2 out of 3 things are better

Better 1. Judah

His nose is definitely running less today. However, he is more boogery. Whatever. He sounds less congested overall. One of my girlfriends suggested that maybe he doesn't even a cold, but that the slime nose is a teething symptom. Maybe. Hell, if I know.
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I started writing this post while Bill was giving Judah his bath and getting him ready for bed. Now, I'm back after unsuccessfully trying to get Judah to go to sleep for the last hour and a half. He is super sleepy, and will sleep when I'm holding him, but put him flat on his back in the crib and he instantly gets all congested sounding and wakes himself up. Sigh. I know a certain little boy who just might be sleeping in bed with me tonight (that way his head can be propped up on my arm and his sinuses can drain).

Notice the nose slime.

Oh well, he is still *somewhat* better than yesterday.

2. The boiler

The dude came back today and got everything squared away. Our radiators are now producing heat. All of them (a first!) and the house is slowly creeping back up to my ideal house temp (67 degrees). Yay, heat! It works for now (which is very important and I am verrrry thankful for) but I'm sure within the next 5 years or so we will need to install a new boiler that is better suited for our needs (and comes from a company that makes reliable products).

Not better 1. Gert

We heard back from the vet today. She is going to need surgery. And, get this, not just in one knee, but TWO! Both of her back knees have the messed up ligaments. Can't believe she already needs knee surgery, she is one a year and a half old. We don't have the surgery scheduled yet, my guess is it will probably happen after Christmas. That way she can take it easy at home and not have to deal with traveling right after getting cut open.

3 broken things

There are three broken things in our house right now.

1. Judah

J's Auntie is visiting for a few days to spend time with the cuddly little snot machine

He is coming down with a cold (I think). His nose just started running today. Poor little guy has been leaking clear slime out the nose for most of the day. His breathing sounds really wet because of it and so far he has had a hard time sleeping (I think his little snores are waking him up). This is the first time Judah has ever gotten sick... At least, I think this qualifies as being sick. Those are his only symptoms though, so I'm not sure if this counts. Hopefully, he will wake up tomorrow feeling better.

2. Gert

Gert has a bum knee. She has been keeping her weight off her back leg since Thanksgiving time. We have been making her take it easy and limiting her walks and refusing to play with her (to which she fiercely objects).  We assumed she had strained a muscle or something from playing (non-stop) with all of her Oregon doggy friends... But, she just hasn't gotten better. I took her into the vet yesterday to see what was what. The vet could feel her knee cap pop out of place, which can sometimes happen with little dogs. The bone that her knee cap is suppose to fit into might not be grooved deeply enough to keep the knee cap snug and in place. The vet also feared that she had injured the ligament between her upper and lower leg bones (right under the knee), so today she had to go back to the vet for X-rays.  She was such a good little girl that they did not need to put her under to get the x-rays. She let them move her and manipulate her legs and hips into place while being awake. The X-rays have now been sent off to the surgeon, but it looks like that ligament is effed up, which means she will need to get knee surgery.

3. The boiler

We finally broke down and called a plumber/heat guy to come take a look at our heating system. The guy was at our place from 8am-6pm dealing with our boiler. Whenever he would get one thing fixed, it became apparent that there was an additional problem with another part. He has to come back tomorrow to keep working at it, but hopefully the end is in sight (at least with the boiler part, it turns out our thermostat is not communicating with the boiler which is yet another problem).

The boiler was put in by some of the previous owners. And, well, they didn't do the best job or put in the highest quality appliance (to put it mildly). The first year we lived here we had the radiators serviced and found out the engine to the boiler was installed UPSIDE DOWN. Oi. Looks like the boiler is not very good and there have been loooots of complaints about this particular model. Part of me wonders if getting it fixed is just throwing good money after bad. Is it just going to keep breaking down bit by bit? New boilers are expensive, but at least that would (hopefully) be a one time shot instead of constantly battling what appears to be quite a lemon of a boiler. Sigh.

I do love owning a house, but it sure was a hell of a lot easier when we were renters and the landlords had to take care of all that shit and they had to do it ASAP.

At long last- It's Judah's Nursery!

Before I show you what baby Judah's nursery looks like today, let's take a trip down memory lane.

Here was the room when we bought the place:

Isn't that color hideous? So we changed it to a creamy yellow.

