kitchen: better late than never

We've been in this house for, ahem, a year and we haven't really done as many projects as I had imagined.  It's hard, it's overwhelming, and staying on top of 2 acres of yard is no small task when you are terrible at it.  Seriously, our yard is insane and needs so much work right now.  It also seems like every time we talk about a new project (bedroom furniture, new carpet) we are hit with a four-figure bill for removing a family of raccoons from the attic and repairing all of their damage.  I wish this wasn't true.  Seriously though, before we moved in, I imagined our weekends being like a Lowe's commercial: lots of smiling, laughing, and "after" pictures.

Yea.  What those ads don't show is all of the crappy prep work, moving the furniture and random crap that is everywhere in your house, and the endless clean-up work.  They don't show the times when your husband knocks a hole in the drywall with a hammer.  Twice.  I'm also not sure how these people have so much energy on a Saturday morning after working all week?  I feel like this is a more accurate representation of a Saturday morning:

Now we now have about six months to get some serious painting/decorating/general work done.  What can I say?  I have always worked better under a deadline.   One room that I wasn't able to deal with after we moved in was my pistachio-green kitchen.  My parents helped us repaint and I decorated that room last September.  Hooray!  One room down.  Only eight to go.

Kitchen/Breakfast Room: Before

Kitchen/Breakfast Room: After

twelve weeks

Needless to say, we are thrilled.  We found out at the end of April and I'm not entirely sure it has sunken in yet!  We are definitely ready for this phase of our lives though.  Not sure I can say the same for the cats.  Time will tell with those two.

12 weeks

• The Baby:  Size of a lime and, according to my last ultrasound, I can confirm at least one arm and one leg.  
• How I Feel:  Pretty good, actually.  Early pregnancy was not bad at all.  The worst symptoms I had were being really bloated and really, really tired.  I didn't have any morning sickness and the only food aversion I had was the smell of coffee.  That has already improved.   The first several weeks I napped a LOT.  Doing something like one load of laundry would make me so tired that I'd sleep for an hour.  Craziness.  That is getting better, too.
• How Wes Feels:  Broke.  We are doing fine in the grand scheme of things, but no matter what my beloved accountant is going to worry endlessly about running out of money.  He refers to Buy Buy Baby as "bye bye money," and I've only shopped there twice so far...it's going to get much worse.  But he's so excited for this baby...this is just his primal "provider" role coming into play, I suppose.
• Weirdest Thing:  A crazy powerful sense of smell.  Example: one Saturday Wes was mowing the lawn and spilled some gasoline on the patio that is outside of the basement and in the backyard.  I came come from running errands and walked in the kitchen (an entire floor above where the gasoline was, and indoors) and smelled the gasoline instantly.  We had to open windows because it was such a strong smell to me. 
• Biggest Surprise So Far:  I had always heard that you don't show until you're about 3 months along.  Which is true, the "baby" doesn't show before then, but what they don't tell you is that you do start to show something.  That something is gas and bloating.  I certainly don't have washboard abs, but I thought I would be plugging along in my regular pants with no evidence of a pregnancy until about 12 weeks.  Not so much.  I think that as soon as I took the pregnancy test I started expanding.  Regular pants were not comfortable at all.  I've been in actual maternity pants since about 9-10 weeks!  These women who say they don't need maternity clothes until 5 or 6 months...I'm not sure who they are.  They are aliens.  Or at least they are taller than 5 feet...that has to have something to do with it.
• Cravings: My secretary asked if I was having any cravings, and I told her "yes...food."  Although I could have said Chick-Fil-A.  If I gave in to that craving, I would eat CFA every day.   Early on I craved things like ice cream and cookies which is not a normal thing for me - I have always been more of a salty snacks gal.