General

Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a pink and yellow room. (Let’s just hope the ultrasound technician was right about this baby being a girl!) There’s still quite a bit of trim painting to do, a closet organizer and shades to install, and a lot of furniture moving that has to happen, but I’m actually starting to believe that the room might possibly be usable before the baby arrives! (Four or so weeks to go…)

Bonus points if Carrie’s “big girl” room is completely set up too. I found the neatest idea for rain gutter bookshelves which will solve a lot of problems for us – most of which involve the insane number of books the kid has already, all of which are too tall to stand up on her tiny bookcase. Plus, it’s cheaper than even the cheapest flimsy particle board bookcase you can buy right now. So even when we need to replace it in a few years – I can’t imagine that she’ll still be reading the sort of books we’d put in these shelves by the end of elementary school – it won’t have been such a huge investment that we’ll regret it.

If we ever move, I’m going to make it a condition of our purchase that there be absolutely no wallpaper on any wall in the entire house we buy. Because, seriously? Wallpaper that’s been applied to bare drywall? I’m getting pretty sick of it. We’ve dealt with it in at least three rooms so far, the baby’s room is the fourth, and I’m sure the whole upstairs hallway – which we eventually need to redo because the seams are starting to curl – is the same way.

At this point, we just have to make the glue as flat as possible (it was heavily textured wallpaper) by steaming and scraping off what we can and then sanding off the rest, and then we’re going to use a good primer and hope for the best. (And by “we” I mean Denis, because I’ve been forbidden to help with the steaming/scraping.)

The problem is, we’ve spent our three day weekend just getting to the point where we know what we’re doing and the one long wall is mostly scraped off. We’ll have to re-rent the steamer next weekend to do the two short walls. So priming and painting are going to happen…when? I don’t think I can or should try to do this while I’m home alone with Carrie. We can’t work on it in the evenings after Carrie goes to bed because it’s right next to her room. I work on Saturdays, so that leaves Sundays. There are only *at most* 8 Sundays left before this baby comes. Let’s see…at least one to finish steaming, scraping, patching and sanding, one to prime, one for both coats of the three yellow walls, one for both coats of the one pink wall, two for both coats of white for the trim and closet…that’s 6. That’s just the painting – no closet organizer, ceiling light installation, furniture moving, clothing sorting or anything else.

OK, I’m definitely starting to panic here…does anyone know any good handymen/house painters in the area who can come during the week and get this done in a few days instead of several weeks?!?

No spoilers here, don’t worry!

The movie last night was GREAT! Both of us really enjoyed it, even the whole seeing it in the theater experience (despite the fact that between tickets, popcorn – half of which I managed to spill – and bottled water we spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $35!)

It really was a fitting sequel to the other three movies, and I can’t wait for it to come out on DVD so I can watch it again. (Yes, dear, that’s a hint for a Christmas gift…)

OK, I’ve now been sick for over a week. I’m really tired of being sick. Mostly, I’m tired of coughing, as I’ve pulled every muscle in my left side. Being sick while this pregnant really, truly sucks. Carrie got it too, but really only seemed to be sick for a couple of days, and her cough is nearly gone.

I don’t know whether I’ve been bitten by a spring cleaning bug or if nesting can possibly start so early (this baby still has 14 weeks to grow before she makes her entrance!) but I’ve been on a cleaning binge for the past two days…

Only my house is still a mess.

Because I can’t bring myself to do things like, say, clear off the kitchen counters and pick up all the toys. No, instead I have to empty all the expired stuff out of the fridge and sweep the garage floor. Um. Well, I suppose it’s warm enough to have a picnic in the garage…?

Do you want fries with that?

Between the musical, the cluster of holidays in March, and just general exhaustion (I need to start going to bed earlier!) I haven’t had the time or energy to keep up with my blog. I debated just letting it go, but it’s been such a wonderful record of Carolyn’s life so far that I couldn’t leave it, and I’m assuming I’ll be about as good at filling out a baby book for this next little girl as I was for Carrie (as in, not at all) so I’ll need a place to write down snippets of her life too. So I filled in what I could from my half-written posts and the pictures I’ve taken over the past few weeks.

I’ll try to be better from now on, but we’ve all heard that one before, right?

Oh, and if anyone is looking for my more knitterly pursuits, I’ve decided to stop updating my craft pages in favor of using ravelry. If you’re not a member already, I’ll warn you, it’s kind of addictive. If you’re willing to be tempted by thousands of projects-in-progress, go ahead and sign up! If you already are a member, I could always use another friend! :)

I’m not sure what the official high was today, but our thermometer topped off at 67°! Carrie got to ride her tricycle and we took a nice leisurely walk around the block without coats. She wasn’t all that impressed, though. Halfway through our walk she started asking to go home so she could watch Belle (aka Beauty and the Beast). When I told her she should enjoy the day because in a few days it will be snowing again, she said, “Really? Snow?!? Oh, hooray!”

Not that I don’t like snow, or anything, but I’d prefer some more 67° days this month myself…

Denis’ company had a gathering a farm that does a pretty serious cornfield maze every year. After a hearty lunch of pizza and pie we were broken up into groups of 4-5 and released into the maze. Our team made it out in 55 minutes, thanks in part to some serious good luck (we really had no idea where we were when we found the exit). Carrie’s favorite part was carrying the giant flag-on-a-stick that helped the maze coordinators keep track of whether anyone was in dire straits.

I think it will be even more fun to do in a couple of years when Carrie can help us find the map pieces and figure out where we are.

OK, so it might a little too soon to declare absolute true love, but I am in extreme like with my new Dansko shoes. I bought them yesterday because my poor abused feet couldn’t take another day of standing all day in my ill-fitting (but adorable) Sketchers.

It’s amazing what a bit of good arch support will do for you. I just need to finish breaking them in before I can declare true love. (And maybe buy another pair!)

There’s only 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and against all odds the Bills are ahead 24 to 16. But I’m so tired I can’t keep my eyes open.

If I go to bed now and they lose, will it be all my fault?

Update: I didn’t go to bed, and they lost anyway. And I lost out on some much-needed sleep. Boo.