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I'm being a Pietel copycat today... (and for a lot of days to come...)

Decorating the baby room - phase 1

Mike has started on the decoration of the baby room and I'm really excited! We decided on putting up a mural with animals we both like. We just started the work, so we have a ways to go, but check out the first steps we took:

- Before we started:
 

- Step 1: painting the circles

 

- Step 2: drawing and painting the animals



 

Mike still has to add some animals, add details and do the cleaning up of the edges. But I really like where this is going!

If you have a suggestion of an animal you think we should add, let me know in the comments!

Bill Maher

Mike and I went to see him perform at the New York Comedy Festival yesterday at Lincoln Center (waaw) and I thought he was brilliant. I love his stance on religion and wish that more people would just be as open in their atheism as he is. Religion is comic gold!

If you haven't seen his movie Religulous, go see it now!

Carlos

Yes, Carlos is completely ready for a new baby in the house...

Making time

This seems the big problem with my blog... Making time for it... I really do want to try and come here more often and write some more of what is happening in New York and my life. So I'm making a (very) early New Year's resolution to spend more time on my blog.

As you could read in my previous post, a lot has been happening around here. Mike and I got married on the 26th of August at City Hall in New York City, which was quite an experience. Mutti and papa came over from Belgium for the occasion, so did Mike's mom and dad and their significant others. Some of the pictures of the day are online on Flickr. You can see them by clicking here.

I'm now more than 6 months pregnant and growing... and growing... and growing... Although I'm very happy and excited about the future, the nine months leading up to this wonder are anything but pleasant. I can't complain of anything being wrong, but this being pregnant thing is just not really my thing. Extreme tiredness, legs and feet that hurt after a 10 minute walk, hands and ankles that are swollen, difficulties with sleeping, humongous boobs (Mike doesn't really mind this part), 15 to 20 trips to the bathroom every day, back aches etc... Let's just say that I'll be very happy when this is over (and the real changes commence)!

According to our doctor (who is fabulous), everything is ok. The only thing that they have to monitor is that I had placenta previa during my 20 week scan. This means that the placenta is too low in my uterus. Usually it moves up by week 30, but if this doesn't happen, then I will have to deliver this baby via a caesarian section. In a couple of weeks I will get a new sonogram to see if anything changed.

The apartment is almost completely ready for the new addition, the only thing we still have to do is paint the mural in the baby room. Although I say we, I actually mean Mike as he is the creative in this house. I'll surely put up some pictures of the result, once the room is ready.

After a week in Belgium in October, I'm now going to be in New York until next summer. The week at "home" was really great and thanks to my sister, I now have everything you could possibly need for a newborn, including a car seat, bouncer, play mat and clothes to dress a full nursery.

Last week I participated in a survey for a stroller brand, launching a new buggy in the US. The reward for participating in a 1.5 hour interview was a brand new Teutonia stroller system, which I'm very happy with of course! I did the interview on Monday and it was pretty straight forward, giving my opinion on the stroller, the competition and the communication brochures that they are planning. They are calling me later this week so I can customize my own model and have it delivered to my home. I'm quite curious and I will definitely let you know what I think of the stroller!

More to follow soon.

Update

Ok, it really has been a very, very long time since I updated this blog. At least it seems like a long time as so much has happened!
Here's the quickie, with more details on everything following later:
- I got engaged! Yay!
- I am currently 14 weeks pregnant! Yay! (And the engagement came before the plus sign on the pee stick... although you probably are not going to believe that! True!)
- Me and Mike went on a 2 week trip to Tuscany with my whole family (bro, bro's girl, sis, sis's husband, sis's 3 kids, mom, dad)
- I'm gaining weight... lots of it...
- I'm organizing a small New York wedding for August and a big Belgium wedding party for July 2010
- We are re-organizing the apartment and trying to find space for a baby room
- I'm going on a "bachelorette"-weekend with Hils for some major pampering. Yay!

There... that gives you a bit of what is going on in my life...

Babe's new book jacket unveiled on live TV!!!

So the project that aged my future husband by 10 years and sprouted some grey hairs here and there has finally (almost) come to an end! Yay!
But it was some project: design the jacket for Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol.
Now, when he started on the project, he didn't know the title, hadn't read the manuscript and had no idea what the book was about... Finally, after 6 months and 68 versions, they let him read the script in the privacy of his office and after signing the necessary NDAs. Another thirty something version later, the final result was unveiled on yesterday's Today show on NBC (Matt Lauer!!!).
Let's hope for him, the next book cover will be less of a "design by committee" enterprise...

This is the cover, what do you think?

See video of the unveiling!!!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I couldn't resist...

Have a great life, Eskimos

Tja... a new baby on the way and off she goes.
And a new girlfriend and off he goes too...

Thank you, Nicodemus and Little Q for the years of interesting posts on robots, atheism, politics and web stuff. May you have a wonderful life in Belgium, the UK or Australia. I for one will miss reading your insights.

RIP Belgium?

If you are one of those people that says that Belgium is an artificial state of Walloon and Flemish people (and some Germans) forced together, I suggest you read up on your Belgian history.
Or better yet, read "Een geschiedenis van Belgie", by Marc Reynebeau. Yes, a book... one of those things you find in a library...

It's sad to hear that the voices that scream for a separation of my home country won the recent elections... And after everything they and their conservative colleagues did in the last 2 years to fuck up my country, they got rewarded... What does that say about my fellow Belgians?

I just don't understand it anymore. Am I, as a proud Belgian, a dying breed?