New Year's Resolution

I hereby resolve to post on my blog more frequently than every three months. Happy 2010!

In other news, we celebrated our first Christmas in our current house (we had moved in by Christmas 2008, but we spent the actual day in TN with my parents), and it was great fun. I got up at the crack of dawn ... well, actually, before the crack of dawn, to make cinnamon rolls, and Bob got up when they were almost done baking so that he could build a fire in the fireplace.


We had two Christmas trees this year, about ten feet away from each other. A little silly, maybe, but tree #2 was on clearance, and I really wanted one of the trees to be visible from the street. I love white Christmas lights, and I enjoyed making the house look festive: icicle lights on the front porch, wreaths with red bows & white lights on the dormer windows of the attic, and two Christmas trees. (Note to self: try to take a good picture of the house in the evening when it's all lit up.) (Yes, the house is still fully decorated for Christmas. As fun as decorating is, un-decorating is not so much.)


House progress? Well, when we moved in, just over a year ago, three of the four windows on the landing of the stairs were broken. And now ... they have new glass, and Bob installed them this past weekend. Hallelujah! Who lives with broken windows for a year? Well, apparently we do.


We also, apparently, are the sort of people who live with holes in the wall, and gaping holes in the ceilings. And a bedroom door that's missing the panel right at eye level. It's funny -- these defects are glaringly obvious, yet when you live with them for a while (like, a year), you start to forget they're there. Until people come over, and then you start hitting yourself in the head and thinking, good grief, why haven't we dealt with these things yet? Oh yes ... because these things cost money. While there seems to be no limit to my imagination of things we could do to our home, there are distinct limits to what we can pay to do to our home, at least for now.




I feel obligated to post these embarrassing pictures of my home, since I received some really nice comments about how the house looks on Facebook. Here's the way it really looks.

Progress

So, when we bought this house last December, this is what it looked like:



And, finally, the siding is all one color! (Or mostly; there's one small area that needs to be patched and repainted. But still, it's so much better!) (Oops, I just realized that the dormer window on the attic is only primed. It still needs to be painted, too.) Next up: painting trim, soffits, windows, etc. That will be a big job -- and it probably won't happen anytime soon.



Please note: new shingles on roof, new gutters and downspouts, new chimney. And, of course, new siding, where there once was only plywood.

Future project: the kitchen. I love this kitchen. I really do. But the canary yellow? It's not really my style. And tile countertops -- do-it-yourself tile countertops -- are not so good for my style of cooking and baking. As in, I like to roll out pie crusts, cookie dough, biscuit dough, etc., right on the counter. That doesn't work with a tile-and-grout countertop. Plus, it's hard to clean. And we have a fake-tile backsplash that goes halfway up the walls. Gag. Puke. I really don't like it.


And... they didn't finish the edges! Yuck. Nothing like a tile countertop with raw cut edges of tile, and the visible plywood underneath.


What I love about the kitchen is the space, and the potential for my dream kitchen. Other than that, there's almost no detail I like. The cabinets are low-quality, and we're pretty sure they were salvaged from some other kitchen. (Not that I'm opposed to that ... if it works. These are jury-rigged.) The vinyl flooring is scratched, stained, ugly, and unfinished. And it's pretty irritating that the floor doesn't look good, even minutes after sweeping and mopping. I do like the windows. This kitchen gets good light, and that's really important to me, as a SAD-sufferer.

What I have in mind is something more like this:



The good news is, the kitchen is totally functional, so I can make my grandmother's bread recipe and make the house smell fantastic. I'm satisfied.

Weird.

What does it mean when your three-year-old is carrying around a bucket full of toys, announcing that it's "dog poop and vomit"??

So I had a baby...

Last Thursday, August 27th, Will joined the family.

My observations so far: he's very happy. He pretty much needs to eat, and then he's happy. He doesn't get mad when his diaper's dirty, he's not fussy. He doesn't so much like bath time, but then, I'm betting he'll like it better when he can actually be in the water. It's just sponge baths until his umbilical cord falls off.

