Awesome hot air balloons

Click on the image to check them out:

Happy New Major Appliance Day everybody!

Today we *finally* got our stove (and, more importantly, an oven), after doing without one for almost a year. The two-burner hot plate worked fine, but we were both sick of not being able to cook anything in the oven (baked goods, pizza, lasagna, french fries, etc). We'd been putting it off all this time; there always seemed to be something we needed more. We wanted to get it before the move though, since there's a great appliance store out here that we wanted to give our business to.

Our oven: we got a white one to match the fridge.


Our first batch of cookies (and an alien).
There were more, but we ate them.

More crochet

A pair of pants and a little elf hat I made today:

Its done!

I've been working on this pillow off and on for a while, and its finally done!

Front:


Back:


Also, here's a wild little sweater and hat combo I put together. Believe it or not, the colours are even brighter than in the picture (like camoflage for the inside of a volcano):

A couple pictures I took yesterday

One of Victoria's many huge Japanese cherry trees:

Bleeding Hearts:

Quote for the day pt. 3

If you were to open up a baby's head - and I am not for a moment suggesting that you should - you would find nothing but an enormous drool gland. ~Dave Barry

Scholar says Bach's wife may have composed some of his work - how typical

Check it out here.

Doctor's Appointment

Today was my last appointment with Dr Green. I'm sad to leave her. She's a great doctor, and I'm just hoping to find one who is as good as she is once we're in Halifax.

According to her, the baby and I are doing fine, right on schedule for 24 weeks. My weight is fine, my belly is the right size, and the baby's heartbeat is strong and steady!

A walk in the woods

The difficulty with this conversation is that it's very different from most of the ones I've had of late. Which, as I explained, have mostly been with trees.
-Douglas Adams

Chinese Straw Art

Click the pic to check it out!

Quote for the day pt. 2

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
-George Washington Carver

A quote for the day

Getting down on all fours and imitating a rhinoceros stops babies from crying. (Put an empty cigarette pack on your nose for a horn and make loud "snort" noises.) I don't know why parents don't do this more often. Usually it makes the kid laugh. Sometimes it sends him into shock. Either way it quiets him down. If you're a parent, acting like a rhino has another advantage. Keep it up until the kid is a teenager and he definitely won't have his friends hanging around your house all the time. ~P.J. O'Rourke

Whats up...

Things around here are pretty slow these days. Though we're moving on May 10th, and thats coming up quickly, there's not a lot to do to get ready. Most of my days are taken up by resting and doing crafts. Here's an example of what I've been working on recently:

They can be worn as pendants on a cord, or, in the case of the purple one on the far right, I've turned it into a pin (which is why it isn't lying flat in the picture). I wish that the colours had come out a little better in the pic, but you get the general idea.

Turns out this blog has a lot of loyal fans, so I'd like to say 'salve!' to all of you who come to visit here on a regular basis (you know who you are!)

Too cute

Too cute for words. Check out the article.

Happy Easter everybody!

A history lesson

Jake's Aunt Margaret just brought it to my attention that the Lookout article about the display I set up at the base museum is available on-line (I've got a few paper copies at home, but I didn't know it was on-line as well).

It was something I did a little while ago, but I'll post the link here in case any one is interested.

Thanks, Margaret. I really appreciate you telling me about this.

As well, here's a link to the Lookout article about Jake's grandfather's old ship, the Skeena, which sunk off the coast of Iceland October 24, 1944.

Museum Trip

Rolls
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

Over the weekend we made a trip to the Royal B.C. Museum. Its very small, and its collection is limited, but everything is really well displayed, and we had a great time.

Seeing John Lennon's custom Rolls was great. The paint job is wild, and the back seat even folds out into a double bed!

There was a great section outlining the animals and insects common to the area. One of the spiders on display seemed awfully familiar - looks like we've got a Black Widow in our basement, and that Jake is going to be doing all the laundry from now on (eak!).

We saw two Turkey Vultures on the way home (circling over us - way creepy!), and we wouldn't have been able to identify them had we not seen them in the exhibit.

The best bit (I think) was this tide pool exhibit where you could get up close to a bunch of different types of star fish, anemonies, and crabs.

A good time was had by all!

We've got it!

We've officially gotten the apartment we looked at when we were in Halifax! We weren't sure if we would get that one specifically, or one of the others, but we're really happy to have gotten the one we really wanted.

It's a three-bedroom apartment on the second floor of a small building, across the street from a quiet residential area. A huge magnolia tree hangs over the balcony, and it should be in bloom by the time we get out there.

