sew mama, sew!

Maybe it's nesting, or maybe I just know that sometime soon, our entire world will be rocked again, and my plate will be full. So I'm doing what my internal clock is telling me to do:  I am sewing.  A lot.  Last week, updated curtains, this week - matching pillow covers!  The envelope design uses every last inch of leftover floral fabric and the rest is my endless supply of rust-colored curtain fabric (why do I have so much?)...  Anyway, here they are.

 

Next on my list: kitchen curtains!  Stay tuned...

curtain refresh

Updated curtains!

Here's my latest belly picture: 33 weeks.

Now, the curtains: I made the original panels a LONG time ago - it was my first big sewing project, using an old Montgomery Ward machine that someone donated to me to make curtains for our apartment windows in Seattle.  They have moved with us since, but they barely fit the windows in our house.  Plus they were starting to fray at the bottom, so I thought they could use a little update.  We always had two panel types: the gold stripe and the rust corduroy - I'm not sure why we did this originally - perhaps because we were in graduate school and we couldn't afford to do the whole thing with the gold stripe?  Now they are much longer and have an added floral panel at the top to let in some light and tie the two panel types together.
 
For kicks, here is a glimpse of the old curtains (and some more preggo pics)...

This was taken a few months ago - same shirt!  smaller belly...

Grandpa and me, pregnant with Dean (taken the day before he was born).

original Seattle curtains (who's that girl with the pigtails?)

no nap day three

6 am - not bad.  Do I hear 7?  wishful thinking?

no nap cold turkey

Day 2 of our decision to go cold turkey without a nap for Dean.  Friday morning, Dean woke us up at 4:30 and could not go back to sleep.  I had taken a Tylenol PM at midnight to help me sleep, which is supposed to give you 8 hours of good sleep, so you do the math.  We've been fighting his early morning tendencies for four plus years, but when we are woken up before 5 a.m., it does not bring out the best in our parenting.  Unfortunately, the early-morning-rising-and-nap combination is cyclical.  When Dean wakes up super early, he usually naps really well - and we like naptime because it's an opportunity to catch up on sleep ourselves - and so the cycle continues... 

So Friday I decided to sacrifice my nap and keep him up in the afternoon.  Usually, it makes no difference the next day - he still wakes up before 6 at least, as he did this morning - which is why we've kept the naps.  There is usually little reward for a napless day.  But still, maybe after a week, we can get closer to 7?  I feel like a zombie.  I clearly need more sleep than my four-year-old.  Mistake?  We shall see... 

a brighter day

I felt a little guilty writing such a grumpy post over the weekend.  My pregnancy is definitely slowing me down; at the same time I am feeling the pressure (self-imposed, of course) to complete some projects before the baby is born and to get the kids moving outside despite the unending rain.  Not exactly great odds for me,when I am trying to summon my inner (and outer) joy.  BE. JOY.  To top it off, I knew I had a long day ahead of me on Monday, a day in which Matthew not only doesn't have the holiday; he is skiing after work into the evening in a charity fundraiser.  Waaah me.

So, today, JOY be summoned - in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. day - we took advantage of the free zoo day, we met a friend and her son, and we had a wonderful time!  The sun even came out!  We got home for a late lunch, a long nap, the kids enjoyed a nice bubble bath, a pajama party and we watched "Finding Nemo".  My favorite kind of day.

 

relentless rain

... and it's only January.  I can't send the kids outside because it won't stop raining! 

My body is sore, and I'm tired and grumpy.  I've got curtains to modify, but apparently I cut the fabric a little short, so I have probably doubled my workload.

Struggling with my one-word resolution today.

wordle: a year of blogging

Today marks a whole year of blogging (hooray!) - so to celebrate this milestone, a wordle: