baby bump: 4 weeks

(ORIGINALLY WRITTEN JULY 20th, 2013)

I've decided to document this pregnancy journey by blogging about it every week.  Obviously it will include bump pictures but also what we had going on that week.  I feel like I have so many pictures of activities and moments in life but no reference to time or what we were doing or how we were feeling.  My goal is to do this for us; it's our online scrapbook of pregnant life that I hope to convert to a book that I can put on our shelf one day. 

How far along:  4 weeks.  Just found out!

Size of baby:  Poppy seed

Maternity clothes:  You would think I wear maternity clothes on the weekend, but nope, just like to be comfy. 

Weight gain:  I don't weigh myself but I guess I weigh what I normally weigh plus the weight of a poppy seed :)

Stretch marks:  Um, yes, but those have been there a while

Sleep:  Well I was sleeping great until I found out I'm pregnant, now my mind is racing!

Exercise:  Still doing Dog Days without any problem.  Gotta get my hard-earned t-shirt!

Best moment of the week:  Probably finding out we're pregnant.  I didn't really think I was, but I was bored on a Saturday morning and thought, "let me just seeeee".  I snuck up to the bathroom and used a cheap-o dollar store test and then thought, "ooooo emmm geeee".  Then Ehren got suspicious as to my whereabouts and came upstairs to investigate.  He knew what I was doing as soon as he saw the expression on my face. 

Movement:  No.

Cravings:  Nothing so far. 

Gender:  Ummm.

Belly button in or out:  In

Wedding ring on or off:  On

Anything making you queasy or sick:  No but when I think about being pregnant and having a baby and being a parent, I get butterflies in my stomach which makes me feel nauseous.  I don't think that counts though.

What I miss:  Is it bad that I already miss wine?  We have a wine club membership where we get 2-3 wines a month and will keep it throughout my pregnancy just to tease myself and learn self control :)

What I am looking forward to:  Decorating the nursery, duh!  It doesn't really feel real yet... as in I don't feel pregnant.  So decorating the nursery seems more realistic and less overwhelming.

Labor signs:  No.

Symptoms:  Boobs hurt.

 

Nursery:  Nothing done so far but I have definitely walked in there and looked around, planning away in my head. 

Emotions:  Kind of overwhelmed.  The week leading up to finding out I was pregnant I pretty much cried every night because of other life things going on.  I was thinking, "what's wrong with me?  I'm just so sad!"  Haven't cried yet since we found out though as it doesn't feel real.  Ehren has definitely cried though, but that's not a big shocker :)

Now for a little review of the week:

It's a bad picture but this is a poppy seed from a bagel I had.  I definitely had to text Ehren a picture of it so he could say hi to our little baby.

Cozy was... underwhelmed... I guess you could say, when we told him the news.  He's just tired thinking of the little amount of sleep we will be getting.

Cozy wanted to bless Ehren and his role as a father.  Ehren returned the favor by blessing him as a future big brother.  

We went out to the dog park to enjoy the nice weather and get Cozy some exercise.  This dog could seriously run a doggie marathon and still have the energy to run around our back yard when we get home.

On to week 5!

the black plague, part II: shutters

Shutters are the mascara of a house.  The finishing touch.  The "ooh, what pretty eyes windows you have".  It's what makes your house "pop" and one way you can accessorize your house.  And although brown mascara would probably look more natural on me, I go with black.  The same goes with our shutters.  It's time for the black plague to spread to our shutters.  From far away, they seemed to be in great shape, so why buy new ones when you can spray paint them for fairly cheap?

Obviously the first step is removing the shutters.  With a drill in hand, Ehren climbed out the window and pried them off.  

  

I gave him many words of encouragement, told him he was doing a great job, reminded him not to fall and then I got distracted by our pretty hostas and had to take a picture.  #nofilter <-- that's a thing, right?

 

 

After all four shutters came down, our house looked naked and ashamed.  But don't those new windows look good all by themselves? 

 

I washed off the shutters pretty well to get rid of cob webs, mud dauber's nests, bugs, etc. so that I would have a clean slate to spray paint.

You can see how gross the back of them looked.

And you can also see that their original color was probably that very blue blue. 

Then after washing them off, I realized "these shutters aren't brown, they're green!"  I guess the brown dirt that has been covering them for years made me think less green and more brown.  Either way, they are going to be black by the time I'm done with them.

I laid them out in the sun to dry thoroughly.

Then I used satin black spray paint to paint these bad boys.  I'm pretty sure there is now a hole in the o-zone layer above our house because of this project.  I used spray paint instead of a can of paint because of all the slats.  I've painted closet doors with slats like these and I ruined my brush and almost lost my mind due to impatience. 

