Perspective

It's 10:00 on Sunday night and Slice has been in bed, asleep, for nearly two hours now.

Tell you what: our marriage would have been a completely different animal if Slice had been working this job (i.e. this schedule) from the start.  I used to be the one begging to go to bed every night, unbelieving when Slice insisted he wasn't tired, bitter about him leaving me to play XBox or repair pumps until the wee morning hours.  So what if I was already asleep?

Now I'm the other one.  This pregnant body doesn't sleep before midnight, and doesn't sleep well before about 4:00 a.m., so it's hard to put myself to bed at any hour, regardless of exhaustion level.
(Which is high.  Ever and always.)

But wait - there's something else I wanted to talk about here.  I've been thinking about it for a week now and tonight's Christmas Devotional reminded me.  Let's see if I can put it together coherently, shall we?

Last Friday Slice and I were in the Salt Lake Valley with hours of time to kill.
Black Friday! Unbelievable sales! Targets and Kohl's everywhere we looked!  Money in our bank accounts for the first time, like, ever!
And the strangest thing happened - neither of us wanted to buy anything.
I stopped in 6 or 7 stores just for fun, came away with a 3-piece outfit for Liam that included a winter coat and jeans, $20.  Done.

You guys.  It was so LIBERATING.

Because I spent months looking and wishing and planning and buying, for my house and my babies.  I spent months feeling the weight of (unemployed) poverty, envying people who could spend money on home decor, pampering, trendy clothes, expensive baby things, organizational supplies (!).  I got irritated by all the "I Want This"  Pinboards and "Amazing Deals!" websites that really just encourage more spending.  I bought a patio set for my backyard because I thought I needed one .... and then we never used it.  Simply put, consumerism was consuming me.

I'm better now.
I finally realized, last weekend, that the only difference in the whole business is my attitude.  I can spend my life coveting and wanting and shopping and spending, or I can let things be things and choose to be grateful for what I have.  It's much easier to see looking back, of course - but I can't believe I wasted all that time and energy making myself unhappy.
I do know, now, that I won't let that happen again.
I can't afford it.

Realistically Speaking

Since joining the wonderful world of Pinterest, I have been pondering on some vital life questions.
Like How can I possibly live in a house that has so many, non-coordinating colors??
and
Does anyone actually spend that much time & energy wrapping a present?  
and
What is the deal with all the labels/hot chocolate mix-ins/decorative pillows/maps/wreaths/monograms?
and, incidentally,
Are people really gullible, or are they just lazy?
(I've checked out several pins before pinning them to find that they are nonexistent.  No longer manufactured, never actually been built (i.e. underwater hotel in Dubai - you CANNOT 'go there someday' unless someone builds it first), not a DIY tutorial but a link to a retail site.)

But you know me - practical to a fault.  Which is why I'm having such a hard time deciding on a crib for this baby to sleep in.
(Ha! Of course this post is about nesting!)

We have a crib that was given to us, and it works, but it IS quite rickety and has drop-sides, and I would really rather not use it anymore.
I've basically decided on a mini-crib, for a variety of reasons.  It's the only thing that will fit in our bedroom for the first weeks/months, I've read a million reviews and MOST say their child slept in it fine for eighteen months to two years, they are less expensive than full-size cribs, the "nursery" is already cramped, I like the idea of a snug sleeping space for my baby ....

But what COLOR?!

Is it worth spending an extra $40 to buy a particular color of the exact same crib?  When I don't have a definite color scheme anyway?  I'd love it if all the furniture in the room was white, and I was planning to make it that way (hence the white spray-painting of the glider), but now with the toddler bed and dark dresser it would take a lot of work to get there.
Also, I am running out of nesting steam.
Questions?  Comments?  Suggestions?


In other "realistically speaking" news, I am not spending the 1-2 hours a day on Hypnobabies that I should be.  I should be doing more exercises and visualizing and affirming and directing anesthesia than I am.  I'm doing almost as much as I can, though, and am still optimistic about it.  So, yeah.

Like a Love Song

The other morning while breakfast was cooking we turned on some Vevo.

