Fleur de Lis Ring

Now, honestly guys? Yes, I have taken a silversmithing course and YES I am capable of making things correctly and perfectly HOWEVER the course I took was in a real live workshop with power tools and rolling mills. Also: I AM LAZY. Which all adds up to mean that the pieces I produce at home are often made pretty quickly and in a "just throwing this together for fun" fashion rather than "OMG MUST BE PERFECT BECAUSE MY TEACHER IS WATCHING" way. And in the end? I think that works out. I like for things to look beat up, old, imperfect . . . the whole theme of my Etsy shop is upcycling things that are old and rusty.

To that end, I'm pretty fond of wonky bezels, oxidized sterling and pieces that come out looking like a Viking could've worn them. Like this one:





I made the band by stamping a strip of silver with a fleur de lis metal stamp (and a hammer!) and paired it with a bezel set onyx with an oversized back plate. I finished the piece off by oxidizing the whole thing, then polishing or a bit of shine and dimension. The whole ring took about an hour and a half to make.

Second Trimester Extra Energy . . . Going Strong!

You guys, we got SO MUCH done this weekend. Like, it is almost worth breaking it down into several blog posts. You know what? I WILL. But I'm still going to give you the overview all at once:

1) New side tables for our living room! Boy and I have a sofa and a loveseat set at a right angle to each other. For the space in between, we've been meaning to find a side table but figured we could hold off until something struck us. Over the weekend, we went to CB2 to use a store credit we had lying around and found THESE!:


They're actually stools, which is uber convenient for when we have lots of people over (Christmas Day Dinner, anyone?) and I absolutely LOVE the beat up, reclaimed wood they're made of. They're super solid and sturdy yet marred and marked up in a beautifully aged way.

Also, on our CB2 rampage, we picked up a set of 8 of these gorgeous, tall drinking glasses and four of these little guys for the Scotch Tasting night we were hosting that evening . . .

2) Yes, I realize that I can't currently taste Scotch. HOWEVER, pregnant ladies do have an excellent sense of smell so I contributed to the evenings festivities by smell-rating all of the Scotch varieties everyone else tasted. I also made cheese and onion pasties. And drank sparkling cranberry juice.

3) On Sunday morning I smithed a new sterling ring that I'm really proud of . . . and will show off later!

4) Then on Sunday afternoon boy and I went out with my parents to look at carpeting for our and Bean's bedrooms and for paint options for Bean's room. Did you know that decent carpet costs as much as a car? BECAUSE NOBODY ADEQUATELY PREPARED ME FOR THAT.

5) Sunday evening I made THREE Christmas presents, which of course I'm not going to post here just yet but which came out really cute and bring me one little step closer to finishing up the Christmas gift prep. I'm about 75% done! HOORAY!

6) And I finished off the weekend by tinkering with one of my favorite Smitten Kitchen recipes. The yellow squash my market had last week looked absolutely pitiful, so I picked up a few gorgeous zucchini thinking with a few tweaks, I could come up with a Winter version of this recipe (is zucchini a winter veggie? I DON'T EVEN KNOW, but the zucchini I picked up looked glorious and the yellow squash was all white and knobby looking). ANYWAYS, I subbed the green onions for shallots, the thyme for rosemary and the squash for zucchini and everything turned out marvelously.

Somewhere in there I managed to finish a book as well. My reading tastes have gone wayyyy downhill since I got pregnant. It is either childbirth and child development or really, really light and fluffy stuff. Sometimes both at once; and I can't even begin to describe the kind of bizarre dreams I come up with after reading 20 pages on breastfeeding followed by 20 on The Loch Ness Monster.

Boy and I have also gotten our feet wet in the search for a daycare center for Bean. Probably a blog post in itself, but for not let it suffice to say THE VAST AND EXPANSIVE RANGE, OMG! In everything: price, quality, facility . . . I'm so glad we started hunting early because I have a feeling we're going to have to see pretty much every available option before we'll feel prepared to make a decision on where we want Bean.

Hope everyone had a nice and productive weekend!

Bean Updates

So! I had a great doctor's visit last night. Brought my mom with me so she could hear Bean's heartbeat and also because I knew they'd be drawing blood for the AFP screening and I am A BIG FAT BABY when it comes to drawing blood. It isn't a pain thing, needles just creep me out. They're morbid and freakish and bizarre and just EUGH!!!

Frankly, I'm not convinced I should have consented to the AFP screening. It is a sketchy test with a high incidence of false scary results and I don't want to be coerced into an unnecessary amnio on the basis of a crummy test. HOWEVER, Boy thought I should get it and since I was so on the fence about the whole thing, I went ahead and followed his gut instinct.

ANYWAYS, the blood letting portion of my visit went pretty smoothly and I actually was offered and accepted a Swine Flu vaccine (!!!). Yes, yes, I know this is controversial and it is up to each of us to make our own decisions for ourselves (and our beans, as applicable). I've read the research and I've decided that the Swine Flu vaccine is no less safe than the seasonal vaccine that pregnant women have been given for years. While I'm not a big fan of extra medication or medication for no reason, I feel that the benefits outweigh the risks in my own personal case. I work in a large office, live in a large, crowded city and have Bean to think about as well as myself . . . whether coworkers or others stay home when they're sick is totally outside my control. Getting the shot to protect us WAS within my control. So I chose to go for it.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS, with this whole pregnancy thing, no? Craziness!

My doctor's visit was the last one of the day and since the doctor had to have my mom and I wait for a bit (seriously though, not even that long. 10 minutes maybe?) he decided to compensate by doing a quick ultrasound on a mini, portable machine. So, OMG YOU GUYS I GOT A BONUS ULTRASOUND!!! So! Freaking! Exciting! I don't have printouts or anything since it was just a portable machine but we saw the whole Bean! Arms, legs, head, beating heart and all. The doctor said he couldn't tell the gender, but he also said he wouldn't have told me because Boy wasn't there. Not to worry though, I'll know soon enough! I was told to go ahead and schedule my Level II ultrasound (the big, gender one!) for 19 weeks, a full 2 weeks earlier than I expected to be scheduled.

Um, SCORE!

So, REALLY NOSY QUESTION: What is the proper doctor's office pee protocol? Like, HOW MUCH PEE do you provide? Half cup full? Just an inch? A centimeter? HOW COME NONE OF THE BABY BOOKS COVER THIS?

And I'll sign off with that thought as well as a recent belleh photo: