37 Weeks and 4 Days

Well, sleep is getting difficult. Twice this week I woke up waaaay before my alarm went off and couldn't get back to sleep at all. My mind just goes crazy with weird thoughts. I am not actively worrying or thinking about something, but as soon as I fall asleep, my mind decides to fixate on something. Anything really. If I watched it on TV before bed, I dream about it.

This week's doctor appointment was pretty uneventful, which is a good thing, I guess. The baby's heartbeat was 138 (normal). I didn't gain any weight this week, but I honestly think it's because my stomach feels more squished this week. The doctor asked me if I was having any symptoms or complaints this week, and I told her, "No, it's been a pretty bland week for pregnancy." She thought this was really funny. *shrug*

This week has been an abusive week for my hips though. It feels like she is pummeling me from the inside. I would swear sometimes she is trying to punch her way out.

I have also noticed an increase in my fatigue. I get exhausted sooo easily. If I get up and walk into another room, I feel like I carried a 200 pound man on my back. Needless to say, I have been spending an increasing amount of time on the couch. My heart beats a million beats a minute from just sitting. It's crazy!

Hiccups are still happening daily. Also, I think my child is part golden retriever. Every so often I feel this spastic shaking inside my stomach, and it feels like the movement a dog makes when they scratch their ear really fast. Sometimes I think it's the dog on the couch or on the bed, but then I realize it's coming from inside my body. I have no idea what's going on in there.

We got new carpet! It is so nice and soft...and hopefully not as much of a dog hair magnet as the crappy carpet we had before. Bonus: this carpet is not 20 years old AND is not green, so these are giant pluses.

We went to a parenting class this week, and it was pretty useful. A pediatrician was there, and she answered all of the questions everyone had. We also got a fancy poster of baby poop. Peter couldn't look at it. Ha.

I was talking to a friend today on Facebook. We are both actually due on December 23rd, so it's nice to compare stories. I can't tell you how hilarious and comforting it is to hear that someone else doesn't realize they have crumbs and stains on their clothes. These boobs...they hide the view of all the junk that lands on the belly.

I've been trying to wrap all of the Christmas gifts this week. It has been slow going, since I get tired after wrapping 4 gifts. Wrapping involves lots of leaning and stretching. Tough stuff!

I Did Something!

New carpet...courtesy of Lauren!

A New Coat of Paint

We picked out some paint from Lowe's, called "Winter in Paris." It is a light gray blue that is just girly enough without being pink.

This week, I taped the trim up, and Peter painted the walls. It looks really nice. We'll have to do a little touch up work here and there, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out! Nice job, Pete :).

Before Paint

Before Paint

You can kind of see the color.

Peter spent pretty much all day today putting the finishing touches on the room.
This includes:

• new electrical plates that are baby proof.
• new door stop.
• new ceiling fan.
• new light switch with fan speed control.
• new closet kit in the other spare room, so I could move my stuff off the floor.

I napped. I honestly tried to do something, but he is having a good time bossing me out of the room, so he can take over and do these activities. I think he is enjoying himself.

Old Light

New Light/Fan

What a Pain in the Ass

I have been reading that women might experience leg cramps for the past month or two, but I was excited by the fact that I've made it to 22 weeks without getting them...until 2 nights ago. Aaaaah!

I literally woke up screaming from a huge pain in my ass cheek. That's right. Not LEG. I thought Peter was going to think I went insane, but luckily I did not wake him up. At least somebody slept through the night.

I have decided today that I haven't really had "cravings," (at least not like the ones you see on TV), but I could eat a sausage biscuit any time of the day.

Since I am not allowed to paint or lift heavy objects, the only thing I can do is window shop on Pinterest. I saw a few cute ABC and 123 poster prints, but none of them have the right color scheme. I am looking for a mix of blue, green, orange, pink, and purple. Since I couldn't find something just right, I made my own. What do you think? Should I print them?

