Sunday, June 12, 2005

The nesting period begins

At least, that's what I think this is. I think it might be a tad early to really feel it coming on, since I've heard it really comes on heavy in the third trimester. P, the eternal pessimist, thinks that we are both just sick to death of living in a constant state of clutter.

Maybe it's a little bit of both. All I know is, I am suddenly very very very aware that there will be a third person living in this house in little more than five months, and I really don't want this person to be subjected to the same messy state that P and I have accepted is our house for the last, oh, EIGHT YEARS since we've been living together. And life will be so much easier and pleasant if my house is clean, has a place for everything, and is pretty to look at!

I have read the Flylady book twice, and there is one thing that I have determined is key to decluttering your house-that is to decide to have a garage sale. P and I decided last weekend that with minimal effort we can accumulate enough stuff to have a garage sale in a month or two. Once you have a purpose in mind for things and know that it's not just being donated to Goodwill or being thrown out, it's a lot easier to decide to part with it. We designated a clean corner of our garage for garage sale items, and it's been growing and growing and growing over the past week. Add in the fact that we found out our neighbor behind us across the alley wants to have a garage sale this summer, and the deadline is in place so we can combine advertising and get as much people to our driveways on a certain day as possible. Anything that we don't sell, we'll donate to Goodwill. I have now made it my mission to declutter this entire house. Of course, this must be done before the house is painted anyway, so it really serves two purposes. But I'm starting with the main areas of the house...as soon as I finish decluttering and get it clean, P promised to remove the moldings and I can get started painting. We haven't decided on a color yet for the main areas, but it's going to be some variety of white. We're doing colors in every other room, but the main area is going to be some sort of white or stone color since it's going to cover the living room, dining room, entry and hall.

The garage is coming along very nicely. Our main obstacle is that we only have two trash receptacles, and when you are cleaning out the garage, those receptacles fill up very fast. But we're working on it. We bought a shelving system this week for the garage...the steel kind with wooden shelves, and P put it together today. We have two clamp thingys for the wall, but he hasn't put those up yet. I don't know...our neighbors behind us decided to start cleaning out their garage today too (hence the garage sale discussion) and they were marveling at how empty our garage was. Okay. We think it's a pit, but I guess it's all relative! Anyway, we're working on it slowly and it is getting there. The treadmill has been moved out there to its semi-permanent place until we decide what to do with it (at least with all this housework I don't feel guilty about not walking on it!) and when we get some more stuff cleared out, we'll move the weight rack to the wall and put the weights away. At some point in the next few weeks, we are going to buy a second shelving system, most likely for P's tools and nothing else, but we need to make more room for that. We have a lot of stuff, despite what our neighbors think!

The nursery is almost done. I think we should be ready for pictures next weekend. P finished installing the baseboards in the closet today and I put the first coat of Space Command Blue on the front of the bifold doors, which was harder than it looks. I didn't realize that painting bifolds was so difficult, but I should have...every time I estimate for it in an estimate, I always wonder why it's more expensive to paint bifolds than regular doors. Now I know why. Anyway, I have a feeling that because they are wooden doors, it's going to take three coats of paint to cover the grain of the wood, and because they are folding, I can only paint one side at a time. So this could be an all-week project. I'm going to paint the back side of the doors tomorrow night and put the second coat on the front side. My outlet covers arrived and look sensational, but somehow they don't cover the outlet holes quite like my old ones did and P had to do a little patchwork today, which will have to be painted again tomorrow and then the outlet plates installed on Wednesday. But I do have the switchplate and one outlet cover up and they look great. The blinds are up, but we still need to put the fan-style window shade up in the arch part of the window and hang the drapery hardware (note to self, wash drapes this week!) so I can put the drapes up, and I need to touch up the baseboards in the closet, but otherwise, we are close to done, and I even started putting some things in the closet today. I'm not hanging anything on the walls though just yet. Everything hinges on the dresser. I refuse to buy any more furniture until the dresser is in place, and I can't hang anything up until I know where the furniture is going to be placed. P promised me that he will work on the dresser again this week now that we have the garage somewhat cleared out, so we'll see how it goes. I just have to gently prod him. My hardware arrived this week too, and it's just as beautiful as I had hoped it would be.

And the masterpiece to be, which is the kitchen. When we went to Home Depot last week, we decided (in the middle of the cabinet displays) that our colors for our kitchen would be gray and white. Ha! We went from blues and yellows and a lighthouse theme (our original choices when we first moved into the house) to a monochrome gray and white color scheme. We actually have very good reasoning for doing that, mainly being that this will be the ONLY time the kitchen is remodeled while we live in it and thus, neutral is probably the way to go so we don't have any problems selling the house later. I still love my Artesia blue countertops that I selected years ago (I found the sample card tonight when I was cleaning the mantle) but I have to admit that not everyone loves blue countertops. Our choice of Brushed Pewter is probably a much more logical choice. After all, you can't paint Formica. Anyway, we met with the contractor, L, earlier this week, he took measurements, we showed him what we wanted and selected white cabinets, and put in the following requests...a new stainless steel double sink, new faucet, new disposal, knock out our linen closet and put in a full height cabinet instead, new range hood with built-in microwave, new single hung windows instead of the ugly slider we have now that lets in bugs, removal of the god-awful 1970s gold aluminum tile off our walls, and of course, replacement of the nasty wood grain Formica counters with the Brushed Pewter and all new cabinets since ours are agreeably beyond being saved. (By the way, we noticed that our neighbors have the IDENTICAL counters to us, so I guess Fox and Jacobs just went with that in bulk.) We're also going to do new sheet vinyl in our kitchen and utility room, but I think I'm going to hire someone else for that. L said that he would get back to us Monday with a final price and if it's not too much more than we have budgeted for, we're going to go for it and the demolition will start next week (the week of the 20th) which means that next weekend will be spent decluttering and packing the kitchen. We're talking sorting through pots, pans, going through the pantry, defrosting the freezer, you name it. It's going to be quite a project. It's a good thing I have tons of energy right now! After it's all done, we're going to paint the walls light gray and hang black and white framed prints on the wall. All my lighthouse stuff is going to go to my office...I've decided that a lighthouse theme would be perfect in here, especially since I've got Thomas Kinkade stuff back here already.

