Wednesday, June 27

Considering my options

I'm sitting here looking at my Giant "W" Here's a picture, so you can look at it too.
I could do several things with it depending on where I decide to put it. Since we no longer have a headboard over our bed, I thought it might be good to put it over our bed. I could also hang it in the living room.

Some things I've considered:

Painting it a very dark shiny black- it would look like someone had used a giant typewriter on our wall.

Painting it a pale green to match the wall in the living room and to go along with my tree-theme.

Gluing a million silk leaves on it like a wreath- also to go with our tree, themed living room.

Painting it some other color and then doing a distant spray of gold spraypaint to give it some sheen- this would work well in the bedroom, since i don't know what colors I'm using in there anyway.

Please feel free to make other suggestions or to offer a vote for your favorite idea.

Also, just to show how insane I am- this is what Josh and I built last night, even though it was about 90 degrees outside.

Just cause we could!

Monday, June 25

Monsoon

Finally we got some rain around here! Actually I was pretty concerned that I needed to build an Ark, but as it turns out, it stopped.

Today was a quiet day. I did a lot of laundry and ironed a lot of things for Josh to wear and read a book about Christian child-rearing that my Aunt gave me. My Aunts are visiting. I think they've been running around (Up to no good, I'm sure!) and checking out Nashville. I'll probably crash their party tomorrow. Sometime this week I'm supposed to go to the pool with Christa and Haydn, and I was asked to go to a playdate on Thursday- odd because I can't actually bring any children, yet.

I'm working on a new craft project- a simple one. I've purchased a giant cardboard "W" that looks like an old typewriter font. I'm going to paint it or something, but I'm not sure what yet. I'll get back to you

Chara

Monday, June 18

lazy days of summer

I honestly thought that I would have a lot of free time on my hands this summer when Josh and I finally decided that it was okay for me not to have a full time job. I figured I'd spend hours in the library or in the yard or at my mom's ofice keeping her from getting any work done.

So far it's actually been quite busy. I've been going over to my mom's house a few days a week to take care of a few things for her and I've been getting accustomed to my own house. We've been here for a month now (it doesn't feel like a month, but this really does feel like home) and the list of improvements and changes I want to make has been growing steadily. Everything from new light switch plates to a new shower in the half bath to laying carpet in the back two bedrooms (anyone know how to lay carpet??).

My nursery quandry has been settled- at least I think so. I saw this rug (the one on the floor of the picture below) at Bombay kids in the mall last friday and I was too chicken to check the price, but I think the color scheme will work.
It's kind of a lot of coors but it's not bad. i won't be getting the super-expensive things that Bombay kids was selling to go with the rug- probably we'll just register for solid navy blues and reds for the crib at BabiesRUs. I've started painting the walls though. I'm going to paint the little bookshelf a navy blue as well as a dresser that Josh and I have been using. Now we just need a crib.

We also managed to get the guest bedroom looking like something someone might actually sleep in. (Sorry Audrey!!) Unfortunately, we thought that the antique bedframe would hold a queen-sized mattress- which it does not! So we moved our bed into the spare room and the queen-sized mattresses are now resting on the floor. It's actually much easier to get into bed, since our bed was so high off the ground.



Otherwise, we've been spending lots of time outdoors- as my many mosquito bites can attest to. Josh has been planting a garden and I've been mostly watching and grilling. That's what he's doing now. I just finished cooking dinner for tomorrow night.
It's not nearly as large as last year's but we are putting it in rather late. We have two small tomato plants in right now. We also have an Oregano plant that we can't seem to kill and a rosemary plant that has recently decided to bloom. Josh has been composting, which is good since I the only thing I seem to be craving is produce of various kinds. He has two trashcans and he moves the compost back and forth between them.

And what am I doing all this time?
Watching:
and grilling

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As a strange aside, it occured to Josh and me earlier that we haven't watched any television, besides the Lost season finale, in a full month now. I don't think we did it on purpose- we just never really plugged our TV in. Josh has been threatening to get rid of it for quite a long time, but I didn't htink we actually would. Now I'm not so sure. We haven't had cable the entire time we've been married, so it's not such a stretch to just sort of stop watching it alltogether.

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Another strange note... Josh and I were just out in the yard and he pointed out a squirrel to me. The thing was rolling around on the ground like a dog trying to scratch it's back. Then it just stopped. Apparently it was having convulsions. It was dead. Weird. Where do you take a dead squirrel??

Friday, June 15

Gratuitous Nostalgia

Last Summer while working for NSN I had the supreme pleasure of going to Pittsburgh PA. I really didn't think that Pittsburgh was going to be all that great, but that was before I heard about the guest speaker for our conference. The actual, real, Mr. McFeely from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood came and spoke. I didn't actually get to listen, but I did get to meet him and I have to say that it is one of the neatest things I've ever gotten to do.

I don't think there are a lot of red-blooded American kids my age who didn't watch Mr. Rogers growing up. There were great reasons for that. Mr. Rogers was a truly wonderful man who gave a piece of himself to every show- and I think we knew that when we watched him.

I found this today and I thought I would share it. Read it- it's true.

Chara

Wednesday, June 13

Our House is a very, very, very fine house.

So here are the promised pictures:



These are the colors I'm debating over for the nursery- feel free to voice an opinion.

Nursery Quandry

Since I discovered that I'm actually carrying a boy I have been a bit uncertain about what to do with the nursery. I guess I'm a little hard to please because I don't have any desire to have a cutesy pastel nursery. I'd much rather have a room that is easy for this child to grow into than a room that is adorable.
I had a wonderful girl idea- paint the walls a nice grass green and have some small pink accents- classy and no pastels and no princesses. But a boy??? Urgh. I don't have a clue! I talked to my Mom a bit last night about it and she gave me a few ideas. I'm considering something like this or this from Pottery Barn Kids. I also like this Handkerchief Quilt and the idea of pairing it with big red and blue stars around the room.
I wanted to find darker colors and more sophisticated themes. I also want to hang a baseball bat on the wall and hang Josh's old baseball Jersey on it... but we'll have to see.

Another quick note, last night Josh finally got to feel the baby move. The sneaky little lump seems to only be interested in moving when Josh is in the shower, asleep or at work. I've tried everything- a flashlight to the belly, poking gently, event hopping up and down and none of it worked. So last night I tried drinking really cold water. Josh says I'm torturing him, but he didn't seem to mind much last night.

Also, I'll be posting pictures of the house this afternoon. Stay tuned.

Chara

Wednesday, June 6

wiggle room

I have started to notice that lump likes to wiggle a lot in the morning. It's really the best time to see how big he's getting because right now I can tell he's probably moving a lot, but he still got alot of space to move around in. He's about a pound or so and around 10 inches head to toe and he likes to poke me just below the belly button before I get out of bed in the morning. I've actually had a hard time getting up the last two mornings because I was just a little fascinated.

Also, good news! I've got a teaching job for the fall! It's a school very close to the house and it should make a lot of things easier- gas mileage, seeing lump... those kinds of things. I'll be teaching 7th and 8th grade language arts, and some remedial reading. I'm actually very excited since this is my first full-time position. Now I just have to get all sorts of stuff for my classroom.