Starting from scratch

Things have been at a complete stand still in the Soup household the last few weeks.  We moved R.Soup over to her own room because she kept waking up at 3:30 in the morning to hang out with her mama.  No thank you my dear sweet baby love.

She hasn't been having a hard time going to bed.  Some nights she even sleeps all the way through to morning.  But then there are other nights where she wakes up multiple times throughout the night and I'm the only one that she wants to see.

I've spent the last few weeks trying to recoup from the the previous weeks when I was being allotted approximately 3 hours of sleep during the night.  

We've been making a point to go to sleep as soon as the girls are asleep, so that I'm not dying the next day.  Mess has been piling and piling and piling, and I haven't even thought about the projects going on in the basement.  On nights that we don't go to bed, we sit on the couch and watch some TV and hold our breath (well at least I do) waiting to hear crying coming through the monitor.

I finally broke down last week and invited people over to the house for a Sunday get together.  Which forced us to frantically clean the main level of the house in prep for them coming over.  I wouldn't care if it was a normal level of mess.  But this was hoarder style disgusting mess and was starting to affect my daily outlook.

So now the main level of the house looks... better.  Like 1000 times better but still not what I think it should look like.  But as long as we can keep up with this level of clean, we can work towards my dream clean.  Minus toys.  Nothing ever looks clean when its covered in a rainbow of baby toys.  Honestly I'm not (always) bothered by them.  Its the inch fine coating of sand under them that bothers me.

Upstairs on the other hand.  Disaster area.  Our old mattress is still standing up in the hallway outside our bedroom.  The cats have claimed it as their new climbing tree since its the highest place they can be.  I'm afraid at this point they might revolt when we move it out.  There's boxes of hand-me-down baby related things (mostly clothes... MORE clothes) that need to be washed and sorted.  I have a ton of things lying around currently that I want to put into the bathroom, but haven't had any time to actually WORK on the bathroom.

In addition to THAT - because that's not enough and I want you to truly understand the state I've allowed our house to get to - there's four... FOUR loads of clean baby laundry.  We also have one or two loads of our laundry.  We only have 4 laundry baskets. That means one of the "baskets" is dumped on the floor somewhere.  And the dirty clothes hampers are starting to fill up again.  It never ends.

Okay.  But enough about clothes mess.

Sometime in the last month, the light in our ceiling fan stopped working.  So the majority of the time that we spend in our bedroom we have to use our phones as flashlights and have the hall and bathroom lights on so we can actually see things.

D.Soup bought a kit to fix it the other day, but accidentally bought the ceiling fan kit instead of the light kit.  So now we are back at square one.

I think I'm finally finding a groove (and the energy) where - if R.Soup stays asleep - I can get things done.  I did what felt like a million things on Wednesday night when I got back downstairs.  I'm hoping I can keep that pace up.

Also, I need to be starting back over on an exercise regimen. Once I stopped sleeping, I stopped caring about my 30 day challenge.  Which is unfortunate because I had made it to day 14.  I'm going to start that back up here soon, and hopefully stick it out for the entire 30 days.  I'd also like to pick up with some "running" sometime in the near future.

Here's hoping I can get back on some kind of schedule soon.

Now... what, exactly?

It's been an interesting few weeks at the Soup house....

D.Soup now has a red meat allergy.

My self proclaimed "meatatarian" husband can no longer eat beef, pork, or lamb.  His hands and feet start to swell, rashes form up his arms, and he has terrible stomach pains.

Also, pork being "the other white meat" is a lie.  Rude.

All because of a tick bite.

The Lone Star Tick has been spreading across the country, and if it bites you there is a chance that you will develop an allergy to red meat.  The tick carries a sugar called Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose(alpha-gal) in its belly.  It transfers the alpha-gal to you and your body starts to fight it like it would a disease.  Alpha-gal is also found in the fatty parts of all non-primate mammals.  So when your body processes the fat cells of any red meat that you have eaten, you have an allergic reaction.

...That's my very dumbed down explanation of this whole shenanigans.

What does this mean for us?

We will now be a fish and fowl loving family.  We are only in the first week of transferring over to our new lifestyle and we honestly don't know how much he will be affected by different scenarios.  A lot of people with this allergy have issues eating out because of cross contamination.  We will have to take it day by day.  He has been prescribed an Epi pen, and we now have Benadryl stored in every vehicle and multiple areas in our house.


The good news.

He doesn't (so far) seem to have any feelings of his throat closing up during a reaction.

We already eat a decent amount of chicken.  So transitioning isn't going to be TOO hard for a majority of our meals. 

The other good thing is that turkey is much healthier than beef, so it will help us in our weight loss endeavors.

There is a chance that the allergy will go away on its own (3 weeks to 5 years is the "average"), he has to be careful not to get another Lone Star tick bite, because that will bring the allergy back, or make it worse if he is still allergic at the time of the bite.   

The bad news.

D.Soup hunts.  Deer meat is included in the list of no-nos.  We haven't tested it, and some people say they can still eat it so we are feeling hopeful at the moment.  We shall see.

