December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!!!

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!
Christmas Card
That is the image that we created for our holiday cards. It’s our house with our little family out front!*

Oh and yesterday when I said that Matt and I weren’t exchanging gifts? I may have lied a little. We said we couldn’t spend any money on each other this year… but we didn’t promise anything about giving each other something that was already bought and paid for. So he did have one gift to unwrap this morning. I’ll give you a hint… it’s soft, black, and has been kicking around this blog for 2 years now. Big photoshoot of that coming soon! Until then

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

*I figured I’d explain how we created the image: Basically I saw a pregnant snowman somewhere online and loved the idea. From that concept Matt did the pencil sketch of our house with our "family" in front of it - including a snow dog! Dexter is def. a part of our family. Then I took the sketch into photoshop and turned it into a full-color cartoon. I also added shadows and some of the details like the hats on the snowmen, etc. I'm really happy with how it turned out... but I seriously forgot how much of a pain in the ass printing things can be. Next time we do something like this I'm paying the extra $$ to have it professionally printed!

December 24, 2008

Bah Humbug

I haven’t really been feeling this Christmas thing at all this year since:
  1. We’re not doing any entertaining over the holidays.

  2. However, in 3 weeks we’re having over a dozen out of town friends staying at our house for a party-like-it’s-the-4th-of-July weekend… which although is super-fun is also the deadline for getting all of the reorganizing and home improvements finished. We’re not even close.

  3. We didn’t put up any decorations because of 1 & 2. Not even a Christmas tree or stockings or anything.

  4. We’re not exchanging gifts because nothing we could buy each other is as important as saving for maternity leave

  5. We drastically reduced what we usually buy for other people because nothing we could buy for anyone is as important as saving for maternity leave

  6. I didn’t have time to make hardly any of my Christmas gifts because of the whole Get the House Ready for Our New Life Plan. And it’s just not nearly as fun or exciting to order all of your gifts from the internets.

  7. This Christmas seems so lame in comparison with next Christmas – and with every other Christmas from now on. Because from now on we get to do Christmas as parents. How much fun is that?! Really blows the doors off of anything we have planned for this year.

  8. Um. I’m working on growing an entire human being here. So yeah…I’ve kindof got OTHER SHIT ON MY MIND.
But this week is a week of Holiday Cheer so I've sucked up my thoughts of “Really? We have to do this Christmas thing? Why?” in favor of a more Holly Jolly approach.

Friday night a big group of us went to Prosperity Social Club to get our Scrabble on. It’s hard to be a Grinch at that place – the combo of sweet potato fries and really cute kitchy decorations could make anyone’s heart grow 10 sizes in one day.

(pic from here on flickr)

Then Saturday was Cookie Day. Every year my mom, grandma, Carolyn, and I get together and make cookies all day. This year I did remember to have my dad take a picture of us but I kindof don’t want to post it because I look …. Well…

Cookie day
Comically large. The apron is not a good look for the pregnant lady. Also when did my face start looking so pregnant?! But it was a super fun day. We made something like 11 different types of cookies - and they are all delicious. Cookie Day is probably my favorite tradition of the season.

Tonight is our Christmas Eve dinner with my parents - always a good time. And the whole weekend is filled with parties - both with family and friends. So yeah...I think I might finally be in the mood for this Christmas thing!

December 23, 2008

Month 6 Belly Updates

Ok so my dad gave me crap the other day for not posting belly updates. I swear it’s not because I’m becoming “comically large”! It’s because I wanted to keep up with the fruit comparisons. Those go by the month now – not by the week. But since we’re reaching the end of month 6 (holyshitthiskidisgoingtobeheresoon) I figured it’s time….

This month Gizmo is the size of an eggplant:



Which Matt was confused by because the eggplants I grow are nowhere near 2lbs.


Week 25 I missed because of the horrific glucose test migraine… but here’s week 26:
26 weeks pregnant
I think Dexter likes posing for these photos way more than I do!

Week 27 I spaced out and forgot… but here’s Week 28. Taken this morning:
28 weeks pregnant
Not too comical considering how far along I am. According to the things I’ve been reading the baby now has all of their senses fully developed. And supposedly they can taste things through the placenta… I wonder what the little dude thought when I ate that really spicy curry the other night? The big thing lately for me, though, is this bit of math: If the baby is 2.5ish pounds right now that means they need to gain about 4 more lbs before birth. Right.

Where on earth is 4 more pounds of baby going to go?!?!
28 weeks pregnant
Stay tuned.

December 19, 2008

Edward vs. Eric

Ok so between Christmas knitting and house improvements being a giant mess I literally have nothing going on that I can blog about right now. So how about I just bring you down a random pop culture spiral for a post or two? With vampires?

Edward:

I went to see Twilight in Columbus last weekend because my “friends” made me. I’ve read the first book …. And well… as Matt put it “I haven’t heard you make that many annoyed noises when reading since the DaVinci Code.” One of these same “friends” by the way also left the remainder of the Twilight books in my guest room last she was in town which I consider to be an act of aggression.
To sum up: We’re supposed to swoon over this guy?
I don’t get it.

Ok I get it for teenagers maybe…. But it’s also women my age who are going nuts for this whole thing. I found an entire forum called “twilight moms” for women over 25 while searching for that image. Seriously. And I really just don’t get it. He’s 17 (ok 100, but he was 17 when he was made into a vampire). I didn’t find 17-year olds that attractive when I was 17, let alone now. Also about 90% of his conversations with Bella go like this:

“I loooove you but I shouldn’t”
“No I loooove you but I shouldn’t”
“But I do loooove you. You are my heroin.”
“I’m not afraid of you because I loooove you.”
“I would never hurt you because I loooove you more”

And they’ve known each other for about five minutes at this point. Ugh. Who would want someone that whiney? And I completely don't buy the no sleeping thing. And you never see any vampire fangs in the whole movie? What's up with that? Also he doesn’t melt in the sun. Nope - he sparkles. And there’s just nothing manly about glitter:

“I’m going to be in the Ice Capades!”


At least when I’m forced to go to the sequel I won’t be pregnant anymore so I can get a solid buzz on beforehand.

Eric:
On the other end of the vampire spectrum I am so sad that True Blood is over for the season. None of the True Blood vampires would ever sparkle. Also they are all adults which is a bonus. And while Bill later on in the books *spoiler* gets just as whiney as Edward with the declarations of undying love at least Sookie is as annoyed by it as I am.

“I would DIE to protect this woman. Even though I totally lied to her for like 5 books”

Also the Southern Vampire Series takes place in Louisiana – where all good vampire stories should. Washington is for hippies. Not the undead. And the best part of the series wasn’t even really that much a part of season one of True Blood:

Dude is a Viking. A m’effing Viking. Soooo much better than a moody teenager! Plus while Eric might just kill Sookie at any moment he took a bullet for her. Twice.


Eric would kick Edward’s sparkly ass.

And that’s about all I got for right now. I have a weekend of Christmas preparations planned so hopefully next week I can blog about something more substantial than this.

December 11, 2008

Phase II – Stu-Stu-Studio!

Ok. So the way our house is laid out is that there are two bedrooms on the first floor and another, much larger bedroom and a bonus space upstairs. The second floor is up in the roof so the ceilings are slanted and overall the space is pretty cool. So when we moved in we claimed the upstairs bedroom for our own, set up one of the downstairs bedrooms as a guestroom, and one as an office.

Here’s a post from when we first bought the house that has pictures of each of those rooms.

The bonus space was always going to be my studio – it’s actually the room that sold me on our house – but we never quite got there. I mean why would I need to consolidate all of my creative stuff when I could just take over every room with it, right?

Yeah not so much anymore.

Now we’re going to use one of the downstairs bedrooms as the baby’s room and one as a combined office/guestroom. Which leaves no room for any creative stuff downstairs. So before I could even think about organizing a room for Gizmo I needed to organize a room for me.

Ready for lots of pictures?
My Studio
Ta Da! It’s my very own studio! Let’s do a little tour...

The shelving is the biggest addition. And the biggest project. Nothing on those shelves used to be in this room before.
My Studio
It was all downstairs along with many, many, many more books. Not anymore! We donated any duplicate architecture books we had, boxed any we haven’t looked at since graduation (bye-bye Ching!), and housed the rest here:
My Studio
All of our photo albums (except for the ones filled with drunken pictures of college – those got boxed up for our kids to find and mock us for later) are consolidated on these shelves now, too.
My Studio
Very handy for yarn inspiration!

