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Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Week 27 of bump watch. I think some of that belly is due to Christmas eating, not just baby.

I’ve spent the best part of today fighting with email issues both at home and at work, both domestically and abroad.

At home, our cable internet and phone access has been patchy for the past couple of weeks, but seems to have given up the ghost sometime yesterday morning. Fortunately, Mark was home all day to wait for the cable guy and try to cobble together a solution.

At work, the company server has been down thanks to a DNS /spam attack over the Christmas weekend. In the short periods of time that the server has been back online, my account has been horrendously slow and packed with junk email. Very annoying.

Abroad, it seems a large earthquake off the coast of Taiwan damaged submarine cables on the ocean floor, knocking out email and internet communication throughout South East Asia, and resulting in slow, patchy service, although things seem to be starting to move again now.

I rely on email communication, predominantly with Asia, for the majority of my work, and it’s incredibly frustrating when there are issues, particularly when the issues stack up on top of each other as they have today. Although, I’ll absolutely take a day or two of patchy online communication over another tsunami any day of the week.

Pah! Annoying email! Irritating Internet! I shall leave thee behind and run away to Mexico! Perhaps absence shall make my heart grow fonder for thee. Be back next year. See you then.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

Mark, Rosie and I are headed over to my parents house to spend the day with my mum, dad, nan, sisters, their assorted husbands, & dogs.

There will be presents and Christmas cake.

Apparently, if I had been a boy instead of a girl, my parents were planning on naming me Gareth.

I don’t remember what was in store for Billie (christened: Elizabeth) or Katie (christened: Katherine), but I distinctly remember an ongoing debate for Lennie (christened: Eleanor). We knew she was a girl, but there were many Sunday evenings spent at DiMaggio’s in Glasgow, discussing the merits of Sarah Jane vs. Eleanor.

As you can tell, in my family, it seems that the given name is not a fixed thing – there are unexpected versions of a perfectly good name just waiting around the corner to pounce when least expected. My Nan hands-down wins the prize for this – her given name is Doreen Grace, but absolutely everyone calls her Liz.

What were your near-miss names?

Bump watch, week 26 Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Week 26 of bump watch. Baby wants a mince pie! Although I suspect he may have had more than enough sugar for today…

2006 has been a full year. Here’s a quick round up.

January We kicked off the New Year in Australia, with Mark’s family. Mark moved back to Austin from Dallas, and promptly had his wisdom teeth extracted. I ran a half marathon. We moved into our new house – the day after I ran the half marathon, three days after Mark had his wisdom teeth out. Not our smartest move ever – all the lifting and shifting was a painful experience for us both.

February I went to Singapore for work, and my luggage went missing en route. I did a lot of shopping and a lot of eating. We worked on the house. I did a bit of running and rode my bike.

March We went to Chamonix on holiday and celebrated Mark’s 30th birthday. It was fab. We skiied and snowboarded and ate a lot of good food and saw friends. We drove to Zurich for Mark’s actual birthday, and had a great night out with Em and Tim. I moved into my new office at work, and started training in earnest for the MS150 bike ride. I got a terrible sunburn on my legs from riding 60miles without sunscreen. Ouch.

April We worked on the house, I ran Cap 10k and did the MS150 bike ride from Houston to Austin. It was fantastic – really fun. We went to Sarah and Damon’s fabulous wedding in Princeton – a weekend packed with action, adventure and very large sandwiches. Then we headed off to the UK on holiday, to see friends and attend two more weddings!

May The weather in the UK was surprisingly good, and both weddings were excellent fun. We visited my cousins and Nan in Lincs, and spend a couple of days with wee Derek and the lovely Indira in sunny Cardiff. When we got back to Austin, I started swim training and did the Capital of Tx Olympic distance triathlon. My bike, Max, fell off the back of my car while I was driving on MOPAC, and needed new wheels. I may have shed a few tears.

June We watched the World Cup and the Tour de France. I did the Danskin tri, and teamed up with Mark to take on the Urban Assault Race. I went to Singapore for work, and bloody Eva lost my luggage again.

July We participated in the Silicon Labs July 4th marathon relay, celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary and my 31st birthday, and made a baby. I didn’t know about the baby making success, and proceeded to compete in and complete the Marble Falls triathlon, and then wonder why I felt so vomitously ill throughout the running portion of the tri.

