road trip!

My oldest sister moved to Ohio not too long ago because her husband got a big promotion that took him there. She's at "Further Up and Further In!" if you want to give her a read, she's a great writer. Anyways, we have lived in the same city before and enjoyed getting to know each other, something we missed out on growing up due to our 7 year age difference. Well my mom has been planning to go visit her and on a whim, I guess, she invited me along. I thought about it some and decided I'd go! It's a long drive which we'll take over two days but I think Lucca is at least at the place that the trip won't ruin the whole week. SHe used to be terrible in the casr, but she has since learned how to fall asleep if she's tired and entertain herself in the car. We also turned her seat around to forward facing the other day and she loves it. I was hoping to keep her rear facing for at least two years but we can't fit two rear facing seats in our car. I'm confident the trip will go well and I'm really excited to see the Meester family! My nephew, Tiernan (whose mom is here), will be coming with us to spend some time with his cousins and I think Lucca will enjoy him too. I'm leaving tonight after dinner to go to Rock Hill, and we'll all leave from there. We'll see how this goes!

i'm grounded

The other day we started having trouble with our internet. Since we have Comcast we automatically assumed it was their problem. Turns out it was our wireless router. It's broken. So now we have no wireless. This has changed my life already. Probably 95% of my internet usage has been on my iPod since that fateful day I held a baby in my arms. The room that houses the computer is the room we call "Daniel's room" and it also has the tv, record player and huge expedit, including all the accouterments, like a ps3, Wii, receiver and a crap ton of books and records. In other words, this is not a very kid-friendly room. Thus all the internetting in my hand. Without wireless my iPod is basically useless to me, especially since (of course!) the tape deck in the car is messed up. I broke mine a couple weeks ago so this one is fairly new and I was still getting it set up how I like and downloading apps when the router broke, which leaves me with exactly one game to play: Sudoku. I'm getting pretty good.

Iit's better than this though.

well we're having a baby!

On April 30 I felt an unmistakable baby kick in my womb. I took a pregnancy test the next morning and immediately went into shock. This was not what we were expecting! It turns out I got pregnant at the end of January, when Lucca was 8 months old. I was 17 weeks along (thereabouts) when I found out about the person inside of me, which is simultaneously awesome and scary. We have a lot of preparing to do! Daniel is very excited about Deuce, which is the baby's nickname for now, and is working a huge amount of overtime so we can pay the midwife and buy a car seat. Yes, we are having Deuce at home just as we did with Lucca. It wasn't even something we had to discuss. If you've had a planned homebirth I'm betting you know why. If you haven't had a planned homebirth it's because there is nothing in the world like giving your body the familiar space and supportive atmosphere it needs to do what it is built to do. Giving birth is absolutely incredible and as long as I don't think too much about what comes after that, I am really excited about the opportunity to bring another person into our family.
Obviously this means the house will not get the improvements I was planning for it. At least not for a year most likely. I'm most disappointed about the kitchen. It is so gloomy and unhappy as it is, I was really hoping and looking forward to bringing some color into it. Actually I already told Daniel that for my birthday I want paint, cabinet pulls and recessed lights. I think about that poor kitchen every day!
But I'm so excited to meet this little one and make room for him or her. All the house fun takes a back seat to the people God has entrusted me with. We'll see how our little place holds up to four Colemans!

Today we saved $140! Sort of...

Earlier this week I woke up Daniel and he told me the air had run all night long. We checked the temperature in the house and groaned. It was set at 73. That meant it would be a HOT day! Daniel went to work and Lucca and I played together as the house just got hotter and hotter. I turned the air up to 75. Then to 78. Then...I just turned it off. It was 81 in the house and do you know what the temp was outside? 86. If the ac can't cool the house less than 10 degrees, then something is wrong. So we called a friend who used to work in air conditioning to come check it out. We got the news: it was the compressor and his former boss would only charge $400 to fix it once the part came in! Yay? Meanwhile, we packed up and went to the in-laws' house where it was decidedly not 81 degrees in the middle of the night. Not sweating all night was very pleasant! It was nice to be over there, but I have to be honest and say that it probably wasn't a good idea since by the end of our stay Lucca was done with me because Mimi was way better. It's a good thing I am the source of 99% of her food because otherwise I might have lost her. How can I compete with someone who doesn't do such terrible things as make her get dressed, force her into a diaper or *gasp!* take away the cat food! Thankfully it cooled down so I could steal my child away and re-educate her on how much fun I am.
Then today came and the ac guy showed up a day earlier than we expected! So he looked again and lo and behold, the problem was not the compressor, it was the freon! Apparently the design is really dumb (probably because it's the cheapest ac unit ever available I'm sure) and a pipe got a hole in it and all the freon drained. So instead of spending $400, we only had to spend $260. Yay! After all this, the ac guy told me to tell Daniel to call him when he got a chance so that he could explain what had happened. I am obviously incapable of saying "The freon drained because of a hole."
So today I saved $140 by spending $260 on a 2 year old ac unit that was improperly installed so that cold air is blowing under the house. Oh yeah, I didn't mention that part. I also didn't mention that in two rooms of our house we have vents that are just decorative. Yes, you read that right. Decorative vents. As in "we didn't feel like cutting through concrete, so we'll just stick this vent on top of it and hope no one notices." I guess the joke's on us, since we bought the house anyway. It's kind of an expensive joke.