Speaking of which I have some nice, white bins on order from The Container Store that fit into the bottom cubbies of the shelf. That way I have a place for all of that sock yarn in various states of preparation for sale.
My Studio
Destination Yarn isn’t dead – it’s just on hold for a little while. Turns out starting a business and getting pregnant at the same time is a fail plan.

Dexter even has his own spot in my new space:
My Studio
On a handwoven rug no less.

Then there’s my spinning spot:
My Studio
That was there before… except for the shelf – which is a very handy place to keep my spinning tools!

The desk was there, too… but it was filled with things like thesis notes and probably hadn’t been opened since 2004. Now it’s home to my sewing supplies.
My Studio
The dormer still has my bead table… but a much more streamlined bead table. Literally my storage solution used to be a pile of shopping bags. Not so much anymore:
My Studio
My Studio
Now that my beads are organized I have a feeling I’ll be much more apt to actually do something with them.

The other addition was this table:
My Studio
I can fold it up and stash it in the dormer, or I can unfold it into a giant layout table for winding self-striping sock yarn. Very versatile.

Some of my crafting stuff did get packed up and moved into the attic... but it's easily accessible - the door in this picture leads right to it (and on the left of that door behind the book case is a half-bath in case you were interested in how our house is laid out):
My Studio
The built-ins stayed the same. It’s all yarn. But I did go through and donate a whole bunch of really itchy acrylic and fun fur that I haven’t touched since 2005.
My Studio
We also hung a bunch of things I’ve been wanting to hang for awhile like the loom I bought at the Museum of Traditional Textiles in Cusco:
My Studio
(The door on the left leads to our bedroom, in case you were wondering)

And some pretty new Ikea curtains:
My Studio
I really love my new space!
My Studio
But most of all I love that even when life gets crazy with the new baby I will have a place to continue doing all of the things that I love. Plus I'm pretty sure we can fit a pack 'n play somewhere in here...

December 9, 2008

Phase II Progress

Scene: The pile of boxes and debris that used to be our house; sometime this past Sunday...

Matt: “Need anything at Home Depot?”
Jeanne: “You’re going back there again?”
Matt: “Shutup. 3 times in 48 hours is not excessive at all.”
Jeanne: “Duct tape, wood glue, and WD-40.”
Matt: “Why do you need WD-40?”
Jeanne: “So you will stop asking me if we have any WD-40.”

We’re in the throes of Phase II of our Get the House Ready for Our New Life plan and it’s getting a bit crazy. Phase I was complete a few weeks ago but it was cleaning out the attic which wasn’t all that interesting or blog worthy. Phase II, however, is much more fun and involves many more tools. Hopefully – barring any more Home Depot trips – I will have photographs to share soon! It’s very exiting… oh and nope. Phase II is not the baby’s room. That won’t get done until somewhere around Phase 8 or 9ish because something tells me that an infant probably doesn’t give a shit about matching accessories. Worst case scenario I finish all that up on maternity leave.

So in the meantime check out the Birthday Cowl I knit to go with my maternity coat:
birthday cowl
Pretty! Malabrigo! Instant gratification project! Stash yarn!
birthday cowl
Of course in an ideal world I’d knit a hat to go with it… I even sketched out some ideas for a fair isle pattern in these colors:
birthday cowl
But I don’t have time for that right now. I have curtains to hem.

December 5, 2008

Musical Friday

Right so my glucose test on Monday spun me into a 2 day migraine that I’m still recovering from. It was awful. Seriously ‘effing around with the blood sugar levels of a migraine sufferer has got to be the Worst Idea Ever. But the good news is that I’m fine, baby is fine, and all continues to be healthy! My mom came to the appointment with me so she got to hear the baby’s heartbeat which was pretty cool. Only a few more months to go! I’m getting to the point where I just can’t wait to meet this kid…

Anyways in lieu of actual content (I have a half finished post about baby registries and some knitting pics that I’m too muddled to finish right now) how about some random musical numbers?

You will probably find this one hilarious if you live in or around Cleveland at this time of year:

Oh Christmas Ale


And this just cracked me up:

Prop 8 the Musical \
The jazz hands at the end destroyed me. I’m fairly certain that at least 2 of the 4 musicals I’ve been in ended with that same move.

Have a great weekend everyone! I’ll be spending mine dealing with all of this:
Our Car leaving Ikea
Our car leaving the Pittsburgh Ikea last weekend

Let the organization begin!
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