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August 24, 2009
Home Is Where Your Family Sleeps
So, we're home. I'm still not sure what that means exactly and today may have been the first day I didn't go back to the apartment (that YES we still own) since we actually moved, but we're home.
I have my kitchen 99.9% done, my bedroom 99.9% done, my office 75% done - but the important part like Internet. And my new desk from Ikea which was something of a bitch to build, but very very nice. Ann came over today and now my dining room is 99.9% done. She made me feel so much better. Thank you my friend! Oh and she brought Meli the cutest sweetest bench for her new backyard! Thank you!!!
Here are things I'm loving: my movers! YES - I LOVED MY MOVERS! I know, it's crazy, but I can't say enough good things about Suddath Moving Company. They were fantastic right from the start and my moving crew - headed up by one fine chic named Chris. She and her team were funny, respectful, and completely hardworking. I actually missed them when they finally left us. (Also I might have been freaking out at the sheer number of boxes in my house.)
My Levelor Cellular Shades from Lowes. LOVE THEM! They're cordless which is awesome because Meli likes to play with the cords and it scares me because she puts them around her neck. They came in fast, the installers from Lowe's were great and they look nice and are totally functional. I have black outs (which are REALLY DARK) and some that let in light and they are some of the best purchases I've made for my house.
There's something else I love but I can't remember now.
I'm exhausted. Moving totally sucks and I can't wait until the house feels like ours, really, and I'm begging to get back into a routine, but I fear that won't be for awhile. Oh and toddlers and unpacking don't mix very well.
Tomorrow Meli and I are heading down the shore to my sister's. It's the last week really that we can hang on the beach before school starts and I need to get away from "home." I actually think I might miss it when I'm gone.
I'll see you when I get back and hopefully have some pictures for you. I just hope I can find my camera in all this mess.
Thanks for all your good wishes. It's nice to have people out there rooting for you. I really appreciate it.
Posted by Cara at 09:52 PM | Comments (27)
August 18, 2009
Moving Day
Today we move. Georgie and I have been mondo sentimental the last few days as we've lived in our building for 18 years. Over 18 years. We grew up here - TOGETHER. When we moved in here lo those 18 years ago I was 21 and he was 27 and now we're old(er.) As much as we want to leave and are excited for this new chapter, it's really sad. It truly is the end of an era.
Also fate continued to show me that while we don't have the best luck, we don't have the worst luck either. We got an offer on the apartment yesterday. It might not be THE offer, but it's an offer and traffic has ramped up considerably in the last week or so. There may be an end to this yet.
I'm not sure when I'll be back on line - Verizon has proven itself to be just as wonderful as the cable companies of old - but as soon as I am I'll check back in.
Okay. There are still lots of boxes to pack. Movers will be here in two hours.
L, C
Posted by Cara at 06:57 AM | Comments (26)
August 13, 2009
Proust had his cookies
and I have - losing my cookies? In packing up my closet, I came across a skirt I wore a lot in the first trimester of my pregnancy and I was overcome with a feeling of intense nausea. It was like I could smell how things used to smell to me and it turned my stomach instantly.
I'm definitely not pregnant, just stressed. And filled with memories.
Posted by Cara at 02:21 PM | Comments (15)
August 11, 2009
Night
Today is Meli's 17 month birthday and I want to get this down.
So we started night weaning last Thursday night. Georgie had Friday off (for his birthday - sorry honey!) and I thought it was a good night to start because it gave me three nights where we didn't have to wake up early. (I link to a site on night weaning which I basically used as a guideline - no nursing between the hours of 11PM and 6AM - otherwise we're kind of doing our own thing but I think it's a great resource, so I link.)
The first night I nursed Meli to sleep right before 11PM and honestly fell asleep so she was on the boob for awhile after 11. But then we settled in. She woke up around 4AM and cried and cried but I didn't nurse her. I tried to hold her and comfort her but she's a stubborn little girl so she pulled out the big guns:
"Pease! Pease! Pease!"
BOING! CRASH! That sound you heard was the arrow piercing my heart and shattering it into a million pieces. I've been trying to teach her please and thank you and here she goes and uses please CORRECTLY and WITHOUT PROMPTING and I can't give in. Yeah. Mommy breakdown moment. I'm still picking up the pieces of my broken heart.
That first night we ended up being up from 4AM until 6AM, with 5:50 to 6 being the longest 10 minutes of my life. Thank god for Sprout. I nursed her the minute the clock hit 6 and she was asleep within thirty seconds and slept until like 10AM. I was bone tired and felt like I had totally given in at that 6AM mark.
The second night I was a bit better prepared. I had her milk and her water close at hand and was fully prepared for a night of Thomas the Tank Engine. She woke up around 1AM and wasn't as fitful and angry as the night before, but still had some ammunition. This time it was a plaintive wail of:
"I know, I know, I knoooooowwwww!"
She says this because this is what I say to her when she's upset. I hug her and pat her and say, "I know, my love, I know." So when she's upset, she tells herself the same thing. Only it sounds so much more sad and pathetic when she cries it than when I say it. "I knooooooooooooooowwwwwwwww!"
