way too much about my water...

I am slowly but surely getting some big things off my home "to do" list, though they seem to get added almost as quickly. This week I think I've changed at least half a dozen lightbulbs (each one a different kind, of course), a ton of laundry and dishes (call me Sisyphus on those tasks), and I finally switched out our shower head.

We have a little shower in the master bath, and I was quite excited to see it had a fancy looking rain disc showerhead when we moved in. It seemed so fancy. Seemed. SEEMED.

The one major disappointment I have had in our new home is the water. Something is wrong. I'm still not sure what it is. Maybe I'm not used to soft water, maybe it was a flow restrictor in that shower head, who knows - but the result was super traumatic goopy hair for me. I developed some sort of sticky build up almost immediately after we moved in, and tried EVERYTHING to get rid of it - clarifying shampoos, stripping shampoos, REALLY EXPENSIVE DUMB NOT WORKING SHAMPOOS, and even Dawn dish soap. That actually worked - for a while. So did getting a couple blow outs at a salon - though it was mortifying to go in and explain that my hair was disgusting and yes I do bathe and sorry you have to touch this but please please fix me...

It's been emotionally painful. Embarrassing. I cut my hair to try and take some of the bulk off and hope that made a difference. It did not. I tried all of the other faucets in the house, including scrunching under the spout in the bathtub. Still sticky.

So next step in my quest was to try a high pressure fixture (and hope and pray and bargain with the universe). The "Thunderhead" had great reviews on Amazon, so I ordered it. Then I let it sit in a drawer for a few months while I thought about whether or not it was something I could do without causing more problems (home maintenance is not in my wheelhouse - at least not comfortably). Then one day I got super fed up with slime head, and decided to give it a whack. Got old shower head off, and upon reading directions found that THUNDERHEAD still was required by law to come pre loaded with a flow restrictor. All the online reviews mentioned to definitely toss it out (otherwise, WHAT'S THE POINT?) but I couldn't get the damn thing to budge. Even with tools. And a lot of googling. So finally I took a hammer and a pointy screwdriver and just bashed it in, which totally worked, and removed the pieces with a tweezers. Game on.

After that it went on pretty easy, and other than my guilt over using 5 gallons of water per minute (I'm cashing in my credits from years of not watering my lawn) it's working fine. I've only used it once or twice so can't tell yet if it will fix my goopy hair (pleasepleasepleaseplease) but here's hoping.

easy crafted hair bow organizer

I made something! Something that didn't require glue dots! It came together so quickly I forgot to take real photos,  so here are just a couple from my phone.  I present to you TC'S new wall hanging hair bow organizer:

 It took less than a half hour to make and and under $20. For the base I used a 17" square canvas from the craft store, I think it was $12 regular so less with the ubiquitous coupons.  The fabric has bright little monsters on it and was $7.99 a yard, I used slightly over half of it.

I pulled it tight and used a staple gun to secure it to the frame. Then I ran three strip of ribbon across the front and stapled them to the frame in back. For extra security I stitched through the canvas and fabric and ribbon in a few places and adorned the stitches with a few beads I had lying around. This keeps the ribbon from bowing under the weight of the clips. Voila!

I'm so pleased! I actually might add more ribbon rows since we filled this up pretty quick, but I love that it is bright, organized, lightweight,  and basically makes functional things into art. Cheap and easy is also a bonus! 

Productive

Apparently I'm  on a bit of a roll as far as catching up on really old tasks - after yesterday's successful paint dump I continued the trend today by painting the random naked wall in our basement.

When we bought our house it had clearly been recently painted, like so recently that it was really just for show. They did a pretty nice job and I love the colors in most of the house, but a few of the shortcuts were kind of annoying.

Case in point - the previous owners left the IKEA entertainment center that also may have been purchased just for staging (it still had pricetags on, so who knows). Here's a blurry photo from when we were looking at the house (read: this is not our stuff):

Not long after we moved in we upgraded our TV and had to take off the top of the unit.

Which exposed an 8' wall of paneling that had not been painted.

WTF?!?!

I didn't take a proper "before" photo, but you can get the idea from these Halloween snapshots - the offending wall is that dark brown monstrosity behind the TV. All the rest of the paneling in the basement is painted the same color as the post/beam.

 

Yeah, the painter decided that since the wall was covered by A MOVABLE PIECE OF FURNITURE, it didn't need to be painted to match all the other paneling surrounding the basement.

Thanks dude.

Isn't that sort of like not painting behind a couch? Or a picture frame?Sure, it's covered NOW, but it's highly probable that at some point that furniture will move and you just screwed the future owners.

Oh, right, that's us. So after several years of twitching with OCD as I tried to watch TV and was consumed by that horrible mismatched wall, I decided to take advantage of the paint I had leftover from the new bar and just get it done. (I also finished up painting the bar while I was at it!) I EVEN USED PRIMER! That's a significant amount of effort for me. I slopped a few times, as usual, but considering how I've come to loathe painting, half of an 8' wall wasn't too painful.

And I feel much better.

Not to mention I think that was the first time we vacuumed behind the TV in...forever. Eew!

Painting the Town

Do you ever decide, out of the blue, to check something off your to-do list that has been tacked near the bottom for a really long time? Like, perhaps, since 2008? Apparently I do.

When we moved into our house it was all freshly painted and the former owners had left the rest of the paint stacked neatly on a shelf tucked in the far corner of the basement. I think they did it to be nice, but let's face it - the chances of using any of that paint before it dried up, separated, or otherwise became unusable were slim. Not to mention it wasn't enough to really repaint with, just a few touch ups, and I'm not motivated enough to do that. But, since it was out of sight, it was mostly out of my mind, or at least tucked away on the periphery until today when I finally decided that one of TC & my big adventures would be finding the county hazardous waste drop off.

I had a growing stack of burnt out CFL bulbs taking up space, a little button battery, and a set of broken blacklight bulbs from the Wicked Wonderland Halloween Party (the first set of bulbs I got were shattered when someone cut me off in traffic and I had to slam on my breaks, sending them into my dashboard. So I'm probably poisoned from breathing in the debris, but I'm such  a good citizen I sealed them up in a plastic bag until I could find a safe way to dispose of the shattered remains). And then of course the paint. Over a dozen cans, none of which were ones I bought. Some of the colors I could match to various places around the house, and others must have been even older - in particular a dark brown I have definitely never seen around the house.

The wonders of SuperWhy on PBS distracted TC long enough for me to haul it all upstairs, and we only drove past the  drop off site 3X before we found it - but we were the only ones there and lickety split, a task that had been lingering for 4 1/2 years was done.

Feels nice :)

Goodbye mermaid wall decal

I am very slowly working on some household projects, one of which involves trading rooms with The Cupcake sometime before winter. The rooms are about the same size but will work better switched for a few (not extremely interesting) reasons, plus it will be a fun change, so I'm making a tiny bit of progress while I wait to win the lottery afford the necessary accoutrements. A few free things I was able to start with included taking down the mermaid wall decal that was over TC's crib: 

 

 

It was really cute for TC, but not really what we had in mind for our bedroom, so I took a deep breath and started peeling. It came up pretty easily, though there was no way to "save" it unless you were willing to spend hours - it stuck to itself and tore easily coming off. It also apparently took off some paint, as you can see all the tiny dots of teal on the final product below:

 

 

The particles of missing paint weren't even noticeable on the wall, except for one small area (under 2" square) that came off pretty significantly:

So it definitely wasn't at all reusable, but it was mostly removable. We're planning to repaint anyways, so no big deal. All in all, it went up and came down better than I thought it would. I would definitely do a decal again in the future.

Sale Away...

