Progress report.

My house is a mess.

And I'm not talking about a "stuff strewn about" kind of mess (please never open my bedroom door). We are fairly tidy and try really hard to stay on top of the day-to-day clutter because when four people and a dog share 1200 square feet and one bathroom, it gets ugly pretty quickly. Think nightmarish stacks of school papers and overflowing laundry baskets and piles of playground pebbles and lots and lots of dog hair.

Oh, the dog hair. Yeah, we have to stay on top of that. Both for physical and mental health reasons. But, I digress.

The mess to which I'm currently referring is more of a "what in heaven's name is happening in here?" kind of mess.

I'll tell you what's happening in here ("here" being my first floor): I've lost my everloving mind.

Remember that challenge I gave myself earlier this year? The one about injecting color into my drab, tan house through thrift store shopping and DIY projects?

Idiotic. Turns out I love tan. Tan's my favorite. You know why? Because loving tan means I DON'T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.

Seriously, who has time for this? When am I supposed to thrift and craft and paint and sew? I currently have about 52 minutes between Calvin actually going to sleep (vs. when we put him to bed an hour and eight minutes earlier) and me actually going to sleep. And call me crazy, but I prefer to use those 52 minutes to shovel ice cream in my mouth, flip through my secondhand copies of People, and half-watch The Bridge.

Occasionally, though, I find a burst of energy and wholly devote myself to this project. This typically occurs on nights when Nate isn't home. Then he comes home, looks from me to the mess I've made, raises an eyebrow, and says "whatcha doin'?"

Nate's "whatcha doin'?" is the equivalent of "what in heaven's name is happening in here?"

A fair question, and one I ask myself pretty much every time I walk in the front door these days.

On one such evening, I took down everything on my living and dining room walls. That was in June. Guess what's hanging on my walls now? Nails.

I also purchased some fabric and folded it around a curtain rod just to get a feel for how it would look in my entryway window. Three weeks ago. It's still there. And it must look okay because last weekend my mother-in-law said "oh, you got your curtain done!" Um, no. I got my fabric shoved up in that window. But if no one can tell the difference between something I've sewn and something I shoved, why bother sewing it?

And let's not get started on the insane mix of styles represented in my house right now. Modern, vintage, and traditional do not work as well together in one room (or one house) as you might think. Every time I change one thing, I realize I need to change ten more for it to work.

Thus the mess.

In all seriousness, redecorating is hard work. Really hard. When your goal is to make your house more colorful and family-friendly and everything you own is dark wood and breakable and you don't have money to buy all new stuff, well...it takes some doing.

I'm totally frustrated, but I know this has been good for me. It's helping me realize that matching does not always equal style, that nothing bad is going to happen if I take some chances and come up with crazy combinations that appeal to me and no one else, and that the beauty of our home is the result of how we live in it — not how we decorate it.

Of course we all know I will be freaking out trying to make sense of this disaster before my sister-in-law's baby shower next month.

Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just do what I did before Audra's party and take everything down. I'm halfway there already.

A week in the life...

Of Calvin:












































































Of me:














And that's only one half of my desk.
Hoping for a respite (and more time to blog) soon.

Seven Pounds.

Pop quiz. Is Seven Pounds:

1) The title of a recently released Will Smith movie?
2) The size of my unborn child, who is measuring nearly two pounds ahead of schedule?

The answer, my friends, is yes.

I went to the doctor on Friday for the first of my now weekly appointments. My blood pressure has been giving me some trouble, so in an effort to avoid bed rest, I've been scheduled for weekly OB appointments, ultrasounds, and non-stress tests. My appointment with the doctor was fine; however she measured my fundus (stomach) and started laughing. Evidently I was measuring "quite large." I asked how big a baby is supposed to be at 35 weeks, and she said between 4.75 and 5.25 pounds. So I figured "quite large" meant maybe six pounds? Big, but manageable.

On to the ultrasound, where the tech said "please don't panic" before telling me that my baby is currently measuring at a whopping 7lbs. She tried to comfort me by saying that it's not unheard of — why just earlier in the week she had a patient who measured almost six and a half pounds! (Gee, thanks.) She estimates that my baby will weigh in around 10lbs at birth. You know, give or take. (Please, please let it be take...)