I had never seen him make any of these faces before....

... and then he came home with a gun.

Yesterday we canned applesauce.  Sort of on a whim, but sort of not, seeing as I've had a box of apples sitting on my counter for a month.  (Not Fuji apples; therefore, not the kind that Slice will eat.)

I had borrowed a strainer, jars, and steam canner from my mother ahead of time.  I even started boiling the apples.  But when we pulled out the strainer, there was a very important piece missing.
I sent Slice up to my parents' empty house to search through the storeroom for the missing part.  Or the other strainer that my mom has.  He found neither.
I called my sister, my aunt, my neighbor - nobody had a strainer.  By then I'd been chopping and boiling apples for almost three hours.  Slice left again, this time to the store to buy one.

An hour later I called him, wondering where he was.
(But not really wondering because 1 - he had just gotten a fat paycheck and 2 - every time he goes to the store he spends time at the gun counter.)
Which brings me to the real point of this post.  A question, really.

Do any of you live with a person who gets fixated on certain things?  And if so, how do you deal with it?
I like to think of them as phases: the remote-control airplane phase, the iPod touch phase, the dog phase, the new phone phase, the Modern Warfare 3 phase (AHEM).  But this gun one has lasted so long that I'm afraid it isn't just a phase.

I finally got so sick of hearing Slice talk about this gun or that one, watching (and making me watch) YouTube videos of shooting ranges and explosives, checking Basin Sports/Stewart's every time we were in the vicinity - that I told him he BETTER buy a gun after this paycheck OR ELSE.
Right or wrong, that's what I said, and that's what he did.
And then we made applesauce.

Raising Funds

Several weeks ago a couple girls from our neighborhood (i.e. ward) (i.e. Primary) came to the door with a fundraiser that I've never heard of outside the Uintah Basin.  They offer a "free sitting" for family portraits and "free 11x14" with a certain donation to their organization.

Now, the last time we took family photos was over a year ago at Lu's wedding, just for fun. So I'd been wanting new ones forever.  Mainly from the ever-fabulous Linnea Anne, who by the way, was one of my very best friends in middle school.  (And my grandparents now live in her parents' neighborhood.)
But as family photos - and pregnant bellies - go, we hadn't gotten around to it.  So we signed up for the fundraiser.

Two weeks ago I went to pick them up.  Not really wanting an 11x14, but unaware that they would present me with other outrageously-priced sheets (all I wanted was a couple 8x10s!), I ended up buying the whole package including copyrights and the digital image.  Because it was cheaper than the two sheets.
Darn fundraiser.

Anyway, here's our latest family photo, which will be outdated in a month:

My hair went flat during the HOUR we had to wait for portraits.  Also: good times standing there while the photographer tries to figure out how to hide my belly. Ha!

Holly Fair FAIL

As you know, I spent the last three weeks or so crocheting with the free yarn I'm now storing in my guest room.

I planned to put all my finished projects in a booth (or two) at the Holly Fair, a local annual tradition that - until this year - I had never even witnessed.  I had no idea what to expect or what kinds of things would sell.  Naturally, this made it hard to decide what to make.

I did decide, however, that in addition to my crocheted hats & headbands I would attempt these balls:

because I've been wanting to make them anyway, for my own decorating purposes.  (Again, thanks Pinterest!) Surely someone else would like them too.

Only, this is what happened:

(see: my kitchen table for two weeks)

the balloons shriveled up before the glue dried.  Fail #1.

I also attempted some monster hats like this one.  I don't generally follow crochet patterns because they never work out for me.  This one was no exception.  The first time I tried (and every time thereafter until I figured out just how to modify it), it turned into an adult-size hat.  Fail #2.

(Unless you know an adult who wants a royal blue beanie?)

Finally made a SMALL one with two eyes and put it on my kid, and behold, it was darling.  So I made a couple more and this one is now my favorite:

Cute little alien.

ANYWAY, I had made tentative arrangements with some people who actually planned ahead for their Holly Fair booths.  But plans changed, I didn't have stuff ready until the second day of the fair.  And this was my big mistake - by the time I was ready to sell it, most of the buying was over.