And is was used as my 'office,' or more accurately- where I dump all my school things in giant piles and leave them. That, and it was my where I kept my clothes- since the master only has one closet. The room was a bit ridiculous, as you can see.

Then you may remember we ripped up that nasty gray carpet and found this underneath. Clearly, we had our work cut out for us.

But after lots of time (really far more than it should have taken), we now have a gray and aqua nursery:

Definitely an improvement. Of course, there is still things that need to be done (isn't there always?). I still need to touch up the molding where Bill got floor stain on it. We also are (someday) going to add quarter rounds to where the molding (does NOT) meet the floor (there is a gap from where the carpet pad was). Also, the floor in the closet still needs to be finished. And I need to paint the door to the hall. And the inner part of said door frame.

This was the first nursing chair we got. I found it on Craigslist. I would love to one day make a slip cover for it (step one: take sewing machine out of box).

And this is the second nursing chair we got. I decided I wanted a glider (the other is a rocker) and we ended up getting quite a lot of Target giftcards, so we put them all together and bought this guy (and matching ottoman). Turns out I actually like the Craigslist rocker better. I usually nurse in the rocker (the arm rests are at just the right height for the baby on the boppy). We generally use the glider as the reading chair. It is pretty handy having two chairs in the nursery. That way Bill and I can both be in there at the same time and be comfy.

There are two windows in the room- one southern exposure and one western. Therefore, the room gets a good amount of light. We have roller black out shades, but the freaking things are already broken. They only roll up on their own about half way and then we have to manually spin/wrap them the rest of the way. Once that good old sewing machine makes its way out of the box I would like to make black out roman shades. Until then we will use (and curse) the roller shades.

I realized while taking these pictures that a regular lens just doesn't cut it for shooting a room. I need a wide angle lens to be able to capture the room so that you can really get a sense of where things are in relation to one another and to get an idea of scale.

Judah was very patient with me while I took pictures of his room.

House Tour- downstairs

So, I realize I said, oh, about a year ago, that I would post photos of the inside of the house... and I never did. If you have been waiting and waiting for that day to come, you are in luck, my friend. At least sort of. I snapped some quick photos of downstairs before our bbq/shower the other weekend. I totally broke all the cardinal rules of home photography. I used a flash, the lights are on (it was pretty dark and dreary outside, so natural lighting was not working), and I did not style anything... It is definitely set up for the shower- with random extra seats in the living room, onesie decorating set up in the dining room, and tables set up for buffet style grub in the kitchen. But, you know, you at least get an idea of what our house looks like. Also, I only took pictures of the 4 main rooms: the foyer, living room, dining room, and kitchen. I did not take any pictures of the guest bathroom, Bill's office, or awkwardly large hallway (some day I would like to combine the weird hallway with Bill's office to make a family room/media room type thing. Some day.)

Our first stop is the foyer. You can see the main entrance to the house along with the little entryway (with a bench seat) in the bottom photo. You can also see our coat/shoe closet to the left. When we bought the house  this room was already yellow. We like the color. It is very low on our priority list of rooms to paint. It definitely could use some touch ups and plaster work, but, like I said, we like the color so it stays.

Next stop is the living room. The first photo is looking in from the foyer, the second is from the dining room. This room is top priority on the painting list. The beige overload is killing me. We have the colors all picked out (a muted turquoise for the below the picture molding and a light version for above the molding and the ceiling). Only issue is, we need the plaster (yep, lots of our walls are good old lathe and plaster) repaired before we can paint. There is damage on the ceiling from an old water leak (from before we bought the place) and there are various cracks and holes that need to be fixed.

And, now we come to the dining room. In the top photo you can see the door on the left leading to the kitchen and the door on the right leading to the weird hallway. The second photo is looking to the living room. You can see part of the framework for the giant pocket doors that can separate the dining room from the living room. Like I said before the dining room is all set up for onesie crafting, not so much dining.

Last up is our kitchen. The kitchen was an add on. From what we can tell is was originally a galley kitchen that took up the area of the funny hallway and maybe 1/4 of the current kitchen. The first photo is from the doorway to the dining room, the second is from the back door. I hate the red walls. Hate. And, if you'll notice we have no drawer or cabinet pulls. There is a lot I would like to do to this kitchen. A lot. The space is really big, but the layout is really poor. This project will wind up being such a big one that I think it will probably be years until we actually get around to fixing it up.

