Knobs...

So, I've been looking for new knobs for our "coat closet" for WEEKS.  I think I've found them.  The ones I got before were mercury glass and did not pass the husband test.  They were entirely too girly.

Hobby Lobby has their knobs on permanent 50% off, so these were only $2 each, and, since I need 9 of them, that's a good thing!  For some reason, the blue/teal thing is really catching my eye these days, so I picked these up.  What do you think?  

The old knobs are still on the bottom - very Art Deco, but not really fitting with the craftsman style we have in our home.  So excited to finally have that project completed.  I just hope they pass inspection tonight!

Writing to my unborn son.

I got a wild hair today that I wanted to start writing letters to my son.  I've thought about it before, but just decided today to actually do it.  I know, he isn't born yet, but, for some reason, now seemed like a great time to start.  Then I won't be thinking later, "I wish I had started that when he was younger."

So, I have an email address and a blog that I'm posting these letters in.  I will most likely settle on one or the other that I like and only do one, but I wasn't sure, and I wanted the dates to start now.  So, I just copied my letter in both places.

It's more for me than for him, really, but maybe one day he'll appreciate having his mom's thoughts along the journey.  Who knows?  I hope I can be genuine so that he can see that his mom is real, and that one day, he can see a side of me that maybe hasn't been so clear before.

I may post snippets of those letters here over time.  The one today starts like this: 

"Today, you are supposed to come into the world in 14 days.  I've decided I want to write to you and send you pictures through this blog that will one day be a book.  I'll give it to you when you're older.  How much older?  I have no idea.  I may keep it for decades without you ever knowing it exists."

We'll have to see how it goes!

Baby Showers!

On Saturday, my sisters and a couple of really great friends threw me a baby shower.  It was downtown at The Chattanooga Closet Company showroom. (Thanks Kim!  It was absolutely PERFECT!)  I'm telling you what, those girls know how to throw a party.  My sister, Becca, came to town from San Antonio, TX, and it was so great to see her.  We haven't gotten together since Christmas!

Fabulous little finger foods, punch, etc.  Great decorations and atmosphere.  They even covered the photography (Thanks Charity) which is huge for me.  I'm such a picture nerd.  The invitations were precious too.  See?

OK, so hostesses aside, we had a great turnout of friends!  Everyone was TOO GENEROUS!  Look at all of the fun things people brought out for Baby Klein.

It is getting really real that he will be here in just a few short weeks!  I'm feeling much more put together after the shower - although, our house could still use a good clean up :).  Nesting is in FULL swing.  Look mommy world!  Here I come!!

Ready or not...here I come! (Week 5)

Week 5:

Got one of the blackout panels sewn, working on the next one.  I'm also working on bumpers!  They are all cut out - now we just need to pin them up and sew, sew, sew!

I find myself addicted to Starburst Jelly Beans - the ones that are "reds only."  Yummmmm.  Probably not so good for my teeth, and they have absolutely NO nutritional value, but hey, I'm pregnant...VERY PREGNANT...and if I want jelly beans, then jelly beans it is!

Leg cramps...OH GRACIOUS.  I have gotten several lately - always my right calf and always in the morning when I'm just waking up and stretching.  Talk about a charlie horse!  I am immobilized and can't breathe when they come.  After 45 seconds to a minute of total pain, it goes away.  I'm left sore for the next day or two, but I'm still alive.  Ugh, these could stop any time now.

People who aren't going to be able to make the showers have been dropping gifts by this week.  Everyone is so very sweet, and little guy is going to be so well taken care of!  Love it love it.  Thank you sweet friends!!

Ready or not....here I come! (Week 6)

The last six weeks of pregnancy...at least from my perspective.

Week 6:

The baby is tight on space, and he is letting me know!  Kicks and waves and punches galore!  All of this is fun to watch, but sometimes it gets a little exhausting.  Braxton Hicks contractions are NO JOKE.  For the last little while they have just been a noticeable change in my muscles.  This week, they have become painful and much longer - sometimes 30 seconds or a full minute long.  Still not measurable timing or anything, but more intense for sure!

My nesting instinct is in full swing, and I've taken up sewing on nursery items this week.  Our crib skirt is done, and I've been working on blackout shades for light control.  It's going pretty well, as most of the projects I'm taking on involve nothing but straight seams. More details about those can be found in a post that will come later.

March Goals and February Recap

February Recap

1.  Stick to the New Testament Bible reading plan.

Well, this one has been harder this time around.  We've been reading Acts for the most part in February.  I actually got several chapters behind a couple of times.  I've managed to catch back up, but I definitely didn't make any headway toward the whole routine in the Word thing.  Oh well, a new month starts now.  Get it done!!