We also have bags and bags of beef - hamburgers, steaks, ground beef, cubes - in our freezers.  I'm going to have to package everything up and give it away.  At least we know people around us that will take it, so we don't have to throw everything away.

It's also possible that we could deal with cross contamination in our own kitchen.  We use cast iron pans to cook a majority of our meals.  Those could very easily have remnants of meat that might affect him.



There's so much more.  I start thinking about it and I end up in a rabbit hole of stress and panic.  We just don't know everything that he will react to so its a strange and slightly scary time for us me.  He is less panicked than I am, at least externally.  I think if I wasn't so stressed about it he would be more stressed, but for now he has to deal with all my craziness so he's taken on his job as the confident one.

I can't believe that a tick bite can do this to people.  Hardly anyone knows about it either. Almost everyone that we've talked to has been completely dumbfounded that this is even a thing.

The allergist that D.Soup saw to get tested for alpha-gal was actually excited (for herself, not for him) that he was there.  She told him "I've studied this but have never actually seen a case of it before!  I'm going to have to do some more research!"

I will continue to post any changes.

Shelf support and storage!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

After getting the shelves put into the laundry room, we knew we needed to get a support underneath the larger shelf between the washer and dryer, because it wasn't completely stable and the boards would start sagging otherwise.  Originally, it was just going to be a bracket type of support, but as we continued to think about it, we realized there was enough space there for some storage as well.

Of course I love storage, so I was all in for that plan.

Once we decided on that, D.Soup couldn't think about anything else.  So a few nights later after L.Soup was in bed, we mosied down to the basement and got to work.  The plan came from D.Soup's brain, and we're not master pattern makers or anything, so it's not a finished piece by any means.   But it will be perfect for between the two machines.

We knew the height to the bottom of the shelf was 37", and the space between the two machines was 13".  We had some spare 2x4's hanging around that would be the perfect skeleton...

Testing out the Kreg Jig.

We wanted to do a trial run on the Kreg Jig before my bedside table building session, and I also didn't want to be able to see any screws in the finished product.  After a few rounds of listening to D.Soup grumble about not understanding what he was supposed to be doing, I found a "how to use the Kreg Jig" instruction blog post.  Things seemed to go much more smoothly after that.

One side

Box Shape

Leveling out the last piece

We didn't have any plywood, so we picked some up the next day when we took our trip to the hardware store.  Unfortunately, D.Soup didn't account for the width of the plywood when measuring for size, so there is no space to put outside walls up that we had intended on doing.  I'm planning on getting baskets to use for storing things anyway, so the walls probably aren't completely necessary.

All done!

The more I look at it, the more I think we should have put the front 2x4 in the middle the other way, to allow that bottom shelf to have a little more space in the front.  It's easily fixable, but we'll see if it actually happens.

A few days later, we decided to put the cat door in, and finish up all the goals for the laundry room right now.  I sat on the floor in the hallway with my hands over L.Soup's ears while D.Soup cut a hole in the bottom of the door.  She's basically terrified of anything that makes a loud noise (except herself).  So whenever possible I try to let her experience loud noises from the protection of my (or her father's) arms.  It seems to be helping her get more and more brave around things she shouldn't be scared of.  Like a screwdriver.  Or the vacuum.

Bonus!

I'm so happy things are getting done around here.

Adult outing time

D.Soup and I don't take many chances to have just "us time" outside the house.  We spend a few hours together every night after L.Soup goes to bed either working on some house stuff, or watching shows that we both like. 

D.Soup enters the weekly raffle through his company for tickets to the Capitals games, and we lucked out when he scored a pair for Tuesdays game against the Sharks.  We scheduled an extended day with my parents and made plans to leave straight from work to head to DC.

Originally my mom offered to just have L.Soup sleep at their house, but that plan was changed when I admitted I wasn't emotionally ready to not see her at all between Tuesday morning drop off and Wednesday afternoon pickup.  She will be 2 in April, and I have never been away from her for more than a work day.  I didn't want my first night away from her to be one where I was coming home to sleep in my own bed.

We got to DC around 4, and decided just to eat at the Greene Turtle.  It's attached to the Verizon Center, and it was a little gross outside last night.  That, and I wasn't terribly hungry, so I didn't want to go somewhere nice and not actually eat anything.

We split two appetizers - the Mozzarella Caprese and Crab Dip.  After that I was full.  We sat for a little while and just enjoyed each others company, while also people watching.  Of course.

D.Soup decided he wanted to get some wings before we went in for the game.  So I took that opportunity to order something I've been craving for the last week or so.  ICE CREAM.  On top of a brownie which was a definite bonus in my book.  It was delicious.

I was surprised at the number of people that would look at me, and then look down at my belly.  I guess the hockey jersey was throwing them off.  I don't think it was that hard to tell that I am pregnant even through the larger than average shirt.  But apparently some people were having difficulty what exactly was going on under there.

There were some older men sitting behind us, and while two of them were obviously interested in the game, the other two were absolutely not.  They spent the second and third periods gossiping like two little school girls.  It took everything in my red haze filled pregnant brain not to turn around and tell them to shut the eff up.  I couldn't stop myself from loudly complaining to D.Soup about them though.  There's only so much I can do to contain the anger.  At the end of the second period, I actually heard one of the two of them say:

"wait, why are there 0's up on the time clock?"
"It's the end of the second period??  Already??"

Sweet Mary.  How do you miss an entire 20 minutes of game time?!

Anywho... The game was really good, but sadly the Caps ended up losing in the shootout.

We had a great time, AND I got to see my girl this morning when she woke up.  Double bonus.

Thanks again, mom and dad!!

Week wrap-up

This week has been so busy!  We haven't had made a real dinner at home the entire week.  One night we had time to make grilled cheese, but that's it!  Hopefully tonight we'll have a real dinner, in our own home.  Next week is going to be just as busy.  Everything always happens at the same time.  I never have time to do any crafting!  <insert foot stomp here>

Since I have no crafting to talk about, I'll just recap the week.  Because I know you all are soooo interested.

Sunday - We went to a party at a nearby bouncy play place for our very good friend's daughter's 3rd birthday.  L.Soup (despite only getting a 30 minute nap in the car because she REFUSED to sleep) had a blast.  She hasn't quite figured out the idea of jumping yet.  So she just marched around in the bounce houses all wobbly while the other kids bounced around her.  She also made D.Soup take her down the big slide about 40 times.  It was cute.  I'm glad it was him and not me, because we probably would have died.  I don't have enough balance to pull myself up the little ledge stairs, let along drag her along with me.

Monday - This was grilled cheese day.  That's all I remember from that day, and I only remember that because D.Soup reminded me about it this morning.  Pretty sure I laid on the couch most of the afternoon.

Tuesday - Dinner with some great friends that we don't get to see very often anymore.  They have a little boy that's just over a month younger than L.Soup.  They are finally getting to an age where they acknowledge each others existence, so it's really great to see them play "together".  L.Soup chased him around the house and handed him back anything that he dropped like "dude, stop making a mess".  She's becoming a mild neat freak.  I don't know where she gets that from.  Definitely not from her parents.

Wednesday - We had surprise dentist appointments.  I say surprise because when I got the "reminder" call on Monday, it was the first time I had ever heard about it.  I'm the one that makes the appointments, so I had to have done it the last time we were there.  But I have NO recollection of that AT ALL.  Glad to report that I am cavity free, as is D.Soup.  So that's awesome.  I signed L.Soup up for her first dentist appointment, but promptly had to reschedule when I realized that I'm an idiot and only added her to my medical health insurance and not dental or vision.  They should give a mother more than a month to get that stuff situated.  My brain was in NO place to think about all that stuff within a month of having her. 

So now I have to wait until December to add her during "open access" with my company.  So I scheduled our next appointments for February.  That should be fine.  Its not like she needs anything actually done to her teeth anyway.

Wednesday was also a big day for us because it was L.Soup's first time having Maryland Crab Soup!  As a Maryland girl, I'm proud of her for eating every drop.  It was homemade (by my momma) too.  Delicious.  L.Soup and I had dinner at my parents house while D.Soup was working on (conveniently enough) a crabbing boat that he's planning on buying off his friend next year.  He wants to make sure its in working condition before he acquires it though.  So hopefully there will be more crabs for more soup in the future!  Yummo.

Thursday -  Family dinner!  My sister has an au pair to help take care of her kids.  She's (the au pair) moving to a new family this weekend, and my sister's family welcomed a new girl into their house.  We went over her house to have a welcome/goodbye get together.  We had pizza and salad and fruit, and played with the kids and hung out.  It was super fun.  L.Soup got to go "shopping" and get a new toy from Aunt Sissy's house.  Since her kids don't play with it anymore, it's moved to our house.

Friday - Today is Friday!  Hooray!  I'm so happy its almost the weekend!  My grandfather needs some help moving a heavy water tank in his basement.  So D.Soup is going to check that out today, and we'll probably go back over there tomorrow so he can help him get it moved.  That's really the only thing we have going on this afternoon.  It's beautiful out, so maybe we can go for a walk, or just spend some time outside this afternoon.  I'd like to get some more of the foyer wall worked on, but I'm not holding my breath.  We are such slackers. 

Today is also L.Soup's first "golden birthday."  She's 16 months today (the 16th)!  I know it doesn't really count since she's not 16 YEARS old.  But it's still her birthday.  So there.  She's so big.

Weekend - We have got some serious cleaning up to do around our house this weekend.  We are having my family over next weekend, and our week is so packed full that we aren't going to have time to work on the house much during the actual week.  We'll see how that actually goes.

Here's hoping that I can get some craftiness back into my life sometime soon.

Finishing touches to the nursery. Part 1

So I didn't manage to get a whole lot accomplished this weekend.  That doesn't mean we didn't DO a million things, just that my to do list is still sitting there, mostly uncrossed.

