Pregnancy ramblings

The past week has been long and crazy. My grandfather who has been sick for quite some time passed away last Thursday.  He's no longer in pain, but we will miss him greatly. It's difficult to handle it all being so far away from the family, but we are together in prayer.

Over the last few days, Patrick and I have been trying to figure out our living situation.  There is a house that we can rent to own but of course it comes up after we already have a lease on a new apartment that we are supposed to move into in a few weeks.  But if it works out, I'd much rather have the house.  We'll need the room for guests.  It only needs cosmetic work, but overall it's great.  It has everything we need, plus the extras that aren't a must but that we always wanted like a small porch, side garage, and a corner lot.  So it's a lot to figure out within a short period of time, and along with family things and work, I really need to watch my stress level for the baby.

So this is a random post.  But I also wanted to talk about some pregnancy symptoms that drive me nuts: Shortness of breath, and acid reflux.  The worst! Feeling short of breath is I guess mental, because I'm still getting the oxygen I need, but it feels like I can't catch my breath. And it makes you feel desperate to breath.  At first I thought maybe I was getting short on breath because I was eating too quickly.  Or walking a bit too much out in this Texas heat without enough water.  But really, it starts up out of nowhere these days. Thanks progesterone!  Acid reflux is another pain. There are certain foods I need to avoid now, or keep to a minimum, or pop a Tum's prior to eating it if I REALLY have to have it.  Pretty much everything I love to eat can give me reflux haha. For example, I am most upset about having to cut back on these: fried foods (like Whataburger), chips (Lay's Chile Limon), ice cream, and orange juice (which I used to drink every morning during the first few months of pregnancy without a problem). I know, most of those are bad for me and I should avoid them all the time anyway.

And about being pregnant in Texas during the summer months: the heat makes you cramp up (makes my belly so tight and uncomfortable.. maybe the baby is trying to hide from the brightness?). It helps to drink tons of water when I'm outside.  Usually on the drive to work I'll down my cup of water, and I'll always take an apple with me in case I need to eat it on the way because even with the a.c. the sun is just too much. I've only been in my bathing suit for Memorial Day and Fourth of July this summer, so I haven't had to worry too much about getting burnt.  Last time we went to a Ranger's game was fine.  We totally prepared and brought tons of water and fruit.  But the time before that was horrible.  I was short on breath the whole time.  We brought one water and even though we were mostly in the shade I was miserable and didn't think I'd make it past the 3rd, but I toughed it out and stayed til the end.  We should go to another game soon before things start getting hectic.

Clothes are interesting.  I don't look as pregnant in the clothes that I can still fit in from before.  I look really pregnant in pregnancy tops.  Other than maternity bottoms, I can't zip my jeans at all so I use rubber bands to keep them closed. And the scrubs I wear to work have become too tight an uncomfortable, so I wear the scrub top about twice a week and our work t-shirt the rest of the time.

I'm 30 weeks tomorrow!  And the baby kicks and kicks... sometimes it feels like it's got all limbs stretched out at once and it's just poking me everywhere. At times I think the baby is trying to flip in there instead of slowly getting into another comfortable position. Other times I get jabbed/kicked for minutes at at time, and when it's in the same spot sometimes it starts to tickle. Those little bones must be getting strong because when the baby kicks for like 30 minutes the area gets a little sore.  It's nothing you can't bare, and it's totally awesome feeling the baby being so active.  But I wonder how it's going to be over the next 2 months.. OMG I'm almost 8 months.

Mosaic Tile DIY

So we have this bookshelf that we turned on its side to use for our tv in the living room. It's got 8 cubbies, and only came with enough backing to cover whichever 2 cubbies we wanted. I got tired of being able to see through them and the mess of cables. I thought I'd buy a 12" x 12" mosaic tile with a really awesome pattern from the store, attach it to some wood, and then to the back of my cubbies.  But I didn't want to spend that much (even though that could also be fairly low cost).  Then somehow I thought of this: painting wooden sticks and attaching them to a poster board.  Now, I didn't have a clue how that would turn out or how long-lasting it'd be, but I figured that it would at least be a fun project. Plus major bonus:  the materials are so incredibly cheap!  I wouldn't be too upset if it didn't turn out as I envisioned it. So here's how it looks in our "entertainment center":

DIY mosaic in back of shelf  (left of the owl)

Supplies (Less than $5.00):

1. Bottle of glue - Elmer's or Tacky Glue ( I used tacky glue because that's what I had laying around and I'm comfortable with how it works.)

