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This weekend was remarkably like last weekend. One morning Gwen slept late-ish, the other she didn't. One afternoon we played outside for awhile. Saturday morning all of us went out on errands -- grocery shopping, Bauhaus, and then I stopped at the rock and gem shop. I was recently asked to step in to the Nobelese Largesse exchange that has almost finished up as a replacement artisan for someone who had to back out. I spent about a week looking through picture galleries to develop my ideas, and was pleased yesterday to be able to purchase everything I needed. I'm just waiting on some sizing info for my recipient, and I may even be able to get her gift finished up this week.

Saturday Gwen was still not feeling 100%, in that at one point she asked to lie down with me on the couch, so we cuddled together while we watched a few videos. At one point she squirmed around to face me, said "kiss, kiss", and then -- completely unprompted, which is still so rare as to be even more precious -- said "I love you. I love you, Mommy." There are some times when motherhood really is rewarding.

I spent most of today embroidering. My plan is to do a wreath of roses around the capelet I'm making, though I doubt I'll get more than a few of the roses done before Coronet (I won't get the barbs and leaves done before then, I'm sure, since I have no green, and am awaiting the next time that Mechthild dyes). This is the first time that I've ever attempted something so big, so naturally I started with the rose that's in the center bag, where, depending on what else I'm wearing, it can be hid by hair or veil. :) It's actually turning out rather well: Gwen peered over my arm once and said "flower!" so clearly it's sufficiently identifiable.



For Sunday supper, we again roasted cabbage, this time in the roaster with a slice kohlrabi, and did the same spice rub that we did on the beef last week, but this time on a pork fillet. It was good, though definitely better on the beef and lamb, but is quite possibly one of the least appetizing things I've ever cooked!

I'm trying to cook at least one big freezable meal on the weekends, since Joel is both very busy with work deadlines and still not feeling well and hence doesn't have the time to cook much himself, and if there isn't food in the fridge both of us have a tendency to just go "eh, too much work", and not eat sufficiently (witness: I weighed myself this morning and I'm back down to my pre-baby weight, which is not good, since that's 44.7kg. And here I was hoping that post-baby I'd be able to stay in the "above 100lb" category).

Last weekend I made another batch of the mushroom bajee and this time also made a pot of basmati rice which I then mixed in. I had also bought two chicken breasts to cut up, cook, and add, but that ended up not happening. Which meant come this weekend I still had two chicken breasts in the fridge and not much imagination to do with them, so into the rice cooker went another pot of rice, into the stock pot when some more mushrooms plus some carrots this time, and all the same spices but also some paprika since it was such a pretty red color in the spice cabinet and looked so nicely with the turmeric, cumin, garlic powder, etc. This time I was actually able to slice up the chicken into nice small pieces and cook it in butter which I first melted and then added roughly the same composition and quantity of spices too. Now I've got three containers in the freezer and one in the fridge and I'm actually eating a serving of it for lunch right now (better than yesterday: I cooked it, but didn't actually eat any of it, and didn't realized I'd missed lunch until it was pretty much time to start supper). Hurrah, food! It could do with a bit of a sauce, as it's sort of dry, but even without it's tasty.

I've sewn Gwen two hoods this week to wear next week, and while I have no idea how medieval they are, they are absolutely adorable (one is yellow with a little liripipe, the other is purple and with a peak). I've got the left-over green linen from my wool/linen dress out in hopes that before Tuesday I'll cut and sew another dress, and maybe cut out a third to sew while in Sweden, because one dress for two whole days and two half days is just not going to cut it. Luckily, baby clothes seem to be exempt from my usual detestation of sewing, in part because they are small (and thus over with quickly) and require very little fitting.

So it's my first (real) Mother's Day today. A few days ago daycare sent home a little gift from Gwen for me to open today; it was a photo of her, in nice sepia tones, mounted and glassed. How cute! What was funny was that looking at it, my first thought was "wow, that was from awhile ago!" Looking closer I can tell by the onesie she's wearing that the photo is at least a month old, but she just looks so young. Her face has really grown up quite a bit in the last few weeks, and comparing her now to the photo I can say positively that, yes, she now has (visible) hair. It's quite noticeable!