Tying up loose ends (small projects for those of us with big bellies)
I’m tired. Yup, it finally happened. At 39 weeks (plus three days!) pregnant, I am ever nap-ready and having a hard time finding much motivation these days to do a whole lot of anything. Which, according to all sources (Sweetie, my friend Jess over at Little Townhome Love, my family, random strangers), is exactly how it should be: for the past few weeks they’ve collectively urged me to nap more and relax lots and just sit and enjoy the time that I have right now. For the record, I’m terrible at relaxing. My most common response to these subtle suggestions to sloth: but I have things to do.
But now I think I’m done.
Not because there aren’t a gazillion things I could be doing. (Dear neighbours: please please please disregard our front flowerbeds. I promise to be a far better gardener next summer.) (And dear dustbunnies: please stop multiplying so quickly in the corners.) But because I just don’t have the energy right now.
It’s a super hard thing for me to admit. I’m definitely feeling a little defeated.
That said, I had two joyously productive moments yesterday: I finished a couple of tiny little projects. And I’m quite proud.
First, I swapped out the front entryway doormat for a new one I picked up at HomeSense (oh how I love HomeSense!) a few days ago. I went from this stripey snore-fest…
(Obviously file footage, since I’ve since painted those super ugly green walls!)
…to this…
Admittedly, it’s not a massive change, but it makes me happy to think that any post-baby visitors will have a much nicer mat to land upon when they walk through my front door.
Project number two involved dressing a long-naked window in our living room. When we moved in, the previous owners had left some rather hideous and dirty-looking blinds on this window (which I promptly removed.) I was left with this…
Unfortunately, and rather oddly, this window frame is positioned unusually high – it almost reaches the ceiling (I’m guessing that at some point someone dropped the ceiling in this room to run new, non-knob-and-tube wiring through the house since other ceilings on the main floor are a good foot taller.) As a result, I’ve hummed and hawed over what to do with this window for several months now. Yesterday, I had Sweetie hang a curtain rod right at ceiling height. And yesterday, I finally added curtains to this window.
And today, I am very happy with the result. The curtains (which are Ikea’s lovely Matilda panels, btw) don’t hide the ugliness of the window itself (see all that stuff on the window? Spray foam. Between the panes of glass. Yup, some not-so-bright but likely well-meaning previous home owner decided that this would be a good solution to winter draftiness.) (For the record, spray foam between the window panes is never ever a good – or, at least, nice looking – solution to draftiness.) But the curtains do make the window look better (which this soon-to-be momma is content with for now, until we find a way to disassemble the window and scrape out the offending foam.)
So there. Those are my two most recent tiny little accomplishments at the old mauve house. Significant? Not particularly. But I at least feel like I’m still making some progress, despite that my body is most definitely slowing down.
Now, if you’ll please excuse me for a moment (or two), this momma-to-be desperately needs a nap. :)
Leave a comment
A quick update (I’m still here!) (and yup, I’m still pregnant!)
Many apologies for my MIA-ness over the past couple of weeks. I’m now off on maternity leave (which makes baby-day seem really really crazy close now!) and you’d think (logically) that this would mean tonnes of extra time to relax/sleep/enjoy sanity pre-newborn, but that doesn’t seem to be the case with me. I’ve had family to visit, friends to catch up with, a hospital bag (Sweetie refers to it as my “bug out bag”) to pack, projects to finish, a thousand obstetrician appointments (or so it seems) to attend, last minute baby “essentials” (ie: cute little onesies and sleepers) to buy, cloth diapers to prep, and (seemingly) a gazillion other things on the go.
So, in short (or, rather, long): I feel like I’ve been super busy, despite my currently newborn-pending, work-free status.
Although I did manage to fit in a quick DIY mat session the other day. For the record, I’m really quite awful at using the tripod + timer approach to self-photography. This was a rather challenging little project! For about an hour’s effort, I ended up with one image worth sharing…
…and even then, it’s out of focus. And my hands are all gross and pregnancy-vein-y. And I’m not sure if I look serene and contemplative, or sort of annoyed. Needless to say, Sweetie is taking me out later this week to try again, with an actual person (Sweetie) on the other end of the lens. Guessing (and hoping!) that we’ll have much better results with a two-person DIY mat session approach. I’ll keep you posted!
The good (and rather timely) news: I’m nearly finished with the nursery (finally!), so a big (likely long-winded) update/grand reveal will be coming shortly. In the meantime, if you need me, I’ll probably be marveling at the size of my belly while hanging/organizing/baking/shopping for something. At 38 weeks, I’m starting to feel really large. But I also feel amazing. And with only a couple weeks left before my due date (and, really, knowing that Baby could arrive at any point now) I feel so lucky to be a mommy-to-be. Can’t wait to make that transition into simply being “mommy”.
Leave a comment
A quick closet makeover (another “slap some paint on it and it’ll look so much better” sort of project) (aka: paint fixes everything)
Some people have scary basements. I had a scary closet. (Well, I have a scary basement too, but that’s a whole other story for a whole other blog post.) How scary was our bedroom closet? It looked like this when we moved in…
Ack. Nightmarish, eh? Yup. Absolutely terrifying.
And since “make closet pretty” wasn’t first and foremost (or even seventh and semi-important) on my big ol’ home reno to do list, it stayed that way for the past ten months. Empty. Ugly. Mocking me. Daring me to step inside (which I would never ever ever do due to the aforementioned scariness factor.)
So where were all of our clothes? In the nursery closet of course. (See where this is leading?) But, with Baby on the way in a few short weeks (yep, you guessed it), it was time to clear out that closet. Meaning that it was also time for us to face the scariness once and for all and make our bedroom closet a much more hospitable, much less horror movie-esque little place.
So what did I do?
I painted it.
And by that I mean that I really quickly and lazily painted it, using leftover Edgecomb Gray paint that I already had on hand. Did I remove the wallpaper from the walls? Nope. Did I sand down the drywall compound patching job that Sweetie did (since originally there were plaster cracks on the back wall of the closet that made it look even more terrifying?) Nope. Did I prime or prep or do anything to make the ugly innards of my closet more humane-looking? Nope. I just slapped some paint on those closet walls and called it a day.
And it didn’t turn out so bad. Behold the after…
I even tossed a quick coat of paint on the baseboards. Same colour as the walls. We’re not talking anything fancy here (it is a closet, afterall.)
Yep. A quick coat of paint and suddenly the closet ain’t so scary any more.
(I mean, I wouldn’t want to hang out and read a book in there, of course, but it’s way better.)
So there. That’s my scary-closet-turned-not-quite-as-scary-due-to-Baby’s-impending-arrival story for you. Since I’m guessing that Baby will need its own closet.
You know, for cute little onesies and pretty dresses (if Baby is a girl) or tiny overalls (if this wiggly little belly-mover is a boy) and stuff. :)
Leave a comment