I need to figure out how to relax because looking over my photos of yesterday’s activities makes me look like a crazy person.

First, I totally confused Orville by staying home.  He meowed and meowed in confusion trying to get me out the door and off to work.  I think it tired the little guy out.  Finally, after much kitty frustration, he collapsed on the spare bed with me reading cookbooks.

Then, I decided to make some chocolate-zucchini cake.  Technically, it was pattypan squash and not zucchini… but close enough.

After a power snooze, I went down to the Glebe to check out the farmers market and see what day-dwellers get up to.  Maybe it was luck, but I didn’t have to wait at all for a bus and people moved from the priority seating.  It was a bus miracle!  Daytime rocks!  The market is pretty sparse on Thursdays with just a handful of stalls.  Still, enough vendors were there to come home with a decent haul of carrots, eggplant, beans and blueberries.

Then I got busy in the kitchen again making dinner – it was the Indian carrot salad recipe from Jamie at Home.

Oh yes, and I mixed up some dough for the flatbreads in the breadmaker.  Yum.

Poor Orville crashed in the evening after all the cooking.  At least he crashed in his new bed.  I was starting to think he was never going to use it.

As for maternity leave: day two.  Let’s just say, it has started off by recaulking around the tub.  Must learn to chill out.

This past week, my standard rotation of maternity tops has been letting me down.  Basically, they aren’t providing enough coverage anymore.  The t-shirt overhang is getting drafty and I’m constantly tugging at my tops to make sure I’m not just letting it all hang out.

When I tried the tops on way back when with the ‘fake baby belly’ pillow at the maternity store, I thought there was NO WAY I would ever be that huge.  Well, the pillow didn’t lie.

With today being my last day at work, I won’t have to worry about “front mooning” anyone on the bus.

Tip of the day: Forget t-shirts, buy dresses.   No drafts, no front mooning.

Three years ago my now husband (then boyfriend!) decided to adopt a cat.  We had been living together in our new apartment for all of 25 days before bringing Orville home – in fact, we didn’t even own a couch at this point.  To me, a cat seemed like a more priority apartment essential. (We didn’t buy a couch until months later!) Before we moved in together, I lived in a little bachelor apartment and it didn’t seem fair to have a pet in such tight quarters.  So I waited.  Of course, as soon as we moved into a bigger apartment together, I immediately started cruising the adoptables at the Ottawa Humane Society.

I saw Orville’s photo and thought he looked like just the right cat.  I must have checked the website for at least a week and he was still there everyday.  His profile said he was living with the adoptables at the Emerald Plaza SuperPet, so off we went to “look” at Orville.  I figured if he was still there, it was meant to be.  At SuperPet, he was housed beside the biggest cat we had both ever seen.  That cat was the size of a small pony!  We got a bit distracted by the giant cat before asking to see Orville.  Once the clerk had plopped Orville in my arms, it was pretty clear he was the perfect cat.  He was very happy to be held and purred nonstop.   Sold.

Oh, he was so quiet for the car ride home and those first few days but then his true orange nature came out and we realized we had adopted a chatter.  He’s a super friendly little guy and I couldn’t imagine arriving home after work without him running to the door to greet me.

Happy anniversary / birthday / homecoming Orville!

What better way to relax in these last few weeks than with some (minor) home improvement projects?

Project #1: fix the leaky toilet.    After a glance at my “Do it yourself” guide, I figured it was the rubber flapper that had worn out… and happily, it was a quick five-minute fix.  No special tools required.  Problem solved!

Project #2: re-caulk the area around the tub and tiles.  This project is definitely a weekend project due to the time required for the caulk to cure.  Supplies have been purchased and ALL of the instructions have been read.

Aside from home improvement, there’s been cooking and a lot of cruising for recipes online.  Have you seen Smitten Kitchen’s latest recipe for roasted eggplant?  Yum.  I hope to get back to the farmers market this Thursday to pick up more of those fairytale eggplants.    And definitely more cranberry beans.

Basically, the only things I think about these days are baby, napping, Orville, food and home improvement.  And figuring out when the next episode of Gordon Ramsey’s “Kitchen Nightmares” will air.

Of course a typical humid and hot Ottawa summer day had to arrive on the weekend that I was planning some serious freezer cooking and baking.  I decided to stay in and keep Orville entertained by vacuuming, doing laundry, washing dishes, cooking, cleaning the fridge and napping… you know, typical nesting-palooza.

I think I need to take a page from the book of Orville and put my paws up for a bit.

I almost got run over by an overzealous dad and his SUV stroller yesterday!  I was waiting to cross the street at the Rideau Centre and this guy is charging ahead with the stroller – head down.  I watched him thinking, “surely he’s going to look up and not just plow into me.”  But no.  He was still bee-lining it in my direction – so I shuffled to the side.   Loaded with a toddler, this thing was coming towards me like a poop-seeking missile.

The “Bob Revolution” is not a real war.

As much as I loathe birds (*glares at pigeons*) – this bird with a beret baby rattle is really really cute.  And the flat rate shipping of $7?  Awesomer.

1. Having the bus lowered for you really says, “good morning whaley!” Polite? Yes. Embarassing? Slightly. I think it’s the beeping… beep beep beep.
2. Orville’s birthday/homecoming is quickly approaching. (August 26!) To celebrate, I think another batch of cat cupcakes is in order. And I’m going out to Wellington Village after work to look at a new pet bed for the little orange guy. I know he loves his cardboard box, but it’s a bit of an eyesore.

We were recalling those first few days with Orville last night – when we brought him home he was soooooo sleepy and had a bit of a cat cold. He looked pretty under the weather when I look back at that photo. For the first couple of days, he just konked out and slept. We even put our ear to him just to make sure he was still breathing as he was so comatose! I think his stay at SuperPet waiting to be adopted was probably pretty stressful… and loud! (Those birds!) At night he slept on the floor near our bed and would wake wimpering.. bad dreams? Sadness! After a trip to the vet, we had some pills to patch up his cat cold and once he started to trust us – the bad dreams went away too. His appetite never went away. Orville’s been a foodie from day one.

Now he’s a model cat – friendly, healthy, talkative, purry. When new people stop by to visit, Orville treats them like they are his new best friends (even when they put a jester collar on him or a fancy winter muff.) We really love this little guy. He’ll always be the “first born.”

3. Most of my days and evenings are spent eating, knitting and cooking. It’s pretty relaxing. With 99.9% of baby gear bought and ready to go, we are focusing on pampering our stomachs for the next few weeks.

I read this news item this morning about a kid’s group of knitters being banned from a library here in Ontario.  It’s probably about the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a long time.   So dumb in fact, that I thought it must be a library in Ottawa.  Sometimes I think our city’s decisions are pretty random… but that’s a topic for another post.

Basically, the library wants to promote literacy activities and I guess crafting activities don’t involve books.  I think Dewey decimal 730-760 would disagree!  (And their idea of video game nights makes so much more sense to increase literacy.)

I’ve borrowed plenty of books on knitting from the library and I think crafting and reading do go hand in hand.  Dumb.

It’s the best thing to happen to our apartment in a while… aside from last week’s impulse cupboard purchase (love it) – that’s right, a new washer and dryer set.  HOT.  I won’t go into too much detail about the trials and tribulations of getting these up to our third floor nest (or getting the old units out) as I didn’t have to lift a finger.  Ah pregnancy!  It has its rewards.

Our old washer had a bad case of the shakes and I had nightmares of it completely going up in smoke midway through a load of diapers.   I’m oddly excited about doing the first load of laundry.