Thanks Simone

This guy is funny. I found him on Simone's blog. If you're so inclined, you can listen to his interpretation of the whole book in instalments on YouTube.

Just a warning: there is a little bit of bad language.

High Tea for Book Chat

So much fun. There were seven of us enjoying the cups of tea and ocean views.

But I think that the two sandwiches (on white bread), one chocolate chip biscuit and one lemon curd butterfly cake sent my glucose levels into the stratosphere somewhere. I had a blow-out last night as well. Two slices of home-made pizza on Lebanese bread (high GI as I discovered afterwards) and two pieces of garlic bread. I wondered if that might start labour but it didn't.

Back to this afternoon. Because I overdid it, I had trouble concentrating and felt like my thinking was all over the place. I now know this either means my BGLs are too high or too low.

Looking forward to life after gestational diabetes where I can enjoy afternoon tea and a (hopefully) clear mind again. Just have to keep it all in moderation. Because I now know too that eating well helps me to feel so much better!

Lots of suggestions for books came up. Old ones and more recent releases. I have just ordered a couple of newer ones online to review over the Christmas break and I will check out the church bookstall tomorrow too.

Speaking of time wasting television

I think this is the cleverest piece of work by the Chaser team this year so far.

Great stuff. And only four minutes long. You can get back to "Don't Waste Your Life" when you've finished watching it.

Ouch

"How many lives are wasted by people who believe that the Christian life means simply avoiding badness and providing for the family. So there is no adultery, no stealing, no killing, no embezzlement, no fraud - just lots of hard work during the day, and lots of TV and PG-13 videos/DVDs in the evening (during quality family time), and lots of fun stuff on the weekend - woven around church (mostly). This is life, for millions of people. Wasted life. We were created for more, far more....

....no one will ever want to say to the Lord of the universe five minutes after death, I spent every night playing games and watching clean TV with my family because I loved them so much. I think the Lord will say, "That does not make me look like a treasure in your town. You should have done something besides provide for yourself and your family. And TV, as you should have known, was not a good way to nurture your family or your own soul."

From "Don't Waste Your Life." We're discussing it tomorrow afternoon at Book Chat. Lots of good stuff in it. I think the above quote is a direct challenge to most Christians in Western society.

Okay baby....

You can come now. Tomorrow morning would actually be quite a good time to arrive. Kids at school. Rosie is at child care. We wouldn't need to ring anyone except someone to pick up the boys from school.

The bag is nearly packed. Pest control man has just arrived to spray the house and get rid of all the spiders and bugs. Appointment to fit the car seat has been booked for Monday.

Today I am just feeling like I have had enough.

What do other people do in this situation?

This morning the teachers at our kids' public school were taking industrial action, so classes didn't start until 11am. It's industrial action that I'm supportive of. I don't have any issues with the reasons why the teachers weren't working.

So I took the boys off to school just before 11am.

Because I'm not too confident yet with parking the big people mover in the smaller than average parking spaces at the front of the school, I dropped them off at the side gate and asked them to walk around the corner to the school front gate. Thinking that most of the front car parking spaces would be full up (as they usually are at morning drop off time).

They weren't. When I drove past the front of the school, the car parking was nearly empty. I could have easily parked the people mover there.

At the end of the day when I picked them up, the kids told me that in both their classes, only about half the kids turned up after the stop work action. So one of my boys spent the afternoon watching a movie. The other one's teacher did some one to one assessment work with each of the ten or so kids that were there.

So my question is: why wouldn't you take your kids to school after the industrial action was over? Aidan's theory was that it was because if parents had to take the day off work to look after their kids for the couple of hours in the morning, then they wouldn't bother bringing them in at all.

I don't get this. If I wasn't heavily pregnant and didn't have a toddler to look after, I would drop the big kids off at school as soon as I possibly could and go somewhere and have a coffee by myself. Or see a movie. Or go shopping. Take advantage of a few rare child-free hours. Or, in my case, at least reduce the number of children to be dealt with.

Obviously other parents don't think this way. Don't get me wrong. I don't mind spending time with my kids. But if the teachers are working (even if it's not for the whole day), then it's a school day. The kids go to school. Right?

And I even made them do their homework and music practice during the two hours they weren't at school this morning....

The time is drawing near....

For the past few weeks I think I've been living in some twilight zone having a great time doing a bit of tidying up (only when I feel like it), reading nice books, looking at lovely recipes, blogging, looking for poems for the boys to say in the school poetry competition this term, setting myself up some boards on Pinterest, eating well and feeling pretty okay about life.

Only a couple of challenges really. Yesterday's job interview was one of them. And Rosie has decided to show a bit of interest in using the toilet in the last week or two, and past experience toilet training my children has not been a quick and easy process. I've been trying to go with the flow (pardon the pun...there have been a few flows onto the floor but not yet into the toilet) and not expecting too much given the approaching upheaval that she doesn't realise is coming.

So I'd almost forgotten in the middle of all this enjoyment that we are about to have a baby. Today's clinic appointment was a bit of a shock. After the past few weeks of "fine, see you in a fortnight/see you next week," today there were no more appointments to be made.

Next Tuesday I am being admitted to hospital in the afternoon. The next day I will be having the baby. And today, my blood pressure was up a bit. Something in the urine sample that shouldn't be there. Might have to go onto antibiotics later in the week if it grows something. Had to go and have a blood test. Was given the talk about pre-eclampsia symptoms to watch out for. Blood glucose levels have been okay for the past week but today they have been a bit up and down even though my eating hasn't changed much.

I'm now getting a little bit nervous that I might not make it to next Tuesday. I haven't packed a bag for hospital yet....I thought if I did, it might be tempting the baby to come early again. But I am charging up the camera battery. And tomorrow morning (school teachers are having a stop work meeting so the boys don't have to go to school till after recess) I might just pop a few things into a bag.

Just in case.