 Since spray paint dries very quickly, we were able to put the shutters back up in no time.  They were screwed in at different places on the shutters and we needed to make sure they lined up with the pre-drilled holes.  After 15 minutes of trying to figure out which shutter went where, I said aloud, "we should have numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4 when we took them down!"  Then we looked at the back of the shutters and they were already numbered.  Doh!

 

 

After we almost not successfully hung the shutters, we had to do a "selfie Sunday" picture on the roof.  That's a thing, too, right?  Except I most definitely used a filter as I had no make-up on and probably had black spray paint splattered all over my face.

 

 The best part was climbing back in the house, coming down the stairs, walking out the new storm door, then turning around to see the final product.  It looked better than I imagined and made more of a difference than I anticipated. I love how crisp and clean it looks now.

  

 Let's look waaay back, shall we?  Before the new windows, before we ripped out the pathetic looking yews and before we painted the shutters.

Then before the black paint:

And after: 

 

I didn't realize what a difference shutters make on a house.  It reminds me of my blonde eyelashes and mascara.  When the shutters were off, the house looked blank and boring.  But with the shutters on, it draws your eye to the windows and the contrast and the framing it does to the house.  Much like how different I look with and without mascara on.  It's like the finishing touch to a house and what makes it feel like a home rather than a cookie-cutter house.  Now that we've painted our shutters, I notice everyone's shutters and think, "ooh, those would look cool if they were ____".  With all the new spray paint colors available now, it's definitely worth considering painting and personalizing your shutters when you have a free afternoon.  #nofilterneeded

the black plague, part I: storm door

We have this joke in my family about my mom single-handedly starting the black plague.  As in painting everything black.  Desks, dressers, console tables, file cabinets, iron headboards, small children, puppies, you name it.  We both have this strong aversion to brown... unless we're talking about my Pacific Islander husband. 

Made with Shapely

I honestly think my favorite colors are black and white.  I think part of it stems from doing photo in high school and appreciating the process that takes place in the dark room with B+W photography.  When you look through the camera, you have to envision what all that color would look like in black and white.  Too much grey often makes for a boring picture.  And that's what I saw when I took a step back and looked at the front of our house.  Too much brown, too little contrast.  This will be a series of how we will spruce up the front of our house to my our liking.

Our original "storm" door didn't look like it could weather many storms.  Wow, I'm so punny.  It was brown, faded, and the hydraulic that allows the door to shut quietly was broken from the moment we moved in.  When guests would come over, the door would slam shut, scare the crap out of them, and they would say, "wow!  That's really loud".  Yes........... We know!

So for my 29th birthday what do I ask for?  Home Depot gift cards of course.  I was debating between a new toilet for the 1/2 bath or a new storm door.  Not your typical wish list for a woman, huh?  The storm door won.  And just like any other type A personality, I had already studied and read reviews on which door I wanted.  We headed to Home Depot, saw that they had them in-stock (even though online they said they did not) and got one... without making sure it would actually fit in our car.  Good thing our "compact" SUV is amazing.  It fit perfectly... but without us in it.

Don't worry, we risked decapitation in order to get this bad boy home.  We will sacrifice anything for home improvement and doing it ourselves.

We got the Andersen 3000 door, not to be confused with Andre 3000.

Installation was pretty easy, just like they advertised.  However, like most DIY projects, it took longer than the 45 minutes the company estimated
. 

Peeling off the plastic was the best part and Ehren was nice enough to let me do all of it.  I'm such a lucky girl.

Cozy feels like he's in a glass case of emotion.

Cozy's wondering the same thing my dad wondered many times when my mom would do house projects: "why can't you just leave shit alone?"

 
Another reason we wanted a new storm door was so that we could allow more light to come in in the entry way.  It's pretty dark since there are no windows and our house is pretty shaded.  The door before was only half a window.  Now the light shines in and I can see all the dog hair on the floor that used to go unnoticed.  I think we just created more work for ourselves.

Ta-da!  Doesn't it look great?

Side-by-side comparison:

 And yes, I am that pet parent who put Cozy's bed right in front of the new door so he could visualize his new viewpoint of the neighborhood in comfort and chevron. 

Cozy loves it, we love it.  It makes the entry way brighter, it seals shut and prevents cold/hot air from entering/escaping, it locks, it keeps the bugs out and doesn't shove our guests into our house by slamming shut.  But thanks to this new door, I now have more dog hair to clean up and more nose prints to wipe off.  Worth it.