Okay, enough house stuff. If you've made it through this far, thank you for reading. I admit my typing all of that out was more for my sanity than anything else. I just have so much going through my brain right now! But it's all good...this decluttering project has been a LONG time coming. A long time coming indeed.

Other stuff going on right now...well, our air conditioning condensor unit broke this week, which sucked, but again, it's been a long time coming. The guy that came out to look at it was like, "I didn't even know Ducane made condensors!" (Ducane, the company that makes the huge barbeque grills that you see at Home Depot?) Anyway, $1,500 later, we have a brand-new condensor, but it is still freezing up, so I'm praying that our inside unit has not gone as well. We're getting the guys back out here to look at it tomorrow.

I had a very minor auto accident Friday in my company car. SO minor. I was in stop and go traffic, I looked down for a milli-second, and tapped the huge Ford 250 truck in front of me. No damage to his car of course, but his monster metal bumper ripped through the plastic bumper on mine. No way to repair it...the whole plastic piece will have to be replaced. My supervisor, the guy acting as my supervisor, and our office manager were not upset with me and everyone was way more worried about me and the baby than the Magnum, but I feel really really bad considering that the cost to repair the car is going to come out of our office's operating budget. Oh, well. Why couldn't I have done this to my Malibu or my Contour? Oh, no, I had to wait until I actually got a brand-new car that I like. But yes, I'm FINE....I was going maybe 4 miles an hour, so there was no whiplash or damage by the seatbelt or anything like that, and the guy I hit was really cool about it...he wouldn't even take my company card.

Work has been busy as usual, they won't approve overtime, and I'm on call this week starting at 4:30 pm tomorrow. 'Nuff said. It sucks right now.

This weekend was a lot of fun in more ways than one...of course, there was the decluttering project which consumed today, but Friday night we went out to Macaroni Grill with our friends J and N, and a new couple K and J, and then back to J and N's house for poker. P and I lost $17. Woo woo. Last night, we went over to S's house for Game Night, which was great fun as usual, but like a party poop, this pregnant woman crashed and burned on the couch at the end of the night. At least I had a good excuse. I do pretty good during the day, but my body really does know when enough is enough.

And as for the pregnancy update, well, I have nothing new to report. I feel great. I am fairly sure I am feeling the baby moving, but not with enough certainty yet to swear to it. I keep feeling things that feel like a kick to my side, but it's too early to feel feet yet, I think...my stepmom told me that the baby right now is the size of an onion and I think that's too early. I get tired frequently, but I'm being really good and taking frequent breaks and resting. I'm making sure to get at least eight hours of snooze time per night, I'm being very diligent with my prenatals and my allergy meds, and can you believe it, I had TWO people this week rub my tummy. Argh. I know that they won't be the last, and one of my friends was doing it to tease me because she knows it annoys me, but argh argh argh!!!

Wow. This was a long entry! The one area of my life right now that I don't have any updates on is my stitching. Right now I'm so unmotivated to stitch it's not even funny. I just feel like there are other things to consume my attention right now, and since I won't want to do much during the last trimester but sit with my feet up, I'm taking advantage of the energy and motivation now. New goal...to finish Noah's Submarine by September! I am reading more though...I finished The Andromeda Strain and started Sphere last night. I was sorely disappointed in The Andromeda Strain, but so far, Sphere is very good!

Well, time for bed. I have a long week at work this week, both professionally and at home! Tomorrow night I'm starting to declutter the dining room, and while it won't take AS long as the living room, there is a lot of stuff in there that needs to be lugged out to the garage.

Thanks for reading! Hope everyone has a great week!!!

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Check out http://www.freecycle.org to help get rid of stuff, too.

Lizzie
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/chain3turn/my_photos
http://www.livejournal.com/users/samplerlady/
http://literarylady.blogspot.com/
"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." Joseph Chilton Pierce

6:09 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

And when you're done with all your house decluttering and the baby is born, you'll decide you want to add a new hobby and scrapbook the life of your child. When that happens let me know. I'm thinking about becoming a Creative Memories consultant, but I need a couple potential clients first. :)

Glad to hear that all is going well. Sad that the only time we spend together lately is by reading blogs...

7:28 AM  
Blogger Erin (moviemuse) said...

I only ever had one person rub my belly, and she asked first. But, the best tip I ever heard on that was when someone reaches out and touches your belly, you reach out and touch theirs. Some will think it's funny, but most will be rather taken aback, just like you are when they do it. Sounds like the house is moving right along!

9:31 AM  
Blogger Sher said...

Erica, I have read almost all of Michael Crichton's books and they are all great! I am reading the newest one right now about Fear (I can't for the live of me remember the name of it). If Andromeda Strain disappointed you then don't watch the movie. LOL Sphere was great to read but the movies sucked.
Sounds like your pregnancy is coming along great. Your little one will be here before you know it. I can't wait to see pics of your Nemo Nursery.

2:31 AM  
Blogger Amy said...

Wow! You have been super-busy! Enjoy all the decluttering while it lasts...pretty soon you won't have time or energy for anything...heehee.

8:47 AM  

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