That, my friends, is (most of) the downstairs of our house.

Accomplished: Stair Treads!

I am happy to report I have been able to check off a few things from my to-do list.

Today I:

• did the dishes
• am doing the laundry
• cleaned off the desk in the guest room
• and attached the stair treads

And I still plan on:

• taking a nap
• making dinner

Oh, yeah.

Also, floors and bathrooms are clean. I can't take credit for this one. It all goes to our lovely and eco-friendly house-cleaners, Brilliant Cleaning.

Here are the stairs before:

And after:

We bought the stair treads on ebay from this guy. We bought the adhesive from Home Depot... or maybe Lowe's. I'm actually not sure, because Bill picked it up when he brought all the nasty old carpet from the nursery to the dump. Anyway, we used Rhino Grip, which is VOC free, so I was able to tackle the job of applying it.

We have been meaning to get stair treads (or a runner) pretty much since we moved in (2 years ago this May). Wood stairs are a bit treacherous. Within a week or two of moving in I definitely slipped going down them and sprained my ankle. Lesson learned: no socks on wood stairs! And poor Ralph- he falls down the stairs about once a month. He is not the most agile beast, and sometimes his giant paws just don't find purchase. He had a tough time learning how to go up and down the stairs when we first got him. It was pretty hilarious to watch him try to figure out when to move which paw where. But, the stair treads should now eliminate any future falls for the big guy. And, with the baby coming we figured the time was now to get this job done.

Here's Ralph demonstrating going up the stairs (and Gert already at the top):

And going down (the trickier of the two for him):

To Do

Things I'm going to get done over spring break:

• Laundry (easy)
• Clean out desk (hopefully get menfolk to move desks around)
• Clean off dining table
• Clean off kitchen table #1
• Clean off kitchen table #2
• Move board games to book shelf/display case thing
• Adhere stair treads to stairs
• Clean off coffee table
• Clean off side table in foyer
• Go through the piled up mail (remember when you were little and it was sooo exciting to get an item of mail?)
• Go through shoes (donate unwanted pairs to Goodwill)
• Cook dinner- as opposed to having Bill cook. I've got no excuses since I'm not at work this week
• And if (big IF here) it is dry out I will work on my sad neglected flower garden

Eh, that is probably more than enough. I'm sure I could make the list longer, but I will feel pretty damned accomplished if I get to check all these bad boys off the list.

Good news- the sanders we already have seem to be doing the trick on the floor in the nursery. We might need to rent an edger though, since it is hard (impossible?) to get in those corners and right flush next to the trim. When the sanding is done we are gonna need to do some mad wiping down in there. There is dust coating the walls and trim- my nice new paint job now looks super dingy and gross. Luckily, it will come right off with no problems. But, man, is it everywhere! The new light fixture looks like it has been in place for half a century with the amount of dust coating it. 

I sure hope we can find a stain/finish that will match the finish in the hall. I know you can get paint samples- can you get stain samples? 

Here a pretty picture to finish up the post:

Here

Oh, would you look at that- it's blue! Shocking, I know.

Tortoise Pace

The important part is that he won the race, right? These slow plodding steps we are making just means we are going to be love it that much more in the end, right? Right??


This weekend we installed the light fixture in Judah's room, as well as, one in our upstairs bathroom.
This is the new light in the nursery:

And, here is our new bathroom light:

We put some CFLs we had laying around into the light fixture, and as you can see they were not a matching set. The light they give off is very different. The left one produces a warm light, while the right one is cool. That will need to be fixed... I just need to do a more thorough search of the laundry room closet to see if I can find a mate to one that is in there.

I finally touched up some minor paint spots in the nursery. Nothing big, just little bits where wall paint got on the ceiling of vice versa. It was a super minor job, yet it still took me 2 weeks to actually do. But that's okay, because slow and steady wins the race. Right?


I also put switch-plate covers back on. I bought one new one, because the light switch plate was dark brown and that just would not do. So I bought a cheap-o white one. Which looks lovely. It kinda makes me want to replace all the covers in the room, even though they are already white because they have paint spatters on them from the previous owners (who obviously did not remove them when they painted, they just tried to paint around them).

Here is a sneak peak at the floor under the carpet.

