November 18, 2010
A first look at the nursery
So, the last two months have been a flurry of getting the rest of the house ready so that when Mom and Dad visited in November, I could use all of Mom’s great decorating powers to help me figure out what to do with the nursery. I had been thinking about royal blue, lime green and brown, but other than that, and the fact that I would need a crib, I didn’t know what the heck I would do.
So, Mom and Dad were here for an extended weekend last weekend, and we got right down to business. The biggest part of their visit was a trip to IKEA on Sunday, where we spent six and a half hours shopping for all kinds of things — new kitchen table and chairs; new office furniture, because I was moving my computer and books out of the nursery; dressers and a for the guest bedroom, to replace the removed closet (photos of that once the drywall is repaired and painted); and nursery furniture. It was a long day — my pedometer measured more than 3.5 miles by the time we got in the truck.
But we found adorable fabrics and a pillow to build the nursery around. It’s the Barnslig pattern, and Mom will make a wall hanging out of the fabric with the white background and curtains out of the one with the stripes.
We also bought the Mammut crib, a cute, kind of cartoony crib with big feet and rounded edges. They don’t show it on their website, so I can’t link to it, and I haven’t assembled it, so photos will come later. It converts to a toddler bed when the time is right, so I hope it will last a while. Here’s a link to other Mammut products, so you can get a feel for the style.
I happened to be in Lowe’s the other day and saw some great fabric baskets, covered in lime green and royal blue! Perfect for diapers, changing supplies, burp cloths, etc.
Now that I’ve picked fabric, I won’t be using brown as an accent color; I’m going to paint the walls a light gray and the built-in bookcases will be returned to their original white. (Painting over the brown should be loads of fun. Not.)
And, while at IKEA, I picked out this chair. It’s not really a rocker, but it does have a little bounce to it, so it will be good for midnight feedings and, later, bedtime stories.
Most of the home repairs are almost done, so I hope to focus on the nursery in December and be all set by the time I get too big to want to do any manual labor. Then I have to figure out what I need to put on my registry! I hope my sister and I will be able to work on that a little bit over Thanksgiving. My nieces are three and one, so she knows what moms can’t live without! If you have any ideas, or want to share the tools/furniture/etc. that you couldn’t live without, let me know!
November 8, 2010
We don’t need no stinkin’ closet
So, in talking with Mom about a month ago, she revealed her secret plan for the guest bedroom where she and Dad stay when they are in town. Since I hope they’ll be spending more time here with me and Buster, I certainly want them to be comfortable. Her thought was to rip out the closet, which would give them much more floor space, which would allow for small dressers/nightstands on either side of the bed. Then, we’d also add an armoire on the wall opposite the bed for some hanging space. That seemed perfectly practical and do-able — nevermind that it had to be done before the new carpet installation (scheduled for November 10), or that I was four months pregnant.
I am surrounded by wonderful friends and Andrew was quick to offer his assistance. After hearing about the week he had had, I think I was doing him a service to give him the chance for some demolition therapy.
The closet is basically a box attached to the corner of the room, so it was relatively easy to rip out the corner bead, drywall and 2 by 4s. (I say relatively easy, since Andrew and his tools of destruction did most of the work and I just picked up pieces and put them in garbage bags.) It took us about two and a half hours, including a break for dinner. I’d say that the self-satisfied smirk on his face is from a job well done, but he pretty much smirks like that all the time. (Love ya, Andrew!)
Because I loathe drywall repair, I’m hiring my handyman to do the patching and repair where the walls and ceilings are exposed. And then with a little bit of paint and some new baseboard, we’ll be all set for a shopping trip to IKEA for furniture. Mom and Dad will be here for Thanksgiving, and we’re planning a trip for nursery and guest bedroom furniture.
October 25, 2010
Lordy, Lordy, look who’s forty!
