houndstooth photo shoot

awwww, Moooooom, I was sleeping...

Okay, fine-- ONE picture.

I said ONE! Now leave me alone!

**This photo shoot sponsored [unknowingly] by Sean. Wilbur says thank you for his new houndstooth pouches made from your repurposed pajama pants.

the bedsprings are groaning

I'm starting to think the most expensive thing about this baby is going to be the advanced wear and tear my additional weight is causing our mattress. Between me and the bed there's a whole lot of moaning that accompanies my lying down at night (and my attempts to sit up in the morning, and the multitude of bathroom breaks in between. Shoot, pretty much the minute I walk in the bedroom the mattress starts complaining audibly).

Had a terrible stomach bug this week that I'm just beginning to recover from. Made me so grateful that I'm not further along than I am. As it was, trying to lie still and recover was actually a lot of work because I constantly had to change position. My little butternut squash does not seem so small when she's lying on and kicking at a defunct digestive system. Also glad I didn't have the bug during the first trimester on top of the nausea and exhaustion that came with that. So if I had to get it, now was probably an okay time. I'm very happy to be recovering though.

Here's the belly at 29 weeks.

And, of course, Sean at 29 weeks. (Doesn't he know he's supposed to do something funny?? We all have these expectations now!)

So here we are. Well into the third trimester. [Yikes.] I'm not sure how we got here so quickly.

not-so-altruistic giving

While Sean was in Atlanta earlier this month, I dove into my wood-scrap pile and refurbished a smoker-grill that I found super-cheap at a thrift store. Sounds like a sweet thing for a wife to do, doesn't it? It's not really that innocent though... more like an unabashed investment in my own good-eating.

BeDazzled and Razzle-Dazzle

I expect God is presently in the process of re-engineering his whole scheme for adding jewels to the crowns of his saints in heaven. The problem? No crown large enough to hold all the jewels my mom and dad have ALREADY earned. I'm anticipating a solution along the lines of a divine BeDazzler. Meanwhile, I'm just glad they don't get those crowns and/or bedazzled robes until later; I imagine it'd be a lot harder to work under their weight, and I have a LOT more for them to do!

A couple months ago they came down and put holes in the kitchen wall so the master bedroom (on the other side of the wall) could have more natural lighting. Last weekend they popped back down, and in addition to the HOURS of painstaking mudding my mom did on the closet project, they also finished out the windows!

We were able to have the glass cut down from the large windows that were replaced on the back of our house in September. Sean and I plan to use a product called American Clay on the walls of all the open living areas (as opposed to attempting to match texture and then paint everything), that's why all the mudding is still exposed.

Speaking of windows, I don't think I ever posted photos of our razzle-dazzle window replacements! (To be clear, I was the one razzle-dazzled, because I didn't have to lift a finger other than to call contractors for estimates... all the labor was just done! Taa Daa! Could really get used to this contract-work thing.)

It was one of our biggest renovations, undertaken mainly for energy efficiency purposes. The previous owner had installed 3 new windows on the front downstairs, but all the rest were single-pane aluminum originals, many with cracked grids and loose panes. We went with white vinyl windows, so we lost some pane space, as you can see here on the upstairs windows, but they matched what she installed (the grid one at the bottom of the photo, for instance). The new one you see here upstairs isn't trimmed out yet; I took the photo mid-install.

In total, we had 12 windows done-- here are a few of them.

Old and new master bedroom window from inside:

The old kitchen sliding window and the new window (which now slides open from both sides).

And our favorites, the four large picture windows in the living room. Previously they didn't open and consisted of single sheets of glass screwed in place from the outside by brass trim (yeah, real secure, I know). This turned our living room into quite the oven during the summer, plus there was no effective caulking, the glass wasn't tempered, and they rattled threateningly when the back door shut. Now all those problems are fixed, and the outside two crank wide open, which provides excellent ventilation inside, and like the rest of the windows, they're double-pane, argon-filled, and low-e.

The only other window-related news I can think of is the wonderful luck I had with craigslist last week. Found 5 sets of 2" white blinds already sized to some of our windows that desperately needed treatments-- and for only $5 each (in great condition)! This took care of the three windows in what will be the guest bedroom upstairs, the other front-facing window upstairs (so we have uniformity from the curb), and the baby's room downstairs (which previously had blinds that only covered part of the window, because they were too short). I didn't even have to go out of my way to get them; the guy met me after a grocery run-- simple as pie! Hooray for God's little surprises. With all the awkward obstacles I encounter in my other projects, it was such a relief to have something like that work out so beautifully!

OW

This may look like an ordinary thumb, but it is NOT. It is in great pain because I smashed the dickens out of it yesterday.

As an update, the holes I busted in the wall earlier are slowly turning into the interior of the master closet and what should become glass door cabinets and a plate rack in the dining area.

Obviously, there's still a LOT left to do.
But the pressure's on. Can't move our bedroom downstairs (and on the same floor as the baby) until we have a closet we can use...

Only nine functioning digits and three increasingly pregnant months remaining.