I've really enjoyed getting back into the habit of reading again, and after I finished Boy 21 a handful of days ago I realized that I had been neglecting my 94 book challenge quite a bit. So I grabbed one off the shelves that would work for the challenge but also give me a pretty easy and quick read. Guys, I'm gonna be honest with you: some of the books on the 94 book challenge just aren't really all that great. I've picked them up from the Green Valley Book Fair and impulse sale purchases that seemed like fun reads, and now in hindsight I'm kind of annoyed that they're on my shelves. Not because I'm above fun beach reads, but because I just have SO. MANY. books that I want to read that are better quality, better writing, and have better messages than some of these. So even though they're convenient because I can zoom through them in a relatively shorter time, they're just not that exciting for me. I'm obviously saying all of this because the Sarah Dessen books on my shelves fit into this category for me...but all of that being said, this one was a slight grade above the only other one of Dessen's books I've read, That Summer.
Halley and Scarlett have been best friends since middle school when Scarlett moved in across the street. They both experience the hardest time of their lives when Scarlett's summer boyfriend dies in a motorcycle accident right before junior year starts. Things become much more complicated, though, when Scarlett finds out she's pregnant. The girls form a deeper bond while working together through morning sickness, heartburn, and food cravings...but Halley is also discovering a whole new and different life with a boy from P.E. class, Macon. Macon is mysterious and dangerous and has a trail of rumors following him. Halley has never rebelled against her parents or her own personal morals, but she finds herself very easily swayed by Macon's charms.
I mentioned that this book was slightly better quality than my only other Dessen experience; that's really just because of the plot. The writing is simplistic and fairly obvious, but at least some of the content of this one gets deeper. Both Scarlett's pregnancy and Halley's relationship with Macon provide a wealth of lessons learned and great conversations for teenage readers. There's still a fair amount of details that aren't quite completely realistic (at least not for your typical teen) but for the most part, Dessen manages to stay within the realm of easy to relate to: far too many girls really do get pregnant in high school after a relatively short relationship, and far too many girls really do fall for the whims and charms of a dangerous "bad boy" who leads them down all kinds of tempting paths. I would say that many high school girls (especially girls who don't love reading more dense and complicated books) would really enjoy this book and would even get some good morals out of it. For me personally, though, it was a moderately okay read.
Today was a really productive day for the "before baby comes" to-do list. I was able to finish a small project that I had started a couple days ago, get the car ready, pack about 2/3 of the hospital bag, and make these clothing dividers for the nursery's closet. Not too shabby considering I felt a little comatose the whole time.
I'm not going to claim any credit at all for this project; I ripped it right off of the blog I Heart Organizing. Jen had a guest post last month in which a woman shared the clothing dividers she made for her own nursery, and they were just too perfect to pass up. Or attempt to change at all. I followed her directions pretty much exactly (I even bought the same wooden Os from Hobby Lobby) but for the sake of me posting some pictures and actually writing somewhat of a blog post, I'll do some explaining too.
We started out by buying those wooden Os, which conveniently came in a 2-pack, so we ended up with four. The babe held them up to the hanging bar in the nursery closet and measured how wide of a chunk he needed to cut out (to slide them over and onto the bar). He used a hand saw to cut the wood and then sanded off the edges a little so they would be smooth. Unfortunately, I did a pretty terrible job of taking any pictures up until this point. Just picture what look like four wooden Cs.
My next step was to pick out scrapbook paper to make the little dividers a little bit more pretty. I decided to use four different patterns, none of which too gender specific and mixing it up quite a bit between them all for some variety. I thought about making them all the same, but then decided I wanted them all different instead. No particular reason, just what struck me.
I traced the dividers on each piece of scrapbook paper (twice for each piece, for a front and a back).
I cut them out...and then decided I wanted to deviate slightly from the inspiration blog post. I was a little concerned about the bare wood showing on the edges of the dividers; it would work in some cases but considering the loud scrapbook paper I'd chosen I thought it would just look unfinished. So I grabbed some paint, mixed up a green color, and painted the dividers. Like a dummy, I didn't bother to take any pictures during this phase either (although I have already mentioned that I was basically asleep doing all of this, so...). But after the paint dried, I cut out strips of the scrapbook paper that I had already cut and Modge Podged it to both the fronts and backs of all the dividers.
Once again, no pictures. I'm not sure why I even bothered to have my camera out of the bag today. But after the Modge Podge dried, I applied the appropriate sizing stickers (0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months) and left one blank because I didn't think it was necessary to use all the letter stickers required to write "Sleep Sacks," and stuck 'em in the closet. Thankfully, I had the clarity of mind to take pictures of the finished product, at least.
I don't currently have any 6-9 month clothes, so that's why you see one of the dividers way on the end of the rod. But the rest are all set and will be added to tremendously once the baby grows. For now, it's just one more thing crossed off the list, though, which is pretty awesome. There's literally only one project left in the nursery, and even though it should be incredibly easy I'm pretty intimidated by it. I've actually put it off this long because of how intimidated I am by it, but this week is the time. It's time to make a crib skirt, people. Anxiously await my blog post.
Here's the nursery to-do list now:
1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
quote for inside side table frame
hang all pictures
turn green bottle into a lamp
recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
prime dressers
sand side table
sand cube organizer
paint dressers white
paint side table white
paint side table drawer pull silver
paint cube organizer
make mobile for over crib
paint metal pail for books
clean out closet and closet drawers
clean out dresser drawers
line dresser drawers with contact paper
organizers for inside of dresser drawers
storage system and bins
basket(s) for cube organizer
get small lamp for changing table
metal trash can for diapers
basket with liner for hamper
shelf over storage system?
new overhead light?
art piece above changing table
hang large frame for showers
set up baby monitor
make crib skirt
buy new blackout curtains
Yep, there's three things on that list and I said there's only one project left. Since the babe is hanging that frame and he needs to help me set up the baby monitor, I'm not counting them as things on my personal to-do list. And technically they're not projects anyway. They're items. So there.
There's only two blog posts left in the nursery, though: the dreaded crib skirt, and then I'll do a big detailed look at the finished nursery as a whole, talking about some of the little details and things that haven't been mentioned on here already. And soon...there will be an actual baby on this blog! Crazy. We couldn't be more ready.
This book was recommended to me by a friend, and it got written down on all my various lists to remember for a different day. When I saw it at the Green Valley Book Fair in July I snatched it up for a mere $3.75. It's been a rough couple of months for my reading interests (between vacation in Florida and then the babe's motorcycle accident and recovery), but cruising through Baby Wise last week helped me remember a little bit about what it was like to actually read a book and I snatched this one up figuring a shorter, easier read would be even more helpful in getting me back into the habit. (A quick thought: isn't it crazy how easy it is to get out of the habit of reading? I have found that how I spend my free minutes cycles between TV and books; when I'm in the habit of filling dead time with Netflix or an SVU marathon on the TV it's what I fill all my free time with and forget that books exist. But when I get in the habit of keeping my book by my side and grabbing it to fill free time, I discover how much free time I have to read little snippets at a time and the TV or iPad or even my phone don't seem as tempting. So this is me trying to get back into that mindset, because books will probably always be more healthy than the TV. Even really good TV.)
Matthew Quick's Boy 21 is a little strange. I'm not going to lie to you. I enjoyed it a lot, but the basic plot is pretty odd and takes a while to really get into. Finley (or White Rabbit, as his friends and teammates call him) is about to start his senior year of high school in a very racially divided, rundown city that there seems to be no escape from. His only source of happiness and satisfaction come from his basketball skills, and he spends all his time in the off-season preparing to be the best. When his coach shows up at his house the night before school starts and asks him to befriend a new kid in school who has gone through a hard time, Finley does what is asked of him. Little could prepare him, though, for the friendship that would be formed with this new kid who preferred to be called Boy21 and who claims to be an alien from a different planet, sent to study Earthlings. In many ways, Finley and Boy21 are the perfect pair, and learn a lot from each other over the course of the basketball season.
Like I said, a little bit of a goofy concept - he thinks he's a what?! - but it grows on you and it does all start to make more sense as the book progresses. The picture of friendship is pretty interesting as well, and even though Finley isn't a perfect character he does really shine in a lot of areas; his patience and understanding with Boy21 is impressive. I wouldn't say that this is the most profound or incredible book I've ever read, but it does have some twists and shocking moments, and it also shows a truly heartfelt picture of friendship even in less than ideal circumstances.
It was probably close to a year ago that I saw this picture on Pinterest and decided I wanted to do something similar in our nursery.
taken from Pinterest.com
Instead of having the cloud and raindrops over the changing table, though, I always envisioned it as the mobile above the crib. My first plan for the mobile - formed more than a year ago when we were pregnant with Sam - was to make it entirely out of cardboard, using boxes we already had in the basement from when we moved to Berryville. I was also going to use white and blue paint that we already had, resulting in a free mobile other than fishing line and hanging hardware. This remained the plan for a long time, since we weren't really working on the nursery for a long time and then since I saved the mobile for (basically) last.
I grabbed some cardboard from the basement and drew out my cloud, using the crib as a loose reference for how big to make it and tweaking a lot as I went.
When I read Young House Love'sblog post about making Teddy's mobile, though, Sherry mentioned that she actually laid down in the crib after they had hung the mobile to make sure that it looked interesting from the underside (what would be Teddy's view). I never crawled into our crib, but it did make me rethink the completely flat - although free - cardboard design I'd been planning. The point of the mobile is to give the baby something interesting to look at while he or she falls asleep, after all. So I started thinking again.
My second plan was to make the cloud out of fabric, filling it with poly fill like a pillow, and to make the raindrops out of blue string that had been decoupaged and allowed to harden around a balloon that was later popped. I decided to use a thick white canvas (purchased from Hobby Lobby, of course), and used the cardboard cloud as a template to cut out my fabric. I contemplated using a friend's sewing machine for a few minutes, but since neither my friend nor I have used a sewing machine since the 7th grade, I decided it wasn't really the time to relearn that skill on such small, tight curves. So I opted to hand sew, and it looked AWESOME...
...until I flipped it inside out and stuffed it with poly fill. That didn't look awesome. That looked...that looked awful.
As it turns out, I didn't do such a great job keeping my stitches tight or following the curves of the cloud. There was stuffing sticking outside of holes where there were gaps in my stitching, but the bigger issue was that it didn't even come close to keeping its shape. And I was not a fan of this new shape it had taken on. The real killer is that after I decided to chuck this guy and start over with a different route, I saw a million examples on Pinterest and such that didn't have the fabric turned inside out and instead just left the flat, rough edges. So I probably could have kept it that way and been fine, but once I turned it inside out and stuffed it it was clearly not fine.
So I went back to the drawing board yet again after some Pinteresting for thoughts and inspiration...and ended up in a place similar to where I had originally started out. Here was my inspiration picture:
taken from Pinterest.com
For my third plan, I went back to the cardboard, this time making two clouds that I would fit together origami-style like the clouds in the inspiration picture.
Once I had two identical clouds (I used the first one as a template to draw the second one), I grabbed some white paint from the basement and painted them. It took several coats, but eventually I had two really pretty white clouds.
To cut the slits that would fit the clouds together, I used the ruler to find the halfway point from top to bottom, and cut one cloud from the bottom up and the other cloud from the top down.
It took some wiggling and manhandling to get the pieces to fit together, but eventually they did and I loved how they looked. When the babe came home from Florida, though, his reaction went something like this: "I love this! It looks so good! You know what would make it look even better and last longer? If we made it out of wood instead!" I'll be honest...my first thought was something like this:
But my second thought was that he was definitely right, and that it would be really cool to have him be a part of one of the nursery projects. So...we started again.
Our fourth plan was to make two clouds that would fit together origami-style just like the cardboard ones, but this time out of a very thin plywood we found at Hobby Lobby. Unfortunately, wood is a little bit trickier to cut and deal with than cardboard. The babe used his Dremmel tool to cut out the clouds - after I drew them, using the first cloud as a template for the second once again - and then sanded them all down so all edges would be rounded and smooth.
Many acrobatics were used.
Once they were both cut out, we measured again to find the spots to cut the slits...but this time the babe put a lot more thought into it than I did with the cardboard and made sure that slits were cut in a place that would allow the clouds to hang evenly and balanced. That meant that the slits weren't necessarily in the center.