Well, it was a big birthday weekend! I turned 40 on Friday and celebrated with a great dinner with even greater friends. I was roasted and toasted, and wishes for the next stage of my life were bestowed upon me. Special thanks to my bestest friends Jen and Robyn for helping organize. Here I am with the fabulous cake Jen ordered for my birthday. It was exciting to have a real, live bakery cake, not just a sheet cake from a grocery. And it was delicious — white cake with white chocolate ganache and strawberry filling, with buttercream icing. I am going to freeze a few slices so my parents and I can enjoy a celebration when they visit at Thanksgiving.
After working a race on Saturday morning, I headed down to Bloomington for the Laherty’s hopefully-to-be-annual fall fun and games party. There was a ton of food, a fun survival adventure course through the property, corn hole, horseshoes, bobbing for apples, and of course, hayrides on Matt’s tractor. It was a great time, and it ended with a small group of us chatting around the campfire into the wee hours (well, wee hours for me — 10:30 or so!)
If the rest of my forties is as great as the first few days of my forties, I will be a lucky woman. I have never felt like my life is more on track. Between my big promotion to VP earlier this year and the birth of my son next year, as well as being surrounded by great friends and family, I feel happier and healthier than I ever have!
October 5, 2010
17 Weeks
It was hard to figure out when to start posting pictures of the baby bump. I’m never going to be a swimsuit model, and the hormones for the IVF procedure had already padded my belly a bit, so it was hard to tell when it stopped being me and started being the baby.
But I can certainly tell a difference, at least in the way it feels, if not in the way it looks. Last week I was laying on my stomach trying to coax a cat out from under the bed, and things were definitely firmer than they had been, like there’s really something besides donuts and beer.
On Friday I’ll have an ultrasound to get a good look at all the internal organs and bones, measuring things and making sure that everything is developing the way it should be. And I’ll also find out the gender so I can stop referring to it as “it.” Look for an update soon!
September 18, 2010
Another big endeavor
Okay, so it’s nothing like single motherhood, but here’s another big project I’m embarking on. It’s a counted needlework project called Twister. It’s huge — the canvas is 24 inches square and the design area is 18 inches square. I bought the pattern book a long time ago — it’s 102 pages! — but I’ve been a little daunted by the project. But, I have worked my way through a lot of smaller projects and decided I was ready to jump in. A few months ago, I spent a lot of time at my favorite stitch shop, Persnickety Stitchers in Zionsville, figuring out the colors and threads I wanted to use.
The canvas, stitching book, and my selected colors.
I decided to use regular DMC embroidery floss, in part for the range of colors available and the cost — each skein is less than a dollar. Other fibers can be a lot more expensive, and with as much canvas as there is to cover, I thought I’d economize there. Twister uses two ranges of colors from light to dark, with seven colors in one range and eight in the other. I decided on light blue to royal blue and light gray to black.
I’m not sure how long it will take me to finish the project. I found an old Flickr stich-along group with a schedule that suggested nine months. I had originally been envisioning that it will take me years, and it may still do that, as I have a number of other stitching projects that need to be completed, including two Christmas stockings for my youngest niece and my baby. But, it’s nice to have some frame of reference. Most of the people who commented on the stitch-along group also took longer than the planned nine months.
The first step was to trace the pattern on the canvas and get all my threads prepared and organized, so now I’m ready to go! Each section in each block is stitched with a different pattern, so I can’t wait to try them all! I’m going to try to keep track of the number of hours I work on this, so I can see how long it really took. I’ll post updates as I go!
June 22, 2010
Some random trivia
This is from one of those e-mails circulating the Internet, but there were many here that I hadn’t heard. And, I’ve added a few of my own at the bottom.
- Debra Winger was the voice of E.T.
- Pearls melt in vinegar.
- The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
- It’s possible to lead a cow upstairs, but not downstairs.
- Humans are the only primates that don’t have pigment in the palms of their hands.
- Ten percent of the Russian government’s income comes from the sale of vodka.
- The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the alphabet. (Developed by Western Union to test telex/two communications.)
- The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is “uncopyrightable.”
- “Stewardesses” is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.
- No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
- A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why.
- The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
- The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the “American Pie” (thus the name of the Don McLean song).
- 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
- Clans of long ago that wanted to get rid of their unwanted people without killing them used to burn their houses down – hence the expression “to get fired.”
- Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, 1776: John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn’t added until five years later.
- An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
- The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
- The name “Jeep” came from the abbreviation used in the army for the “General Purpose” vehicle, G.P.
- The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
- Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
- If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
- All of the clocks in the movie “Pulp Fiction” are stuck on 4:20.
- The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
- Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
- The mask used by Michael Myers in the original “Halloween” was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
- If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.
- Snails can sleep for three years without eating.
- Actor Tommy Lee Jones and Vice President Al Gore were freshman roommates at Harvard.
- The fingerprints of koala bears are virtually indistinguishable from those of humans, so much so that they could be confused at a crime scene.
- Any month that begins on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.
- James Doohan, who played Lt. Commander Montgomery Scott on Star Trek, was missing the entire middle finger of his right hand.
- The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
- There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
A few I’ve learned recently:
- The dots on dice are called pips. The dot over the letter “i” is a tittle.
- The only words in the English language that begin with the letters “dw” are dwell, dwindle and dwarf.
What are your favorite pieces of random and/or useless trivia?
March 4, 2010
In celebration of National Grammar Day, some commonly misused words
National Grammar Day isn’t usually a day for greeting cards or gift exchanges, but I have a little gift for you! Yesterday I spoke at an Indiana University School of Journalism PR writing class and shared with the students a pretty big collection of commonly confused words and grammar problems. I had a lot of fun, and it appeared that the kids did too (it might have something to do with the chocolate I threw at the kids when they answered questions, even if they were wrong).
Then I was able to visit with a lot of the professors and staff who I had both taken classes from and then worked with for three years after I graduated. Ernie Pyle Hall has changed a lot — the library no longer has actual books, but a lot of computer workstations for research. The classrooms I studied and taught in are relatively unchanged, except for “The Pit,” a classroom in the photo lab area of the building that used to be more like a basement — no windows and you had to go down a flight of stairs into it. Now, it’s all on the main level and it’s full of windows. A lovely room, but I was a bit disturbed by the number of professors who told me that all the bodies are buried there. Their story sounded a little too rehearsed. 
So, as my gift to you, click the Read More link to see the list of commonly misused words on the blog, or click here to download a PDF that you can use for your own reference!
Read the rest of this entry »
February 3, 2010
Catching the Colts Fever
The Indianapolis Colts are headed to the Super Bowl again this weekend, and I’m about to run out of blue clothing. Guess I’ll need to do a little shopping next week when they reclaim the title.
In the meantime, we’ve be doing a lot of cheering at our office and you can watch our video here:
Friday we’re having a blue food pitch-in — so far a lot of people have signed up for cookies and cupcakes with blue icing. One person is bringing salad with blue cheese. I suspect we will all still be on a sugar high for Sunday’s game!
Go Colts!
January 16, 2010
Help for Haiti
I’ve been on vacation from the blog for a while and kept meaning to post things about my trip to Park City, Utah, for Christmas and New Year’s, and then my subsequent trip to Wilmington, North Carolina, to help my mom and dad while he recovers from a knee replacement. But that all seems a little insignificant in light of the earthquake that struck Haiti this week. Mom told me that the quake that struck San Francisco in 1989 during the World Series left 100 dead. In Haiti, the death toll is likely to be in the tens of thousands.
A friend of mine spent much of his childhood in Haiti, when his parents sold their Indiana farm and moved to Haiti to found a children’s hospital. John reports that Grace Children’s Hospital i”s still standing and administering vitally needed care. They need funds to replenish supplies that are dangerously low.”
As a former Red Cross volunteer, I certainly support the American Red Cross and have made a donation. But if you are looking for a reputable organization in Haiti where you can make a donation, please consider Grace Children’s Hospital. Click this link if you’d like to donate, mark your donation for Grace Children’s Hospital, and have them send acknowledgement to bethmillett at sbcglobal.net so I can thank you. I’ll also let my friend John know.
I know I for one am counting my blessings.
