Some House Projects

Here are some pics of the projects I've completed around the house this month. I don't know if it's nesting, or just finally getting sick of sitting on all these projects for so long, but I've been über productive so far this summer. Yep, über. 

Upholstered My Piano Bench:

Okay, I actually did this back in March. But it's the only non-June project. I decided to do this because my butt hurts after sitting on the bench for more than 30 minutes. Since this piano will be around a long time, I chose a nice neutral, durable fabric. Love it!

Upholstered and Painted Kitchen Stools:

These are just your typical blonde-wood, cheap stools you can pick up anywhere. I was originally going to paint them gray, since I have so much gray paint it's insane, but decided to do the green to add some color to the kitchen. And my original plan for fabric was going to be painter's drop cloth, but I had enough fabric leftover from piano bench, and knew the white would look awesome with the green (spray paint). I love them!

 I even remembered to check my centering and direction of the fabric. I'm learning!

 Love the green against the white beadboard.

 And super fun with the cushions on our other two stools.

French Door Headboard:

Kurt did a lot of the work on this, obviously. I originally saw the door-headboard idea way back in like 2008, and immediately thought it would be cool with a french door. Well, last year I finally saw nabbed one on Craig's List for only $20! And then it sat in our hallway for almost a year. :D

Kurt built the frame and I painted (spray paint, don't worry I was outside). It's technically still not installed--not screwed onto the bed frame--but I wanted to go ahead and take pictures. And yes, document our lovely AC unit in the window. So classy. 

I love the black and white combo. I thought about doing a mercury glass finish on the glass panes, but decided not to, mostly because I have way too much other stuff to worry about right now. And I rather like the plain glass. Oh, and Kurt's mom made that gorgeous quilt for our 4th anniversary (err ... or maybe 3rd... ).

 So, obviously all of this art needs to be framed, but I wanted to throw them up there. Kurt's cousin made the graphic art on the left with our wedding date, Kurt's dad gave us the drawing of the SC temple (where we were married) on our wedding day, the picture is obviously of our wedding day, and the certificate on the far right is our temple sealing certificate. 

 I'm thinking of doing some kind of metal frames, to give an industrial touch to the room. Any ideas? And I'll probably get a new matte for the temple drawing--something smaller, so that when I matte the certificate, they'll be closer to the same size. I'm not sure if I can get a new frame for the graphic art though ... so we'll see, I might just have to do black frames.

Wreath and Flowers:

This may have been the end of May, but close enough. I've posted about potting flowers in our blue planter before, but I found the other two planters and decided to put them to use. Also, the flowers I've planted in the blue pot before have never done well, and I've finally realized why. I've always put Full Sun flowers in there, because most of the year, the stoop gets a ton of sun. However, in the summer with our elm tree fully leafed out, it gets about 2 hours of sun. So this time I planted all Partial Sun flowers and they're doing great! I think I need to water the begonias a little less to make them happiest, and the impatiens don't want to fully bloom right now because of the oppressive heat (we've had like 5 or 6 days over 100 degrees in the last week and a half here--about 20 degrees hotter than normal!), but everyone's looking pretty happy.

The wreath is the same style as others I've made in the past, without the buttons, cinnamon sticks and bow/ornament. I decided to try without those things because there's already a lot going on visually with the flowers, plus I'm going to paint the door at some point this summer (we're in a long process of painting the house. If you are really observant, you'll be able to notice a difference in the siding color. The trim and door are all that's left, but this heat is making it impossible to finish up for now). I rather like keeping the wreath simple, too.

Originally we had the two smaller planters both on the right side, but Kurt kept tripping over them, so we rearranged to make things less cluttered on that side.

Yeah, I goofed and planted these with the sticker showing. I need to rip it off. One of these days...

