Trees Are Thinning

Well, it's sunday afternoon and things are looking good. I stopped bleeding completely on Thursday, and on Friday I had another ultrasound and saw the baby again. Heart still beating, legs and arms still kicking madly. I'm also officially into my second trimester now, which is also a good sign. I really believe that we are out of the woods for now and that life can get back to a semblance of normalicy. My Obstatritian doesn't need to see me till the new year unless something else happens. He did say that we will need to keep a close eye on things later on in the pregnancy. Because of this episode, I am now at increased risk of pre-term labour and growth problems in the 3rd trimester. I'm having a hard time worrying about that though...if this baby is born a few weeks early then it won't be the giant that Miss Mary was, right?

Financially things are, well, the same really. It's not so bad, we have some plans. We spoke with a bankruptcy trustee and we just can't justify it. We have a decent amount of RRSP's, which we would lose completely if we declared bankruptcy. So, instead, we will look at cashing in all our RRSP's, paying off the bulk of our debts and hoping for the best. That way, while we lose our savings, we don't have to do the whole bankrupt thing, and really, I can't see the point in saving for the future when you can't make buy groceries in the present.

We have some fantastic friends here who are really making us reconsider moving away. The offers of support and help have been amazing and somewhat overwhelming, and while we are far too proud to accept a lot of the help that has been offered, we appreciate it so very much. While we don't have a lot of family here, the friends we do have are so close to us that I really can't help but think of them as family.

Now, on to better things. Can you freaking believe it's December already? Mary's birthday is in less than a month, and so is Christmas. I bought my Christmas cards, and I really have to get my act together and start mailing them. It takes forever for Canada Post to deliver anything anywhere, and I still have a couple of cards and packages that I need to send to the States, which will take even longer.

I was convinced to put on a cookie exchange again this year, last years was a great success but I had decided not to do it again. I won't be hosting it in my house though, so I decided to go ahead with it. We have 11 people this year, so we decided that instead of a dozen cookies per person we would only do 8. It cuts down marginally on the amount of baking that we need to do, but that's still a lot of cookies. I've decided to make another childhood favourite called Berlinerkranzer cookies and I'm also going to make candied orange peels to go with them. Wish me luck, while the peels are relatively easy I've been told, when I told my mum I would be making 88 Berlinerkranzers she laughed at me for about an hour.

I still have several jars of mincemeat that I made a few years ago, I'm really looking forward to having that stuff, three years of soaking in the booze and getting yummy. I think I will have to make some more this January though. Oh...my stomach is grumbling at the thought of mince meat tarts and hard sauce...suddenly I'm in the Christmas frame of mind...maybe we'll go to Ikea and buy a cheap tree this afternoon...