Nice and Bright

I finally got around to taking a few pictures of our newly painted furniture. I figured I better do it before baby stuff takes over in there. We're about to put the co-sleeper bassinet beside the bed and the swing will probably be in our room sometimes too. So here it is. The paint looks much whiter than I thought it would, but I still like it a lot. Also, we re-arranged the furniture so that the room feels more open. Lisa suggested putting the dressing table on one side of the bed and the dresser on the other. I really hadn't thought of that configuration because in my mind it seemed too bulky around the bed, but I really like it so much more. Thanks Lisa! Directly across from the bed, where my dressing table was, I'd like a simple white mantel with pictures leaning on it sort of like this. I'd also like to either paint the shutters we use as a headboard or get something different. Lisa thought they'd look good painted a brighter color, like mustard to tie in with the curtains. I also like this headboard idea a lot, though I'd choose a different color for our room than blue. I didn't take before pictures, but I do have a few before pictures of my dressing table in this post.

I love my black painted tray with the porcelain votive holder resting in the center. It's hard to tell in this picture, but the tray has really pretty aqua, orange and deep pink painted flowers on it. (Sorry, I was a little lazy with the pictures today and went with the first round.)

I've been wanting to really like what I see when I'm lying in bed. Before I just didn't like what was there. Now, though, I see our new chair and my dresser with family pictures, and I really like it. It's especially nice at night when I turn on the little wall lamp and light a candle on the dresser. The larger picture on the wall of me and Andrew is our "guest book" from our wedding. Rather than a real book, we used this picture and everyone signed something around it. I like to re-read what people wrote, and it makes me happy that I can see it all the time.

Bedrest

I've put myself on bedrest for the weekend. I've had a few more terrible nights of back pain, nausea and no sleep. I thought if I stay still during the day and don't move around too much that it might help me sleep at night. We'll see. My doctor said I'm making progress towards labor--2cm dilated on Friday, and I've started having contractions, and I have a few other tell tale signs that labor is most likely approaching soon. I'll be so happy if the little bundle decides to come a few days early! My uncle painted the painting you see above. It's at my mom's house. I love it. I think it's a copy of something, but I'm not sure what. Last night I thought of it when I was struggling to get comfortable. I turned on the ambient sounds on my iPhone to try to help me sleep. There's a birds option, but I chose crickets last night. I laid there thinking of this painting. I also tried to remind myself to be grateful--grateful for the baby to come, for the 6 pillows I have to help me get comfortable (I love pillows and they make such a big difference to my pregnant belly!), for the fact that I don't have to work right now, and for the husband who will rub my back and bring me anything (he even put the baby monitor next to me so I could ask for things from the baby room, where I've been staying, so that I don't have to get up). I thought about so many pregnant women, especially single moms to be, who may not have these things. I finally fell asleep at about 7AM today.

Nesting with Domino Deco Files

With less than three weeks away from my due date, I think I've gone into full nesting mode. In The Girlfriend's Guide to Pregnancy (not the best childbirth book, I must say, but I appreciate some of the information) the author says that when your nesting instinct kicks in "you may feel an irresistible urge to clean your house or defrost your refrigerator or put all your CDs in alphabetical order or some other such anal task." She says she's "not talking about the normal panicky cleaning fits that some of us fall into when our mother calls and says she's stopping by unexpectedly." She's talking about "the kind of feverish cleaning where you use your husband's toothbrush to scour the pipe that goes from the back or your toilet into the wall." She's talking about "taking off every switch plate in the house and soaking them all in pine-sol. This is the time when otherwise rational women truly believe that they cannot sleep one more night in the house where the baseboards have not been freshly painted. This is nature's way of making sure that you will be ready for the new baby, and it is called nesting."

I think my nesting instinct leans more towards re-arranging furniture than cleaning, but still, it's in high gear. Last weekend I was feeling spontaneous and said to Andrew, "I want to re-arrange the living room--will you help me?" Lucky for me he said yes (smart guy, huh?), otherwise I think I would have thrown a fit. I felt like it had to be re-arranged right then. All we really did (well, I should say all he really did as I mainly just stood there with my big belly and gave direction) was flip flop all the furniture from one side of the room to the other, so to most people it probably doesn't look that much different, but to me it makes a world of difference. Just the new perspective I get when sitting on the sofa on the opposite side of the room is refreshing. The other thing I like about re-arranging is you really get things clean. Even if you thought things were clean, when you move furniture around, you can see how just how dirty areas under and behind the furniture really were and clean all those nooks and crannies.

A few weeks ago I read about Domino's Deco Files on SFgirlbybay, which is what really got me motivated to start moving things around. It's an online organizational tool to store all of your decorating inspiration pictures. Normally I just save pictures from blogs and other web sites to a folder on my desktop and look through them every now and then. But the deco files system is a much better way to store and view the pictures. You can also browse other people's deco files and save them to your own. It's really easy to set up once you create a profile. Above is a snapshot of mine. Now I'm off to nest some more. I have to finish re-arranging and decorating our bedroom with our newly painted furniture. It looks so much better!

Feeling Better

Whew, I've made it through two whole nights this week without back pain, and last night was one of them. It's really easy to take a good night's sleep for granted.

In other news, this weekend we painted, or rather had someone paint, our bedroom dresser and dressing table. The set was a very dark wood with a thick, shiny finish on them. I've wanted to paint them for years but could never decide what color I wanted to paint them, though I usually went between thinking I wanted black or off-white. Nothing like pregnancy to get you motivated to get things like this done. Since I wanted our bedroom to look brighter, we decided on off-white. The set is down in our garage drying still, but they look great. I'm so glad we got help painting them. They needed to be lightly sanded, primed and painted and needed not one or two coats of paint, but three to really coat them well. I finished up the third coat this morning. I'll post a picture one day this week.