Cycling Is My Life

And I haven't even ridden this whole year! So maybe it's not my life, because I don't go to all of Kurt's races, but I go to a fair amount of them. Not because I have to, but because it's fun to cheer on my husband. And not be stuck at home all Saturday morning. Kurt has a race almost every Saturday. This season is a lot more intense than last year, but that's a) intentional and b) good. He really loves his new team, which provides a lot of support. And he's learning the ins and outs of racing. And there is a lot to learn! Kurt's had some really good races, and some not-so-good races, but he's learned from all of them. Here are a few pictures.

Warming up for his first time trial, which was a team time trial.

 Sweet time trial gear

 We even volunteered at a Bike Colorado event. I told you, it's my life too.

 Starting his latest race in Laramie. This race was absolutely brutal, but Kurt managed to finish, though he was too sick from dehydration to continue the next day (it was a stage race (think the Tour).

And while he avoided hospitalization after Laramie, he had to make up for it on the following Tuesday (just two days ago) by getting in a wreck on the way to work. Luckily, he was fine, and so was his bike. He banged up his nose (as you can see) and suffered a minor concussion. Did I mention he seriously cut his hand about a month ago while working on his bike? I swear, he gets hurt way more often than I do.

Little Turbo

We found out yesterday that we're having a BOY! Let's just say that my mother's intuition was wrong. Lots of other people were wrong. In fact, most people who'd voiced a strong opinion, had gone the other way. Kinda funny how that works. 

But we're so excited! I love the idea that I'm going to have a mini-Kurt running around (and breaking things, and eating dirt, and being generally rambunctious). I'm so glad we found out the gender of the baby ahead of time. Not only can I plan (i.e., shop!) for him, but he now has an identity to me. Rather than being amorphous, ambiguous THE BABY, he's now a person to me, an individual. I didn't anticipate that experience, but I'm digging it. 

Anyhow, we're kinda at the drawing board when it comes to names (we had totally zeroed in on a girl's name. boy's name ... not so much), so if you have suggestions, they are welcome. 

Right now I want to post a bit about the nursery. Kurt is a "man's man," and I'm not the only one who thinks this--many people over the years have expressed this same statement. I want our son's room to be All Boy. I don't want it to be cutesy, but be something that he can grow into as a toddler and even a kid, if need be. And I've mentioned before that I want to do a bike theme.

When I found out I was pregnant, I emailed Joni at Lay Baby Lay requesting a bike-themed nursery inspiration board. She actually made two (one for each gender) that are SO cute and exactly what I was thinking of. Here's the boy one:

I love it! The navy is awesome, and she finds the best art. I want to capture the essence of this mood board, but incorporate a few more pops of green, yellow, maybe even some orange or red. I want the room to feel ALL boy, but also playful and be something he can grow into. That might be a tall order for such a small room, but here's hoping!

Anyhow, here's the art I'm leaning most towards:

 I like the vintage-feel of this, though it's not my favorite.

I don't love these colors, but I love everything else about this print. 

I love the euro and vintage feel!

also comes in blue

 Again, I don't love the colors, but SO FUN.

This is probably my favorite. So simple and graphic, yet bright and bold. But perhaps too simple.

also comes in red

We really like graphic-type prints. All of these (super affordable) posters come from poster cabaret.

And the word-art print Joni featured that I love most is "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." It also comes in green, chartreuse, yellow, and red-orange.

Anyhow, just some ideas tossing around inside my head. I'll definitely have a rug of some sort, and most of the furniture will be white (if we stick with navy walls). I'm not sold on the navy walls, mostly because the room is so small. However, it gets A TON of light (the windows face south and west). And I love navy. So if we did another color, I'd have to incorporate navy somehow.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Baby names?

Doing the Charleston

aka Our SC Trip Part Deux

We expected Monday to be rainy and miserable, but we woke up to blue skies. So we headed to the beach. As much as I love Colorado, I miss the beach so much. I ache for it. I crave it. The other day I realized I didn't go swimming in Denver ONCE last summer. As a girl who grew up 15 minutes from the beach, who, for many summers, had passes to the neighborhood pool or local waterpark, and then liefguarded for 5 years ... this is not easy for me to stomach. So, anyhow, you can bet we went to the beach while in Charleston.

