Tuesday Blurbs

Here's a quick Tuesday update for you, since I am under the weather and not up to actually writing a real post.

1.  Our house addition is temporarily on hold while we sort out some things with Brian's job.  Nothing bad - just some possible changes for him that may or may not have us living here.  That's all I can say for now - sorry.  Oh, but the good news is that enough of the estimates have come back favorable enough that we think the project could become a reality.

2.  I am done with the top of my first quilt.  Now I am working on the top of the second one, and then I will assemble them both with batting and the back portion.  The quilt isn't perfect, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  (I'll post pics of it later.)

3.  I was in hot pursuit of a bunk bed last week that was posted on craigslist.  It was listed at $250, but I had talked the seller down to $200 over email.  That was still a little more than I had wanted to spend, but it included both mattresses and was the closest thing to "ideal" that we'd seen.  Since it was located about 45 minutes away I wanted to make sure it was what we really wanted.  So I asked a couple follow-up questions (in addition to my initial price-negotiation), like if the beds had been in a smoking- or pet-home.  When the seller finally responded about 24-hours later (I'm sorry, but that is FOREVER in the world of online selling) she completely berated me for asking so many questions.  I quote:  "If you are trying to find something wrong with these, you won't.  If you are not interested in them, please stop wasting my time."  Excuse me?  I was asking some simple questions because I AM interested, and I don't want to waste MY time by driving all the way out there.

I was so burned that I withdrew my interest in the beds.  I am still occasionally checking for a new listing, but we have decided that we will likely have to buy new bunk beds for around $250.

4.  I signed up for a free month of Netflix.  We are really liking the fact that we can stream movies through our Wii for instant viewing.  But I'm too cheap to pay even the $9.99 per month, so we'll be going back to the status-quo at the end of the month.

The end.

Quick Breath

I am coming up for air for a quick second here.  Brian has been in Singapore the past few days so I am finding things to keep busy while he's gone. 

First of all, we had a bunch of extra services at church over the weekend.  So at least the weekend went fast with services on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Whew!

I wasn't sure if we would take the day off from school today in observance of MLK day.  But we did, and it's been so productive.

I have a million projects - mostly relating to home-improvement - swimming through my mind right now.  Things are moving along with our plans to do an addition on the house.  I've been talking to contractors and getting bids and watching the stock market, trying to figure out if everything will come together so we can make this work.  I'll have better numbers by early next week which should let us know if we will be a "go" or not.

I am also desperate to makeover the boys' room.  The room hasn't been painted or decorated since before we brought Isaiah home as a baby.  When Noah arrived we just added some closet shelving and a toddler bed for Isaiah.  Their room is out-dated.  Too young for them.  Nothing matches.  And I haven't bothered finding actual "homes" for most of their toys in there.

So I have big plans for re-doing their room.  But of course it has to be on a budget.  And look nice.  And make the room feel spacious.  And function really well.  Especially if this baby ends up being a boy, and we have three boys sharing a room down the road.  (I should go on the Nate Berkus show or something for a Design Challenge.)

First thing we need is a bunk bed.  I have it in my head that I don't want to spend more than $150 on the bed.  Preferably no more than $200 including the mattresses.  Do you know how hard it is to find a non-ugly, wood, bunk bed that is affordable?  I have seen a few on craigslist, and even though I am checking multiple times a day, they seem to get snatched up right from under me.  So the search continues.

Meanwhile, I thought I would look around for bedding for the boys.  I decided I wanted quilts instead of comforters or duvets.  Again, do you know how hard it is to find non-ugly, affordable quilts?  Best thing I could find was pretty cute, for $99 each.  I need two of them.  And I really didn't want to get two of the exact same quilt.  I wanted two quilts with the same color schemes, but that were slightly different, so each boy could be unique.  So I had two choices.  Order custom-made quilts and pay upwards of $200 each.  Or....

Yep.  I went to the fabric store today and bought fabric to make my own quilts!  What am I doing?  Who knows.  I have never made a quilt.  But how hard can it be to sew a bunch of little squares together, right?  (Please be aware that I am trying not to bite my tongue as it is currently in my cheek.)  The only thing is this:  the fabric wasn't as cheap as I thought it would be.  I ended up spending $127 (okay, that included a piece of chocolate for me and some Starburst for the kids) on all the fabric and batting.  And who knows if I have even close to enough (or way too much) of what I need.

Oh well.  I have never left a sewing project unfinished, no matter how frustrating it's gotten.  And I intend to come out victorious on this one as well.  It's not like I'm six-months-pregnant and have a million other things going on.  I am actually looking forward to this and can't wait to get started as soon as the fabric finishes drying.

So that's what's keeping me busy.  Besides the usual.  Oh, and Skyping Brian as much as possible, which is absolutely great.  I've already talked to him probably five times on this trip.  Pretty good since last time I only got to talk to him twice the whole trip.  I heart Skype.