Today I woke up to a bouquet of yucky emotions: sad/angry/general unhappiness and malaise.  I'm hoping that as soon as I get started on some of my projects, that will all change.  We are heading to the hardware store today to pick up some things so I can actually get some projects done!  Some more paint, since I ran out when I was working on the wall.  Some other pieces for projects that I haven't started yet. 

Fast forward a few hours...

Turns out I didn't need as much at the hardware store as I thought.   D.Soup ended up with more for the boat than I did for the crafts.  We stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner,  and I made the mistake of ordering 2 sets of spicier wings.  And now I look 5 months pregnant because my stomach is NOT happy about all that heat.   We got L.Soup naked chicken... and she refused to eat any of it.  Sometimes she's a vegetarian and other days she devours anything we put in front of her.  So tonight she had a well rounded meal of fries, pickles, and mandarin oranges.  Ugh.  Well, better luck tomorrow.

My intention is to work on some boxes for L.Soup's room tonight.  They were already in there but didn't really match, and I have enough left over paint from the wall in her room to make them work.  I had the boxes when I lived with my parents, so I'm happy to get more use out of them, and they are perfect to store her books, diapers and spare wipes.

A few more hours in the future:

I got the boxes prepped and 3 sides started.  But little miss was not feeling bedtime tonight and trying to convince her otherwise severely cut into my crafty time... I know she's got teeth coming in so I forgive her for being so cranky and needy tonight.

D.Soup ended up asleep on the floor in her room with her... which was adorable when I peeked in on them.  He said she pushed him out of the way and climbed up onto the pillow he had been using and went to sleep... so he ended up using her monkey stuffed animal as a pillow.   Poor guy.

Anywho.  Here are some before pictures of to of the boxes.   The third is white and I'm leaving it that way.  The drawers in the second picture are staying white as well.  The new knobs will get painted.

The drawers go in the top one.

I bought new knobs.   Goodbye stars.

Scuffed up and ready for paint!  

Here's hoping I get a lot more done tomorrow night. 

And so it begins

I started working on the foyer tonight.   And holy crap ya'll it looks like I poured wine all over the walls.  But so far I really like it.  

More to come, but for now:

I had to get D.Soup to paint that one corner because I'm just.to.short.  

Edging all done

First coat drying!

Second coat drying 

Almost done!

Of course, I ran out of paint.  So back to the store tomorrow to buy another can. *sigh* so close, but so far...

In other news, I got the boat pads finished tonight.  

Pretty excited about that.

Guess who's back, back again.

I really have to stop ignoring this place for such long periods of time.  I've even had a lot of awesome things to talk about, and yet... nothing.  I have finally gotten motivation back to start on the projects that I listed off here.

I've mostly finished the nursery (a year later), and will give that experience it's own post, when I have the pictures available.  All that's left is some floating shelves and some work in the closet, and I think it's complete!

We D.Soup built a raised planter for the back yard.  It is full of so many different vegetables.  We still have to add some lattice to it so that the vines have a place to grow.  They are taking over the bed at the moment.  I need to get that done or everything else is going to die. :(

Also, I have plans to paint the foyer this weekend.  I got the walls taped tonight, I was about halfway through, when this happened:

  

Little Ms. Crankypants was NOT okay with me up on this step stool, or with the fact that I wasn't giving her any attention.  She tried to join me, and was just generally bitter the whole time I was taping while she was awake.  So that got postponed until after bedtime.  BUT, we're ready!:

 

Now, the next decision I have to make is if I want to include this section of wall underneath the handrail in with the painted section.  I think I'm going to get a first coat of paint on the main wall first, and make that decision once I can see how everything looks together.

That's all I've got so far for the original list.  Other things have been pushed ahead of this stuff, and new things have been added. 

In the last 6ish months we've had many distractions that are keeping us from getting anything done.

1. Vacations
2. Baby birthdays! (also should get its own post, since I worked my fanny off for it)
3. Other projects that are "more fun" (according to D.Soup)
4. Cleaning
5. General laziness

I've been doing a lot of paper crafting over the last few months.  With L.Soup's birthday decorations, helping my best friend with her baby shower and creating the invitations and sign decorations for a work party for a friend of the family, I've been running through some paper.  I've fallen more and more in love with my Silhouette Cameo every time I use it.  I just got the sketch pens in the mail, I can't wait to use them!  Also, I should probably become a sales rep for Silhouette, because with just talking it up, and explaining how to use it I got them two sales in about a week!  I'm so glad other people are getting them, but also a little sad that I won't be able to help them with whatever projects they are going to work on!  They did tell me they would probably need tutorials!  Yay!

I've also been continuing the process of getting to know my sewing machine.  We have become much better friends.  I made L.Soup the cutest skirt last week, I can't wait for her to wear it.  I had a pair of jeans that were getting really worn, so I cut them up to include in the project! 

I didn't take any pictures of the finished product yet, but I did take this shot of my jeans before I cut them to shreds (RIP).  I'm glad I got to reuse them for something, instead of just trashing them.