Man, yard sales are a LOT of work. Too much work really, but every once in a while you get a perfect combination of GORGEOUS weather, LOTS of shoppers, and a will to purge, even the fun stuff. It could not have gone better. After weeks of culling, pricing, and folding items for sale, the weekend finally came. We stacked all the goods on the porch from floor to ceiling and quickly ran out of room, spilling into the living room, and the dining room, and even the kitchen. This is but a fraction of what we dragged out on the lawn:

 

The first day of the sale we were too busy to stop and think about photos, so here are a few from the second day of the sale - we still had a lot of stuff, but it was less than HALF of the starting pile, maybe even just a third, so a lot easier to display - but somehow I missed getting a shot of my cute tents!:

 

 

Originally I had planned on doing Friday, Saturday, and a half day/half price Sunday, but the first two days really went so well that I decided I was able to call it quits early and avoid one more pack up/set up scenario, which is really the worst part of doing a yard sale. (That also meant I could have Sunday to recover!) There was still some stuff left over, but we had sold hundreds of tiny bits and baubles, most under $1, so the sheer volume was kind of impressive. A lot of people asked if I was moving - nope! This was all really just "extra," and it was the "extra" I thought I would still use above what I got rid of at the last sale, right after I found out I was pregnant. Post-kid, I realized there was a LOT more I wasn't going to be getting back to for quite some time :) Not to mention all the kid-stuff which was newly acquired!

 

So Saturday afternoon we happily packed up the remaining goods, taking back only a couple of tubs full - I usually consign The Cupcake's clothes with JBF, so I kept the nice stuff for that, sent a bunch to family members, and the rest went back out on the curb for the DAV to pick up:

 

 

 

ALL THAT STUFF IS GONE FROM MY HOUSE! I can actually walk up the stairs to the attic, not to mention move around up there. I still have a TON of cleaning and organizing to do to make the craftroom usable/not embarrassing, and 3 years+ of paperwork I haven't sorted through, but HUGE progress has been made. After three months of being "home" full time, I finally feel like I have accomplished something.

Also, yes, we had our share of weirdos. Parents letting their kids wreck stuff (WTH?!?!), a few sketchy tag disappearances/swaps, people quibbling about prices (usually $0.25 - not worth the headache!). On the prices, I almost never back down. I figure I spent hours upon hours pricing things, I set everything very low by my standards, and 99% of the time the person still buys the item! So I don't even let it bother me anymore, I just say no, and roll on. :)

I definitely feel great that none of this stuff ended up in a land fill, and so much of it found its way to new homes where it will be wanted and appreciated. Above that, I feel pretty proud that I was able to stretch our tight budget by making some of these unused assets liquid again - and to finally feel like I've "done something" this summer didn't hurt either :)



Outside the Box

I spent the weekend toiling away up in the "witch's tower" (formerly my craft room, AKA our finished attic) while Hubby and Grandpa entertained The Cupcake. I'm STILL working on organizing a yard sale (probably for August) and holy crap do I have...well, crap. I sincerely hope this isn't just a massive waste of time, it would be delightful to make a little money off all of my former treasures as I let them go. It will also be good to make a little space and organization though too.

Remember when I read Discardia and I was talking about the things I don't get bogged down with? I recently discovered something that I have a ridiculously hard time parting with that takes up TONS of space:

Okay, this isn't really my attic, but it might as well be. I have boxes of all shapes and sizes stashed up there, filling the eaves, piled up to the ceiling. I think I know why I save them - they're useful, they're free (all repurposed), it's green living, and having moved a few times I know what a pain it is to collect boxes and how nice it is to have good ones. But I'm not moving any time soon, and though it is convenient to be able to grab a box for anything I need to ship or giftwrap, it's not convenient to have to shuffle around 200 of them in order to access anything else, or even find the size I'm looking for. So I've come to a decision, the boxes are gonna go. I broke down a half dozen or so this weekend (I didn't say I was GOOD at getting rid of them yet, just that I decided to), and am using many more to organize sale stuff - boxes that will go with the "customer" who purchases each box load of goodies for a tidy sum that will fund many adventures for TC and I (hopefully). Recycling is picked up tomorrow, so maybe I'll commit to a few more before then.