2. Paint - any paint/glazes/stains you have.  I used small acrylic paints that I got for like $0.30 on sale. I mixed my own colors to have more variety.

3. A brush - I used about a 1" brush and I was able to paint 2 sticks at once to speed up the process a bit.

4. Popsicle sticks - these come in multiple sizes, choose whichever you'd like.  Mine are the 1/2" wide. I found them at Michael's and I used a coupon so I spent less than $3.00 for a pack of 500.. don't know if I'll ever use them all but I probably won't have to restock on these for a very long time!

5. Poster board - yeah, like the $0.25 poster board! One sheet covered 2 of my cubbies (each about 1' x 1'). You might want something sturdier, but this worked just fine for me.  I chose white, but if you're trying to go for a look that is all different shades of one color, I'd go with the poster board in a similar color.

6. Scissors, pencil, ruler

7. Cup of water and paper towels to clean brush in between colors.

8. Nails and hammer (if you plan on attaching to the back of a bookshelf like mine).

HOW TO:

1. Lay out your poster board.  I used the same board to paint the sticks and then attach them on.

2. Cut your sticks. This is the not so fun part, so get it out of the way now.  I wanted all of my sticks to be rectangular, and at least the sticks that I found had rounded corners.  So you can volunteer a partner if you want for this ;).  If you have a chopper of some sort, that might save you some time.  I just used plain old scissors and help from hubby to cut these corners off.

3. Get your paint on! I actually decided to water down my paints a bit so you can still see the grains from the sticks just a bit (bonus: you'll use less paint and have leftovers for more projects).  The possibilities here are endless.  I decided I wanted a bright punch of color for ours. So I have a little bit of every color, and added a few bronze and silver pieces for a some shine. A little glitz can't hurt!

Maybe you want to do shades of browns, or cooler tones.  I turned a close-up of mine into sepia so you can see how it might look if you wanted to do all browns (which I really like and would like to do for a different project):

Paint, paint, paint.  By the time you move on to using a different colors, your first ones will be dried. You don't really need to worry about drying time for these especially if you don't glob on the paint - easy does it.

4. Measure out where your piece is going. Then draw it out on your poster board.

5. Here's how I attached the pieces: I wanted an offset look.  So I started with 3 different stick sizes; the full length, 2/3 of the length, and 1/2 of the length (I eyeballed these measurements).

I started with a full length stick on the bottom left border and glued my way over to the right.  In my case, the sticks hung over the edge when I got to the right. I marked with a pencil where it should stop, cut, and glued.  Depending on what size or pattern you're going for, maybe you won't have that problem! 

On the next row, I used a stick that was 2/3 of the length, glued my way over to the right, marked and cut if there was any hangover.  On the next row, I used a stick that was 1/2 of the full length, and glued my way to the right. Then on the third row, I used a full length stick again. And repeat.

There might be an easier way, but I started this project late at night and I refused to stop until I finished, so maybe I wasn't thinking as clearly as I would have earlier in the day.  

6. Then when I let it dry for about 10 minutes just to make sure those last few rows were really attached, I cut the poster board about 1" around the tile because in my case, I still had to attach this to the back of my bookshelf and that was just enough space so I could nail it down. Patrick nailed the poster board to the back of the bookshelf while I made sure it was nice and level, and ta-dah!

I really, really want to do a radial pattern to hang as art on the wall using this same technique.  And maybe add a circle mirror on the inside.  There are so many possibilities with this.  It's simple and fun, kids can have a blast with this and you can turn all those painted sticks into anything. Maybe a frame for their artwork? Lay some mod podge over it and create a place mat? Coasters?

Linked on Clean & Scentsible

Fabrics

I have a coupon to Joann and since I want to make a pillow for the rocking chair we stopped by on this strangely cool and rainy evening. I was looking for something red and blue but I fell in love with this cute animal fabric. It's the closest to a wallpaper I really liked online. Since it's flannel I think we will just turn that into a baby blanket, so we got a yard. And we only got one foot of the blue fabric with white circles for the pillow. Any leftover scraps I can frame or maybe use to make the mobile. And once the baby is here I can mod podge his or her initials in red onto the pillow. I also decided to make a new label for my posts, 'to do', so I can go back and.. look at everything I have left to do!

