It's getting better

They checked Ester today and it's getting better. They couldn't detect contractions and the anti-contraction medication is cut down to the half of the initial dose. Finally some good progress.

I made dinner for myself yesterday and I'm still living :)

Ester's in hospital

Seems like our life keeps is in the disaster format. Ester's in hospital. But if I can write about that on my blog, you know that whatever it was is under control now.

Ester had on the night of Monday to Tuesday painful cramps which kept her almost all night awake. The midwife checked her first thing in the morning. In the afternoon Ester was checked again. The womb had opened a tiny little bit by then and the cramps still hadn't seized. So she was sent to the hospital.

The next two days I was in a flux of going back and fro between hospital and home. Ester has to keep quiet and musn't do any exercise. She constantly gets medicine to stop the cramps/contractions and already had medication by which the development of the lungs of the baby accelerate.

I was hoping it would be just the initial 48 hours, but it still hasn't stabilized. Because of that she will still be in hospital for some time.

It is an insecure time for us. Ester's almost in week 34 (coming Tuesday). They then will stop the contraction stoppers and our baby might be born prematurely. It could also take to week 42.

Either way: there's no reason to doubt the baby will be in bad health. And that's most important.

Fire water burn

Did we thought we'd have a normal day. We just got home from the supermarket and I wanted to build up the box for the baby, when I saw fire and smoke coming out of the window. Our Turkish neighbour's house was on fire. Like, serious on fire. We instantly closed all windows and I tried to fight the fire with my garden hose. My efforts were hardly enough to make any difference, but you do what you can. The leaves of some plants in our garden dried up and could be going to burn as well.

When the fire fighters arrived we were forced to leave our home. Giving us just enough time time catch our rabbits, put them in a travel cage and go to our other neighbour. We were lucky. The wind was not blowing into our direction. So our damage are some plants and a misformed drain pipe.

The strangest stories are going on when there's a fire. I heard from a friend of the old Turkish man that he was outside when the house started to burn. Other people said that he was trying to remove weed between the stone slabs in his garden with a gas burner. Strange story, but I must say that it is in-character.

While we were visiting our other neighbour for 1,5 hours with the rabbits still in the cage (almost a time record!), we heard that she's moving out in about 3 months because of her bad health. That leaves us with a totally different view on our neighbourhood in a few months with other neighbours on both sides.

Amidala's sick

Yup, amidala's good for a blog entry. She refuses to eat hay, so we have to do what's possible to keep her eating, so that the flow of food through her digestive system doesn't stop. If it should stop, it would be fatal in a matter of a few days.
So we got up at night at a 2,5 hour interval. Trying to get Amidala to eat without force can take at least half an hour each time. Annoying her with fresh herbs and little tree branches. As you can see on the picture: our room is exploded with food everywehere on the floor.

Oblique Strategies Everywhere 2006 is out

It took some time, but i finally "published" my compilation cd with some of my favorite songs and a lot of songs I discovered last year. It took me almost a year to complete the job (well, I didn't work the whole year on just that off course). The compilation consists of songs that I find one way or another original, without being too weird to listen to. Otherwise I could fill a compilation every month :)
So if you think you want the cd too (and you're not a stranger to me), just ask me. the cover will be lo-res though. I re-installed my Windows and saved everything except the Photoshop-documents for printing the jewel case cover :(

the picture of the cover was shot by me in Liege by the way.

My first exposition!

Last weekend I exposed for the first time some pictures some pictures of mine! The photoclub in Schaijk had their yearly exhibition during a village-festival (braderie). It wasn't a large exhibition, but I still found myself thrilled to see my pictures hanging there, while people were watching them. It sure is something I'd like to try do some other time again.

I was already making plans to gather pictures to expose them somewhere sometime. Maybe I can hang some pictures of mine on the walls in the local hospital or whatever. At least I know now that I like to see my pictures hang in a public place. So if there's someone who needs to fill some public space: let me know! :)

Visitors could vote for what they thought was the best picture. I don't know who's the winner yet, but if it would be me, I'd know it by now.

I'd almost forget: there was also one picture of Ester hanging there! She voted on one of my pictures and I voted on hers.

Baby room in progress

Pfff! It was some effort, but the work on the baby room is progressing. My parents were back in Holland for just 3 weeks and since my father is good at placing wallpaper, we waited to hear his advise on the room. Ester thought that we could glue the new wallpaper over the old one, but my father helped her and me out of that dream: the old wallpaper had a grainy structure and had to be taken off.

So we did although not very efficient. And after that we painted the doors and window and while I was ill I even painted the ceiling. Well, it's all not that hard to do, but we don't like it DIY, so this is a victory for us. And we did it without (much) complaining! Now we only have to let some people in that will put a floor on the planks and screw the IKEA-stuff into recognizable furniture.

My parents are off again to South Africa to warm up. They haven't really experienced a Dutch winter for some time, so they had a hard time getting used to the cold again.