Blue!

I started painting the bathroom last Saturday, and got as far as finishing the first coat.  I was sitting down, taking a break and waiting for the paint to dry when I started feeling not so great.  "Not so great" rapidly turned into "I think I'm dying" and I didn't have the energy to even think about paint brushes again until yesterday.  (Yesterday, I decided that chocolate chip cookies were more important.  We made chocolate chip cookies.)  So for a full week, our main bathroom looked like this:

You can't really tell in the picture, but it really needed a second coat of paint.  Trust me, I definitely considered trying to get away with leaving it at one, because regardless of what I said before, I did think about this bathroom needing to be finished.  I thought about it every time I wanted to use it, but couldn't, or needed something out of those drop-cloth-covered cabinets.  But that's beside the point, which is that I got in there this morning and finished it, and when the paint was dry, Brandon helped me to get it put back together.  YAY!!! This is what it looks like now:

 

I love it!  Love it, love it, LOVE it!  It's so nice to have some color in the house.  It really makes me want to tackle another room, but  I've had enough painting for a while.  Besides, I haven't been able to make up my mind about any other colors.


Random pictures of Elora:
This is what she was doing a few days ago, when she was supposed to be taking a nap:

Instead of gently scolding her and putting her right back in bed, I went and got the camera.  Then I put her back in bed.  Can you blame me?

PS:  I'm not at 100% yet, but I'm getting there, and Brandon's shoulder is much better.  He probably shouldn't have messed with the mirror or the cabinet in that bathroom, but it ended up being ok.

Down for the Count

Well, for now anyway.  The last couple of weeks have been interesting for us.  In the 25 days since the start of the new year, I have made three trips trips to the ER, and many more trips to see various doctors.  Everyone got sick while we were in FL; Brandon and Elora got sick right before we had to leave to come home.  My mom and I spent New Year's Day in the ER with Elora, because she was running a 102° fever and refused to eat, drink, or take Tylenol, while Brandon spent that day in bed with the same fever.  (At least I could get him to take something for it.).   They both seemed to be getting better, until precisely a week later, when Elora broke out in giant hives for no apparent reason and we spent another few hours in the ER.  

They gave us some Benadryl for her, and they did quit coming back after a few days but she continued to be abnormally fussy and lethargic.  Then, when we followed up with her doctor a few days later, we found out that #1, the hives were likely caused by the same virus that had her in the ER the first time, and #2, that she had infections going in both ears.   Who knew?  She should have been screaming constantly, but she was only fussy and lethargic.  That child is a tank, I swear.  Anyway, the doc put her on a round of antibiotics and she started to improve almost immediately.  Which is good, because then I started to get sick.  It was minor at first, and went away after a few days.  Saturday night, it came back out of no where and hit me with all the force of an out-of-control speeding MAC truck.  It hasn't eased up in the least since then, but at least now (after a visit to my OB doc) I have a better cough syrup that should at least let me sleep at night.  And then, to top it all off, we had to take Brandon in to the ER last night because he somehow injured his shoulder and was in so much pain he couldn't stand up straight.  (More thanks to Rebekah, who came over at 10 o'clock last night to stay with Elora while we went to the hospital--even though her husband was going out of town this morning and she had to be up at 4 to drop him off.)  At this point, he's still popping both Vicodin and Mortin to control the pain, and I am still downing Robitussin and Tylenol at regular intervals just to stay vertical.  At least Elora seems to be at 100%, for now.  

All of that, just in the last 25 days...  If I cry "uncle", do you think maybe the universe will let up on us for a bit?  Ugh.  I'm thinking that I'm just going to stay down on the mat and take it easy for a bit, at least through the count of 10.  Hopefully, then, I'll be back in fighting form by the time I go into labor.

It hasn't been all bad, though.  My pregnancy is going just fine (thank you God), and there has been a lot of up in with all the down. 

Looks Good Enough to Eat!

The amazingly talented Jess over at Insanely Crafty is doing a Valentine's Day give-away!  I have no idea where she found the time to put together this little gem, being a brand-new mommy and all, but then I've already told you she's amazing.  Head on over to her blog for your own chance to win this garland, and if you've never seen her blog before, you should totally take the time to snoop around a bit.  It's worth it.  :)

Thanks, Jess!

We Got the Nursery Painted!!

Well, mostly.  I ran out of paint at the very end, so the corner by the door still needs its second coat.  But for all practical purposes, it's done!  You remember what it looked like before, right?  Totally drab.  But now it's a nice, cheerful yellow.  I love it!

