four years minus nine months

The babies are due on November 17th.

The babies are due four years and one month after we started trying to conceive them.

I have been writing about those four years for a month now.

I'm struggling.

My blog is in limbo as I grasp for the words.

The words are big and they are scary.

* photo courtesy of Variations on the Word Sleep

I like you

I like you lots.

I like you for all of your suggestions for places to buy prints.

I especially like those of you who said they would put Lolita up in a nursery too (fear not my inappropriate friends for we shall be inappropriate together).

But. The Boy kind of trumped me when he suggested that maybe I read Lolita before I decide whether or not it's appropriate for a nursery. And bugger me if he didn't have a point. And if he didn't just win his argument right there and then, knowing as he does my issues with Russian literature (my issue being unfathomable mind wondering & bewilderment no more than 20 pages in). He knows this because he's been telling me to read Crime and Punishment for 6 years and every time I say 'yeah, maybe once I've finished {insert less bewildering book here. Or if we're being honest, insert 're-reading Harry Potter' here}'

(Did I ever tell you that when I met The Boy he had like a million hamsters? And that they were all named after characters from Crime and Punishment? Except for the ones he named Fatty and Attack Hamster. And I rechristened them Mavis and Maude.)

So no Lolita in the nursery. I wanted the butt sniffing print but he said it was horrible, which was quite the shock. I'd been about to buy him the t-shirt version. I really thought that he would like it. Who knew that art work would be such a reliable source of disagreement between us? Apart from that fucking awful POÄNG chair and the flowery teacups, we generally agree on most things house-related.

And so the search continues. But it is made easier by you with your suggestions. If we were dogs I would totally sniff your butts. Because I like you.

*I Like You print by Gemma Correll on Society6 (as recommended by Hannah)

Project House and Marital Discord.

Project Make House Habitable is coming along really well, every day we stand and stare at a bit that's finished and say exactly the same things (which are really boring things that will interest no one) in awe of the fact that's SOMETHING IS ACTUALLY FINISHED(ish).

On Monday we painted our kitchen alcove/eating nook the most beautiful shade of grey (it's called Elephant's Breath, it's so pretty) and now we need a print for above the table. We also need a table. And chairs. But priorities people.

We want something super bright, something yellow or pink or orange, something bright enough to make your eyes tingle a little. Something like these...

(except the last one wouldn't work in the kitchen and I want to put it in the nursery)

We agree that the 50 ft woman is amazing and we must have her, but I'm not sure I want to eat under her every day. And then we reach marital discord.

N claims he 'doesn't know enough' about Brigitte to be sure if he wants a poster of her in our house. While 'she had great hair and THE POSTER'S THE RIGHT COLOUR' seem like perfectly convincing reasons to me they're not enough for him.

And apparently Lolita is 'inappropriate' for a nursery. WTF? I say he's just plain wrong. But apparently that sort of reasoning isn't allowed in marriage and we have to make a decision that we're both happy with. Again, WTF?

I think we've exhausted All Posters repertoire so what I want to know is where else should we look? Where can we find prints and posters online that are a little different? We're thinking graphic design, typography, films and books and music. Not so much with the photography, we will buy that straight from photographers.

Thanks chickens.

Balance

N: oh, you've got a flower on your head.

C: yeah, it's to distract people's eyes from the bump.

N: (puzzled silence, quizzical expression)

C: people see a pregnant photographer at a wedding and they look straight at their stomach. This way they'll be distracted. And as the bump gets bigger I'll put a bigger flower on my head.

N: (puzzled silence, bemused expression)

C: (frustrated) you know, to balance it out.

N: Yeah. I don't think that's going to work.

*me, our wedding, by The Boy.

not the damn birds again

I started copying this mobile a few weeks ago. Now that the world cup's over and we're putting the tv away again until winter I need something to do with my evenings. Although mostly I've been sleeping with my evenings. As soon as I finish working I have 'a quick lie down', which turns into a 2 hour nap, then N wakes me and feeds me (he's a good one) and I go back to bed where I sleep for another 12 hours.

Which would be why I've only made one bird so far, a test bird. So called because it looks not unlike a malformed sea lion and a lot unlike a bird. I try not to lose heart and remind myself that test birds one through to three for my last bird project bore a marked resemblance to Casper the friendly ghost.

*picture from greyhood, via vintage simple

Dog, if you could speak

I got out of bed
and came here for adventure.
I stepped on a stone on the way.
I took off my shoe
and a dog came towards me
wagging his tail happily.

Dog, if you could speak,
you'd know what to do.
Simply turn around and run.
Dog, if you could speak,
you bury your bone
and show me the way back home.

Got out of bed,
and I put on my sunsuit.
Blue checkered shorts and a dress.
Nothing was left for a girl in pyjamas.
No breakfast, no kindness, no game.

If You Could Speak
God Help the Girl

* picture courtesy of Wake The Sun

New York, week 2

Week 2
{Diana Does New York.}

golden stars on a sky the perfect colour, a boy with a dog and a harlequin friend.

people milling, pushing, shoving all in the name of art while outside a city goes on just being what it is.

In a quiet courtyard a boy meets a kindred spirit.

A girl in shorts and green shoes pauses.

pink glass; beautiful, obscene. A neck that aches from looking up.

they stop, they rest, they watch the people and in the darkest tunnel the light continues to shine on those who keep walking.

{more non-Diana pictures from week 2 will come.}

angry chicken

I'm such a pissed off chicken today. There's no reason, I'm just grumpy. And I'm trying to hide it from people who phone about fixing our ceilings or planning their weddings because it's not their fault and I simply must be polite. But all I really want to do is flap my wings all up in their faces until they just GO AWAY.

*pissed off chicken, who camped outside our tent last summer and woke us at 6am every day and made me laugh.

origami dress

It's been a long time since I got excited about a wedding dress. I mean, I've seen plenty that are pretty and plenty that are lovely but one that I couldn't stop thinking about? Not for ages. We still get sent a bunch of wedding magazines for the business and I spotted this insane Rosa Clara dress in an issue of Brides* an issue or so back.

I'm aware that there are like 10 people in the world who could get away with wearing an origami dress and I look at it, picture myself in it and I see a tomato sauce stain on the front. But I love it.

* (which, btw, we are featured in this month)

image courtesy of Rosa Clara

Multiple choice

You're in a cubicle in the Ladies at the supermarket when you hear violent and repeated vomiting, peppered with small groans and whimpers coming from the cubicle next to you. You assume the vomitter is:

a) pregnant

b) hungover

c) contagious.

Your reaction is to:

a) check if they are ok

b) leave in such a rush that the vomitter isn't quite certain that you had finished peeing before you made a run, yes A RUN, for the door.

(The first question is one I'm genuinely interesting in, I'd always assume c) first, b) second and a) as a complete afterthought. The second question is just me being passive aggressive.)

*photo by Andross