Cosycactus

trying to catch up

I can't believe it has taken me so long to post again! I am still not finished with my essay, although I am nearly there. Days go by and the daylight gets longer and longer each day.

During the weekend we could nearly feel the warmth of the sun on our faces. Soon, very soon the mornings of having coffee bundled up while sitting on the veranda will be back. We still have too much snow but I am hoping this year it will melt faster than last year (when we had snow until mid-May...)

We have also made glittery birthday cards, played a lot with trains and I have started obsessively knitting longies for this babe who will sooner rather than later appear in our lives. I can't believe I only have a few weeks left, although I am asked each day by my dear sons if I am going to "explode" soon since my belly is so big. I personally think this pregnancy has been the one with the smallest baby bump, in spite of it being so similar in all other ways to the other two. Might this mean it is another boy? Time will show is what I keep repeating to all family members who ask (every single time they call) if we know the babys gender yet. It was easier this time around to pick baby names as well. It took us a long time with the first one, a little shorter with the second, and this time we decided pretty quick.

Anyway, I hope to deliver this essay by the end of the week and start working again on my manuscript which has to be sent to the journal soon. I also hope to catch up on blog reading which I haven't been doing at all these days. And of course I have picked out some new knitting projects and have a couple to show you, once I put the buttons on. So much going on!

 

checking in

Just checking in to let you know that I am finally back after the course! Everything went well and I actually enjoyed the discussions with fellow PhD students.  It was nice to be back with my boys.

Now I am trying to write this essay as a means to pass the course. I chose to write about Science, Society and the management of natural resources. An interesting topic but challenging!

Will be back soon....

puerperium

Here is my latest completed knitting project. Not quite sure what Puerperium means but that is the name of this little cardigan (ravelry). It turned out a bit bigger than new born, maybe three months I guess since my gauge was a little bit off.

I am finding it quite challenging to knit in colors which are neutral and in picking buttons that are genderless as well. During my other two pregnancies I knew I was expecting baby boys and it seemed just so easy to pick blues and earth colors. On the other hand it is nice to choose plain and simple colors like beige, white or yellow. I suppose if this baby turns out to be a girl I will be buying a few girlie colors of yarn and get going with some more girlie patterns (like this, or this). 

Otherwise I have been working a lot this week. I am nearly finished with the first article from my PhD and hope to send it to the other co-authors and then in a couple of weeks to a journal for publication. I feel the day has not enough hours (specially when I am doing statictics...) and find myself quite exhausted at the end of the evening cuddled up with some knitting and going to bed at 8.30. But this too shall pass and I know I have to give a bit more of myself during this time before I go on maternity leave at the end of March.

And we are finally welcoming the Sun back to these latitudes! Maybe we will get a glimpse of it this weekend...

back to (normal) life

I have been sitting all day in front of this table measuring my seedlings. It has been very boring. I have only been saved by the audiobook I was listening to in the meanwhile, "The winter sea". I am in love with this book and although I am only half way through it I know I will read it (or hear it) again in the future. It is placed in present day and historic Scotland, very close to where my family lives. Very exciting.

Apart from working I have not done much this week. I had high hopes of doing lots of stuff now that I was alone in the city. Cinema, shopping, eating out..... However, when evening arrived (and I'm talking 6 p.m., not later) I felt exhausted every single day and only wanted to get to my room and sit on the sofa and knit! I must definitely be getting older, and I suppose being pregnant doesn't help. Anyway, if nothing else I have enjoyed a quiet week. And that is always good.

What I did do is have a look at SLR prices. They have gone up a little since I bought my last one nearly two years ago, and I think I am going to go for the Canon 550D which is the newer version of my old one the 450D. However I don't know which lens to choose, they offer the standard 18-55 mm or 18-135 mm (for a little higher price). I must investigate which is best.

Tomorrow I am flying back to my boys. Family life will resume its usual pace, but now that mamma has had some time off I am looking forward to it all!

away

I am in Tromsø until Sunday working with my supervisor. Tromsø is about an one hour plane trip from our home.

I am actually here alone.

No toddlers or children or husband running around. No lunches to make, or toast in the morning or stories at bed time. And I might just actually sleep a whole night without someone waking me up!

It is strange to be all alone, but at the same time refreshing.

It is the first time I am away from little Erik, but I am very sure he will be fine with pappa and big brother.