Isn't it pretty? Haha. But the real question, could we just sand it down and paint or stain it and have that be good enough? I'm hoping the answer to that question is yes. Maybe next weekend we will actually get around to ripping it out for good. Maybe.

In other news, and maybe as an explanation (excuse) as to why so little has gotten done is I got a cold. I was a bit freaked out at first, what with being pregnant and all. All I knew is I was getting sick, but wasn't sure if it was a cold or the flu. The flu (specifically a fever) is very bad while pregnant. A cold is a pain in the ass, but not such a big deal. I felt all achy, my throat hurt, my head hurt, and I was super congested. I made sure to take my temperature periodically, but luckily there was no fever. Phew. So, I've just kinda been taking it easy and drinking LOTS of fluids.

I've also been perusing the interwebs for baby stuff. And, dear god, crib bedding is either A. ugly, B. super expensive, or C. both. I think picking out the bedding has been the most frustrating thing to register for. I don't want to get something I don't love, but I also don't want to spend (or have anyone else spend) $400 on a crib set. Seriously, that is ridiculous. I tried Etsy, which definitely has cute options but is expensive. Of course, I would feel better paying the artisan $400 than a giant store, but that doesn't solve the I-don't-have-that-kind-of-cash problem. I think I am either going to have to settle with a crib set that I don't love (but do like/can tolerate) or crack out the sewing machine and make something myself.

Here are the current contenders in the I can afford/kind of like category:

 

 

All are available from Target.com.

Goodbye sweet glorious vacation. Hello work.

Today marks the last day of winter break. Sighhhhhh (that was a really big sigh, in case you couldn't tell by the excess of Hs). Tomorrow I go back to work. I am so not ready for that to happen. Winter break goes by so quickly. I was envisioning that I would have a lot more down town this break, but notsomuch. These last two weeks have been jampacked with friends and family and doing stuff. It was lots of fun, but as per uze, I did not get done all the stuff I had hoped to get down around the house. Story of my life, I suppose.

To start break off there were a lot of trips to the mall. Our exchange student, Liza, flew home two days after xmas and needed to get gifts for everyone back home. I did my first dint of maternity clothes shopping while she searched the mall for gifts. I got a lot of good basics at Motherhood Maternity and one cute shirt at H&M.

On the first Monday of break we also took her to Zoolights at out local zoo. It was a nice night to go, no rain, but very chilly.

The next day was my first appointment with the midwives. It was a pretty short appointment, since it was just establishing care. I didn't even meet with a midwife, just a nurse and we went over all my intake information. Then that afternoon we took Liza into Seattle to see some of the sights. We went to the Market and poked around. After that we took the monorail to Seattle Center and looked around there. We ate dinner at the restaurant at the top of the Space Needle. Of course, it was Liza's first time there, but it was also WM's. He had never been to the top before! So it was a real treat to eat up there and enjoy the beautiful views. After dinner we went up one floor to the observation deck.

The next morning, Liza and I took the train down to Oregon to spend time with family. Wm wasn't able to come down until Christmas eve because he had to work. It was nice to spend time with family and friends we don't get to see as often as we would like. We headed back north on Sunday, because Liza flew back home to the Netherlands on Monday, and Wm had to work Sunday night. Sunday was mostly spent trying to cram all of Liza's belongings into her one suitcase. Monday we got up early and took her to the airport. After we got back home we just lazed around. WM was pretty tired from working the night shift, and I was just worn out from all the go-go-going.

On Tuesday we decided the time had come... for us to get a new TV. We have had the same crappy hand me down tv for years. We have put up with its floating discoloration spots and super dark picture. WM and I had made a deal that when he finished building a new entertainment system we would buy a new TV. But, here we are with a new TV and an unfinished entertainment system down in the basement. Eventually (hopefully this month) we will have an entertainment system like this only in a different color (photo and plans from Knock Off Wood):

On Wednesday, WM went to work. I met up with him and a coworker for lunch, and then I headed out to the Super Mall for maternity shopping. There have a Motherhood Maternity outlet and the closest Old Navy that carries maternity. I got tons of stuff. My hope is that I am basically set for the next 6+ months.

On Thursday, I prepped the house for guests. I had to clean out the rest of the stuff in Liza's room and make it back into a guest room. I also got the second guest room ready and just kind of picked up the house in general. That evening some friends arrived from Oregon.