I haven't blogged since his birth because, well, my life has been revolving around my breasts. Nursing, pumping, etc. And, though I could talk/write about breastfeeding (and my struggles with it) for hours, I won't. I've subjected Bob to probably more than he can stand. But in a nutshell, breastfeeding was not going well, and now it is. I'm glad.

Today...

I will have a baby.

I'm being induced at 11:30. This is just too weird. I really don't like having it scheduled, but I'll address why we're doing it that way in another post.

So ... even though this isn't the ideal way I'd like to go into labor, I can't wait to meet the little guy!

One Hour Photo

I often think of myself as the "one hour photo" type ... by which I mean that I don't like to wait. (Do you remember when you dropped off your film and had to wait at least a couple days, if not a week, for your pictures to be developed?) And, with the efficiency of today's technology, even one hour seems too long to wait for photos ... to me, anyway.

That said, 40 weeks is a long time to wait for a baby to be born. Granted, for a couple of those first weeks, I didn't know I was pregnant. (Technicality: based on how the OB-GYN world counts pregnancy, you're actually NOT PREGNANT for about the first two weeks that you're "pregnant." Go figure.)

So, I'm 38 weeks pregnant today. I've been having contractions off and on for at least a month. I had contractions all night last night, some of them relatively painful. I got excited, hopeful. I sat up from 3:30-5, timing them. They were coming 4-5 minutes apart. Not bad. But they didn't get any "worse" or stronger, so I went back to bed. I'm not in labor. And as a result, I'm in a really grouchy mood. It doesn't help that I'm tired, that my parents left today after a brief visit, that my dog ate (yet some more) of my home-made bread, that my washer has been out of commission for THREE WEEKS...

And while we're talking about the washer: I had the appliance guys come out three weeks ago today. They said they needed to order a couple parts, that it would take a couple of days, maybe a week. Of course, that seemed too long for Miss One Hour Photo, but I sucked it up and did laundry at my mother-in-law's, which was nice, except for all the hauling that involves. Every day that I didn't hear from the appliance guys, I would think, apparently over-optimistically, maybe they'll call tomorrow! Finally, Bob called them. Turns out a part is on back-order. Honestly, I do not understand why they didn't let me know this. Ugh. It would have been helpful, as the piles of laundry got taller and taller, to know that I should go do laundry somewhere, and not hold out hope that I'd be doing it in my own basement the next day or so.

Seriously, what were they thinking? And I don't even know if there's an estimate on when the part will arrive. But I am NOT HAPPY. Come on guys. Get my freaking washer fixed for me already. I do not want to bring a new baby home to a house filled with dirty laundry...

And may that new baby come soon...

Susan.

It seems a little crazy to blog about someone I've never met, but...

I came across Fat Cyclist at least a year ago, and I've been reading his blog faithfully since then. I'm not a cyclist, not particularly interested in cycling, but he's a good writer, and I've enjoyed reading his blog.

His wife Susan has been battling breast cancer off and on since 2004. In 2007, they learned that it had metastasized, eventually reaching her bones, lungs, and brain. She had a mastectomy, chemo, several rounds of radiation, and more chemo. Eventually, there was nothing more they could do for her, other than try to reduce her pain. But how do you reduce the pain of a woman who wants to live? Who loves her husband and wants to be there for her four children? She fought and fought and finally died August 5th.

We've been praying for her and their family, and I'm grieving for them, despite the fact that I've never met them.

I like that Elden (aka the Fat Cyclist) felt out of control, looked at the situation, and decided what he could control. They moved so he could take a job with better benefits so that she could have the best treatment available. And he started fighting cancer in the only way he could: he used his blog to create a LiveStrong team of over 500 members; to date, they've raised over a half million dollars. This is both the largest team and the largest sum of money ever in the LiveStrong challenges.

When people question the value of blogs, I feel I can cite his as an example of good. He's done a lot of good through his site, and a lot of people who are fighting cancer (or who have loved ones fighting cancer) have been encouraged in their fight. On his end, he's received tons of encouragement; Susan loved what he was doing; and being able to write about it has been good therapy. That, and cycling.

I realize this has nothing to do with my family, or my house, or this blog ... but perhaps you might say a prayer for the Nelson family out in Utah? They could use it.