2.  Finish thank you notes from Christmas.

In the mail tomorrow!

3.  Plan meals for each week and stick to the schedule.

If I don't count one week in February - this went very well.  The third week of February, well I failed miserably, but otherwise, things are going well.  Still using my website and my app on my phone.  Grocery bills are about the same at this point, but I think it'll start to go down as I get the hang of it and start tweaking my plan to include sales at the store, etc.

4.  Get rid of the pile of stuff that has no home currently living in the baby room and on every flat surface in our home.

With the help of wonderful, non-judgemental, helpful friends - the nursery is cleared out!  Still have a little work to do in the closet (see goals for next month), but the room now only has baby furniture in it, and the flat surfaces are no longer overtaken.

As far as the rest of the house, I've made headway on the flat surfaces, but the desk still seems to be a clutter magnet.  It was clear at one point during the month, but it isn't staying that way, so I need to work on a system of sorts.

5.  Install coat hooks in the new "coat closet."

DONE! Seeeeee?

This was a project I tackled while Bryan was in Honduras.  It would have been funny to be a wallflower watching this one go down.  First, I glued the hooks with liquid nails and attempted to tape them up with painters tape while they dried.  The tape didn't hold.  I got liquid nails all over everything when the hooks fell down.  Pretty funny indeed.  So, then I got some REALLY short screws and just barely started them in the sides of the cabinet.  I didn't want them to poke through the sides (which are really thin - like less than 1/4").  That was funny just trying to barely barely hook them into the wood without really biting anything substantial.  That plan worked.

Love it.  It keeps our couch uncovered a little better, and I know where to go when I am needing some cozy warmth from a coat!  If I find a coat in the house, I put it on a hook.  I love it when things have a designated home.  Life is so much easier and more pleasant.

6.  Get the full estimate for the built-in cabinet next to the fireplace.

Cabinet guys came on 2/18 and took measurements.  We heard back about an estimate and it was REALLY more than we expected.  I have more cabinet guys coming to give more estimates the first week of March!

7.  Order and install the backsplash for the kitchen.

The thinbrick was ordered, and I picked it up from General Shale on 2/21.  It's a mixture of two colors - "schoolhouse" and "english pub."  Pretty neat stuff - it's only about 5/8" thick, and it went up with construction adhesive and pointing mortar.  Bryan put it up while I was at work when he had a morning off.  We finished it off over the course of a few days!  It sure is nice to have a husband who is "Mr. Handyman."  Check it out!

Repair the fireplace and install the mantel.

Hmmmmm, not so much.
 

Find a rug for the Dining Room and Living Room. 

Hmmmm, not so much either.

Taxes.

Epic fail.  NEED to do this SOON!

 

 

 

March Goals:

1. Stick to the New Testament Bible reading plan.
2. Plan meals for the whole month and grocery shop ONCE. (noticing a trend?)
3. Taxes.
4. Have and OPEN HOUSE to show off all of the super hard work we've done over the last 2 years
5. Get my office and work in order to pass to the next person.  (My last day is March 22!)
6. Put finishing touches on the Nursery.
7. Pack the "hospital bag." (any suggestions as to what goes in here?)
8. Clean out the Fridge and Freezer.
9. Write and send thank you notes for all baby gifts.
10. Get ready for a WILD RIDE - Little Guy is on the way sooooon!

...And I want a brick back splash...

I'm pretty sure my husband thought I was crazy when I said this.  We were planning out our kitchen remodel.  We had just uncovered the back of our fireplace in the dining room and decided to leave it open to the room - which you can see from the kitchen.  How cool would it be to have a brick back splash to coordinate??  VERY.

We talked about several ways to do this - cutting the faces off of brick seemed to be the best option, so that we could then set it like tile in the back splash area. There isn't room for a full brick - it would take up too much of the counter space and wouldn't fit behind the faucet.  So, something had to be done to make it work better.

Enter "thinbrick."  It's brick veneer basically.  5/8" thick slices of bricks designed to face a wall.  PERFECT.

Bryan had the morning off last Friday and set out to work on the back splash.  By the time I got home, he had finished setting basically half of the bigger section.  Oh my goodness.  It looks FABULOUS.  I could not be happier.  It's absolutely wonderful.

We worked together to finish putting up the bricks on Sunday.  Bryan used dowels for spacers to make sure we had a good distance between each brick.  We again had to fight our non-square house by splitting the differences between the counter tops and the walls to make it LOOK like everything was lined up.  Levels don't do a whole lot of good around here except to tell you just how off things are :).

