All Colors Go Together

My good friend Meg always says "All colors go together"and this is definitely the approach I have been taking in the baby room. In fact this is an approach that I take to most projects that I am working on. In regards to the kid's space, I have to be careful because there are not a lot of restrictions to be put on a baby room and I could get really crazy.

One way that I wanted to add some color was by making a baby mobile that would go over the crib.  I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do based on a picture I saw on the internet. There was a lot I liked about this mobile but wanted something that would be easy to make and not so girly.  I also had the issue of one sided paint samples and not wanting to cut out circles.

The one I made

The one I saw

            

Now as most of my close friends know,  I require quite a bit of "thinking time" for any project I am going to do.  This means that I don't plan anything out on paper or make a sample.  Instead, I just think about a project for an unusual amount of time. In this case it was about 3 weeks from the day I picked up (a.k.a. stole) the paint samples to the the day I started the project.

I first cut the paint strips into 1 inch pieces using my quilting mat, quilter's ruler, and a rotary tool.  I did this while I watched a movie with Josh. I love any kind of mindless work.

Next I set out my pieces.  As you can see on the top left picture, some pieces were naturally longer than others due to different widths of the samples.  I liked this. I then started hot-gluing them on a piece of clear thread.  I did not measure or anything.  I just placed them how I saw fit.  This got A LOT easier as I went and I eventually got into a groove where I could glue fairly fast.  The hard part was that I then had to glue another piece on the back. This was not so fun to line all these little pieces up.  Although, this did get easier.

When I was done gluing I just tied each thread onto a mobile topper I had bought at goodwill about 2 years ago.  (yes, 2 years ago) I attached a piece of ribbon and stuck it above the crib.  I think it looks great! Total cost ZERO DOLLARS! (If you only count things I bought this year)

Baby Room Part 1

Our house it a very cute little home. Emphasis on the little.  This makes for some very creative problem solving when it comes to how we use our space.  Now, I do need to say that we are not as space savvy as some who live in one bedroom or studio apartments in a big city.  Those people are awesome at keeping their spaces multifunctional and beautiful.  Josh and I are doing our best at using our space in the most efficient way possible. 

With this being said, we are putting our baby in a closet. Not to worry. This closet is big. It has three windows and a cable outlet.  Most people would not even call it a closet but that is what it was when we moved into our home. We took out all of the racks and shelves and this is what we ended up with.

 Once the room was empty.  Josh and his brother had to put in a vent.  This room had no AC or heat which might be reason the previous owners used it as a closet. It also has a very odd, offset light fixture.  We have no idea what we are going to do about this.  Probably nothing. You can see it above Josh's head near the door. It blinds you if you look towards the doorway. Hmmmm...

 Once this was done.  Josh painted and added trim.  The walls are a light gray. I like the color a lot.  At first I wanted a shade darker, but I think because the room is so small it helps make it look bigger.  Josh also added new baseboards which was desperately needed. This is what we ended up with.

My husband worked very hard on all of this with very little help from me. Especially when you think about that we were using this space for an office and some storage. It was A LOT of work to move all the stuff out and then get working on the room.  He is a great husband and I know he will be an awesome dad.

Baby Bump

My good friend Kristy agreed to take some maternity photos of Josh and I.  It was a great day with great company.  These photos turned out great and it was AWESOME to get to take these pictures.  Without Kristy taking some of us, we would not have been able to get these taken.  She did a great job and I am so happy to document this time in my family's life.  It was hard work and it was truly appreciated. 

Home Sweet Home

My house is a hot mess.  I am not sure if it is really a hot mess or if this is just something I create in my head. 

I worry about my house more than anything else in my world. I am not sure where this comes from but my husband can attest of the annoyingness of my thought process regarding our home.  I constantly feel like it is not clean enough, comfortable enough, big enough, and so on.  In the past it has actually stopped me from having people over or even letting people into the house period.  It is weird because with the exception of a few times I can remember, our house is usually fairly well maintained.  I also have no worries about going over to someone else home and seeing it in disarray. It is a "me" problem as usual.