Luckily, this only went on for about ten or fifteen minutes before she trailed off and went to sleep. I think she woke up again around 3AM and did another round of "I knows" but all in all it was MUCH more successful than the night before.
The third night it got even better. She would cry and complain but quickly go back to sleep. She was never up for more than five minutes at a time, although it seems to me she was sleeping a lot lighter than she usually did. For instance, most times I can move her around in bed without waking her (like when she's turned sideways and is kicking me in the back) but that night any time I moved her the slightest she woke up. So I stopped moving her and woke up with a sore back from trying not to move all night.
The fourth night I don't remember so well, although I think it was a little bit worse than the third night. The fourth night became about her sippy cup, which I gave to her and she clung to like a talisman. I tried to take it away from her once. ONCE. Yeah.
Last night was the fifth night and I really didn't have many high hopes that things would be better than the fourth or third night. She was doing okay and NOT nursing and honestly that's really what I'm weaning her for - the NOT nursing. If I have to go without sleep, well, sleep is for sissies anyway.
The fifth night I was armed with her current favorite stuffed animal, dog. I nursed her to sleep around 10PM and while I was nursing her I told her that we were going to say goodnight to nursies and then sleep all night long and that in the morning we could have nursies again. I told her that Mommy would be next to her all night and that I would hold her if she was sad but that everything would be okay.
Wouldn't you know it? She's still asleep. It's 6:26 AM and she's still asleep and she hasn't nursed ONCE all night. Not only hasn't she nursed, but she hasn't woken up at all either. She tossed and turned a lot and she seemed to need to be TOUCHING me the entire night, but she didn't wake up. In fact, at around 5:45 AM she laughed in her sleep. Nothing better than the sleep laugh.
I know the kind of night we had because I didn't sleep. I waited for her to wake up. I alternately panicked over all the stuff I have to do and all the stuff I haven't done and was completely proud of my little girl for being so big and was devastated that she's so big and I tried to sleep but it didn't really work. Even when I moved her around a bunch - she still didn't wake up.
I'm prepared for the fact that tonight she might wake up every hour on the hour demanding to nurse, but if she can do it once, she can do it again.
We move a week from today and I've already run out of small book boxes with still more books to go. Yipee!
L, C
Posted by Cara at 06:34 AM | Comments (26)
August 03, 2009
Color My World!
So I did a bit of swatching:
We were talking about all my paint sampling and Ann commented that it's just like a gauge swatch and really it is. So necessary. Annoying. You hate that you have to keep trying new combinations but oh so worth it in the end.
I'm trying to match an area rug in the dining room and I started out with the three colors directly to the left of the doorway. Way too light, not enough red, practically blend in with the woodwork. (By the way - don't the floors look great? Just some sanding and poly - no stain - that's how they look. I'm so happy to have wood floors!!)
I went redder in the next go around. The winner is in this picture. Actually - the winner is in ALL of the pictures. Is it this one?
Nope! But maybe Meli likes that best. C'mon baby girl! Show us the winner!
That's Pomegranate. Here's the swatch:
I actually think there's a bit more purple in it than the swatch, but it's pretty close. The best part is when G was at the house and I had the rug down he chose this color and the color to the right of it as the two finalists. When I first put the paint up on the wall, they looked almost identical. In the end, the color to the right is a tad darker. And pomegranates are G's favorite, so it's only fitting that the namesake color adorn the walls of our dining room.
Tomorrow they start the paint!! They were supposed to start last week but the floors took a bit longer and then we had to let them dry. They were then supposed to start today. That's why Meli's in her diaper - I literally took her out of bed, still sleeping, so I could get to the house in time to let them in only to have the foreman tell me they're starting tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow - it's only a DAY AWAY!
I feel like once the paint is on the walls the house is really mine. Even though they've already hung my new chandelier and put up a bazillion baby gates and we bought a new kitchen table and chairs at Ikea this weekend (thank goodness for their odd sizes since the kitchen doesn't really have a lot of space for a table and yes I'm mixing my woods) and I'm about to order my new bathroom vanities and pick up the sconces tomorrow and...and...and! So many details.
When I'm not obsessing about the new house, I'm procrastinating on a job I MUST finish by packing. So far I've got about 55 boxes done - ALL BOOKS. And there's still a bunch more to do. I haven't even touch the knitting books. I feel like if I can just get the books packed it will all be good. Although I'm terribly depressed because my Ikea bookcases that have lined my walls for the past 12 years pretty much won't fit in any of the rooms I've designated as book rooms in the new house. I've looked around but bookcases are expensive! I guess I've been able to have so many because Billys are cheap. I don't know what I'm going to do, but packing up all my books has been sad - especially since I'm not quite sure when they'll be unpacked.
But tomorrow the painters start! And if all goes well, we'll be moving two weeks from today. Or tomorrow. YAY!
Posted by Cara at 11:37 PM | Comments (24)