Baby was in rare form yesterday. I got home for my lunch break just as M was finished cleaning up a poo tsunami. Seems that she managed to take off her dirty diaper without taking off her clothes, and had made a mess all over the living room. As I arrived home, he'd just finished giving her a bath and scrubbing the living room. Yeesh. 

I tried to put her down for a nap, but she flung her little leg up over the railing of her nap pen and was ready to make her daring escape when I scooped her up. -_- Like I said, rare form. Eventually got her down in her crib, which is still too tall for her to spiderman her way out of.

Was only back at work briefly when I got the email from the genetic councilor that the amniocentesis results had come back as normal. Hooray! I couldn't stand the thought of being at work the rest of the day after that, so I took the rest of the day off and headed home. M was grateful for this, and disappeared soon after I got home to take a very long nap. 

The baby also decided she wanted a second nap (probably because she'd been awake some many times the night before), so I had a solid chunk of the afternoon to myself, during which I did absolutely nothing and it was great. 

Dinner was ham, green beans, and Spanish rice, all things which took very little effort and time. Baby went down pretty easily for bed, despite having two naps, so she was a tired girl. After dinner I made a passing remark about wishing I hadn't finished off my ice cream the other day, and before I knew it, M had his shoes on and was on his way to the convenience store across the street to procure ice cream. So despite shenanigans at the start of the day, it ended on a nice note.

Today's nonsense is that the state jail inspectors have finally made their appearance, so things are a bit hectic, and M needs me home earlier than usual during lunch because he has a meeting he has to attend, so thinks are a tad wonky. Meh, it'll all work itself out.

Baby woke up just as I was getting dressed on Friday morning, so I was a bit late getting to work. Mainly because she wouldn't stop hugging me and looking sad whenever I went close to the front door. How I can I just walk out the door when she's being that cute? Thankfully, her early morning meant that she went down very easily for her nap while I was home for lunch. Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner.

Stared at the cassock embroidery some more, and discovered there is way more metallic embroidery on there than I first realized because it's done in silver and is super tarnished. Spotted some plaited braid stitch, my nemesis, I hadn't noticed before either. Not much, though, so I'm taking it as a good opportunity to practice the cursed stitch where it won't be very noticeable if I flub it.

Woke up Saturday feeling the best I have in months. Rode that energy wave and made blueberry muffins for breakfast, and cleaned the dish pile and scrubbed the kitchen so it's finally in  a decent state again. Baby went down for her nap easily, so I had the time to make a big pot of mac & cheese for lunch. After eating, I started tracing out the loose kirtle pattern onto some gridded interfacing so I could alter it into the cassock pattern. Got halfway through before the baby woke back up.

Rest of the day was pretty quiet. M went out to the range for a little while, and came home fairly late. The baby had a supernova burst of energy in the early evening and went completely crazy running around the house. Wore me out, I tell you what. Wore herself out too, though, and she passed out pretty easily at bedtime. 

Once she was down, I finished tracing and cutting out the cassock pattern, and drafted out the sleeve. The body of the thing seems to be pretty good, though it needs some extra length at CF and CB, which is an easy enough fix. The sleeve, however, doesn't work at all. I had drafted out the original sleeve from the embroidered cassock in an attempt to make things easier when I transferred the embroidery pattern, but alas, it doesn't fit at all into the armscye. I should have anticipated this, since the back of the embroidered and plain jackets are extremely different, but my brain glazed over that. Ah, well. So instead of futzing with the current pattern, I'm going to draft out the two-part sleeve, and I'll just have to make the embroidery pattern work on that instead.

Stayed up way too late working on patterning, and paid for it dearly on Sunday. The baby woke up at the crack of dawn, which meant I was up, too. I had enough umph to make us all some breakfast sandwiches, but I quickly lost steam with so little sleep. Thankfully, she went down for her nap without a fight, and I passed out on the couch. Woke up a couple of hours later because I was suffocating in the heat, so since the baby was still asleep I crawled into my own bed in the nice cool bedroom and tried to get a little more shuteye. Only managed about an hour more, but at least it was something. 

M made a trip to the store to pick up some beverages and some fruit. We had leftovers for dinner, and I just tried to stay on the couch and not move much because I was feeling pretty lousy. Felt the baby kick for the first time, though!

Because of my wonky sleep over the day, I wasn't tired enough for bed until 11:30 or so, so I'm not at 100% today. 

Today is M's birthday! He took off today and tomorrow, but I didn't have the time available, so I'm at work today. He's made no plans to celebrate today, but maybe he'll think of something for this evening.

Developed a terrible case of nausea late yesterday afternoon, so my only goal for the evening was to take it easy and do very little. Thankfully, M had a frozen pizza on hand, so he had dinner available whenever he wanted it. Baby went down at a decent hour, so I tried as hard as I could to take it easy on the couch and not irritate my guts. 

We had a power flicker for no damned reason in the mid-afternoon. We haven't even reached our hottest temperatures of the year yet. It seems like every day there's another signal from this apartment that it's time to get out. Just seven more months!