While that news was fairly traumatizing, what really got to me were the ultrasound photos. He looks...huge. In some of the pictures, his cheeks were so chubby they were hanging over the sides of his mouth — kind of like someone you'd expect to see on a TLC show called "The World's Heaviest Man" or on MTV's "True Life: I Weigh Two Tons."

All I could think was - my sweet baby boy looks like the Two-Ton Man? What did I do to make him like this? I really could not see any other explanation except complete failure as a mother. Which of course led to tears. Lots of them. In fact, I was pretty much inconsolable for the remainder of the evening.

But after a good night's sleep (crying makes me really tired) and another look at those photos (yep, still chubby), I got over it (kind of). So what if my kid is huge? He's coming out one way or another...his projected size just confirms my absolute need for drugs during labor. And if his cheeks really are that big (they very well might be, mine certainly aren't small), he will still be cute to me and I will love his sweet face forever.

Still, I am now begging God for an early delivery. Nate finishes the semester on May 11, so I'm shooting for any time that week. Hopefully that'll shave a pound off...

C'mon baby!

Boobs and diapers.

Did you know having one of these blog things is kind of a commitment? Kind of a big one, in fact.

I should have realized that before I started one, given my impatience when other people don't update their blogs. But it takes time. And a good idea. Or an interesting experience to talk about. Of the three, I have none. Except maybe time. But time without anything exciting to talk about leads to lame posts like this one. So that's not good enough.

I've actually started...let me count...four blog entries that I haven't finished. Two of them are worth finishing, but one requires scanning embarrassing photos of myself, and the other one requires admitting to my obsession with Twilight. Not sure I'm ready for either of those to go public. So for the time being I will humor you with my pathetic and slightly crazed attempts at preparing for baby Breyer's arrival.

I feel...unorganized. Unprepared. Clueless. Kind of manic. And like I will never be able to get my house clean enough for a baby.

I believe I may have entered the nesting phase of pregnancy.

Two weeks ago Nate and I cleaned out the office — the tiny room our son will soon call home. We packed up all the books, files, paperwork and ridiculous amounts of crafting stuff, and hauled it downstairs. We spent a few hours organizing the basement (I am quite proud of my new laundry system, complete with six matching laundry baskets and signs instructing Nate on what goes where and how to wash it. Why we didn't think of this sooner, I do not know...), but we still have quite a bit of work to do down there. My goal is to turn our unfinished but clean basement into a livable office/crafting/laundry space. This will require help from professionals, including someone who can help redirect our heating ducts so it's not freezing down there, and the Comcast guy, who will have to set up our computer (Nate seems to think he can handle this task himself by snaking the internet cable from the second floor to the basement through our heating vents. Um, no.).

Although the office still houses our desk and computer, it looks like we've made some progress. Nate and I picked out some paint swatches (we're going with light blue) and piled all the baby stuff we've collected in the corner. We also picked up the chair we ordered for the nursery — it's super cute, incredibly comfortable, and completely dwarfs the room. Perfect! Here's hoping the crib and dresser fit...

This past weekend we spent all day Saturday cleaning. And we had a lot to clean, given that I hadn't even put my Christmas decorations away yet (don't worry, they weren't UP...they were piled on my dining room table. Which is much more acceptable at the end of February). Nate was such a trooper — together we got every room straightened up, dusted, and vacuumed. Normally, this would please me greatly. But right now it doesn't seem like enough to dust and vacuum the entire house. I want everything to be SUPER clean. And SUPER organized. I can't bring a baby home to a house with an unorganized junk drawer, or dust on top of the shelves in my closet. My nesting instincts became apparent on Saturday when Nate walked in on me windexing the perfume and cologne bottles in our medicine cabinet. Because that's the first thing the baby will judge me for, I'm sure. Wouldn't want him pointing out water spots on my perfume bottles.

So...I'm clearly turning crazy. Things are coming along, but I don't feel like they are. I feel panicked and unsure about how we'll ever find time to paint, organize, decorate, clean, shop, wash, etc. everything for this child. Nate works every other weekend, which means we have...uh, six weekends to work on this stuff before the baby comes. And that's assuming the baby comes on time, and not a month early or something. (Please God, no.)

My friend Jenny said all you really need to have a baby is boobs and diapers. Well, I've definitely got the boobs covered, and we have one pack of 40 newborn diapers. So as long as the baby is okay sleeping in the new chair and only poops 40 times, we should be good.

At least that's what I'll keep telling myself.