Let's talk a little bit about tile saws - wet saws.  They are MESSY.  They leave you covered in cakey dirt and apparently make your left shoulder wet and your hair feel like a brillo pad.  I was in charge of making the cuts on Sunday afternoon and, well, a picture says a thousand words!

After letting them set up for a couple of days, it was time for mortar.  This stuff is a little tricky - especially when you're using it on a porous surface like brick.  Any that gets where you don't want it and dries is basically there for good, so you have to be a stickler for wiping messes up as they happen or you're stuck forever!

So, it still lacks the electrical outlet plates, but otherwise, it's DONE!  Love love love it.  Love my fantastic husband for entertaining my crazy ideas.  It turned out perfectly!

Freezing Veggies - Brrrr...it's cold in here!

Freezing Veggies.

A couple of nights ago, we had tacos for dinner.  I like to add a little onion and green pepper to ground beef as it cooks for tacos.  Usually, when I chop onions, they make me cry, though, so I don't like doing it.  It doesn't really sting too badly, but I just get SUPER watery eyes - like dripping on the floor cannot stop the flow watery eyes.

Also, I don't use a whole onion very often in one night - and it might be a while until I need a little more, etc.  So, here's my solution:  ICE CUBE TRAYS.  That is right - the ones I use now came in packs of 2 from the dollar tree.  Here's the process I use:

1.  Peel the onion/seed the pepper/peel the carrot, or whatever veggie it is.
2.  Put it in the food processor (by the way, I got an awesome hand blender that doubles as a food processor...fabulous).
3.  Dump the pureed/diced veggie in an ice cube tray and flash freeze (just overnight usually for me).  They'll freeze in their own juice.  No need to add water.
4.  Put the cubes into labeled zip lock baggies - "sweet onions" "green bell peppers" - you get the drill.

5.  When making taco meat or spaghetti sauce or whatever it is that needs a little umph, add a cube or two or three and avoid crying all over everything.

YAY!  Eating better tasting, better for you, less preserved food.  Can't go wrong, right?

February Goals and January Recap

So, last month, I started posting monthly goals.  Here's the goal posting for this month!

January Recap:

1.  Send Thank You Notes for all Christmas presents.

Sort of!  I made a list of everything we were so generously given, wrote 3 of the notes still have about 10 more to go.  So, I'm working in the right direction, but didn't quite finish this one.

2.  Pick up new furniture from the Insyde Outsyde Shop and do any refinishing work.

DONE!  Bryan helped me pick up the furniture on Saturday, January 12.  After one failed hardware set, I was able to find some other handles that would fit the vintage sized holes in our "coat closet."  I ordered them from Hobby Lobby, but they aren't in yet.  A stain marker touched up all of the nicks, and, after installing, wood puttying, caulking, and painting base boards and crown molding in the living room where this piece needed to land, it is officially where it belongs!  I'm so very excited.  Check it OUT!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Get estimates for a built-in cabinet by the fireplace, fireplace repair/brick, and backsplash brick installation.

mmmmm...sort of.  This one took a LOT of phone calls.  Our cabinet guy has been sick most of the month of January, but we finally got him scheduled to come out on February 18.  Bryan did a fabulous job of finding the brick we need for the backsplash.  We've decided (surprise) to do this ourselves, so it's just a matter of putting in the order now.

4.  Hang family photos and artwork back on the walls. (as opposed to in stacks on the floor)

Started!  I hung our European art in the living room and the house is looking a little more like home.  I have some others leaning against the walls where they will go respectively, but havent gotten out the picture hanging supplies just yet.

 

5.  Plan meals for each week and stick to the schedule.

DONE!  I joined a website - www.howdoesshedoit.com - which has a free menu planner and shopping list builder.  It took a while to get our "standard" recipes in there, and I found a few from her other users to try out in the last 2 weeks of the month.  I purchased her iphone app (plan shop eat) for $3 so that I would have my shopping lists with me and could do this on the go from wherever I was.  I usually don't pay for apps.  Definitely worth it.  I ended up sticking with the plan at some point during the week, but didn't necessarily have the meals on the days I originally planned.  Like I said, I'm not going to let the little stuff get me messed up!  All in all, success!

6.  Stick to the New Testament Bible reading plan that friends from Sunday School are doing (we're reading through Mark right now).