Thanks!

It is not really my intention to write too much about my relationship with Daniel, since I don't really talk much about it in real life. I definitely believe in limiting the amount of negative talk about my husband and being careful who I say those things to. Usually when I do have to vent or seek advice, I go to a good friend who understands Daniel's personality and won't make assumptions or generalizations. However, I don't hold back when it comes to praise!
When I was pregnant, he was very patient and loving, rubbing my feet and back and doing extra house work so I wouldn't have to.What I was most impressed with was his desire to learn as much as he could about the birth process and how he could help me through it. We decided together (actually very early in the pregnancy) that we would do a homebirth with a midwife. Just to say we had explored options, we went to see an OB who spewed all sorts of junk about babies dying at home and it would be all my fault but if we came to the hospital everything would be a-ok. Daniel actually walked out of the appointment in frustration and told me to never go back! He participated in the birthing classes we took with another midwife (who was also pregnant at the time), practicing all the moves with me and pushing me to walk, walk, walk and breath, breath, breath up the big hill in our neighborhood at least three times a week. When I was sure I was in labor, he got up at 3 in the morning after sleeping only 3 of the previous 30+ hours to straighten the house, get all the supplies ready, call everyone who needed calling and even vacuum the house just because I like the smell and he thought it would help me relax. I always knew he was thoughtful, but it surprised me to see the lengths he would go to for my comfort.
Once our little Lucca got here, life became much more complicated. But Daniel has been my ally through it all. He often knows just what to do to calm her down if she is upset or crying and he loves to play with her and take her places. Lucca loves her daddy, she lights up when he comes home from work or when she gets to wake him up. Seeing Daniel interact with our little girl makes me fall more in love with him.
What is special about him is his ability to gently rebuke me. When I get frustrated because Lucca won't go to sleep, he reminds me that she is crying because she is tired and doesn't understand why I am upset. When I don't realize that bad habits are creeping into my parenting, he points them out. When I go for a glass of milk, he reminds me that I'll regret it later and I should probably just have water. He reminds me that I do these things more often when I'm not seeking the Lord. He not only rebukes, but he also praises. He thanks me when I've cleaned more than usual. He tells me he's proud of me for learning to cook with no eggs (and he eats the experiments too!). He tells me I'm a good mother. He tells me he doesn't want to live life without me.
I love my husband. It also helps that he's super sexy.

Beeeeeeeef

We've been trying to eat more natural foods, as opposed to super processed who-knows-what's-in-it food. For a few years now, we've eaten deer that Daniel has killed. While good, deer just doesn't quite replace steaks! So we've been looking for places to get free-range chicken, grass-fed beef and raw milk. These things can be hard to find in Georgia. We're not exactly living in granola central. So we were very excited when a friend posted on Facebook that someone had backed out of a beef co-op and they needed someone to buy 1/4 of a cow. Yay! This happened right when we filed our taxes, so we were expecting some extra money to come in. Fast forward a few weeks: I got the email that the beef was in and we could come pick it up. I left the girl with her daddy and picked up all 93 lbs of our organic, grass-fed beef. Ground beef, roasts, steak, ribs...yum! I got it all home, sorted it all out into our freezer and smiled for a while. Then we decided to eat some of it and I realized something: I have no idea how to cook ribs or a roast.

Yay for Free Labor!

UPDATE: We had a few people come and look and most gave up almost immediately. One couple held out and in about an hour got the big round bush in the front of the house (which now is a vegetable garden) and the azaleas (which is just dirt...for now). Better than Daniel was hoping for! Now we have to get those big bushes out ourselves...