Nursery Ideas

So I put together I little mood board on my computer with some of the things we've already bought, things we have but need to be finished, and a couple of extras I'd like to have. 

My nursery mood board July 13, 2013. Click image to enlarge within page.

Here's where you can find the things we bought at Ikea:

Curtains: LAPPLJUNG  |  Rug: BÄLUM  |  Blanket: Gurli

We have the dresser, which will become the changing table, but we haven't finished it yet. We are going to paint the drawers in gradient shades of turquoise and add some cute glass knobs, or maybe paint the current knobs the same color as the drawer it's on.

We bought the rocking chair but that also needs to be finished.  My inspiration came from KFD Designs - she's incredible and you should definitely check out her blog.. you'll be there forever.  I'm not sure if I'll be simply adding a pillow or if I'll try to re-upholster the chair.  For now though, I think making a cute pillow cover for one of our existing cushions will have to do.

This is the crib I want: it's from Storkcraft and I found it at Walmart.

*-*-*

I'd like to add some cute frames in different shades of turquoise.  I want to leave some empty and some with some simple gray and white drawings of animals I'd make, some elephants, giraffes, whales, owls, penguins, etc., with little hints of blue and red if it feels right.

I also want to make 2 simple paintings, each with a different quote.  One from Dr. Seuss: 

"We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutual weirdness and call it love."

And some lyrics from "Make you Feel my Love". I absolutely love this song and Patrick's youngest brother played it on the piano at our wedding:

"I could make you happy, make your dreams come true. Nothing that I wouldn't do. Go to the ends of the Earth for you. To make you feel my love." 

So.......................... I think that's it? Whew. Glad I organized all my ideas in one place so that now I just need to follow through with everything I want to do.

Rocking chair

I have been wanting one of these bentwood chairs for a while now. Finally decided to check craigslist again and found one a little further from home than we would have liked, but it was $20.00. So today we met the seller at a Best Buy and picked it up! They were a young couple who was also expecting, so I guess the chair just wasn't their style. But I'm sure happy about it! Although Patrick didn't want to buy it right now since we are moving in a month, I didn't want to run the risk of not finding another deal like this. Plus I want to use it as soon as the nursery is set up!

And soon I'll post what I plan to do with the chair and if I go through with it I'll definitely be showing my process.

Exciting!

Two years later..

I think I'll be treating this blog as a diary of our lives.  It was interesting to come back to this after two years, and see what I was up to then.  So if I can keep up this blog, in a few years we can look back and remember everything we've accomplished.

In my last post I mentioned that I was making a painting for my boyfriend, so I'll start there.  After 4 and a half years of dating, Patrick proposed on 6/11/11. I remember that week was one of the best birthday weeks.  Although I don't remember all of the details, I do know that it was one of the most relaxed and happy birthdays I've had in a long time.  

We wanted to get married quickly since we had already been dating for so long, and we also really wanted to move in together. We didn't want a big event so we didn't need much time to plan, but we were both working full time and I was taking 2 classes at UTA. So we planned the wedding for October 29, 2011. The number 29 seems to be a lucky number in my family, and me and Patrick always celebrated our anniversaries on 12/29. October 29th fell on a Saturday - perfect! Our church was able to work us in at 10:00 a.m. that day. And we tied the knot! We didn't want too many guests; we really wanted an intimate wedding.  Understandably many family members wanted to come, so as a compromise we invited all friends and family to the wedding ceremony at the church.  We had cute little cupcakes in cupcake domes to give away to everybody that went to the church. However, to save my parents some money, we wanted our reception to stay at 50 people so we rented a small room at the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens. Immediately after the wedding ceremony we all drove over the the gardens to take pictures and then had a light but delicious lunch.  We said our thank yous to everyone and quickly had to leave because we had a flight to catch at 5:00 p.m. Even though we were both working and I was in school we really wanted to go on a short honeymoon because we were afraid if we didn't go immediately, we'd never make it.  So my parents drove us home to change and grab our bags, and we made it to the airport early enough to even grab a drink at the bar, and off we went to Puerto Rico.  