And I got fried. I put a liberal amount of sunscreen on my upper body and face, but my chest and forehead still got burned. And I didn't put sunscreen on my legs, but we were only at the beach for 2 hours and my legs have never burned easily. Well, they got burnt to a crisp. When we got home, my mom said, "I should've warned you that you're more sensitive to the sun when you're pregnant." So, while Kurt and Collin headed back to the beach on Tuesday, I stayed home. However, the beach was so nice on Monday that I didn't mind--breezy, not too hot, and the water was still cool (the water around Charleston gets quite warm by the end of the summer, which is nice too, but it's also nice while it's still cool in the early summer).

Monday night we went and saw The Avengers with my family (which was awesome). Tuesday night I went to dinner with my girlfriends from high school, Megan and Katherine. It was really fun to see and hang out with them, get the low down on everyone who went to JIHS, and discover that Megan also loves Sister Wives. (Seriously, what is it about that show?)

When Kurt gets an idea in his head, he has a hard time letting it go without trying it. And a few months he read an article about She Crab Soup, which is a big traditional dish in Charleston. He was shocked that I'd never had it, but as a kid I wasn't much of a soup fan and I hated crab, so why would I've tried it? On Wednesday morning he decided to finally find a place that had it, especially since it was in season while we were in town. One place he found was Hominy Grill, which is very famous, so us and my dad headed over there for the lunch. Apparently the She Crab Soup wasn't as good as she crab soups go (though Kurt still enjoyed it), but everything was FANTASTIC. Kurt got their shrimp and grits, which was very different from other restaurants', but absolutely my favorite ever. Instead of serving the shrimp in a sauce over the grits, they sauteed them with mushrooms and some other stuff I can't remember. And the grits were white cheddar cheese grits. HOLY COW, they were so good. All the food was awesome, and we were all stuffed and happy afterwards. Also, try their chocolate pudding if you go. I know right--chocolate pudding at a restaurant? But theirs is life changing (Alton Brown named it one of the best things he's ever eaten soooooo yeah). And I saw my middle school band director, Mr. Stewart!

That night we went to my parents' favorite Mexican restaurant for dinner (because clearly we hadn't eaten enough for the day), and then my mom and I went shopping for maternity clothes. I'd been dreading this, but it actually was quite fun. Maternity clothes are cute! And since then, I've only worn my maternity pants because I love wearing pants without zippers or buttons. 

On Thursday we ... I actually can't remember what we did, but that night my grandma threw me a baby shower. It was so sweet of her (and my mom, of course, who made a ton of the food)! And everyone who came was so generous. We're off to a good start on our baby supplies. And Kurt helped Dad with the pulled pork, so he got the learn the fine art of bbqing pork. He did a good job (and he made some awesome gouda mac'n'cheese too).

On Friday we kidnapped Collin and headed up to SC's Redneck Riviera, Myrtle Beach. Kurt had never been, so it was time. Unfortunately, it was drizzly on and off, but we cruised the strip a few times so Kurt could get a feel for the local color. We thought about eating at the Hard Rock Cafe, but decided instead to ask the locals where they like to eat. Turns out it's a yummy fast food burger place called .... I can't remember. Anyhow, the burgers were awesome. Then we walked the strip in hopes of finding those bathing cover t-shirts that have the sexy women's bikini body drawn on them (you know what I mean, right?). We couldn't find any, but found some pretty awesomely-redneck shirts instead. We rented Thor that night, since my parents hadn't seen it. Always a good movie.

