabikutsu) off me?

They are split toe slip on shoes in purple sold at Sou Sou in Omotesando here in Tokyo. Actually they are now dead stock and are being manufactured no longer...hmm, maybe I should keep them - ha! More photos of the shoes here. I don't even know if I wore them once. They are 26cm long. I'm usually a 9 or a 9.5, which is a men's 8. They are unisex. Made of cotton with a rubber sole. Made in Japan. Originally paid 4900 yen. Selling for $25 (OBO) plus shipping.

More Sou Sou related links here:

Shoesfor her.com blog post about Sou Sou Kyoto

Trends in Japan - split toe socks

Ok so I lied...

I didn't end up posting every day last week. I actually didn't post again after that initial promise post. Sorry.

Here's something cute from my five-year old niece in Australia.

This note makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside and make me very excited to be going home even for just a short time.

Also in completely unrelated news, I have two invites left to Ravelry - Jess and Casey's awesome interactive website for knitters. I've been a Beta tester for a while and it's a very cool resource for knitters - it's a great way to share your knitting with others and find information about certain projects from other knitters and it's also a great way to get inspired. I hear that there's some silly blog furore from people who can't get invites. They are a rare commodity right now it seems. There's a reason for the limit - the site is run by two people with lives and a very cute dog, not a giganto billion dollar corporation or even just a small corporation. I would have thought nice kind knitters would be naturally more patient but I guess not.

Anyways if you want one of my invites email me at pinkurocks *at* gmail *dot* com. Both have been passed on - thanks!

Finally I'd love to welcome Kirsten - a fellow Tokyo S+B'er - to the blog world. She's just started up her blog, Stitched Up, so check it out!!!

My life in pigtures

This blog has been neglected for long enough. It's time to make some changes and be more attentive. I'm going to try real hard to post every day this week.

Last week was amazing. It was Golden Week in Japan, a cluster of national holidays, and we got Monday, Thursday and Friday off. Four day weekends rule. The weather was also amazing. Darin and I got up relatively early each day and went and got coffee and wandered around our neighbourhood. We rode the boats, visited the zoo, played with guinea pigs other than our own, cleaned, bbq'd, played frisbee and just relaxed.

Here's darin relaxing on our rowboat. sorry if that's a bit too much leg for you on a Monday, but daz was trying out his new short shorts look....

Darin is now visiting friends in SF, so I've been living it up as a bachelorette watching girly movies and shopping.....ha! Claire and I also have tentative plans to watch Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights, as we are both single ladies this week...well sort of. Did you know that it's the 20th anniversary of the original Dirty Dancing movie this year??!! That makes me feel old-ish. I remember going to see this movie with my sister and immediately after the movie she went and bought the soundtrack. DD has a special place in my heart as it was also playing on the tv here in Japan when Darin and I decided to get married. We tried to mimic that scene where Johnny lifts Baby above his head, but abandoned this silly idea when we realized that someone would most definitely get hurt.

Anyways, here are some cute keitai pigtures of our pigs. After Darin left I separately gave the girls a celery treat.

Lorettie went first

then shoogie

but when I put Lorettie back in their house to give Shoogie her treat, she got a little jealous. Here she is all feisty biting on the bars. She's not the sanest of pigs.

So that's all for today. I've been doing absolutely no knitting but maybe I can change that predicament this week. No promises though. In exciting news, I'm off to Australia in 11 days for a week. It's been over a year since I've seen my family so I can't wait - YAHOO!!!