We made it around midnight and took a taxi to our hotel, the Intercontinental, which was very close to the airport and on the beach.  Since it was Halloween weekend we people-watched from our room and had a few laughs. We got changed and walked around the casino and then took a walk down to the shore.  And we finally made it to bed sometime that morning! 

We were only there until Tuesday night (VERY short trip) but in that time we were able to relax! We would walk to Walgreen's and buy us some snacks and drinks to take back to the hotel.  We bought dominoes and played by the beach on a rainy night.  We took a taxi to El Morro, and if that wasn't enough, our taxi driver was pretty cool and made a stop a local park by the beach so we could take a few pictures. After the fort we walked around Old San Juan. All in all, it was just a great experience we will never forget.

After the wedding, a lot of things have changed in our lives.  UTA is so expensive, and for the most part the classes I needed for architecture were 5hr studios and extremely time consuming.  So to take one class at a time in order to be able to still work, I didn't qualify for financial aid and had to pay out of pocket.  This would take me forever to graduate.  So finally, I made the switch to art major. Although I'm not that thrilled about it, I have been going to school for so long that I just felt I had no choice but to switch and be able to get my bachelor's faster. Art is something I love, and my experience in architecture does apply and so did some of my credits. Initially I thought I would have my concentration in graphic design/visual communication.  However, I took a clay class this Spring and I kind of fell in love.  If I'm going to spend so much money at school, I might as well be really excited about what I'm doing.  But I haven't made the official switch over to clay because...

I'm pregnant! I'm 28 weeks today and so excited because this baby keeps kicking and kicking and I'm pretty sure will have our hands full with a super active baby once he or she is born.  We decided not to find out the sex, because for some reason I never really wanted to know.  It doesn't really matter if we have a boy or girl, as long as they are healthy.  And honestly, it's turned out to be fun having people guess whether I'm carrying a boy or girl - most are guessing boy as of now.  But since Patrick's sister is also pregnant (6 weeks ahead of me, yay!!!) with a girl, most of his family is just wanting a boy and maybe that's why they're thinking boy.  Patrick wanted to find out but is respecting my wishes, even though I said if he really, really wanted to find out we could.  He wants a boy, and I always thought I'd have a girl first.  So maybe the anticipation of finding out whether we'll be buying a lot of pink or blue will make labor a tad bit more fun.  

A lot of people aren't very excited about not knowing because they want to buy us so many cute things.  But I'm hoping this works out great because when it comes time to have our baby shower, if people can't find cute gender neutral clothes, we'll get things we actually need!  *Fingers crossed.* I'll keep you posted on that.

Hmm.. that was a lot to write! Here's a quick summary:

• Tied the knot
• Living with Bella our dog and Ralphy the turtle.
• New car - bye bye '91 Accord, hello '07 Civic - woot woot!
• Changed from architecture to art major
• I left a great job with a horrible boss and working a slow job but with an awesome boss!
• Expecting first baby - healthy and strong btw <3
• Thrilled to meet our first niece, Avery, next month :)
• Patrick is about to switch jobs and we are very excited!
• Booth at an antique mall for a few months - lots of fun
• Lots and lots of Texas Rangers games attended, even in 100+ degree weather
• Trip to New Orleans to watch the Saints vs 49ers game - 49er win
• Lots of Call and Duty/Madden/FIFA played by Patrick
• Several trips to Winstar and Shreveport to get away!
• Almost weekly Whataburger trips.. mmm (:

So much has happened.. I'd say at least those are some highlights in case we forget someday.

Let's try this again

So I only created two posts, two years ago. And I decided, with a little encouragement from my co-worker, to start my blog.  Right now, I'm laying in bed next to my sleeping husband, feeling my 27 week young baby move around for pretty much the last 2 hours. Although pushing on my bladder means I need to work my way out of bed yet again for a potty trip, feeling my little monster is pretty incredible. And trying to figure out whether I'm getting punched, kicked or headbutted is so fun!! Amazing how my mood can change to happy/happier with each little jab or kick.

Maybe baby is dancing around to the sound of Patrick's snoring! I'm going to grab some food and maybe he or she will settle down for a nap. :) <3

For now I'll post a picture of the final product of the painting I posted before. And soon I'll try to summarize how my life has changed over the past few years...