August Ah. We finally figured out about the baby making. Yay! We had our initial visit with my Ob/Gyn. Very exciting! When we broke the news to my family, they literally squealed with delight, causing an entire restaurant to cease their own conversations to stare at us. Perhaps telling them in the middle of a crowded restaurant wasn’t the best idea. I went to Singapore again for work. Miraculously, my luggage also made it. I also went to Thailand. I was tired all the time, and any time I wasn’t participating in meetings, instead of shopping or eating or seeing friends, I holed up in my hotel room and watched ‘Lost’ on DVD and read a bunch of books. Nathan arrived in Austin. When I got back to Austin, I spent most of my time listening to Mark and Nathan’s ongoing banter and trying to catch up on a seemingly never-ending need to sleep.

September We got a new sofa. We went to ACL. We did stuff with Nathan, but I’m not really sure what….I think I spent a lot of time napping. I was really tired.

October My energy finally returned! I went to California for work, and Nathan and Mark joined me. We spent a weekend in San Francisco, seeing friends and sightseeing. We started telling people about the baby. Mark and Nathan started thinking up largely inappropriate names for aforementioned baby.

November We saw Ben Folds in concert. Nathan went back to Australia. My belly started growing, and I had to make the transition into wearing maternity type clothes. We found out we are having a boy! There was a lot going on, and I pushed myself a little too hard, and wound up taking a quick trip to the ER. After that scare, I started taking things easier. I took up knitting, and knitted a lot of blue baby things. I also watched a lot of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ on DVD. We walked the 5mile Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. The weather finally got cold.

December The baby belly began to take center stage. I no longer just look a little chubsy – there’s a definite no-hiding-it pregnancy roundness to my stomach. The baby kicks more and more. Sometimes he wakes me up in the early morning hours with a barrage to the lower left side, but I don’t care. In fact, I love it. We spend Christmas in Austin with my family.

I’ve been pretty consistent at updating All Consuming throughout 2006.

For no particular reason at all, here’s my 2006 reading list, most recent consumption at the top. My favourites are shown in bold.

For One More Day – Mitch Albom
The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, Book 5) – Eoin Colfer
Enough Rope 2 – Andrew Denton
Enduring Love – Ian Mcewan
Disgrace – JM Coetze
The Mermaid Chair – Sue Monk Kidd
Natural Childbirth The Bradley Way
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
1000 Questions About Your Pregnancy
Case Histories – Kate Atkinson
The Bride Stripped Bare – Anonymous
Fatal Shore – Robert Hughes
Me Talk Pretty One Day – David Sedaris
The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
The Notebook – Nicholas Sparks
Mao’s Last Dancer – Li Cunxin
Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer – Lynne Cox
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons – Lorna Landvik
My Friend Leonard – James Fey
Fleshmarket Alley: An Inspector Rebus Novel – Ian Rankin
The Flood – Ian Rankin
Watching the English – Kate Fox
Love Rules – Freya North
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets – Eva Rice
Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America – Erik Larson

Bump Watch, week 25. Originally uploaded by krisalis.

Week 25 of Bump Watch. Baby has been kicking up a storm over recent days!

At 4.45pm to day, my cell phone rang. It was my sister Billie. She was at the grocery store, and she wanted me to tell her what she needed in order to make mince pies, so I talked her through the process. I was just finishing up my explanation when another call buzzed in.

I said my goodbyes and picked up the other line, anticipating that it would be a work-related call. But it wasn’t.

It was my sister Lennie. She was calling from her kitchen in Houston, because she wanted to know how long her mince pies need to bake in the oven before they would be done, and what colour the pastry should be.

Apparently, I’m the person to call if you’ve got questions about mince pies.

Primal wear have a new butterfly jersey!

AND a Where the Wild Things Are jersey.

AND a Curious George Astronaut jersey.

I like them all!

But how can I possibly justify getting yet another bike jersey when I haven’t ridden my bike in at least two months, and there’s no way I’ll be riding again for at least another four?

And what if I never get a chance to ride my bike again once the baby gets here?

Wahhhh!