Life goes on... although I miss them already!

life is what happens while you are making other plans

And so the days and weeks have gone by and there has been so much going on around here. I have spent a lot of my time planning. 

Planning work, indoor activities with the babes, menu planning, house cleaning planning, next year garden planning and well just thinking about the upcomming season and how to organize our holidays next year. 

The lemmings are still everywhere around here!

I wrote a whole new updated research plan for my PhD and how I would write up my articles and manage to complete it in the given time. And then suddenly one day we found out we are expecting our third child early next Spring! It has somehow come as a surprise for us and we realized that all that planning had to go out the window! 

zucchini fritters 

So I am now sitting again and planning, but this time, I have in mind that we will have three little ones next year. If someone would have told me ten years ago that by the age of 30 I would have three children I would have said they are crazy!

Anyway, the completion of my PhD will have to wait for another year, but luckily it is not going anywhere and it will still be there when I get back from maternity leave. Furthermore, my field work experiment keeps going in spite of my absence and that means more data for me to have, and better articles for me to write. I do however feel the pressure to give out something by next Spring, and so I must write two articles (out of the 4 I must include in my dissertation) before I go on maternity leave. I am given myself 110% to this goal and have already written half of the first article. I also need to take two (short) courses next Spring before the baby arrives.

So yes, I expect some hectic months lying ahead, which means, I might be absent a little more often from this space than usual. I do not usually take my computer home anymore, its stays in the office, so this is limiting my online time a lot which is refreshing. However, I have never felt the pressure to post anything regularly here and I feel comfortable with just popping in and out as I feel like with some updates. I also know our days will be filled with wonder and dreams about who this new little one is, all the excitement and anxiety that a pregnancy brings and then all the readjustment of life with a newborn (and two children under the age of 5!).

I promise to check in soon. I have some knitting to share, cause really its been a while since the last knitting update!

 

one more day

I woke up very early to catch the ferry over to the island where one of my study areas is. I have only one more place to visit and it will be over until next spring. I have enjoyed spending the days outside working.Erik stayed with my mother while I was away all day.Much more efective this way,both for my work and for granny-grandson bonding. He was so happy to see me in the evenings after a long day playing with granny. It felt good to be away as well.Good to have a break from the everyday intensity of motherhood, some time to myself. And now it is soon over and we are all heading south for a couple of weeks to enjoy the last summer warmth that has already left northern Norway. Until the next time!

larvae again

We adventured once again on a trip to collect some birch moth larvae I need for my PhD. We drove for about two hours, close to the finnish border. I always take my knitting when I am not driving, every row counts!

Ice creams are a must when taking a long drive if not sleeping blissfully in the car seats. Erik is an ice cream eating winner, he can eat any ice cream in less than ten minutes and he is only one year old!

The weather was a little cold and rainy but we managed to get many of them, about two or three hundred. Now we must take care of them, collect food every day (birch leaves), and make sure they are doing fine inside their boxes until they pupate and become an adult moth. Its great for the kids to follow this process and to help take care of all the larvae.

I feel I have three hundred babies to care for, oh my!

rain

It rained on and off all day yesterday.

Strong warm summer showers.

We went outside barefoot to enjoy the humidity.

And we saw three rainbows.

The weather is supposed to be cold this weekend, I'm talking single digits again. But I think we are going to collect some larvae for my work. This time around Erik can also help!

Happy weekend!

 

over for now

Ah! Field work is over for now! We survived the two last days with no mental breakdowns although the weather did shift drastically over the weekend.

Erik took his very first boat trip on the ferry taking us to a small island called Rebbenesøya. Its such a beautiful place with white sand beaches and blue clear water. The only thing putting you off jumping in are the 5 degrees Celsius of the water!

We collected treasures and the shoes did come off to feel the sand between our toes, although the hats stayed on our heads.

Today was bad bad weather. We took the last area on our way from the island. And it was cold, it was wet, it was windy, it was misty. Not a good combination! Hats, mittens,wool...everything was on. We do visit alpine areas (those above the tree line) so this weather is not unusual in June. It somehow did not feel that Summer is officially here today being the solstice. I do not know what the temperature was but it was not good I'm telling you.

Anyway, it is finally over and we are leaving for home on thursday. Tomorrow I must finish a couple of things at University and then take the afternoon off to play with my boy who has been so wonderful and patient during the whole 10 days we have been away.

Happy Summer, hopefully it does feel like summer wherever your are!