momentous charity shopping

This Saturday I didn't get called in to work (hooray!) and Graham and I spent the whole day charity shopping (double hooray!) and eating tasty things. Mmmm! Chocolate cherry brownies from Tapa Organic seriously have to be tasted to be believed. Now, I say the charity shopping was momentous and this was because, possibly for the first time ever on a bona fide full day event where our route takes in over 30 charity shops at the last count, I did not buy a single thing. Not a book, not a button, not a book on buttons (and I did see one of these). I was tempted by a few things, but my purse stayed firmly in my bag. Could the nesting instinct be kicking in? I think it was probably in the back of my mind that I have to stop taking home so much fusty-smelling junk to add to my crazy-lady piles of nonsense.

So I didn't buy this amazing wooden eagle sculpture. Graham actually quite liked this one too, so I might even have been able to have it in public view somewhere, but it stayed on the shelf for someone else to find.

This was what really tested my resolve, in the second-last charity shop of the day. Knowing the general pricing policy of the shop it was in, I reckon this would have set me back 20p at the most, but I didn't even ask, even though I thought it would make a lovely addition to my wall of many wonders and the motto is a good one.

Graham, who often comes home empty-handed, actually did quite well, buying three old singles for his jukebox and a keyboard (of the musical, not computing, variety). I still had a very good day. Could this be the new me? Well, I doubt it, but it's a start.

Graham's new(ish) job means his weekends are free now and my work has been strangely Monday-to-Friday over the last few weeks. We've been keeping ourselves busy at the weekends, with numerous cinema trips, wanders, charity shopping and eating out, which has been great. However, when I went back to work on Monday this week, I felt more tired than I had when I finished up on Friday evening, so I'm quite glad that my days off this week are Thursday and Friday and I can spend them all on my own doing nothing in particular. I am really quite exhausted. So far today I have been drinking tea (decaff, of course) and watching TV and catching up on some blog reading. My plans for the rest of the day involve more tea, crochet, cat cuddling, lounging and making a shepherd's pie. I may or may not get dressed and I may or may not wash the pile of dishes/hoover up some cat hair. A proper day off. Hooray!

Everything pregnancy related is going well. I am 21 weeks pregnant now (scarily beyond the halfway point) and feeling quite good. Sickness is a distant memory and while I am still waking up a lot during the night with leg cramps, back ache and sore hips, I am managing to get back to sleep so am no longer like a zombie through the day. I haven't got too much bigger over the last couple of weeks, so am not so scared that I'll have to be cut out of the house by firefighters when the time to give birth arrives. I can definitely, definitely, definitely feel the baby moving around now, which is nicely reassuring. It even likes to kick one of the cats already, so Poppy and the baby have a little fight through my belly most mornings. Since yesterday, I have been able to feel the baby's 11 pm and 6 am movements (its liveliest times) with my hand as well as inside my tummy, although it has refused to kick Graham as yet. I'm sure he'll be able to feel it soon. We had our scarily named foetal anomaly scan this week, which didn't show up any worrying anomalies, so that was a big relief. I was a bit disappointed that the baby was not in a position where we could get a very good look at it and that the sonographer was so stern and in such a hurry. Every time I tried to look at the screen I was told in no uncertain terms to put my head down and to stop being so tense... immediately! So I didn't manage to see the baby's face (or stop being tense) but I did sneak a glimpse of its kidneys and spine. Oh well. The sonographer said that she wouldn't have been able to tell us the sex even if we had wanted to know (we didn't) because the baby was so uncooperative and the mother was so tense, so my fears of seeing something that might give the game away were unfounded. Now, barring any complications, we won't see the baby again until it actually arrives. Exciting! It is all seeming a bit real now - we've gone past the halfway stage, had the final scan and I have begun the process of arranging my maternity leave dates with work. Scary stuff. My main source of stress is the house and all the changes we want to make to it before the baby arrives, and (thanks to its terrible timing of being due in January) that really means before Christmas, which suddenly seems really close. Eep! But overall, everything is good and exciting and I am just enjoying myself and feeling very happy, which is nice. And, despite his frequent attempts, I am still not so baby-brained that Graham is able to beat me at Trivial Pursuit. Champion!