It's Whirlwind Time

Top row: Dover white, Nuance, Useful Gray, Analytical Gray

Bottom row: Ice Cube, Big Chill, Light French Gray

Those are paint colors from Sherwin-Williams as pictured above. The sad part is I made that picture myself for comparison and that I recalled the color names by memory.

Why, you ask, am I memorizing and obsessing over shades of gray paint? Because we're in the process of buying a house.

Yep. You heard that right.

Buying a house.

Two weeks ago we thought we would rent while living in Colorado Springs, but a handful of reasons avalanched on us and caused up abruptly to change our minds. In the span of about 3 days we went from thinking buying a house wasn't for us at this time to negotiating a contract. Crazy doesn't even begin to describe this whole ordeal, and while I am confident that this is a good decision, I can't help but be scared out of my mind by the whole thing.

Because of our schedules and the short time frame we're working in, we are not able to actually go and see the house. So yeah, we're buying a new house, sight unseen. Still crazy. Still a good idea. We're really excited about it and it feels both a bit overwhelming and also surprisingly normal. Sometimes I think it's not the big life decisions that stress me most, but rather little ones which I agonize over. The home is under construction and we'll be able to pick many of the design elements (limited by our budget) by looking at samples via e-mail mostly.

If all goes well we should close by June 30.

In the mean time, Justin will graduate from career course, we'll have another baby2 check up, we've got to pack up and move in the coming week, drive 8 hours to Houston, have family and business time in a matter of days, and road trip back up to Colorado through San Antonio, Carlsbad (NM), and Santa Fe for a total of about 1700 miles.

Did I mention we don't know where we will live in Colorado Springs until the house is completed?

I feel surprisingly good.

Oh, and my favorite color is Big Chill, although I just found out, it's not one of my options. Sigh. Now I'm thinking Nuance.

The Inner Circle

A third member has joined the Inner Circle of friends. First there was Pound Puppy; one of my toys from childhood who was picked up in Houston on a visit to Nana and Granddaddy's. Then came Bebe; a gift from my dear friend Kat from college on a visit to Jersey over the holidays. And now, Pooh Bear has been initiated into the most sacred group of friends. Oddly enough, (this particular) Pooh has been around practically since Evie was born--he was a gift from my sister, and I used him monthly as a prop next to Evie as a sort of measuring standard when I took pictures of her as she grew in her first year.

I don't know why it's taken so long for her to take to him to this level, but she has. He is now one of three. They go around the house with us. They go in the car with us. They are often requested in the bath--that's a tough one to explain. Since her love for Pooh sprouted, I introduced her to the original Disney Pooh movie, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and that's been a new favorite as well. She dances to Tigger's song and repeats after Piglet when he stutters "Oh, d-d-d-dear dear!"

In any case, I don't know how The Inner Circle could go from three to four. Her arms will have to grow to accommodate carrying anything else!

Delicious Not Fried Fries

y mother had a recipe for oven baked french fries, and lately I've been really craving them. I found this recipe online at Allrecipes.com and can tell you after trying it the other night that it was a HUGE success. Completely addictive and so much healthier than fried fries, if you're a potato fan, you need to try your hand at these:

Oven Fresh Seasoned Potato Wedges

Ingredients:

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 russet potatoes, scrubbed and cut into eighths

Directions:

Preheat an oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C).

Place Parmesan cheese, olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, pepper, salt, and potatoes into a resealable plastic bag. Seal the bag, then shake to coat the potatoes with the seasoning. Spread the potatoes over a baking sheet.

Bake in the preheated oven until the potatoes are easily pierced with a fork, about 25-30 minutes.

***Photo by CookinBug.***

A word about letters

I just wanted to give special mention to the amazing typographer/illustrator/designer Jessica Hische. I've been a long time admirer of her work and last September she began a great project, Daily Drop Cap, in which she, as the name implies, creates a drop cap letter daily. I've been using them on my blog and wanted to give special credit and highlight her work.

