I figured there might still be a few of you who would be interested in some updates to my announcements in my last post (seven months ago!). Let's begin with the most exciting, shall we?
Introducing . . . baby George!
After a very fast (and very easy) labor two years ago resulted in Mary Jane being born at home in the tub after about 8 contractions total and about 45 minutes of labor, start to finish (read about that here) . . . we -- well, mostly the husband -- had really been hoping that we'd make it to the hospital this time. We have moved since our last birth and had a new OB and a new hospital that I was comfortable with, but which are a good twenty minute drive away. I had been praying, and so had many of you! that I would feel labor early enough to head for the hospital before it was too late to even try and that labor would be long enough that we could comfortably drive there and check in and whatnot. And, well, you've heard the one about being careful what you ask for? . . .
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
When last I posted, it was early December, I was hit pretty hard by first trimester fatigue and barfiness and I wasn't going to make my December 6th deadline on the liturgical living in the home book manuscript. The folks at Ignatius were very understanding, and gave me another six months to get the book to them. In late January, I finally started coming out of the fog. So, because I am a person who never, ever learns her lessons, I decided to patch and paint and furnish and decorate the first floor of the house real quick, THEN finish writing the book.
It's mostly Betty's fault.
Her thirteenth birthday was February 6th, and in early January I had told her I just wasn't feeling up to throwing a complicated birthday party, and she suggested that we just have a Sense and Sensibility tea party/movie night with a few girlfriends. That sounded perfect. And easy. But then with just over a week before her party I started feeling a bit more like myself* and all of a sudden I couldn't live with the mac and cheese yellow walls patched with white in each place that the construction guys had put in a switch or outlet. At first I told the husband that all I really needed to do was just prime the walls in the living room and dining room. Then they'd be white not yellow for Betty's party and I could live with that. I'm pretty sure he knew better than to believe me.
* "like myself" meaning "crazy" apparently
As keeps happening on every "little" project I try to tackle with this old house, I kept backing in to bigger and bigger projects. The patched parts of the walls needed texturing, there was a big hole that needed patching -- and texturing -- in the ceiling, and THAT is a huge mess and needs to be done before priming. There was yellow overpaint on the edges of all the wooden doors, and the brick edging, and the stone fireplace. And if we were going to move all the furniture into the middle of the room, we might as well just rearrange it all to its permanent location, right? I didn't want the TV and the comfy couch in the formal living room long term, but that meant I also needed to paint the playroom/TV room and put up curtains in there so we could set up the furniture in that room. Once I had the walls painted, I realized how dingy the ceiling looked and so on and so on and so on.
So, in the week I had before Betty's Jane Austen Tea Party, all I did was make the house a MUCH bigger mess than it was before.
But the party must go on, and it did. We had the couch and TV moved into the playroom and we had the party in there and a good time was had by all. Although I did have to pause the movie and explain to a bunch of 10-14 year old girls what an "illegitimate" child was. 😳 (How great is Col. Brandon? SO great.)
Anyway, I decided to keep up with the painting and decorating until the big annual St. Patrick's Day Hooley, and I managed to finish the living room, dining room, TV/playroom, big kid game room, breakfast room, and mudroom/pantry. I need to do a whole house tour series one of these days, so I won't photo dump now, but here's a sneak peek of the living room.
Better, no? (That's a built-in leather-doored liquor cabinet next to the phone, if you're wondering. And we got the phone many years ago from Pottery Barn, and they don't seem to carry it anymore. But here's a similar one.)
The guest bedroom, main back hallway, school room, and two downstairs bathrooms did not get finished. And still aren't. But I had to quit anyway, because there was still the little matter of this book to finish in about three months. Also . . . I fell off a ladder painting and broke my tailbone. In the middle of the night. The husband was out of town, of course.
I know what you're thinking, "Wow! How fun and exciting! That must have been really awesome!"
But, surprisingly, it was not. It hurt a crazy amount, I think more than anything I've ever experienced before, mostly when trying to stand up, or drive, or move when sleeping. And, unfortunately those three things are things I have to do e'rry day. I'm happy to say, it is FINALLY better, which might surprise you once you know more about Georgie.
Okay, I think that's enough catch-up for today. I still need to tell you all about the book, and more about baby George, but first, there's the whole Frankie in the hospital thing . . . stay tuned.