Wow, so it's been ridiculously too long since my last post... six months?! Crazy! Not that it's an excuse, but we've had a lot going on here. So, a few quick updates:
1. We're expecting a baby boy! So, I'm just now feeling up to doing all my normal stuff now that I'm over the makes-you-feel-gross-all-day nausea (but nothing much worse than that) and the few weeks accompanied by hormone induced migraines. Now, I'm just exhausted after every day at work.
2. We hosted a wonderful Duke Divinity School intern over the summer who has become a fabulous addition to our family. He loved Lavender from the start, even if she didn't feel the same way, and he was such a blessing to us and our church family. He shared our love of cooking and good food, which was a huge plus, and helped cook meals whenever he was free. We had the pleasure of hosting his family from Washington state last week and discovered, not surprisingly, that they are just as wonderful as he is.
3. Mom's been busy with building her house and making all the decisions that go along with that, and now she's in the home stretch. So, we've been trying to be good sounding boards without putting in too much of our opinion. And of course, Benny has been the resident paint expert in that process.
So, the next several posts you read will probably have more to do with getting things ready for this wonderful baby boy and knocking things off our to-do list before he arrives on the scene. We've already tackled several projects, which I'll probably highlight in later posts, but here's the list of things we've already managed to accomplish:
1. Purchase a new washing machine with a budget goal of $800 (We managed to do it for free with gift cards--more on that in a later post)
2. Purchase and install a new storm door on the side door with a budget goal of $200 (We did this for about $70 after gift cards and coupons)
3. Purchase a new rug for the kitchen/living room to help ground the dining area a bit more with a budget goal of $80 (We bought this at the Capel sale for $99, and ended up moving the living room rug to the dining area)
4. Mosaic the dresser top of the ReStore dresser we applied the paintable wallpaper to earlier in the year for the nursery
5. Price out the cost of built-ins for the upstairs landing and have those built and installed or DIY (we opted to hire a contractor and he's in the process of doing those now)
6 Purchase and install under the cabinet lighting in the kitchen (we purchased the lights from Daily Steals, a deal website that Benny subscribes to, for much less than we saw them at Lowe's for and have been really happy with them)
Here's the list of things left to accomplish:
1. Paint kitchen chairs
2. Paint bed frames for nursery
3. Finish the stone patio we started this summer and got side tracked on
4. Purchase and install blinds on the other window in the nursery
5. Purchase and install programmable thermostats for the house (we'll probably purchase these during Energy Star weekend or from Costco)
6. Paint the upstairs closet doors that still have the factory primer on them
7. Rewire and paint wall lamps for the nursery (this should happen this week if the repair kits we ordered come in time)
8. Sell the desk that's currently in the nursery to help pay for the updates to the nursery (hopefully we can do this through word of mouth or maybe a Craigslist ad) and make room for the crib
9. Make some wall art for the nursery and figure out where to hang the art that is currently in the room (it's street art from my trip to Italy in college, so we want to keep them up somewhere)
10. Make a duvet cover that's jungle themed for the comforter that's currently on the twin bed in the nursery
11. Would be nice if the budget allows to reupholster the barrel-backed chair that we got from my grandmother's for the nursery. It will make a great nursing chair, though it's not a rocker.
Of course there's all the little stuff to do like the deep cleaning I'd like to accomplish (mopping, cleaning trim and windows, cleaning the appliances, etc.) but we'll get to that hopefully. We have some friends who have offered to help out with that over the holiday break or to come after the baby arrives to help with those projects, so at some point these will be done.
So, what about you? Are you in fall baking mode or enjoying the cooler weather to get some things done outside? I'd love to hear from you!
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