Saturday we ran downtown to grab pralines for our neighbors, and oh yeah, Dad took Kurt and Collin giggin on Friday night. Sadly, they didn't get to stay out for long because the gig broke on Collin's first fish. But still, Kurt has no experienced gigging. That evening the boys headed back out to the beach for more surfing because there was a nice swell in. I'd wanted to go to the beach that day, but it ended up being cloudy and in the 70s--too cool for me. But Dad and I followed the boys out, and got some fun shots of them. We were all pretty exhausted, had to get up early the next morning for our flights home, and had tons of left overs, so we hung out at the house that night, keeping it easy. The next morning we were up at the airport nice and early.

We had such a great trip! I miss Charleston already, but of course it's always good to back in your own home. And of course I missed Swift and Ruby. But now I miss my family and the beach and Charleston. Guess I'll always miss something. :)

 She crab soup!

 My dish was called the Big Nasty Biscuit. It was amazing.

 Megan and Katherine at my shower. My mom bought me that gorgeous dress.

 You stay classy, Myrtle Beach.

 Dead horseshoe crab. Sad. These are really cool animals.

I don't want to be one of those girls, but ... Kurt's pretty damn hot. :)

Basic Addition

2 people

+ 4 college degrees

+ 3 states

+ 4 cities

+ 4 rental homes

+ 1 owned home

+ 2 cars

+ 3 dogs

+ 4 wards

+ 8 bikes

+ hundreds of thousands of miles traveled
+ 1 baby in utero

= 5 Happy Years of Marriage

Kurt and I celebrated our 5th anniversary on Saturday May 26th, 2012.

We spent the day knocking out home projects, then went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse Grill (we were both craving meat).

It was pretty low key, but still a nice day spent together.

I'm glad to say that I'm happier than ever with my decision to marry the Kurtstanimal.

He rocks my world.

Oh, We're Halfway There

That's right, today I am 20 weeks into my pregnancy, and I've got 20 weeks left. It's kinda amazing how 20 weeks can simultaneously feel long and short (both looking back and looking ahead). We made really good progress on the house this weekend--pictures to come!--though most of it was existing projects that need to be completed before we can get to projects in Operation: Babyfying the House. But progress is progress!

How I'm Feeling
Great! Around week 14ish, morning sickness went away enough that unisom nipped it completely in the bud (whereas before, unisom made it more bearable). And then, sometime in the last two weeks, I was able to go completely off unisom, though there are occasional days when I'm feeling a bit nauseous. I've got a lot more energy, though it dips way more than I'm used to (pre-pregnancy). And my motivation is back! Yay! So things are going along swimmingly.
I felt the baby move for the first time during the 15th week. The fluttering was so weak and unexpected, that at first I couldn't pinpoint where it occurred--thought perhaps my heart(?)--and then I realized it must be the baby moving. It moves fairly regularly, especially these days. At least once a day, although perhaps more because it's still weak enough that I have a hard time discerning between the baby and gas. Trapped gas is still a problem, though I've found a way to keep it under control. Oh and nosebleeds! I start every day with a very bloody nose or full-on nosebleeds. That's really only an irritation at this point.
The full-screen ultrasound is a week from today and we are trés excited. It'll be nice to refer to the gummy bear as a he or she, rather than an it. I know I wouldn't appreciate being an 'it', although I'm sure that's what my parents called me during the entire pregnancy (but perhaps not. Perhaps they referred to me as 'he' since they were sure I was going to be a boy. Just the first in my long list of disappointments ;)

Mental Health
Just as I thought, I'm feeling more bipolar these days, but it's still very mild and manageable. Kurt says his favorite thing about me being pregnant is how happy I am. It's probably my favorite thing too, though I'm starting to enjoy feeling the baby move now, and not feel so weirded out by it. I'm not worried anymore that this will happen:

The Graduate

We flew back to SC for 10 awesome days for my graduation, and also to see my family. We flew in on Thursday night and my grandma picked us up. She treated us to the best BBQ at Home Team BBQ (Kurt was SO happy--he loves that place) and then we drove around downtown for a bit. My parents and Collin were in Aiken for a soccer game, and they arrived around midnight. Collin was really bummed because a) it was his last game of high school ever and b) they lost. So we made him cinnamon rolls.