Third Trimester Woes

I may have spoken too soon when I said I was really lucky not to have had too many of the painful symptoms of pregnancy. The last few nights I've been experiencing unbelievable upper back and chest pain, and last night in particular was the worst. I never would have thought my back could feel such intense pain without having been shot or stabbed. I've read that lower back pain is more common, but that pregnant women experience upper back pain as well sometimes. The pain was horrible! I was up all night rolling around trying to get comfortable. I couldn't get comfortable no matter what, no matter how many pillows or where I put them or how I positioned myself. So I decided to try other things--getting up and walking around, stretching, sitting in our glider, leaning over the sofa, sitting in a chair with my head on a pillow on a table, taking a hot shower--but nothing worked. It was so bad that I even had a few frustrated crying fits. I kept Andrew up all night, poor thing. He was really sweet and rubbed my back, but even that didn't help, at least not for too long.

Finally I called my sister (while crying of course) and asked her what she thought I should do. I knew she had upper back pain during her second pregnancy. She told me to alternate ice then a heating pad on my back and try really hard to get in a halfway comfortable position to do so and to take Tylenol. Normally I would have waited to call my doctor to ask about taking the Tylenol, but I've talked to her about it before when I had the flu during my first trimester and knew she'd say I could take it, so I did. After about 30 minutes I felt much better and fell asleep. Now my back feels okay, but I still feel bad just from being up all night. I sort of feel like I have a hangover, ugh. I have 3 more weeks until my due date. I don't know if I could take many more nights of this though! If anyone has any tips, feel free to let me know.

Above is an illustration at 37 weeks, which is right about where I am now. The little bundle is getting big.

Breathless

Andrew's been practicing his French since he's taking French lessons, and one thing he likes to do lately is to watch French language films. Yesterday he turned on Breathless. I was doing other things around the house while it was on, so I can't really tell you much about the movie itself (I'll watch again it another time) except that Jean Seberg, shown here, left us both about breathless. She was so pretty, and I love her haircut in the film. I have a habit of cutting my own hair sometimes, and a few weeks ago I thought I'd trim my bangs and ended up with a whole new short do. After watching Breathless I want it even shorter. It's too bad she commited sucide when she was only 40.

Four Weeks and Counting

My due date is October 9th--just around the corner to me! I'm getting really anxious and nervous about having the baby, and then there's that whole part about being responsible for an entire human being after I manage to deliver her. That scares me too. But I'm really excited as well. I can't wait to meet her. Above is my nephew, Cash, when he was just a few weeks old. I remind myself that that's what I have to look forward to. And I'm sure the day will be here before I know it.

These last 8+ months have flown by. Aside from some nausea during my first trimester and being a little uncomfortable now (just because my belly is getting so big) I really don't have too many complaints about being pregnant. Potentially one could complain about lots of things. Just look at this chart to see what I mean. I could easily picture this chart being used in some kind of pro-abstinence campaign for teenagers! Early in my pregnancy I had nightmares of experiencing quite a few of these symptoms, but luckily I managed to escape most of them. Two of the stranger symptoms I wasn't expecting before I saw this chart or read about them in my books were ears popping and nightly leg cramps. Those two did get me. The leg cramps snuck up on me while I was sleeping, or trying to, and wow did they hurt! But they went away almost as quickly as they came. Then came the ears popping, which lasted for a few weeks during my second trimester. When it first started I thought it couldn't possibly be pregnancy related, but when it appeared to be happening daily, around the same time each day, I looked it up and there it was, another symptom of pregnancy. Still, not too bad for the slew of possible pregnancy aliments. And more importantly, not bad at all for what becomes of the whole process.

Aren't these pictures of Cash beautiful? Greg Miller, a photographer in Atlanta, shot these pictures for my sister. I went to high school with him, and my sister works with him from time to time (she's a make-up artist). Check out his portfolio--it's really amazing.

Onesie Makeover

My sister-in-law sent us a box of clothes that her little one has already outgrown. Everything she sent was adorable and I'm grateful to have all of it, but the design on this little "sea star" onesie just didn't do anything for me. I love the shape of the onesie and the buttons on top, so I decided to give it a makeover. I covered the sun star design and text with a little pocket made with some fabric I got in Japan. You can't really tell here, but the pocket is open at the top. Pretty cute now, huh? Better at least. She can use the pocket to hold her kiddy keys or cell phone.

Before.
After.

More for Baby

Just 5 weeks until the baby is due! I can't believe it. More on my thoughts and feelings about that soon. In the meantime, we pretty much have everything we need (and then some) even though it seems like everyday I think of something else we need. But the really important things like diapers, onesies, a co-sleeper (a little crib type bassinet for our bedroom), a car seat (we have to get her home after all)--those things are all set and ready to go. Of course I also come across plenty of things we don't need like this adorable bib, which I had been stalking at Laku for a few weeks until I finally bought it. I'm not sure that I'll even use it though. It's so adorable that it might just look good on the wall or some other place in her room. I love the Pennsylvania Dutch sort of print and that the bib is reversable. So cute!

Our New Chair

Here it is! Our new chair for our bedroom. I love the color and the shape, especially the high back. I wasn't sure if I'd like our curtains with it, but I actually do. And the orange color of the upholstery looks great with all my pillows. It will be nice to have a real chair in our bedroom to sit in when the baby comes. Before we just had a little, old rocking chair that I've had for forever. You'd think a rocking chair would be nice too, and maybe even better when the baby comes, but the one we had was really little and more appropriate for a 12 year old. I could barely get up out of it when I sat in it. Time for some more grown up furniture in our room.

And here it is with my dressing table bench covered in that really pretty silk I bought.

Testing out the chair with different pillows. I have lots to choose from now!