I've heard rumors here and there about a wonderful use for the internet: giving away unwanted plants without even getting your hands dirty. I've seen it happen to Young House Love, so I'm hoping we can be as lucky. Because we have a bush problem. I don't know who decided that it would be a good idea to plant a million bushes and then plant ivy (really, people? ivy?) all around them, but I would love to meet them and let them know what I think of their "landscaping". In the front yard, we had an evergreen, surrounded (and being strangled by) ivy, with some yucca bushes thrown into the mix. We cleared that out (and found a disgusting number of palmetto bugs hiding in there) as soon as we could, cutting off all the branches until about 6 feet up. Of course, the roots in that dirt were impossible to get out, so we still struggle with persistent ivy and some type of thorny vine there. We also took out a small tree that was blocking the only kitchen window. What we were not excited about tackling was all those bushes. All along the house, there are scraggly bushes being eaten by ivy along with who knows what else. Some of these bushes were left to their own devices so long that now they are way too big, and trimming them to an appropriate size would only leave nubs. Enter craigslist and freecycle.
We are hoping to get loads of people just dying to take all out greenery off our hands! Daniel doesn't believe it will happen but I have hope. I just want these things gone! We are basically giving away anything people will take, but we are especially hoping to get rid of these:

Who knows how many separate plants are actually in this bunch...

They're so big! We tried trimming them down to a better size (as in, not a foot taller than the porch!) and that would have resulted in leafless branches. So we left them be until now! We are also hoping someone will want the trees we don't want, like the one I already mentioned

Not such a bad tree on its own, but in the ground is the aforementioned ivy and thorn. Also, our house is white and green and every single thing in the yard is green, with one white azalea bush on the side, so I would much rather have something that is, you know, a color other than green! I have in mind a Japanese Magnolia. I can't want until I can actually do that! I even have a placenta saved to put under it...

And just to show you, these are actual trees:

Yes, trees!

In the upper right hand corner of the photo is a tree that was left to grow, so you can see what these things are supposed to look like. Who decided that was a good idea? Not me!

So, we'll see how this experiment goes. The ad is up on freecycle and I've had a few bites, next up is craigslist. Please, people of Augusta, come take our scraggly bushes!

Details

When we first looked at this house I fell in love. It was beautiful, huge, full of character and begging for life. Our goal was to work steadily on improving it. Fans were old, two rooms were vent-less, the kitchen was too hastily done, and the list goes on! It was completely livable, and in fact had been a rental for twenty years. There were just fixtures and appliances that needed to be updated as well as some cosmetic problems. Two weeks after we moved in, I got pregnant. Perfect timing! Needless to say, those things have not been fixed. We have, however, managed to do some small things around here to make the house more a home. It's amazing what you can do with some furniture and paint. When we first moved in, the whole house was painted this drab, yellowy cream. My goal is to redo everything, but we've only gotten around to our bedroom, a bathroom and one wall in our daughter's room (on purpose!). We have replaced a light fixture, which is still in progress, and the water heater. We've bought some new furniture from that beast of wonderful places, Ikea, as well as some lamps and a rug from Target. Since we've already done these changes, I won't go into detail about those for now. No, the title of this post is referring to other details: details that make this house perfect. Some came with it, some have been added and others are constantly changing. We have refined our style by trial and error. It's been very (!) slow, but fun. While it sounds like we've spent buku dollars on the place, we really haven't because we've never had buku dollars! Most of the things we have have been given to us or we were able to find at the flea market or on sale. Or just in the yard :) So here are some pictures of my favorite details!

iPoded up

I've been delaying doing this because I didn't want to type so much on my iPod. You'd think I'd be at least slightly more proficient with my tech friend than I really am considering the countless hours I have spent on it. I got it for a birthday present while I was pregnant and didn't really use it much at the time. It was difficult to play on inconspicuously at work, not to mention the limitations of its fun factor in the absence of wifi. Towards the end of my pregnancy my eyesight was at an all time low and the screen just got smaller and smaller so I had to relegate the iPod to its original purpose. Then came baby. At her most time-consuming, I spent 3 hours every evening with her on the front porch swing. It was the only way to get her to sleep so I faithfully did it, even though it was July in Georgia. It was around this time that I discovered the iPod's amazing time wasting abilities. I subscribed to every blog I heard of that sounded even remotely interesting, I started checking all those failblog type websites that are addicting, I played Scramble and Hangman and I read Dorian Gray. My time spent sitting on the swing is over, but I still use my iPod more than anyone I know. Yet I still am annoyed by the idea of writing anything more than a quick text.