The next day we had lunch with my mom and dad, then drove up to Greenville to stay with Chris and Lindsay. It was so much fun hanging out with them! They recently got a new Great Dane puppy named Gracie who is so adorable. Also, since she's young, she's in her totally awkward phase. I love that phase! She kept running into stuff and bumping her head and it was really quite adorable. (Swift, I think, will never grow out of this phase. He's always running into stuff.) They took us to downtown Greenville which is completely different from when I lived there for Governor's School, 11 years ago. It was so fun.

The next day was graduation! My parents and Collin drove up for it, and Kurt's graduation present to me was a full-on Southern outfit: seersucker shorts, white cotton shirt with rolled sleeves, boat shoes, and a BOWTIE. Yes, he bought and learned how to tie a bow tie (thanks Youtube). It was awesome. And now he's in love with his seersucker shorts and boat shoes. Hah!

Graduation was REALLY long, filled with speeches and awards. Luckily I drank a ton of water before and used the restroom, otherwise I would've been fighting more than sleepiness to get through it. But it was awesome. I'm so glad I walked. It was a good official end to my Master's program. After graduation, we were all starving, so we went to the Beacon Drive-In, which is a local burger dive. The food was fast, good, and greasy. Lindsay's family went to California Dreaming, and we would've gone with them except for the fact that we were all so hungry, and also Kurt and I had to close on the refinance for our mortgage. So we had a deadline, and California Dreaming is not the place to go when you're in a hurry.

So yeah, Kurt and I refinanced our house (yay!), then headed back to Lindsay's. All four of us were POOPED. The boys took naps and Lindsay and I talked (I didn't want to miss any time with her!). Then we went back downtown that night to see more of the city.

On Sunday, Kurt and I said goodbye to the Jackman's and headed up to Chimney Rock in North Carolina. Much of The Last of the Mohicans was filmed in this park, but sadly, all those areas are closed due to renovations. Kurt and I hiked chimney rock (i.e., climbed LOTS of stairs), and beyond. The weather was cool and drizzly, which was actually perfect to make the hike easier for preggers here, and also to keep other tourists at bat. We enjoyed a yummy lunch in town, then headed back to Charleston. On the way home, we swung by the Greenville Art Festival to grab a print for Kurt's mom's mother's day present. On Friday night, we'd bought the first piece of art for our nursery--a bike print, of course.

And that's part one. What did we do the rest of the week? Stay tuned to find out!

Stuff

Actual activity posts coming soon! Because we've actually been doing things lately. I know, it's crazy, right!

I had all kinds of plans to re-do a lot of the rooms in my house this year. And then I found out that I'm pregnant, so that kinda changes things. Bathroom painting plans and living room lightening plans have been put on hold, delayed till probably next year. But I'm still going to be crazy busy. Here's what we have to do around the house:

-Guest Bedroom:

     -Rearrange. We're going to put a dresser in here for extra storage (we won't be able to fit one in the baby's room), so I think we're going to turn the bed into more a daybed by pushing it against the wall and moving the book cases to either side of it.

     -Paint. Okay, so we don't have to do this, but I've been wanting to, and rearranging the furniture gives us the perfect opportunity to temporarily dismantle it further so allow for painting.

     -Closet. Until now, I've been keeping it empty so that guests can hang clothes in it. However, no one's ever going to need the whole closet. In the meantime, we have a ton of stuff in the baby's room that can't be stored outside, but will need to be moved. So we're going to design some kind of shelving solution in 80% of the closet, while still leaving about 20% free for guest's clothes. 

-Our Bedroom:

     -Rearrange. I sleep on the side closest to the wall and farther from the door, so it generally disrupts Kurt every time I get up. Plus, I have no room for a nightstand. If we rearrange the room, I'll get my own dresser (yay!), and I'll have plenty of room between the bed and the wall and I'll be closer to the door, so I won't have to crawl down the length of the bed before getting out of it. 

     -Eventually, I'd like to paint the nightstands, but I think that will be a 2013 project.

-Nursery:

     -Currently known as the "back bedroom," this room serves as our indoor storage. We're going to have to get rid of everything in this room, and either distribute it among the remaining rooms (mostly the guest room and Kurt's office), or get rid of it entirely. 

     -Turn it into an actual, you know, nursery. The current plan for the room is rocking chair with pouf-ottoman, side table, crib, and a daybed. I don't think there will be room for more (and perhaps not even for the side table, but I think I can make it work). Why a daybed? One of the benefits of having been married to Kurt for 5 years (this Saturday!) before having a baby is that I know him extremely well. And I know that he does not do well with less than 6 or 7 hours of sleep (and really, he's best with his full 8, but he rarely sleeps more than that. He's a robot, I tell you). I however, do extremely well on little sleep. I chalk it up to years of sleeping problems/intermittent insomnia. During the week, Kurt has to go to work. I'm quitting my job at the end of September, so I'll be able to nap when the baby naps. So during the week, from the very get-go, I'll sleep in the baby's room and will get up with the baby. On the weekends though, Kurt's fair game for night/morning feedings. ^_^

     -So that means fashioning some type of day bed. I had hopes of building something awesome, but we've inherited some random doors, so might just make myself happy with using one as a back, and then skipping out on the arms of the daybed.

     -And my favorite part: decorating. I'm thinking navy with some kind of accent color, TBD by baby's gender. And a cycling theme. And I'll probably throw some gray in the there. I think I have a problem.  

-Kurt's Office:

     -Just being smarter with the storage system in there. There's a bunch of stuff in the nursery currently that could easily fit into the office. 

-Outdoor Sheds

     -Same thing with the nursery/Kurt's office. The name of the game is consolidate, organize, and trash. We have enough space for all of our junk, we just need to be smarter with how we store it. We also need to get rid of the stuff we no longer use.

Anyhow, this was mostly for my own, organizing purposes. Writing stuff out always helps organize my thoughts better. 

May/June Goals

Yeah, I'm not-so-much giving myself 10 days to accomplish goals this month. I wasn't even going to keep doing monthly goals. 1) The first 4 months of my pregnancy killed all energy and/or motivation. 2) Before our trip to SC, I had a hard time thinking about doing anything other than prepping for it. But now I'm back, feeling better than ever, and I'm ready to get stuff done. Because there's a lot we need to do before October 16th.

This month I will:
-Finish my WIP. I know, same song, same verse even. But did you know it's just as hard to write a novel while nauseous as it is to clean the kitchen? True story.
-Write a short story after I finish the novel (the novel should be done in about two weeks, so that gives me plenty of time for a short story)
-Do research for next book. Make tentative outline. (I'm a semi-outliner.) -- This is optional. We'll see how fast I get the short story done.
-Accomplish these house projects: kitchen curtains, guest room curtains, paint and upholster kitchen stools, make trash/recycling can cabinet-thing, make our headboard, rearrange our bedroom.
-Work out 4-6 days a week (don't worry, two days a week will be prenatal yoga and walking--not exactly strenuous exercise)
-Maintain a clean home. Because right now it's clean! And I want it to stay that way. Because maintenance is easier than letting it all go to pot, then trying to clean it all.

April Goals Recap

Oh, these make me laugh. Because I failed on all of them! And I don't even care. :)

-FINALLY FINISH MY WIP. Seriously, Kristina. Man up and get through this mid-novel slump, already!
-Also, finish my two curtain projects (guest room and kitchen).
-And lastly ... give up soda. I know, CRAZY RIGHT? But maybe it's time. I mean, it IS time. For reals, though.

Admittedly, that last one was a joke. A badly-executed, last-minute-attempt at an April Fool's Day joke that, I'm sure, didn't fool any of y'all. Because I'm still drinking the DDP every day. But in much smaller amounts, due to the baby in utero, and all that. :)