And I'm somewhere around 18 rubbermade totes stacked full of priced yard sale merch, not including the clothing which I have yet to dig through. It is ridiculously hot up there, despite our "central air" and the fact that the attic is technically our 3rd bedroom, the HVAC is seriously flawed up there and it's really uncomfortable most of the year. We have a dedicated AC unit I could plug in if I made enough space, but that seems like a lot of work to do just to do more work, and working in short bursts is most effective for me anyways, so I just go till I'm dripping with sweat and then take a break to cool off and recharge. I'm seriously scaling back on Halloween and Christmas decor, craft supplies, kitchen tools, and who knows what else, I don't even remember what I've sorted through. Let's hope it cools off so shoppers flock to my yard and neither I nor my illustrious wares melt across the frown lawn.

Bar None

HUGE progress on the new playroom over the weekend! Whoo hoo, triumph! This is the area that used to be a big built-in wet bar - see the first part of the transformation post here. After dragging out the project for months, it was exciting to finally get it moving. Saturday night we bribed a friend with BBQ to help lug the base cabinet down the stairs, and Sunday my parents came over to help the real work...7 hours later, it didn't look half bad! I didn't have the right lens on my camera to get a great shot, but you can at least get the idea:

Ta-dah! Old bar completely gone, new base cabinet in, new countertop on, and the only remnant of the old bar, the sink, is re-installed and functional! It took 3 (or maybe 4) trips to the hardware store, 2 different saws, a couple of close calls, and a healthy dose of blood & sweat (no tears! celebrate!).

I still need to paint one side and some touch ups, finish the countertop ends, decide on hardware, and figure out the flooring situation, but the immediate concerns have been met, the main tasks are done and the room is ready for some playing!

The playhouse is assembled and ready for business! So far The Cupcake loves opening and closing the door & shutters, as well as ringing the doorbell, but she is just as interested (if not more) in all of the other non-toy things she can scavenge in the basement. So I guess we have some more Cupcake-proofing to do before it will really be an effective play area, but it's getting close. I set up some shelves and brought down some toys, and we spent a few hours telling her "no-no" and prying unintended items out of her hands (seriously, what is the allure of paper towels?).

All in all, it is a much more useful space - the new "bar" can still be used as a prep area, if we ever do sell the house we'll probably stage it as a wine bar with bottle racks & maybe a wine fridge to one side, storage below for glasses, etc. There is no real need for seating in that area, since most people would just gather around the TV. It could be used as a serving area or buffet too. As much as I complained about the terrible paint job, and the few other mishaps we had in assembly, the overall finished project looks better than I would have thought it could have - especially considering my lack of attention span, money, and skill in all areas required to pull this off! :) Thanks to everyone who helped out. We had no idea what we were getting into, but we've really opened up the whole lower level with this project (and the accompanying laundry room clean out) and it feels great! Can't wait to enjoy some play time with TC now!

And then I Imploded the Basement...

About 1/2 of our basement is finished, including a 3/4 bath and two "rooms" that make up our family room area. The larger "room" has our tv, a wall of bookshelves, and a couch that pulls out into a guest bed, but the other room was pretty much consumed by a huge retro wetbar. In theory it was cute, but in practice it was terribly impractical. It was a cute feature for parties:

But the other 364 days a year (and ALL of tem nowadays) it was just a huge dumping ground and a waste of space.  Never did we gather around the bar on a Tuesday night and stare at the blank wall while we sipped a cold one. If we lounged in the basement, we did it sitting on the couch (more comfortable) in front of the TV (more entertaining). Now that The Cupcake is around, space is at a bit more of a premium, and it was time to clean up the hazardous pile that room had become, so after one last look, I decided to remove the bar and turn the area into a playroom:

 

And I had absolutely NO IDEA what I was getting into. My dad and the husband did all the work while I was out, heavy emphasis on WORK. While I had plans to remove and re-sell the bar to cover the costs of the mini renovation, it soon became clear that would not be happening. It had been assembled piece by piece in place by a mega perfectionist, so it ended up coming out piece by piece with almost nothing salvagable - there is ONE piece left that is more than 2'. And a huge crater left behind:

GROAN. What a mess. I did manage to call the electricians and have them sort out the electrical mess, mostly since I'm terrified of that stuff, but it was an ordeal anyways (MULTIPLE blown appointment times, massive over charges, dealing with that mythical "customer service" element that has gone the way of the Unicorns) so after that trauma, I let it sit like that for quite a while before I started to form any real plan. I figured it was easier to hook the water back up to another sink than to deal with capping it off properly, so my thought was to put back in a modified wet bar against one section of wall as a purely serving/prep area, rather than a seated bar. Something we could stage as sort of a wine bar when we eventually went to sell the house again, so it wouldn't seem terribly out of place. With a SEVERELY limited budget it took me a while to get started, but I was lucky to stumble upon the PERFECT sink cabinet on clearance at Lowes:

It required some creative driving to fit it in their SUV which was about 8" short of what we needed, but apparently my Dad can drive just fine with his knees shoved in the dashboard, and we made it across town just fine.

And then it sat on my porch for 2-3 months before I finally got around to working on it again this week. Partially because it's not possible to paint with tiny hands clamoring at you all the time, but also because (as I now remember) I suck at/seriously detest painting. And because paint is expensive and I didn't really know what I needed. But I'd been watching too much HGTV and thought I'd give it a go. Round 1: Primer:

I'm not a fan of primer. Pretty sure this is first our meeting, but I'm confident we won't be spending a lot of time together. Also I don't want to paint the inside of stuff. Also, HGTV and Pinterest are douche bags acting like painting is so much fun. Painting sucks. It's messy and I'm bad at it. Mostly the latter.

Round 2: first coat of paint:

Sherwin Williams did an AWESOME job matching the paint to a board I ripped off the basement wall (the part that used to hold the bartender "door" up, so it was okay to take down. I'm pretty sure),. The idea is that this will blend right in with the painted paneling on the lower half of the basement walls, and I can use the extra to patch up the mess AND paint the wall behind the TV that the previous owners ignored because the TV stand mostly covered it (but our TV didn't fit inside the hutch, so we took the top off, and thus exposed a huge span of unpainted paneling that looks ridiculous). But I digress.

Round 3: More painting, still not good at it.

Round 4: more painting, enjoying it less and less.

Round 5: It still looks pretty patchy and crappy, but the lighting is terrible downstairs anyways, so I'm calling it good enough.

Next step, sure to be the MOST fun yet, is to carry this sucker down the stairs, navigate it around a post that is conveniently placed at the bottom of the stairway (thank goodness for IKEA furniture or we'd be sitting on air mattresses down there). If I keep going on this project at the same pace, that'll happen sometime in the next 3 years, followed eventually by putting on the countertop and reinstalling the sink.

I'm not even going to acknowledge the flooring until then.

The rest of Tuesday...

Tuesday did, in fact, kick my @$$, but I managed to get a bunch of stuff done. The Cupcake never did nap, and after an hour and a half of yelling at the top of her lungs I threw up the white flag and released her, begrudgingly. And exhaustedly. And fairly bummed out. I really look forward to "our" naptime, and part of my willingness to try and pull off a busy morning of adventures was because we'd been getting good naptime performances for a while. Just goes to show once again who is in charge...

But once she recovered from her prolonged fit, she was in a fine mood and puttered around the house while I continued my organizational quest. I cleaned out a few old purses and started on the linen closet. Does everyone else find that tampons multiply in the dark? Because I swear I'm finding half a box in every purse I open, despite being pregnant/nursing most of the past two years. I don't understand where they are coming from!

I also found a MAJOR score - the $30+ Bare Minerals powder I KNEW I had bought (almost 2 years ago) and somehow swept up with a pile of other crap - brand new and unopened! Yay!

TC found a pack of Post-It notes somewhere and had a jolly good time pulling each one apart and spreading them around the house, sticking them on Norm's head, and eventually eating them (oops).

I put together a huge box of travel size/hotel toiletries and some random baby formula samples we received that I'm thinking of dropping off at a shelter - it looks like People Serving People takes both of them, now I just have to actually set aside a time to venture down there...or find something closer.