Biscuits, Gravy, and Giraffes

his is a bit of a catch up post as I just uploaded the pictures from my camera and have several rather unrelated things to share. They do all involve Evie, so I suppose they're not that unrelated after all. First of all, we have a picture from one Sunday afternoon when Justin was holding Evie after she woke up from her nap, and she fell back asleep on him for another half an hour:

Next, we dyed eggs for the first time this Easter. It was a lot of fun; Evie mostly colored on hers with the wax crayon and then we dipped them in the dye. Sadly, I did a really poor job capturing the whole event, but here's proof that it happened:

And finally, we took a trip up to Oklahoma City this past weekend. The weather was just so gorgeous, we slapped on our sunscreen and climbed in the car. As our weeks dwindle here in OK, we had to take in breakfast at one of our favorite finds in OKC, Pioneer Pies. They have an amazing selection of fresh baked pies on hand all the time, but I must admit, as wonderful as their pies are, my favorite thing they do is breakfast. It is huge and hearty with choices ranging from fruit topped waffles to pancakes, eggs and sausage, bacon, french toast, omelets, breakfast burritos, country potatoes, and the best biscuits and gravy I think I've ever had.

We headed over to the zoo after breakfast and had a great time seeing the animals. I think Evie's favorite might have been the ducks in the pond, although the giraffes gave the ducks a run for their money.

Day Seven.

t's been a full week since my last post, and miraculously I have woken every single day for an entire week at 5 am to workout! I am really proud of myself and I also can tell that there is a great improvement in my energy; although I do have a pretty nasty midday slump. If I'm able to take a nap when Evie does I feel better, but I hate loosing that time in which I could be doing something else and often I find I'm not ready for bed by 9 if I've had an afternoon nap. If I don't take a nap I'm MORE than ready for bed at 9 pm.

I'm also starting the second trimester of this pregnancy. Where did the first one go? I remember with Evie it seemed to take forever for the days and weeks to pass because I'd sit counting days and reading about fingernail growth and what size fruit she currently most resembled. I guess mostly because of her now I just don't have the time to do that, plus of course having been through a pregnancy before it's not quite as disorienting. I plan to start taking bi-monthly pictures or so to chart tummy growth; I did that last time, although I wasn't keeping the blog at the time. I've heard that women often "show" sooner in subsequent pregnancies, and I'm interested to see if that holds true for me. I really didn't look pregnant until about 32 weeks or so. Until then I just looked bloated, and I was endlessly amused by the number of people who were obviously confused by the question of whether I was pregnant or just overweight. My favorite time was when the optometrist I saw somewhere around 7 or 8 months pregnant asked if I were taking any supplements or special vitamins, hoping to get me to admit to taking prenatal vitamins and thus settle the question of my status. Poor man, I can only assume he'd wrongly guessed that a woman was pregnant before and was desperate to avoid the mistake again. He was so relieved when I said, "Why yes, I am taking prenatal vitamins," but was quite surprised to know how soon I was supposed to deliver.

Anyway, I will be pretty excited if this time around I look more gradually pregnant, and less like I've indulged in too many coffee cakes until weeks before delivery.

What's going on:

1. I'm pregnant. 13 weeks tomorrow. Due Oct. 14.
2. I have a cold. Again.
3. I get nauseous at night; so far no sick-making.
4. This baby's name will be Mudd.
5. No, but seriously, this kid is kicking my butt in a way that Evie did not.
6. Justin thinks it's a boy.
7. I don't know one way or the other.
8. Evie likes going outside now that the weather is nice.
9. I worked out for the first time today in over a week.
10. I'm having a really hard time working out.
11. I have very low energy and motivation to do much.
12. I've just realized that we will be moving in about a month and there's a lot to do.
13. I made bunny finger puppets for Evie for Easter.
14. She wasn't that impressed.
15. Evie asked for "Thomas??" meaning Thomas the tank engine, whom she desperately wanted to watch. Unfortunately it was not time for Thomas the tank engine to come on tv. After finding some video clips online, we discovered that wasn't good enough--or perhaps only fueled her unquenchable desire for Thomas, and we were left to endure the repeated request for "THOMAS??!??" for about 15 minutes despite multiple explanations of why watching Thomas on television was impossible at the moment and the implementation of brilliant distraction techniques. Curse you, Thomas, all of your train friends, and Sir Topham Hatt too!
16. I'm itching to redesign the blog again.
17. I drew outside yesterday with Evie.
18. It felt good.
19. I have an exciting project in the works.
20. I miss Julia.
21. I woke today at 5 am to try (again) to establish a morning workout routine. The plan this time: For 10 days I will go to bed at 9 pm and wake at 5 am to do 30 minutes on the spinning bike, or some other equivalent cardio. Internets, you will help keep me honest.