It's within walking distance of all amenities, including a small park. It's also right down the street from the cemetery where a lot of the people from the Titanic are buried (including 'Jack', from the most recent movie, whose name they got from one of the tombstones).

We're relieved to know exactly where we're going to be once we get there, both with the apartment and with Jake's posting. Good news all around!

Belly pics

This is me, just the other day, showing off my big belly. It seems like it 'popped' overnight! I can now change my bellybutton from an innie to an outie, just by tensing my abs.

These pictures were taken down by the lagoon, just down the street from us. Its one of the places I'm really going to miss when we move.

More fun

Check out this fun test: The Commonly Confused Words Test

Jake won Top Academic student!

Top Academic1
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

It should have been Top Student Overall, but that would have been kind of... pretentious.

Besides, you should always leave yourself room for improvement.

Something funny

HOW TO WRITE ENGLISH GOOD

1. Just between you and I case is important.
2. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
3. Don't use no double negatives.
4. A preposition is something you should never end a sentence with. (or as Sir Winston Churchill once said; "This is the type of nonsense up with I will not put!").
5. It is always good practice to never split infinitives.
6. About sentence fragments.
7. Don't write a run-on sentence you have to punctuate it.
8. When one is writing, it is important to maintain your point of view.
9. Proofread your work. Do not tolerate mispellings!
10 Watch out for irregular verbs which have croped into the language.
11 Don't say the same thing more than once. It's redundant and repetious.
12 If the writer is considerate of the reader, he won't have a problem with ambiguous sentences.
13 This sentence no verb.
14 You should be aware of the conditional case if you was to use it.
15 The smothering of verbs is a cause of the weakening of the sentence impact.
16 Avoid the utilization of enlarged words when shortened ones will do.
17 Perform a functional iterative analysis on your work to root out third generation transitional buzz words.
18 Make sure you hyp-henate properly.
19 Sentences should be written in the active voice when giving instructions, so that the subject of the action can be identified clearly.
20 Avoid the use of dyed-in-the-wool cliches.
21. The defacto use of foreign phrases vis-a-vis plain English in your written tete-a-tetes makes the sentence harder to understand.
22 Continuity of thought, logical development and smooth transitions are important. Never leave the reader guessing.
23 Beware of malapropisms. They are a communist submersive plot.
24 Join clauses good like a conjunction should.
25 Each pronoun should agree with their antecedent.
26 It has come to our considered attention that in a large majority of cases, far too many people use a great deal more words than is absolutely necessary when engaged in the practice of writing sentences.
27. Be careful of dangling participles writing a paper.

Jake has been posted (finally!)

HMCS Halifax
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

We just found out that once we get out to the east coast, Jake will be officially posted to the HMCS Halifax. We are so excited to finally know where he will be going, and that he won't just be sitting around Fleet Augmentation, waiting to know. While he might have to go to sea for small stretches of time, the ship has recently returned from a NATO tour, so is unlikely to be going on a long deployement any time soon (plus Jake goes on parental leave two months after we move, so they won't send him too far).

Finally, Jake will be going to sea!

For more information on the HMCS Halifax, click on the crest

another picture

baby3
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

In this picture, you can see the baby's tiny hands and feet. Jake says it looks like the baby has my long-fingered hands, though what you're seeing is mostly the bones (and if you've ever seen an x-ray of a person's hand, you'll know that it makes the fingers look really long). Its nice to think of the baby looking like us, and like our families. We're so curious as to whose eyes the baby will have, and whose nose. I, for one, am hoping that the baby won't get Jake's huge head.

More ultrasound pictures

baby2
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

Having the ultrasound done was an incredible experience, and I'm really glad that I had one, though we weren't going to at first (being against any unnecessary tests). It was surreal to be able to see the baby moving on the screen, even though I couldn't at that time feel it. I've started to feel some small movements now, though, like little fluttery pressures against my insides. Jake insists that I tell him every time I feel the baby move, even when he's asleep, even though they aren't strong enough to be felt from the outside.

Our baby

baby1
Originally uploaded by mistressofmead.

This is our little baby.

Baby is about 20 weeks old in this picture, which was taken March 23, 2006.

His/her head is about the size of a tennis ball.

We can't tell if Baby is a boy or a girl, but we're glad it will be a surprise.

Welcome to the Cotter blog!

Hey all!

Jake and I have created this blog in order to keep everyone up-to-date on the baby and on our situation. That way, all of you can visit here periodically to see how we're doing, and to check out the pictures we post. We've got the ultrasound pics, which I will be posting, and hopefully we'll soon have some pics of how my belly is progressing as well.

We hope all of you enjoy this blog; feel free to leave us some comments!