I forgot to take pictures of the clouds painted white, because at this point I was lucky to remember to take pictures of anything. Several coats were used once again, as well as quite a bit of touching up, but eventually we had pretty white clouds once more. We super glued them together and then used wood putty to fill in any gaps, painting over the wood putty once it dried.
Next step was the rain drops, which had always been planned but just never had gotten a chance to exist.
I mixed up some glue water, covered the string with the mix, and wrapped it randomly around the little balloons the babe blew up for me (fun fact: I lack the skill of blowing up balloons). I'll be honest, even though this had been my plan all along, once I got started on it I wasn't really too sure whether it would work. I wasn't convinced they would look like raindrops once we popped the balloons. And then I wasn't sure the string would dry to a hard enough consistency to maintain shape very well without the balloons. After letting them sit overnight, though, they were plenty hard enough and with some careful wiggling and gentle scootching, the babe was able to pop the balloons and pull them all free from the string. They weren't the most amazing looking things in the world, but they would work just fine.
Next step was to drill very tiny holes along the bottom of the clouds, one for each of the raindrops, so we could tie fishing line through. We also drilled holes at the top of the clouds (two on each cloud, for four contact points total) to string fishing line through to hang the whole mobile. The babe knotted each piece of fishing line after stringing it through the holes and then super glued each knot for added reinforcement (this isn't something we want falling once it's hung). He then super glued each piece of fishing line to a rain drop and they were done! All that was left was the top.
He tied all four pieces of fishing line that had been woven through the top together in a knot, and then super glued it for added reinforcement. We still needed something to hang on the hook we bought for the ceiling, so he tied a second knot, super glued it, and waited for it to dry.
We used this hook - white, to blend into the ceiling a little bit better - and followed the directions for screwing it into the ceiling once we measured the spot that was dead center above the crib and also in a stud (because, once again, we don't want this thing falling on our child). Once that was done, we got to hang it!
I'm not sure that those raindrops were really what I envisioned - even though, to be fair, they're actually exactly what I envisioned - but they do the trick just fine. And, like the babe pointed out last night, they're super glued to the wood so I'm stuck with them. And I'm fairly confident that they look pretty sweet from the crib view (I'm not climbing in to see for myself though). Truth be told, I really do love the mobile. The babe's idea of switching to wood was great; it's sturdier and looks better and will last longer than the cardboard.
There's really not too much left to get done in the nursery now, which is awesome since we are now officially less than a month away from the due date. I can't even tell you how great it feels to cross this guy off the list!
Here's the nursery to-do list now:
1 Samuel 1:27-28 chalkboard
quote for inside side table frame
hang all pictures
turn green bottle into a lamp
recover lamp shade? new lamp shade?
prime dressers
sand side table
sand cube organizer
paint dressers white
paint side table white
paint side table drawer pull silver
paint cube organizer
make mobile for over crib
paint metal pail for books
clean out closet and closet drawers
clean out dresser drawers
line dresser drawers with contact paper
organizers for inside of dresser drawers
storage system and bins
basket(s) for cube organizer
get small lamp for changing table
metal trash can for diapers
basket with liner for hamper
shelf over storage system?
new overhead light?
art piece above changing table
hang large frame for showers
make crib skirt
buy new blackout curtains
There's a couple other odds and ends that are left, but those last three are the biggies. So ready to get everything crossed off my master "before baby comes" list, but we're getting really close! Only a handful of things left and they will hopefully be knocked out in the next week, leaving the last couple weeks wide open to relax and wait for Baby!
I'd heard about this book for quite a while and had been curious, even to the point of planning on reading it, but never actually bought it. I guess I thought I had more time. Thankfully, a sweet friend gave it to me as a shower gift, and I was able to crank it out over the last couple weeks ("cranking a book out" has taken on a new meaning post-motorcycle accident). Just based on the [really strongly worded] mixed reviews I've seen out there on Goodreads and such as well as my own observations of multiple people that I know that have used this book as a source, I was planning on taking some and leaving some as far as the principles of the whole Baby Wise concept goes. I was surprised, though, that I actually agreed with and liked all of it. It just made a lot more sense to me than I anticipated, and it was also very different than I had assumed.