Also, I noticed last night that the little kicks and flips I feel inside can actually be felt outside, too. It feels like an alien is trying to escape from my gut.

Just to note, Peter hates painting, but he is doing a great job :).

Guest Room Re-Do

I've tried several times to rid myself of my love of blue, but I am never happy with the final product. I tried painting my bedroom green, so we could do the "earth tones" look with magentas, greens, and browns. Bleh. I hated going into my bedroom. Even though it looked presentable, it just wasn't me.

I tried doing maroons, golds, and yellows in the guest bedroom, but I never really felt that the guest room was anything to be proud of.

Once I realized that blues are just really calming to me, I decided that it's my house, and if people want to say, "Wow... that girl sure likes a lot of blue," then so be it. Because you know what? I am the one who has to live here and has to try to destress here. So blue it is!

Here are some befores of our guest room:

Today I decided to paint the room a new, cool color that has a slight blueish hue to it. I also repainted my picture frames, shelves, and mirrors. Here's a sample of what is to come!

Evercare Pet Hair Sweeper Review

We adopted Lennon, the Australian Cattle Dog mix, because we wanted a pup, and she was just too adorable. White and brown hair, white stripe down the nose, white socks, 2 different-colored eyes, peed out of excitement when they put her in the little room with us. She didn't move from the puppy fetal position for about 20 minutes, but then eventually she crawled into my lap. I was sold.

Lennon needed a friend, and I have always been a "everyone needs a friend" kind of person. We found a newspaper ad that said someone was selling a litter a black lab mix puppies. On our trip to the seller's house, we soon realized we just had to adopt a puppy from them, because leaving a dog there would just be cruel. They were drunken, sloppy people who were amused by feeding the puppies beer and screaming at them. The puppies were all well-behaved and cute, and Peter really seemed to fall in love with Lily, her one white foot, and her whiny nature. 

Now that you know the background, you can see that it never occurred to us that having 2 dogs with different -colored fur would be a problem...until about a day later when the light tiled floor was covered in black hair and the dark wooden floor was covered in white and tan hair. And since then, our floor, clothes, couches, car interior, etc. are all covered in hair of one color or another. Lennon's hair is the worst--it is like little needles that are impervious to vacuum cleaners or lint brushes.

Just as an example, here was my dark brown carpet with Lennon's white hair before.

Today I decided I would try one more thing--the Evercare Pet Hair Sweeper--and I am seriously glad I spent the $7.99. It cleans the black and white hair up sooo well! I cleaned my sofa, the front seats in the car, my ottomans, my coat! 

After a swipe of the Sweeper, here is the carpet after. Yahoo!

Yay, now I don't have to look like the only person in a business meeting with a suit covered in dog hair!

IKEA: Part 2 (with some sneak peek pics)

We decided to go for it and ordered IKEA furniture online. They make you pay a shipping fee, but let me just say that, with our small cars, it would have taken at least 2 trips to get the stuff anyway. So we saved on gas money, food, and time.

Peter was going to go to DC on a work trip, but things got a little crazy with the weather, and it ended up being cancelled (--I know some dictionaries say it's spelled, "canceled," but I am of the phonics rule that if you have a syllable with a short vowel sound, when you add -ed, you need to have a double consonant. Ex: sun-ned, rub-bed, surpass-ed [has 2 double S's at the end already, so you can just add -ed]. You get the idea. I'm an English nerd). Therefore, we didn't end up getting the panels and coffee table. We are still debating the coffee table, but we found an alternate draping for our window nooks.

The bookcase that was going to go horizontal over the desks is absolutely way too heavy, so that is just not happening. We have another idea for it.

You can see the gray wall color we picked and the new door handle that we added to our tiny, minidoor.
Now we won't bang into a doorknob all the time. Yay! The white trim makes such a difference. LOVE IT.

We searched high and low for a cute, white, minifan.
The loft has an angled ceiling, so a regular-sized fan just won't do.