Been poking at the cassock project, and was all geared up to start sketching out the embroidery, when I read on someone's blog (Sibella's maybe?) that it was described in detail in 17th Century Women's Clothing Vol.2. I had looked only at volume 1 when I'd been doing pattern research, so I dug out vol.2 and there it was, with the entire embroidery laid out on the pattern pieces! That makes my job a thousand times easier. There's also a similar, non-embroidered version in the same book, and I like its lines slightly better, so I'm contemplating combining the pattern from that one with the embroidery of the first one. They wouldn't be very different, it's just the non-embroidered one has a collar and cuffs, and a two-part sleeve instead of a one-part. It would push the date slightly into the 17th century instead of being more plausibly late-16thC, but the dates are wiggly enough that I think it'd still be SCA-okay. 

Anyway, the plan is to do a wearable mockup of the pattern so I have something to wear to Baronial College in September if the embroidery isn't finished (which it likely won't be) and aim to have the embroidered one done in time for my "lying in" period at the end of my pregnancy, when no doubt I will end up stuck in the hospital again for a couple of weeks because my body is dumb. That would give me five months to do the embroidery, which seems pretty reasonable if I chip away at it a little bit each night. 

M finally got the email from HR setting up his third interview for the job he's going after. His friend told him to keep his eyes out for a second email sometime between now and the interview, but didn't elaborate on what it could be. M suspects that his potential boss wants to have an informal in-person meeting, but I think he's getting a bit ahead of things. We'll see what unfolds. 

M's birthday is Monday, and he's taken Mon-Tues off for it. I asked him if there's anything he wants to do, but he waffled and said he didn't want to spend a bunch of money. I suggested a few not terribly expensive things he could do, like going to the range for the day or catch a band he likes, or even just going out for a steak, but he was non-committal. I'm sure he'll think of something he wants to do as the day comes around.

Amnio went about as expected. We waited an hour once we arrived for a room to open up. They took my vitals when we first got there, and then sent us back out to the waiting room for a small eternity. Once in the room we waited some more. Then it was lots of ultrasounds to take measurements of all her anatomy, and I got to see her tiny little walnut brain and her crazy alien skull with all its open plates. Very freaky and very cool. 

The procedure went quickly. With Kate they had to poke me twice because she squirmed so much, but this one was more cooperative, even though she was doing backflips on every scan, so I only had to be impaled once. They can't numb you for the procedure, so you just have to endure being stabbed, and man does that suck so, so much. I felt very sore afterward, so we went home and M got us some burgers for lunch, and we all ate together on the couch. 

I am very glad that Chance was able to watch Katie while we were at the appointment! M expected us only to be gone for an hour (lol) and not the three we were actually out. Kate would have been a mess if she'd been with us.

The baby napped after lunch, and so did M. Once M was awake again, he headed out for the evening since Chance was taking him to the movies to see The Thing as a birthday gift. The baby ran around and was in an overall good mood for the rest of the evening. Quick dinner of sausages and cheese, and then she went to bed without fighting me, thank goodness. 

I crawled into bed not long after and watched some TV in the cool bedroom, ate some chocolates, and enjoyed my rest. 

Started off the long weekend nicely, with the Captain bringing in barbecue for lunch for everybody. Unfortunately, admin decided that because everyone expects to be let out early the day before a holiday, they were going to teach us a lesson and keep us at work for the full day. -_- Petty bastards.

The long weekend was pretty nice. We didn't celebrate the 4th because what's to celebrate. I made chicken tikka masala for dinner, and we had a quiet day with rain on and off.

Saturday was also pretty quiet. Baby had a nice long nap just as M was getting up, so he and I lounged on the couch together for a while before I got up to heat up lunch and then take a shower. I had a burst of sewing mojo while in the shower, and wanted to simultaneously make a ballgown bodice for the ruffle monster, and Elizabethan shift, and OH! I could totally make that embroidered cassock at the V&A! Of course, once I got out of the shower, the baby woke up and any ability to sew flew out the window. 

M went to bed early, so I actually had some quiet time to myself, which is a rare luxury these days. I pulled out some costume books and started looking for a cassock pattern. I figure I can actually use the pattern I drafted out for the loose gown and just shorten it, but it was nice to see that the basic shapes for the extants is pretty much the same. Went to bed around midnight.

Woke up Sunday to a very nice storm. It rained hard for about two hours, and then was overcast and dreary the rest of the day, which is a novelty in July! Unfortunately, my mood deteriorated throughout the day until I was fairly depressed by early afternoon. It didn't help that the baby absolutely refused to nap, so I had no time to myself at all. M brought me a burger for dinner, which was very nice, and I shared my fries with the baby, who had her first taste of ketchup. She kept sucking the ketchup off the fry and then redipping it to get more ketchup, silly girl.

She went down early for bed, but woke up a couple of hours later after having a nightmare. We cuddled on the couch for a while and she had some cheese and milk, and then went back to bed.

Slept poorly and am dragging today, which I blame on my sleep schedule getting out of whack during the long weekend. Got up early enough this morning to iron a dress for work and make breakfast for the baby, but I feel dead and just want to rest. Don't foresee that happening, though.