This Old Nest

Apparently sometime around month five of pregnancy, the nesting instinct is supposed to kick into action. I'm well past that magical month and still waiting for the urge to strike. I think maybe my nesting instinct is still lurking, trying to decide whether or not it wants to emerge full force.



I have been having strange fits of tidying-up. But it comes and goes in tiny spurts. Therefore, one small surface of the house will be sparkling clean and immaculate, while everything else languishes in squalor (ok, it's probably not that bad...). For example, the guest bathroom toilet is clean, but don't look too closely at the floor. I dusted the piano in the living room, but now the multiple layers of dust bunnies on the china cabinet feel all superior and darwinian (having survived the latest spurt) and are threatening to take over the top of the dining room table as well.



I've at least decided on a classic Winnie-the-Pooh theme for the nursery, and the decision itself seems to be all I can accomplish so far. I went and looked at paint colors but was quickly overwhelmed and walked out with just a few of those little multi-colored paint placards to mull over. But I've only got two and a half months left! I've got to get busy!

June Brides and Just Busy

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, however we've been crazy busy this month. This past Saturday we attended the last of the three June weddings we were invited to attend. They were all lovely affairs and best wishes to all the newlyweds. But I'm glad to be done with our mini-season of marriages.



I had purchased a nice little maternity summer dress in May. It's made of a cool and breezy fabric with a dark little print. It's fairly comfortable, but as I got slightly larger as the weeks went by, the dress mysteriously seemed to get shorter... When I put the dress on for the second wedding, I lamented to my dear husband that my dress seemed too short, and his reply was "well, what else are you going to wear?" (**Note to other husbands who may have pregnant, hormonal wives... this was not the appropriate response. The appropriate response would have been something along the lines of "it's fine, you look beautiful honey", or "it's not too short, it's perfect for summer".)



One of the weddings was followed by a dinner and dance reception including a fantastic Grammy-winning band and yummy food. We stayed too long and I danced too much, but there was no way I was leaving before my husband was forced to participate in the Chicken Dance! He absolutely hates the Chicken Dance, and several other persons at the event know this... We had been threatening to dedicate the dance to him personally, or to make him get up on stage and lead the dance. But in the end, he just had to suffer through it like all the rest of us; his embarrassment was no greater than any of the rest of us uncoordinated fools flapping our arms and shaking our cabooses.



In other news, I've had one theatrical performance to attend this month, and two more scheduled before the month is out. I hosted a monthly ladies game night last week and cleaned and cooked up a storm in preparation for that. We hosted a Stanley Cup party back on the first Saturday of the month and lamented the defeat of the Calgary Flames for several days (ok, so my husband lamented and I commiserated). Overall, it has been a very busy month for us!



Now, it's time to get busy and start preparing for baby! On the baby-to-do-list are tasks such as:

* clean clutter out of nursery-to-be

* decide on decor for nursery

* paint and/or otherwise decorate nursery

* sign up for childbirth preparation classes scheduled for July 17th

* register for baby stuff

* decide on baby names

The list goes on, but these are the most critical things that we must get busy doing! In fact, no more lolly-gagging around on the computer, I should get busy!

Memorial Day Weekend Recap: Shopping, Shock, & Shelves

Our Memorial Day weekend was full of car shopping and all that it entails. Currently I drive a sporty little two-door Acura CL coupe. With impending babydom, a two-door just isn't going to be practical. So we need to get something with four doors, something suitably family-friendly.



Living in the suburbs, it is not an absolute requirement that we get an SUV or minivan; however we will blend in with our surroundings much more easily if we follow the herd on this one. My other half is vehemently anti-minivan, so SUV it is. My criterion for buying an SUV is that I want a smaller model, one that I don't have to climb up into and jump down out of. The acid test is that I must be able to sit in the driver's seat, spin around to get out, and my feet must touch the ground before my booty leaves the seat. Luckily, there are a host of small SUV vehicles that meet this specification. And we spent the weekend test-driving them.



We drove five different models on Saturday and a sixth on Sunday. We pretty much made our decision and spent Sunday evening and Monday morning cleaning out my car and spiffing it all up for trade-in. We went back to the Honda dealership Monday around noon, ready to buy a CR-V. The shopping was done, time for the shock...



Everything proceeded smoothly at first. They had the exact model we wanted, in the color I wanted. We test-drove it for a second time. We went in to start the paperwork. They came back with some numbers and wanted us to sign, but I was in shock! They only offered me less than HALF the blue-book trade-in value of my car! I could sell it outright for THREE TIMES what they wanted to give me. I was downright insulted! We ended up walking out. Although we will need a four-door soon enough, we didn't have to buy that day. And they certainly aren't the only Honda dealer in town. The whole episode gave me a huge headache!



We did have a productive evening on Monday, despite the dismal afternoon at the dealership. My folks came over and had dinner with us, then helped us put our office together (finally!). We bought nice office furniture over a month ago and it has been sitting in our office for weeks, empty, while our two computers and our office supplies continued to reside on the cheap-o $39.00 K-Mart computer desk that I've had for years. Well, the computers are now living in style on our new desks and we even started loading the bookcases in the office. This is an incredibly important step in getting ready for baby as currently 95% of the books we own are still in boxes stacked on the floor in the nursery-to-be. Over the next week or so, I want to get all our books shelved and OUT of the nursery. Then we can begin, in earnest, to prepare the room for its new occupant!