I also found a bunch of expired stuff that I had a hard time throwing out - and I'm trying to get better at that, but I have some sort of strange WASPY (am I just WASY?) guilt at not getting to stuff like medicines, sunscreen, and especially food before it expires. I particularly felt bad that half of the baby formula I found was past it's date - I'd imagine the powdered stuff is still fine, but I doubt anyone would take a chance with a baby and I definitely wouldn't with someone else's child, so into the trash it went. I'm trying to let it go emotionally now :) In general both the husband and I are pretty awful about left overs, so that is going to be a major area we work on to stretch our funds.

It ended up being such a nice warm day yesterday we were able to throw open the windows and let the fresh air in, and TC wore shorts for the first time! I am in love with her chunky little knees and can't stop biting on her pork chops. This adorable outfit was another score from the JBF sale a few weeks ago, I think it was $4.50. Unfortunately, she's much too busy to spare any time to smile at me!

Frightful Weather = Delightful Nesting Time

You may have heard about the "Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse/Tsnownami" that hit Minnesota this weekend, dumping 17+" of snow on my house, then blowing it into stiff meringue like peaks well over 3' high. I'm not all that bothered that the Metrodome collapsed, but the video is pretty cool, and major gold star to my poor hubby who had to dig us out all alone this year, as my "fragile condition" doesn't allow for much shovelling.

Instead, I found other ways to support our family unit, like working on the nursery and online shopping.

I didn't upload my "real" pictures yet, but I managed to get a whole gob of work done when everything else was cancelled (thank goodness) and that included pretty much finishing up the decor in Cupcake's room. Here are some not great camera phone photos:



The black frames with gold accents are holding these mermaid alphabet cards, they frame the top of the room on 2 sides. The gold frames underneath hold two Paulina Stuckey Cassidy prints of mermaids that I've been saving for YEARS and never hung, and I decided to order this print for the third.

I also nabbed up this reading mermaid I've been eyeing on Etsy for months, I'm hoping I can put it in the gold frame I picked up for the voodoo room at Halloween (it had a creepy puzzle in it then). Hubby is stuck in a book most of the day, we're both English majors so reading is quite important to us and we hope it is to the Cupcake as well. Reading mermaids set a good example :)



Blackbeard there (orange beard?) is guarding a pile of newborn diapers. The curtain rods are hung, and the valances that are part of the bedding set we picked out for the twin bed, and I did decide to pair them with purple blackout curtains (not shown) but Target only had 2 panels in stock, so I need to find another set before that project is finished. I also broke down and bought a mattress pad and sheet for the crib, despite trying to wait and use my registry coupons I just HAD to get that part checked off my list, it was driving me insane :)

My final art purchase, also on Etsy, was a set of prints from this seller - she also made the thank you notes I sent out for shower gifts:



They're going in simple gold dollar store frames, with a big gold pirate ship medallion from Goodwill, and that should fill the wall above the twin bed. I hope to have everything hung and finished in the next two weeks. Fingers crossed! Maybe I should move on to Christmas shopping now...

Nursery, Ahoy!

I got a couple of HUGE items checked off my list this weekend, including assembling my Boppy pillow (with protective cover and decorative slipcover), Diaper Genie (hopefully to keep Norm out of the mess, let alone the smell out of the room), and hanging up all of the Cupcake's clothes for her first 6 months (the rest are in drawers, since they won't fit in the closet). I started packing my hospital suitcase, and I also got up the courage to try my vinyl wall decal! Remember, I recently bought this on Etsy:



I was kind of terrified to start it, since I haven't ever done one before and I know I did NOT want to have to repaint if I really fudged up the walls, but I LOVED this image and decided to be brave. I cut around the design loosely and figured out where I wanted it before peeling the backing paper off and smoothing it on the wall:



Then I started the long process of rubbing the transfer, careful to really focus on all the edges and around the cutouts. At first I used a clothespin, because it was sitting there, but eventually moved to the side of the scissor handle for more ergonomic support. The only downside of this was that I somehow cut my nose by flipping the scissors around carelessly with the handle pointed at the wall...meaning the blades were pointed at my face. Whoops. Once I thought I had it all rubbed on enough to transfer, I started slooooooooooowly peeling off the clear transfer film:



Every few inches or so I'd find a scale or tendril of hair that hadn't transferred, so I eased the film back down and rubbed some more. A few places took 2-3 tries, but as long as you go really slow when peeling the film off, you can see it happening and avoid ripping the decal. I probably spent 30 mins on this part, I REALLY wanted it to work!