I'm also planning on making a 4th of July outfit for my girl.  I have an idea of what I want it to look like in my head, and I wasn't finding anything that matched my vision (read: AND was reasonably priced).  So I'll be getting started on that very soon, so it will actually be done in time!

In other sewing machine news, mom and I invested in some embroidery patterns... and they are AWESOME.  I started off stitching them up for mom, but she wanted in on the fun, so I let her have them.  Mom makes hair bows and sells them on etsy (here's her shop!).  She's been paying for these from someone else, and now she can make them herself for SO CHEAP.  The coolest part is, if she sells one, she's paid for the pattern, so it's completed worth it.  I'm pretty excited for her, and she can't seem to tear herself away from her sewing machine now.  Whoops.

My friend asked me if I could reupholster some cushions for his boat, since the guy he was going to take them to was asking an outrageous fee even though my friend was providing all the pieces.  He gave me the stuff right before L.Soup's birthday (when I was in frantic mode) and told me not to worry about getting them done, as the aren't NECESSARY for being able to use the boat.  Well, I finally got around to working on them this week.  It went a lot faster than I thought it would, especially with this being my first time doing any kind of re-upholstery work.  They aren't perfect, but I think they look awesome.  And I don't think you are going to notice where the imperfections are, so I'm pretty happy with them.

 

Tonight I finished the beading.  I was going to get everything put together, but I ran out of steam.  So, tomorrow!

I started out with pinning the two pieces together.  But that was a LOT more work than I had the energy for.  It was so much easier to stop every few inches and make sure the next part was matched up, like this:

 

 At one point in my life I thought I could be a hand model, now I think I would need a TON of practice.

Finished Product

Next project is tracing out L.Soup's July 4th outfit.

Happy to be back :)

I think I'm the only person in the world that enjoys painting.

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

I have this whole big plan for painting in the new house.  Well, at least parts of the new house.  I have two rooms I know for sure what I want to do, and one or two others that I'm on the fence about if I want to paint them at all.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to let the colors on the furniture do all the talking.

Luckily, the house is new.  Like, brand new.  Never been lived in before.  And the builder painted everything a nice off white color.  So there's no glaring issues with anything currently.  Unlike the old house, where every room I demanded we paint or I just might scratch my eyes out.  (who needs that many different wall borders in a house less than 1000 square feet?!)

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11.  Paint L.Soup's bedroom.

I know exactly what I want to do in L.Soup's room.  I had intended on doing it in the old house, but then we encountered the hobo and I lost all inspiration to do anything else in that house, and started looking for new places to live.

I have a very light yellow that I want to paint on three of the walls.  The fourth wall is going to look like this:

Only without the border.  And 16 squares instead of 9.  Because I need in include all the colors of the rainbow or my brain might explode.  I also may paint the inside of her closet a different color than the walls, but I haven't quite figured that out yet.

I've bought all the paint, and I've got the bottom of the wall all taped and ready to go.  I just need to finish taping the rest of the room and I can get started.  But I've been too lazy to bring the step ladder upstairs to tape the ceiling.  (And who wants to hold their arms up for that long anyway?)  I also need D.Soup's help taping the lines for the squares, because my arms aren't long enough to get the lines straight.   So I've been kind of putting it off.

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 12.  Paint foyer.

I found this image on Pinterest a while ago and it lead me to a blog post describing how the girl had the same color paint in flat and high gloss, and she made this amazing design:

source

 And I've decided I want to do that in my foyer, with stripes.  In this color:

Now, one of the walls in the foyer is like, a million feet tall, so we're going to leave that wall blank.  Instead, I'm going to fill that wall with picture frames, all painted to mirror the opposite wall.  In my head it looks really good.  I hope it works out.

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I also want to paint our bedroom, but I'm uncertain what color to go with.  The comforter set is mostly gray with white and yellow accents.  I'm already leaning towards painting the furniture gray, but I feel like it would be too much.  I don't think the walls in gray would look very good.  I'm contemplating painting the furniture yellow and staining them, but I'm just not sure how it will look. 

We shall see.

I need to get some of the other stuff done on my list first.

Someone does not want me to finish these projects.

I've been working on overcoming my dislike for the sewing machine.

We've had a hate/hate relationship for... well, basically forever.

But I've been on a steady campaign to minimize the amount of waste that we have in the Soup house. And the sewing machine can help me with this effort.  So I've been trying to let bygones be bygones and put aside the petty feud we've be waging...

It's not working.

Let me start over.

When I found out I was pregnant, I did a lot of reading.  Reading that helped me make a lot of decisions about how I wanted to raise this baby.  One decision was the choice to try cloth diapering.  I convinced my husband, did my research, picked the type of diaper that I wanted (One Size Pockets) and the brands (bumGenius, Fuzzibunz, Rumparooz) and started stocking up.

I love cloth diapering.  I actually prefer using cloth diapers to disposables.  Whenever I use a disposable, I feel awkward and uncertain about using it.

(side note:  We are currently using disposables because L.Soup had a rash that was associated to something wrong with the diapers.  I finally finished successfully (hopefully) stripping them the other night, and I hope to start back up using them today.)

