Pregnant bellies and pretty books

So I gave up waiting around 1:30 this morning and went to bed. My sister finally arrived around 2:15 - her knock roused me from my sleep. My mother let her in the house and I got up long enough to give her a welcome hug and then went back to bed to the sounds of my mother making a late night snack for her as she took a shower to wash away her travel.

I can't explain how very weird it is to see my little sister big and pregnant - and for 4 months, she's BIG. Anyway, I had to feel her belly this morning (having never felt a pregnant belly before - or at least, not that I can remember) and I was surprised by how soft it was, cushy-like. I was expecting it to be a lot harder. Apparently her belly gets harder through the day as she eats...SO, SO WEIRD!

She had an 11am flight to Thunder Bay to spend time with the in-laws at a cottage for the next week so we went for early morning dim sum with Mom before I had to go off to mandarin and she had to catch her flight.

Class was blah - the more I think about it, the more disappointed I feel that the focus isn't practical conversation as my last two classes were...but enough about that. Back to food.

I met S&W for brunch at Xacutti after class and it was so yummy. I had the warm cardamon biscuits with whipped honey butter and the cinnamon apple pancakes. I usually prefer my brunch savoury but I was seduced by the heavy scent of cinnamon while I was waiting for our table to be set...mmmmm, cinnamon.

We wandered along College for a bit before heading back to King and Spadina where I wanted to stop at MEC and Europe Bound to pick up a sleeping bag and backpack for my upcoming trip. I ended up not getting the sleeping bag but I did get my big-ass backpack though. I'd gone to get fitted for one Thursday evening and went back to pick it up. More window-shopping ensued and I found a couple beautiful little coffee table books I coveted, and after checking on Amazon.ca, they're expected to arrive on my doorstep in the next 4-6 weeks:

Three Trees Make a Forest
"The three artists featured in Three Trees Make a Forest are professional illustrators with a penchant for travel and ambitious side projects in books and Comics. Ronnie Del Carmen is a story artist, character designer and illustrator at Pixar Animation Studios in California. Del Carmen has also worked in comics with DC and Dark Horse. Tadahiro Uesugi is a world renowned illustrator, based in Japan who creates intuitive drawings of landscapes, characters and urban scenery, all with an amazing sense of color and texture. Enrico Casarosa is also a story artist at Pixar and is the founder of Sketch Crawl, a worldwide marathon sketching event. Most of the work found in Three Trees Make a Forest was originally created for an exhibition of the same name at Nucleus Gallery in Alhambra, CA." - Gingko Press

The Age of Feminine Drawing
"The ascendance of feminine illustration in the arts & design is a development that has had an enormous effect on today’s visual landscape, not only influencing but often driving contemporary aesthetic practices and trends in all disciplines. Highlighting the prevalence and importance of the female hand in our modern culture, The Age of Feminine Drawing showcases works from some of the most talented male & female artists in the world whose work underscores this influence and is certain to leave a lasting imprint on their respective fields." - Gingko Press

We finished our afternoon with a stop at a running shop on Queen West where I picked up a pair of running capris and I've been home ever since. I suspect it's going to be an early night tonight. At the very least, I'm going to get by butt to yoga tomorrow at 11:30. If I'm feeling ambitious, maybe I'll get up early enough to go for a run before that since I've been a slug since my great run last Sunday. This will give me a chance to actually use one of my recent purchases. It is absolutely NO FUN to spend money on tangible goods and not be able to use them, right away.