And it did! I absolutely LOVE how it turned out, the contrast with the bright blue walls is excellent, and though there are a few bumps and bubbles, you really can't tell unless you are looking for them. I decided not to add the water swirls or bubbles - I didn't want to ruin the clean look I had managed to capture :) While the directions had "strongly recommended using 2 sets of hands," I didn't find that necessary - and it came out looking GREAT. I was so inspired, that I decided to put the new pirate bedding on the twin bed next to the crib:



So cute! We picked this out before we knew if Cupcake would be a he or a she, and I love it. It seemed silly to spend a bunch of $$ on crib bedding, when you shouldn't use bumpers or blankets in the crib anyways, so this was where I chose to get cute bedding instead - where it would actually SHOW:



I have matching window valances which I hope to get up this week after I pick up some curtains, crib sheets, changing pad and all the other stuff on my "final necessities" list. That is going to be one fun Target trek :)

Tomorrow marks pregnancy week 35, just 5 weeks until my due date and the pages are absolutely tumbling off of the calendar now. Less than 3 weeks until Christmas?!?! I can hardly believe it. I'm frantically training my temporary replacement at work, and we're down to under 3 weeks before our holiday closure to get her all "learned up." I'm still suffering at the hands of late night heartburn & hip pain, and though my hands don't LOOK swollen to me, I think I may have to ditch the wedding ring for a while now. And I'm totally craving Peanut Butter Kisses:



I got a few at an event this past weekend, and by the time I had convinced myself I was okay shoving the rest of the plate into my purse, they were gone. But not forgotten. I may have to do some baking this week, despite my exhaustion and lack of will to clean up afterwards :) Better yet, can you just BUY these anywhere??? Since I'm down to eating about 3 things and drinking 3/4 of a gallon of milk a day, I've decided I'm fine putting away about a dozen of these a day :)

Happy Holidays!

34 1/2 weeks

We're going to have a baby.

If the hourly acid reflux wake up calls, nickel sized bladder, and pronounced waddle in my gait weren't enough to give it away, I got the official news at my doctor appointment this week that "if your labor were to start now, we wouldn't do much to stop it."

Whoa.

Though I am feeling less and less EMOTIONALLY prepared for this every day (I'm having dreams about living in the dorms again, easy & carefree...or my childhood bedroom...think that's related?), at least we are reasonably close to being prepared in a physical sense. The kid has a wardrobe that dwarfs mine and her fathers (at least for the first 6 months). She has a bright cheerful room that is actually mostly clean. And she even has a place to sleep - did I show you this GIANT gift at the baby shower? :



It was sort of the "grand finale" of the gift opening...



What could it be?



It's a mattress! And a crib! Thank you Mom & Dad (soon to be first time Grandma & Grandpa :)

They even delivered it to our house and helped the hubby and I put it together last weekend:



Norm "helped" too:



And without too much trouble, we got it done:



Shortly after, we arranged all the furniture, cleared off the dresser/changing table, and hung all of the tiny little clothes on baby hangers. It actually looks pretty good - at least it's clean :) Next steps (hopefully this weekend) are to put up this mermaid decal on the wall (ordered from Etsy - not sure exactly why they staged the photo with a bride & groom kissing behind it?!?!):



Then I need to get moving on curtains (I had a dream about curtain rods last night too...guess I'm feeling anxious about getting this done!), replace a switch plate cover, and mount our mermaid alphabet cards & a few other prints I've picked up along the years, and possibly add a few little shelves/hooks over the changing table. Oh, and probably pack my hospital bag, since somehow 8 1/2 months have passed me by already...

Cheers to a safe and productive weekend, Cupcake staying in the oven until after the holidays, and planning an epic Target shopping trip to pick up the rest of our essentials. TGIF!