DONE!  I'm still getting into a habit for DAILY reading, but I've been able to successfully read 3 or 4 days a week playing catch up when I need to.  I'm still on track to read the whole New Testament this year, and that is exciting to me!  I'm working into a more regular, daily routine, but getting in the Word 3 or 4 times a week on my own is really an improvement for me.  I'm encouraged!

7.  Get registries set up for Little Guy.

DONE!  I had the one at Target mostly done before Christmas, but I've tweaked it based on some suggestions from seasoned mommies.  I've added a registry to Amazon, babyli.st.com (you can register for anything online here - Etsy, etc...yes I went crazy).  The Target and Amazon registries my main ones, though, as I cannot seem to stay away from Target EVER.  It's my favorite store, and Amazon is just so easy to update and has a great selection. 

So, that's January!  Not too shabby!  I am really excited with my progress on the goal thing.  Coming up next - February goals.

February Goals:

1. Stick to the New Testament Bible reading plan.
2. Finish thank you notes from Christmas.
3. Plan meals for each week and stick to the schedule.
4. Get rid of the pile of stuff that has no home currently living in the baby room and on every flat surface in our home.
5. Install coat hooks in the new "coat closet."
6. Get the full estimate for the built-in cabinet next to the fireplace.
7. Order and install the backsplash for the kitchen.
8. Find a rug for the Dining Room and Living Room.
9. Taxes

Hopefully, this month will be even better than last month!

Going to Grandma's

This weekend Bryan and I went down to Jackson, MS, to help with settling my Grandfather's estate.  He has recently moved in with my mother, and he's started giving away his "stuff" as it were.  We have been blessed to be given several things that hold sentimental value for me along with some more practical things - mostly from the tool shop - for Bryan.

Friday afternoon, we hit the road.  7 hours later, we arrived in Jackson.  I packed up my great grandmother, Pearl Caine's, green depression glass dishes along with some other serving dishes, and we loaded them into the truck.  It's a full service for 12+ complete with dinner, salad, dessert, demitasse cups and saucers, glasses, sherbet, a few serving pieces, and the list goes on!  I see a get together of sorts in the very near future to get those out (I'll post a better picture when they are out of the boxes and cleaned up)!

Earlier this year, we got my great grandmother Johnson's dressing cabinet which will be going into the NURSERY when we finally get around to decorating it.  It has a lovely stained glass window in front of some shelves along with 5 shallow drawers on one side.  Perfect for storing baby's things. I'm tempted to try to change out the hardware, but I don't want to do anything to damage this piece.  It's so beautiful!  See?

I was also able to pick up a few pieces of linens - table cloths and napkins, a bread bowl liner, etc.  They have been in storage for a long time and need a good cleaning, so I'll have to figure out the best way to wash antique linens - dry cleaner maybe?  They are cotton, so they may do OK on a delicate wash cycle.  I just don't want to risk it!

Anyway, a few more odds and ends, a parts washer, sand blaster, and metal band saw rounded out our load in the truck.  When we got home, we were all very tired.  It was all in all a great trip, but I'm glad we won't be driving that far again for a while.  Little Guy was getting restless by the time we pulled in the driveway.  He kept pushing against the side of my stomach really hard.  It didn't hurt, but it was definitely uncomfortable.  I can't believe I'm only 12 weeks away from having him here!  How exciting!

Setting Goals

This year, I'm attempting to simplify the way I "do life."  I have a tendency to go overboard and make things more complicated than they need to be or over analyze otherwise simple tasks.  This year, things will be different!  I will look at things at face value and not be too hard on myself when not EVERYTHING goes as planned.  I will enjoy the little things and not get worked up over them.

A great friend of mine posts on her blog a list of goals for each month along with an update of how the last month's goals played out.  I think I'd like to do the same thing, although I'm nervous that I won't be able to complete the goals.  That, however, would be over analyzing, so I'm not going to think about that!!  OK, so here we go!

Goals for January 2013

1. Send Thank You Notes for all Christmas presents.
2. Pick up new furniture from the Insyde Outsyde Shop and do any refinishing work.
3. Get estimates for a built-in cabinet by the fireplace, fireplace repair/brick, and backsplash brick installation.
4. Hang family photos and artwork back on the walls. (as opposed to in stacks on the floor)
5. Plan meals for each week and stick to the schedule.
6. Stick to the New Testament Bible reading plan that friends from Sunday School are doing (we're reading through Mark right now).
7. Get registries set up for Little Guy.

OK, I think seven is respectable.  We'll see how it goes and reassess next month.  I feel a sense of accomplishment just getting these together.  Maybe I can harness that feeling and be super productive!  Here I go!!!

DK