Not a single thing sold.

Major fail: #3.

I guess I had something to keep me busy for three weeks?

Nursery (unfinished)

This is the (unfinished) nursery.

This is the toddler bed that I found on KSL classifieds for $30 in Vernal

in the (unfinished) nursery.

Yes, pink pillowcase.  Because it's flannel and he loves it.
Also he's keeping in touch with his feminine side.

  
This is the 17-month-old boy who slept PERFECTLY

in the toddler bed I found on KSL classifieds for $30 in Vernal

in the (unfinished) nursery.

He put them on by himself, and he is the gosh darn cutest thing you've ever seen.

This is the night that the 17-month-old boy decided, after a week, that he didn't want

to sleep PERFECTLY

in the toddler bed I found on KSL classifieds for $30 in Vernal

in the (unfinished) nursery.

In fact, he decided to cry on the one night that his dad never came back from work,

 so his mom wasn't sleeping well either,

 and got much less sleep than she really needed,

especially since he woke up long before his usual (punctual!) 8:30 a.m.

And they were STILL late for church.

Quickie

OK, I'm not really back yet - too much going on right now.  I'll give you a little taste of things to come though
(hopefully)
(when I get around to blogging about it):

newly textured & painted bedrooms
more crocheting stuff
Holly Fair
TODDLER BED that my baby has been sleeping in for almost a week
family pictures/dance fundraiser
five weeks (ish) to go until we have a new family member

and, in the meantime, let's talk about my appointment yesterday.

I hauled my 17-month-old to the appointment with me.  (First time I've had to do that without Slice.)

He wanted to play in the toilet.  He freaked out when I layed down on the table so the Dr could find a heartbeat. He wandered around through halls and behind desks while I waited for an ultrasound - TV remote in hand - until I chased him down.
He cried again when the ultrasound tech started doing her stuff.
Ah, my boy.

Anyway, here's the deal:  Baby girl is small.  Much smaller than Liam was at this point.  After a thorough investigation, the tech estimated just over 5 pounds, which is quite a difference from my 8+ lb. firstborn.  But she looks completely fine.

So basically I'm feeling good (/justified) about my early decisions to 1) eat fatty food to my heart's content, and 2) to be lazy.  The only thing I've done differently this pregnancy was take thyroid medication, and if I had been exercising and eating only healthy foods, who knows what might have happened?
Right?

(Just agree with me here.)

Where I've been

 Here:

Liam is LOVING the smartphones and eating cereal (in milk) by himself!

In other news, he knows his body parts, some shapes, and several songs.  Smart little bugger.

He talks a lot and wants to draw all day long.  Which means I have to watch him all day long, unless I want to paint every room in the house.

Ahem.

Here:

Per Angie's recommendation, I am preparing myself for childbirth via Hypnobabies.  So far so good.

It still reminds me (eerily) of Inception every time though.

Here:

Center Stage, here we come!

Of course, here:

and here:

But MOST OF ALL, here:

Ten days ago I scored a few GARBAGE BAGS FULL of skeins of yarn.  All kinds!

 A lady was giving them away at a yard sale, and I happened to stop by .....

and now I am eating, sleeping, and drinking the crochet.  

This is why I don't crochet.

(I can't stop.)

Reaching New Heights

in Technology:

pics coming to you from this phone

For the first time ever, Slice bought himself a cell phone.  He has previously used only hand-me-down phones; I have used only the free-after-rebate kind.  (He picked the Google phone for me and I.LOVE.IT.)

Phones with picture messaging and Facebook?

We are moving up in the world.

in Domesticity:

fantastic cantaloupe bread/muffins I made for Slice to take to work

sewing machine I bought after using my mom's for 20 (or so) years

See also: previous post.

and in Disgruntledness: 

You can't really see the tractor parked back there in this picture.

Um, who told these people they could park their construction equipment ON OUR BACK LOT??  Because we sure didn't.

And they are leaking some kind of fluid.....

as if the noise and inconvenience weren't enough.