What I didn't think about when I planned on using cloth diapers, was the fact that I am still making waste with disposable wipes.  About a month in, I finally realized that using cloth wipes would be more beneficial.  So I started searching around for some cloth wipes, and realized something.

They are outrageously overpriced.

Oh, and by the way.  While I was in the middle of this project, I decided I would just work on some reusable nursing pads.  It's the same deal.  So expensive.  So easy to make.

I did some more research, found a "pattern" that I liked the most.  Purchased my materials.  Cut out my squares (and circles for the nursing pads).  All with no problem.

Enter the sewing machine.

We started off getting along fairly well.  I've been trying to spend more time with it recently, because I have so many things that I dream about making.   The only issue is it's not mine.  It belongs to my mom.  Which means on a normal day I can't use it because I'm not at her house.  And on a day where I am at her house, I have a little person that needs me at a high enough frequency that I get enough time to sit down and turn the machine on before I have to get her.  So naturally, it's taken me months to get the two pieces sewn together, flip them inside out, and ready to have one more final edging stitch finished.  And I haven't even started on the nursing pads.

(I just recently asked D.Soup if he could maybe get me one for Christmas.  We'll see how that works out.  It would be super convenient to be able to sew after L.Soup is sleeping.)

Anywho.  I finally asked mom if I could just borrow the sewing machine and take it home with me for a few days.  I'm really the only person that uses it at the moment, so it wasn't a big deal.

I packed up all my supplies: thread, fabric, pins.  I even packed a second full bobbin so I wouldn't have to stop and refill when the one in there ran out.

I got home, had dinner, fed the baby, put the baby to bed and then excitedly got to work.  I only had a small pile of wipes left before I could start working on the nursing pads.  So I knocked those out fairly quickly.  I was on a roll and feeling pretty good about myself.

I get all the individual pieces of the nursing pad sewn, and set out on sewing them all together.  I make it about 97% around the edge when I hear this weird *thwink* and everything stops.  And I'm all WTF.

Check the bobbin, nothing amiss there.   Cool.

Check the needle, and the thread is gone.  Okay then... so the thread broke.  No big deal.

So I look up at the spool and see this:

And again I'm all WTF.  Something doesn't look right.

Because it's EMPTY.

The entire spool. 

Empty/Not Empty.

Unfortunately for me.  This picture is from the next night.  I hadn't expected finishing off the entire spool, so was caught completely unawares by that turn of events and was left incapable of continuing on, and very bitter about it.

I understand that this is not really as traumatizing for anyone else.  But I just needed a moment.

That is all.

And to top it all off,

My mom found some more unfinished wipes.

Where do I even start?

This new house has inspired me to start making (or refurbishing) things myself instead of looking for new pieces.  The house just needs to be filled with a certain type of furniture, I can feel it.  The problem is, buying something new that would feel right in the house is expensive.  Non particle board furniture is ridiculously overpriced!

Luckily I read about 50 crafting blogs, and one day followed a link to Ana White's DIY website.  If you haven't been there, you should check it out.  Unless you want to avoid getting sucked into a never ending BUILD ALL THE THINGS vortex, then I would probably avoid her website at all costs.

I'm really excited about building something and making it our own, instead of finding a piece of furniture that we sort of like and going with it just because it's the closest option.  We haven't actually started on any of these projects yet, as we're coming to a close on actually MOVING ourselves into the new house.  I am constantly hoping each day will be the day that D.Soup says "Okay, lets go get our supplies."  I'm ready, the list has been made (and made, and remade, and made again). 

 As I've already shown you, I have a ridiculous amount of projects that I would like to work on to make this house exactly what we want.

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

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2.  Build bed frame. 

I have been drooling over this bed for over a year.  I love almost everything about it.  I love the way it looks, and how functional it is.  I love that I won't lose things that I store under the bed anymore because they end up in the middle where I can't reach.  I love that I will know 100% that my cat's aren't hiding underneath the bed when I try to shut the door...

The Stratton Bed from Pottery Barn

With drawers

I don't love 2 things:

1. The fact that the way it is made in this picture, I would have to move the nightstand every time I want access to that first basket
2. The price tag.

In comes Ana White.  I was already in awe of all of her other plans, but when I found this I almost cried.  There it was.  The bed of my dreams.  And I can make it myself, for just the price of materials?!  I'm sold.

This is totally not my bed (yet), or my dog.  I will post again when we finally get started.

So then I proceeded to click through and snatch up every set of plans that I found for projects around our house...

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3.  Build matching night stands.

To match our bed, we're going to make these.

It is based off this plan from Ana White's website.  I'm pretty sure these are going to be our first project.  It seems to be fairly easy, and it will help ease us into the whole process.


My only dilemma with this (and the bed) is what color to paint them.  This is the comforter set that I've purchased for in the bedroom:

So I'm still debating color options.  I originally wanted gray furniture, but now I'm thinking that might be too much.