This is my joyous couch. I will let my dogs on this one. For $150, it's not too shabby.

Here are some sneak peaks.

IKEA -- the solution to everything

I've been a little overwhelmed lately with work. And to top it off, I am getting over the flu. It seems like everyone  wants to have a meeting with me when I have the flu. Coincidence? *shrug*

In an attempt to get my mind off work and stress for a while, I am going to blog about my bedroom loft. We live in a cute townhouse that has 3 floors. 1st floor has the living room, kitchen, dining room, 1/2 bathroom, washer & dryer room/pantry, and closet. 2nd floor has 2 bedrooms, one full bathroom, a linen closet, and 1 master bedroom with full bathroom. Inside the master bedroom, there are stairs that lead up to a 3rd floor in which  you will find a "loft." The loft literally overlooks the bedroom, and it's a nice-sized space, but we've never really known what to do with it.

First we turned it into a place for storage, then we tried Peter's office, and next we tried an extra bedroom. Well, storage has been winning so far, because it gets lonely when Peter goes up to the 3rd floor to get online, and the idea of a guest bedroom that overlooks our bed (literally) is kinda creepy, soo... You can see how storage wins.

Recently we decided to make use of the loft space, so we can actually have 2 guest bedrooms on the 2nd floor, and we will turn the loft into our "office." (That's just a fancy word for "place we keep our computers.")

Peter put together a little model to show what it might look like, because we needed to see what type of furniture would fit in the space.

We are painting the loft a light gray color, painting the trim white, accent vases/things will be purple (a new color to me), and, with the help of IKEA, we are going to incorporate this furniture into the mix:

Coffee Table - will probably be used to hold a small TV.

Shelves - These will go above our desk, horizontal.
I will line the wall with purple-colored paper, so it pops with some color.

Vases -- ok, these are from Target. I have a fuscia one and a purple one. 

Panels - A panel will hide our window inlets that we usually use for storage.
This will make the space have more of a flat wall, which will be helpful when arranging furniture.

Tiny sofa - This will go in the corner where Peter's old computer desk is right now.
The TV will be its mate.

Two desks - We will put these desks facing each other in the middle of the room--against the creepy little door.

One storage cabinet - This will be used as an extension for one of the desks, whoever needs it at the moment.

Well, what do you think? I need some cute options for dressing up the loft a little with color. I wanted it to be tranquil and calming--that way it's not distracting if I have to do some work at home. I was thinking maybe this behind the couch or something. The birds would be purple-y fuscia.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions for me?

Skylights from Hell

 Since the last time I blogged, we actually finished our bedroom painting, but I have been busy with grad work, so I haven't posted pics yet. Pics to come on the new paint, comforter set, etc.

In other bedroom related news... I think I have discussed my absolute hatred for our skylights before. I'm talkin' abhor. These things are like little cannons that go off in the middle of the night that make you scream, toss and turn, and shove pillows on your head, because they are so noisy. I get it though. "Big bedroom with a beautiful high ceiling--let's add skylights," this is probably what the contractors thought. The problem is they are made out of crappy plastic, so they really sound like our house is being pelleted with hail whenever it rains. Now..I love the sound of rain. Really, I do. But I want to sleep during a light drizzle instead of wet the bed from thinking we are being attacked.

In my sleepless nights, I searched online for a solution that didn't involve making my roof leak but found nothing. Peter and I decided to try an idea we had. So here is what we did.

 Large plexiglass/Lexan sheets +  Gila Heat + Privacy Control Window Film

 Husband + Lexan sheet covered in Gila film + a wooden strip

Quarter-round to put around the outside (the part you can see from below)

A new, private, heat-resistant skylight! 

Our hope is that the extra layer will help dampen some of the rain sounds. Even if it's just a little.

On a side note, congratulations to Lauren and Sean on their newest addition to the family, Dylan, and congratulations to Monique and Thomas on their newest addition, Micah!