I'd always assumed this book was about strict and rigid schedules that are unflinching despite changes in surroundings or in the normal day-to-day routines. The babe and I have always really desired to have a more flexible approach to baby raising; I know almost everyone says that and I'm sure it's an art that will be mastered over time rather than right away, but we really did want a reasonable routine that also wouldn't fall apart if we visited friends or went out of town or even had to run errands during an inconvenient time. I think this book really does provide a blueprint for that. It talks quite specifically about not having too rigid a schedule and not ignoring Baby's cues for the sake of the clock. It really preaches a schedule that has specific elements that remain rigid (the first and the last feeding of the day, for example) while allowing the rest of the routine to have a level of fluidity and flexibility (you need x amount of feedings per day with about this much time in between each, but they can be shifted forward or backward depending on your needs or the baby's needs). I liked that flexibility very much, and for the most part I think it makes a lot of sense.
All the information provided here seems to be a good balance between the thousands of schools of thought that are out there. The writers do a great job of discussing some of those other schools and discussing the reasons why they make sense as well as the reasons why they disagree and think their method is better. Topics such as breastfeeding (and bottle feeding), nap times, nighttime sleeping, wake times, and more are all covered here, and it's not only a great source of direction as far as the Baby Wise concept goes, but also just information in general. I learned a lot about what to expect in the next couple months that I wasn't hearing or reading anywhere else. Stuff like how many poopy diapers to expect in the first couple weeks of Baby's life versus a couple months later isn't some national secret and it could be found in lots of other places, but I enjoyed being able to learn it here and not have to keep digging through different resources. And I know I'll be returning to this book many, many times over the next year or so as I need to look at chapters and passages that speak to specific age groups as Baby grows.
As a quick 2014 goals update, the babe and I have officially joined a Bible study together! His work schedule has been a beast since we moved to Berryville, and even though we found the church we love and want to become invested in almost a year ago it's taken a very long time to actually be able to jump in. We took the church's foundation class (their membership class, although we didn't become members at the end of it) to learn more about what they believe and get any questions answered, and now that he's home from his summer away and healed from the accident we have finally been able to join a group. We've gone for two weeks now and like it a lot; it's a great group of families and we're feeling really comfortable as we get to know them more and settle in. We're excited to see what's in store for our family as we continue to get plugged in and involved.
The blog remains quiet, but here soon there should be quite a few projects for me to write about. The babe went back to work yesterday, which is both really exciting and kind of a bummer because we've enjoyed this time together at home so much (not the first two weeks, really, but the last two were great). I'm now trying to get back into my normal routine while also struggling big time with some lovely symptoms that come with the 9th month of pregnancy. But things are still getting done, slowly but surely, and that "before the baby comes" list is winding down. I had originally wanted September to be completely wide open with everything done beforehand so the path to my due date of October 3 would be light and easy, but I think as it is we will still have a couple weeks of no projects (assuming Baby comes on time, anyway).
One really quick and simple project the babe knocked out this weekend was a designated area for the trash cans. Originally, both trash cans were kept outside along the side of the house, but we got tired of collecting them from our neighbors' yards every time the wind would blow when they were empty. So we moved them into the garage. There wasn't really a good spot for them so they would just kind of get moved around as we needed to access certain spaces, which becomes a little bit harder when they're full. When we got the shed, we moved one of the trash cans out to the shed to free up some space, keeping only one in the garage for easier access. That helped...but it was still kind of annoying because I for one never felt like going out to the shed so I would just put bags of trash next to the can in the garage when it would fill up, and that didn't really accomplish much of a better situation. We decided that something needed to be done with the cans, even if it's a temporary solution.
All we needed was 5 2x4s, and the babe cut them down and screwed them together to make a frame. It took very little measuring and hardly any time, and we had a box.
The box is meant to keep them out of the garage (and yet slightly more accessible than the shed...which I will admit is just a few more steps away but that sometimes makes a difference when it's raining or dark or cold) while also keeping them anchored when they're not weighted down with trash. So far both purposes have been served well.
I plan on painting the frame white at some point to just look a little bit nicer, but I'm not sure when that will happen. For now, it looks fine and frees up just enough space in the tight garage (have I mentioned that we bought a new-to-us bike to replace the totaled one? So we have two bikes and my car in there...not much space to work at the work bench...or access the storage units...or bring in groceries...).