-------------

 6.  Build computer desk for D.Soup.

This is a later project, after all the others are finished.  D.Soup's old computer desk got left behind for his brother at the old house.  It probably wouldn't have survived another move anyway.  He doesn't desperately need a desk at the moment, so he has time to pick out exactly what he wants before we move ahead.  We were discussing it the other day though.  I recommended that we look into building a desk that would span the entire long wall in the computer room (I may have also mentioned that it would be nice to have a little bit of that desk space for crafting).

-------------

8.  Build floating shelves.

I love these shelves.

I originally saw them on Shanty2Chic, and loved them.  Of course the plans were also from Ana White (how had I not heard of this website before this month!?)  I plan on making quite a few of these to go around the house, but they are probably going to be more like in between projects type things.

-------------

9.  Build outdoor planters.

The last "build" project on the list is planters for the back yard.  I want to start growing some veggies, and now that I have a yard that's large enough to do something with, I want to build up some planters and get to it (well, in the spring). 

Also not my dog.

These are going to serve double duty in my back yard.  They are going to serve as planters, obviously.  But they are also going to serve as covers for the piping sticking out out of the ground sporadically throughout my yard.  We are on well water, so we have a inspection pipe for that, as well as an array of inspection and clean out pipes for the septic system.  They are kind of ugly, so I think these would be helpful in covering them up.  The only thing I'm worried about is the random placement around the yard, but I think we could figure something out.

Well, that was an excessively long post.

Overachieving List and Antique store finds

Buying a house is a lot of work...

It might just be because I am crazy have a ton of projects that I want to work on.

The last few years I've purchased everything that we need from big box stores.  I could never justify purchasing anything made with real wood because it is so outrageously priced and the house we used to live in was not worthy of anything nice looking tiny.  So everything that we have owned has been made of particle board.  When we moved into the new house, I decided we needed a fresh start. 

I'll go ahead and list everything out, and then take my time explaining each one:

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

It all started with an entertainment center.  We had a few requirements for the piece -- it had to be short enough that our mischievous cat would not be able to reach the TV from the top of the furniture once the TV was on the wall, and it had to have enclosed storage space so we (I) didn't have to look at the gaming equipment all the time.  The feel of the main floor of our new home is very vintage. Finding an entertainment center that matched our requirements and that style, but was in our price range proved to be an issue.  We decided to switch gears, and head off to search the antique stores in our area.

I've always loved the idea of antiquing.  But never had anything I specifically needed, so I wouldn't bother going to the store.  I was so excited to be able to wander around some stores with an actual purpose!

After a few stops and some near misses with pieces that *might* work but we weren't absolutely sure about... we found an amazing antique store/consignment shop.

We spotted a coffee table that we loved, and thought would be perfect as an entertainment center after a few tweaks.

Then, right next to it was a matching side table.

As we were "oohing" and "ahhing" over our amazing two finds, my friend pointed behind us... to a matching TV stand!  It was meant to be!  The stand is a little bit taller than we had originally intended, but once the TV goes up on the wall I think it will work out just beautifully.

So we ended up with three pieces for our living room when we originally went looking for one.  I believe they are pretty much brand new, they still have tags on them!  There's a little water damage and a few scratches.  So its even more justification as to why I need to refinish them.  And we got them for a great price!  They are an off white/yellow color, but in my head I see them as this steel gray/blue with a distressed finish. 

While we were wandering around, I found the most beautiful china cabinet.  Someone had already distressed it, and it was GREEN.  I turned to D.Soup and said "I love this so much I can't stand it."  We decided to wait it out and see if it was still available when we came back to pick up the other pieces.

A few days later, D.Soup, my mom and I went back to the store.  I immediately showed my mom our pieces, and then dragged her around the corner to get her opinion on the cabinet.  Much to my dismay, there was a sticker on the glass that said "SOLD."  I was so upset.

As I was standing there, wallowing in my own self pity... D.Soup walks up behind me and says "Oh, that?  I bought it.  Happy Anniversary."  I didn't believe him for a solid five minutes.

Stop screwing with me.

No really, I bought it.

Really?

Isn't it beautiful?  I'm so happy with it.  And with my husband who so sweetly caught me off guard with it as a surprise gift.

I can't wait for the next trip to the antique store.

She's Alive!

So, I haven't posted here in basically forever.  That means the next few minutes is going to be a giant cluster of me trying to remember what's happened in the last uhm... YEAR.  Ugh.

1. First and most importantly:  I made a baby.  Well, D.Soup and I made a baby.  She's kind of precious.  I think we'll keep her.  I can't post any pictures from WORK (geez, way to ruin everything).  But I'll try to remember to add some later.  She's going to be 5 months old on Sunday.  I shall dub her - L.Soup.  Or I'll call her that for now and change it around later.  Who knows.



2. In other news, we have moved!  YAY FINALLY.  We actually JUST moved last Friday, so we are still very much in limbo right now.  But we're getting there.  There isn't any internet or television at the new house right now, so that pretty much sucks.  But everything else is spectacular, wonderful, amazing, awesome.