 

I bought the paint on Sunday, thinking that we would tackle it next weekend.  Then I found out that  Brandon would be off from work on Monday.  The initial plan was to trade off between the two of us, with one working on the nursery and the other entertaining Elora.  But then Rebekah called and offered to come over and help, so Brandon got put on permanent Elora detail and Rebekah and I tackled the room together. 

We got a late start though, because after opening the paint and putting a bit on the wall, I decided that it was way too pale.  I'd been deliberating between 2 shades, chosen the darker one, and then chickened out at the last minute and got the lighter one.  Bah.  So, as soon as Rebekah got here, we headed out to Lowe's to have them add more pigment to the paint.  And since we were out, I decided that I had to have some Dairy Queen (I have been craving their chocolate ice cream like crazy).  And Brandon was hungry, so we stopped and got him some lunch at Firehouse.  After all that, it was about 3 in the afternoon.  It was a good thing that I'd already taped everything off that morning, and that there were two of us to work on it.  Thanks to Rebekah, we were able to finish it that evening, and get it all put back together for Elora to sleep in her room that night.  Hooray!

And now that I have color on the wall in one room, I want to get color on the walls elsewhere, too.  I think that when I go to get the pint of paint that I need to finish the nursery, I'm also going to get paint for the big bathroom.  Maybe that's what we'll do this weekend.  ^_^

Did you notice the poster in the nursery?  Sara and I colored this together about 10 years ago.  We started it Thanksgiving weekend of our junior year in high school.  I'm not sure how long it took us to finish it, but I know we spent hours working on it.  When it was done, I had it laminated to protect it, and I've been toting it around with me ever since, just waiting for me to have kids to enjoy it.  Aside from the fairies by the closet, it's the only decoration up in her room.  We still need to get a dresser and the crib in there, after all, and I don't want to put everything up until I know where things are going to be.  But it was awfully boring in there, and I didn't think 4 wee holes would be too bad.  And besides, I love this poster.  Thanks, Sara, for letting me have custody of it.  :)

Creative Decorating

I know I've promised Christmas pictures, and that will still happen.  Eventually.  I'm just overwhelmed by the volume of pictures that I need to sift through.  So, I'm sharing this with you instead.

I'm decorating our guest bedroom in burgundy, gold and ivory.  I have a comforter set (thanks again, Rebekah!!), and I have quite a bit of smaller decor items to go with it, but not much of anything for the walls.  But, I also had this poster that my sister gave me for my birthday (or Christmas, or something) years ago, probably before I even moved out of my mom's house.  I've always loved the pictures in this poster; they appeal to my sense of fantasy and romance.  I've just never had a good place to put it.  Then I realized that the colors go really well with the other things I have going in the guest room, so I decided to finally do something with it. 

I pulled out my paper rotary cutter (I have a separate one for fabric) and mat, ripped the shrink wrap off of the poster, and cut out each of the 3 pictures.  Then I went looking for frames.  The pictures are a weird size, so I knew that while I might be able to use a standard frame size, I'd have to do the matting myself.  I managed to find three matching 11" x 14" frames on clearance at Garden Ridge, and I snatched them up.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make use of the matting that came with the frames (I tried and failed) so I had to do something else.  I ended up using art paper from Michael's, cut to 11" x 14".  I didn't even need to cut windows in my "mats"; each picture has a very narrow dark gray border, and I left a 1/4" white margin around that, so it looks like an inner mat.  I just taped my prints down on the art paper and threw them in the frames.  All totaled, I spent only about $25 and I now have a series of three framed pictures to hang above the bed in my guest room. 

Similiarly, I have an old 2007 fairy art wall calendar that Staria gave me while we were down in Florida.  She saved it for me so I could take it apart for the pictures, and that's exactly what I did.  So far, I've only used one of the pictures. 

My bathroom is done in mostly deep brown and ivory, and I switch between using a set of blue and a set of green towels. This particular picture was perfect, because it brought in all of those colors, and will look good regardless of which towels we happen to be using.  I found the frame for this one at Garden Ridge at the same time I found the others, and just like the others, it ended up being perfect.  It almost looks as if it were designed to go with my shower curtain.  I was able to modify the mat that came with the frame for this one, though it is more narrow than it should be.  (Yes, I do know that the mat should be at least as wide as the molding, but I was making do.)  I think it looks good anyway, and it looks fantastic in my bathroom.  The empty place above my towel rack is empty no more.

I have another couple of the pictures from that calendar flagged, but I'm not sure yet exactly what I'll do with them.  One of them might just end up on another wall of the guest room.  :)