Of course the next day was NYE. We went out to our favorite bar and played our favorite game (Big Game Hunter) and everyone (except me) enjoyed delicious microbrews. That night we had two more visitors arrive from Oregon. We ate good food and they enjoyed good beers, which I would sample but not drink.

New Years Day everyone was pretty worn out, so we headed out to get yummy bfast food at Alfred's Cafe where one of our good friends is the head chef. It was jam packed, looks like we weren't the only ones who wanted good grub the morning after partying. The rest of the day was pretty low key. Two of guest headed back down to Oregon. WM and I took Ralph for a nice long walk. And other than that we vegged out in front of our new tv with our friends and just kind of took it easy.

Which brings us to today. Sunday. Our guests headed out this morning and now WM and I are enjoying the last few hours we have together before he has to go to work. We will talk the Ralphster out for another walk in a bit. I'm doing laundry and right now WM is playing videogames.

I have made a slight amount of progress on the nursery. I emptied out the closet in that room. That had been where I was storing all of my clothes (gotta love old houses and their postage stamp sized closets, right?). I packed up all my non-maternity clothing (at least the ones that I don't think will work) and moved the rest into a different closet. The plan is to get a free standing armoire to put in our bedroom and install an organizational system in the closet that is in there so that both WM and I can keep out wardrobes in our bedroom (how convenient would that be?).

There you have it. My winter break in a (pretty large) nutshell. I had hoped to empty out the nursery completely, paint it, rip up the carpet in there (and the other guest rooms) as well as paint the living room. But, none of those things even remotely happened. The good news is that soon WMs work schedule is changing and we will have a lot more time together on the weekends. I am very very very much looking forward to this. Perhaps we will be able to get some projects done together on our (ready for this?) weekends at home.

Attack of the Kitties!

Last night Bill worked a night shift, leaving Ralph and I at home all night. We hung out downstairs. I played around on the web, watched some episodes of Weeds, and watched a crappy movie (500 Days of Summer. Blech.). I didn’t head upstairs for bed until around 2am. Before heading up I let Ralph out and it was absolutely pouring outside (as it had been for the majority of the day). Ralph came back in and we started upstairs… But then I felt water drip on me in the stairwell. Uh-oh. I turned on the light and saw that there were 2 steady drips coming out of the stairwell door frame next to the kitchen. I didn’t know what was causing the leak. I was afraid that the storm had flooded the attic or found some other devious way inside. Dollar signs were flashing before my eyes and I our upcoming vacation was fading into black.

I called Bill in a panic. He was in the middle of dealing with something and couldn’t really talk. I put out two bowls to try and catch the falling water. Sigh, whatever was wrong I figured there was nothing I could do right now to fix it. I continued upstairs and put Ralph in our bedroom to sleep for the night. I then went to brush my teeth and get ready for bed.

I opened the door to the bathroom and there was water everywhere! But, the source of the water was there as well. It was our radiator.The nozzle on the bleed valve had been turned and was gushing water. It was like having a sink on full blast for who knows how long. The floor was completely soaked. The rugs in the bathroom absorbed a lot of the water but it was even standing water on top of that. In short, it was mess. I quickly turned the bleed valve off and threw down a bunch of towels to start soaking up water. The rest of the cleaning would have to wait to morning.

The bathroom is home to the culprits behind last night shenanigans. Allow me to introduce Zariel and Pubert.

Zariel, the ringleader Pubert, unwitting accomplice

Our darling adorable cat, Zariel, greatly enjoys laying on top of the radiator for warmth. She has also apparently gotten into the habit of mouthing the bleed valve. We believe that she ended up getting some purchase on it and wound up turning it on. Which had disastrous results. I can’t even begin to speculate as to what time she turned it on. All I know is it happened sometime after 4:30pm (when Bill left) and before 2am (when I went to bed). Oh, kitties. I think that counts as one of your 9 lives. I placed Zariel on top of the radiator to get a picture demonstrating her love for lounging up there, but she decided instead to give me a reenactment shot. Sheesh.

Another sheesh goes out to the weather today. It has been just dumping. Our poor little newly created garden beds have been turned into giant mud puddles. I hope the seeds make it and don’t end up being washed away in the rain.It’s raining. It’s pouring…  What happened the lovely sunshine we’ve been having? Doesn’t mother nature know it is supposed to be nice on Spring Break and rain only when school is in?