3. I originally started writing this BEFORE we had moved.  When we were tiptoeing around our old house, surrounded by box towers, worried that something was going to knock them over and we would suffocate under the pile.  Luckily we survived, and (almost) everything has moved over to the new house, where the boxes don't have to be stacked on top of each other with just a small pathway to get around.  I mean, how did we even live in that house?!  We went back over earlier this week - my first time back since the move - to grab a few straggler things (we still have MORE to get too, ugh) and I couldn't believe how small everything looked.  It was really eye opening.  



4. We found a drunk man asleep in the yard behind our old house.  We've also since seen him wandering around the street outside our house, and cleaning up road debris and leaving that shit in a pile in my front yard.  Hence the move - well, that was part of the reason anyway.  It gave us a real push to get out of that area.  It wasn't like he tried to break into the house or anything, but it was definitely still scary.  And annoying.



5. The name of the blog has changed, if you hadn't noticed.  I finally decided what should go here, other than ranting and whatnot.  D.Soup and I have all sorts of craft things planned for this new house.  As well as crafty things I've been working on while I was gone to help save us a bunch of money the planet.  So I plan on detailing all that information on here for your reading pleasure.  Hopefully.



6. My camera is broken.  I need to get it fixed (obviously before I can start sharing the awesome things I'm doing with you).  It got stepped on during one of the many family get-togethers that we had this summer -- totally my fault, who leaves a camera in the middle of the floor when they know it's going to be crazy time in less than an hour?!  Now that we've moved, I can finally order the piece and work on fixing it.  As soon as I find it.  Awesome.



7. We are cloth diapering.  Its been a learning process, but we are actually really enjoying it.  I need to invest in a few more diapers, and then I'll feel like we are set.  Right now we sometimes have to delve into our disposable stash, which makes me sad.  More on that later.



8. .....................I can't think of anything else.  That's really embarassing.  An entire year gone and I have 7 bullets to show for it.  And most of them revolve around moving, which JUST happened.  Le sigh.  

I'm so glad to be back.

Does this make me a terrible friend?

One of my best friends is getting married tomorrow.

She was the Maid of Honor in my wedding.

When she asked me to be her Maid of Honor, I was so excited and happy to be able to return the favor.

About 2 weeks ago I remembered that being a Maid of Honor meant writing a speech. And actually reading it... out loud... in.front.of.people. I did not sign up for this. Oh, wait... yes I did. Dammit.

I finished my speech yesterday, and it's so short I'm almost embarrassed by it. But I literally cannot think of a single extra thing to put in there. I don't have many stories of the two of them together, because we don't get to see them very often anymore.

I don't really have sappy stories of how much I love her ready to throw out. I'm not comfortable with being overly emotional in front of people if I can help it. It's awkward. It's also awkward for others to listen to overly emotional people talk about memories that no one else was ever involved in except for two people.

I really don't think that she wants me to tell people about the time we stole the giant Shrek standee from the kiosk outside the movies at the mall. Or the time she spent the entire school day in a Tigger costume and ran around the halls looking for her teacher.

So basically, what I'm saying, is I got nothing.

So I've decided to keep it short and sweet. I'm sure everyone will appreciate that.

Hello everyone, I want to start off by saying Congratulations to ___ and ___, and to thank everyone for coming today. For those who don't know me, I'm Mz.Soup, and I’ve known ___ since high school.___ and I have been through quite a bit together, and I'm so glad that I am able to share this day with her. Last year I had the pleasure of celebrating my own wedding day with ___ by my side as my Maid of Honor, and when she asked me to return the favor I happily agreed.

I personally feel that is a perfect match for . He's quiet, and she's... well, not. He's calm, and she's... well, not. At first glance they seem like complete opposites, but at the same time they are so similar, and that's what makes them such a great couple. I’m really thrilled that has found a husband in and I know they’ll make a wonderful life together. I’d like to wish them a life full of health, happiness and endless adventure.
Please raise your glasses to ___, and ___, the bride and groom.

I got my little moment of funny in, and I feel that I did an okay job pulling it together with the little that my brain could squeak out.

Personally, I think wedding speeches
are stupid.
(Mainly because I have way too much anxiety for something like that)

Matchy Matchy

We went to a wedding on Sunday. It was very pretty, and we had a blast.

Well, I had a blast. D.Soup sat around and watched me act like a fool. He was not enthused.

It might have had something to do with the fact that he really didn't know anyone, as it was MY coworker's wedding.

Anywho, I'm killing two birds with one stone here. New pictures of my hair (sort of... it's up) and pictures of D.Soup and I.

The usual: Me dancing with no shoes on.
The entire time I kept saying "why are you so TALL!?"

The Soup Family.

Mr. D.Soup looking dapper.

Nice.

Please note: I do not condone the fish face. Somehow I can't stop myself from making it. As you can see, it's really not a good look. But I wanted you to see us in all our matching glory.

It's moments like this that I pat myself on the back for buying D.Soup all those different colored button up shirts years ago when I was tired of him wearing blue all the time.

I do think he was mildly embarrassed with how many comments on how "cute" we looked and all the multiple "look at how perfectly matched you guys are" we got.

I loved every second of it.