 This is a common conversation that occurs after I come home from working a full day with 6 rowdy boys.

Me: I need to clean this house!
Josh: Why?
Me: It is a mess! Look at this place! (grand gesture of the arms with exaggerated facial expression)
Josh: It doesn't look so bad.
Me: Are you kidding?! Look at that (insert any item) sitting on the (insert any place)!
Josh: Go sit down.

Josh does a really good job of keeping me calm when I get in crazy mode but I feel like I am in crazy mode a lot more often.  I would blame it on hormones but it is just a bad attitude.

Instead of saying to myself "I am so blessed to have this awesome home."  I am constantly saying "I hate this couch/carpet/closet/desk/table/room/dishes we need a better one."  The list can really go on and on.  I have no idea where the sudden desire to have the BEST and NEWEST things is coming from but I gotta cool it.  I even find myself saying things to Josh like "We should have never redone the floors, we are just going to ruin them." STOP... ALREADY...JENNY! (I say this in my head like Stevie from Malcolm in the Middle)  

As I look around, my house looks pretty good.  Sure there is crafting items on the kitchen table and shoes by the door but it is fine.  I gotta get over this! Comparing myself to my friends and worrying about what others think is make me nuts.  Many (more than 5) people have told me "Well, you are going to have move once that baby comes." This is starting to get to me and I start thinking that my home is not fit for our family. (Let alone the other baby I am going to care for starting in the winter!) I need to stop listening to them and start relying on what I know is true.  What my kid will need most is Jesus and everything else is a bonus.  Yeah, yeah, don't worry. We have bottles, and clothes, and diapers... but I do need to get my priorities strait.

Current Action/Lack of Action Shot in the Howard living room

I am 8 months pregnant.

I am pregnant.  I am so tired!  I am not talking about the "I need to go to sleep" kind of tired.  I mean the "why wont my body keep going?" kind of tired. I think this is normal but I sometimes feel like I am going to fall over. 

The weird part is that I don't really mind this feeling. It has just become the normal state for me.  Today at work for example I sat down on the carpet to sing the Fire Truck Song like every other day. At the end of it I looked one of my students and said "Mrs. Howard can't get up right now. What do you want to do?" The kid just looked at me and kept singing.  It was a great moment. 

I also need a good half an hour after work to decompress. That is what I am doing right now.  I just hit this wall and say to Josh, "I cannot get up until 5:30, sorry." Josh is so great about it.  He usually says ok and sits with me or cooks dinner like he is doing right now.  Tonight I think it is "kielbasa surprise!"  He is a pretty good cook so I am not so worried.

I assume that this fatigue is not going away anytime soon so I will just continue to enjoy milking it. No, napping does not help me at all.  If nap I might as well just wake up in the middle of night and run a marathon, it feels about the same. 

 

This is NOT my pug. 

Time keeps on slippin' slippin' slippin'...

Well, here I am again.  Attempting to start a new blog.  "Blog" is not a good word to describe what I want to get out of this.   When I was in college I kept a LiveJournal (so cool, I know) It was a great place for me to journal about what was going on in my life.  I could sit down at the end of the day and write a little bit in order to reflect of what has happening in my life. At the time, I was not a very deep thinking individual and that has not necessary changed in the past 10 years. So I should not expect much.

 This is a picture of me at 18. Whoa Baby!

I can say that many things have changed for me though.  I am married, have a career, am a pug owner, and have a baby on the way.  Those things make my life very different today and I cannot believe how changed I am than when I left my home town.  I feel that this time went so fast!   I know that my life is not going to slow down and what needs to happen is that I become more intentional with the minutes I have.   I want to use this blog to help me stay focused on what is currently happening in my world and to quit wishing time to speed up.   I think that the "next step' will make my life easier but it really doesn't get easy. It is changes to a new kind of hard.  I don't mean hard as in painful or unjust.  I just mean hard as in the constant work that goes into being a human on earth. It is really an awesome process.

 

This is a picture of me at 28.


So, with all this being said,  I am going to start this journal/blog to help me remember how great life is RIGHT NOW and how blessed I am.  I know that my life is great and I want to remember that.