Going Back to Work in T-Minus 10 Days

Oh yeahhhhhh. Did I forget to mention that I'm going back to work in t-minus 10 days? I am. And I'm doing the mad scramble.

 

How is it possible that I've been off on maternity leave for almost a year and a half and I still have a billion errands to run, five closets to clean out, house projects to finish (and blog about), photo sessions to edit, gardens to weed, a classroom to organize, lessons to plan, and thank you cards to write from Cooper's first birthday party back in April.

 

{I think I should just skip the thank you cards at this point. Doh.}

 

In between all of the items on my never-ending list I am trying to savour every spare minute of my mornings with my cute little monkey. Oh our mornings. I put away dishes, he pushes cheerios around on his tray like they are tiny cars. I eat toast with some kind of unhealthy topping. He runs over to sneak bites in between playing. I drink coffee. He tries to ride the dog. It's pretty much the best.

Which leads me to my fun news. Back in the spring, I applied for a half-time leave of absence for the full school year and it was approved. Even though I will miss my mornings with Coops, I will still be able to spend every glorious afternoon with him. Well, after his nap that is. ;)

 

Cooper will spend the mornings with his Grandma and I will get to pick him up every day at 12:30. I am so grateful.

 

So. If you were wondering if I fell off the face of the earth, I haven't. I'm just scrambling.

 

P.S. Look what Alex dug up the other day. A photo of yours truly. Now I know where Coops gets his giant forehead from. ;)

 

 

Progress on the Exterior Side Entry

Back in May I shared some embarrassing photos of our fallen-to-ruins side entry. We decided that we would do a few fix-ups to it over the summer to make it more presentable. Also, it's ugliness was pretty much driving me insane.

 

The first thing we did was to scrape and sand all of the painted wood. We tried to get as many flaking paint chips off as we could with a metal scraper, and then used an electric sander on everything else. Sanding the walls wasn't too bad, but the ceiling was brutal. Just so you know, paint and old wood dust doesn't taste very good. How about we add that to my list of things that I never want to do again.

 

Once all the wood was sanded, we gave everything a thorough cleaning with T.S.P. We picked up a gallon of primer from Home Depot, Zinsser Primer-Sealer Stain Killer to be exact, and primed all of the painted and exposed wood. We even gave an extra little coat of primer to the areas that were really flaking off. Just to make sure they were really covered and sealed up.

Of course with a little bit of primer the whole area is looking SO much better. I secretly want to just leave it as is and pretend that I painted but don't tell anyone that I'm super lazy like that, m'kay?

Here are the before pictures:

Before - Yuck!

Before - Yuck!

 

And here are the progress pictures:

Progress - Primer + Weeding

Progress - Primer + Weeding

Now that Coopaloops is super entertained by rocks and pebbles, I was able to let him play in the driveway the last two afternoons while I dug out all the grass and weeds that had grown in our driveway alongside our cement curbs. In the above photo you can see that on the left hand side of the concrete slab there are grass and weeds growing in the gravel and on the right hand side of the slab you can see that I pulled them all out (all the way from the house to the sidewalk)(it was a pretty long stretch)(please give me a virtual high five because it was tres sucky)(that might be French-Canadian for very sucky but I'm not really sure because I don't speak French).

 

So, that's our little bit of progress. Our next steps are to paint over the primer with Cloud White exterior paint by Benjamin Moore as well as install the light fixture that we picked up a few weeks ago.

P.S. We have a few decisions to make about the door situation but I'll leave that dilemma for another day. Dun dun dun.....

P.S.S. Thanks for being cute.

P.S.S.S. When I was getting ready to mow the lawn last night I came across a giant, black, fuzzy caterpillar that I thought Cooper would absolutely love. Since he was already in bed for the night I decided to go in the house for a container to keep him in overnight. Except my A.D.D. brain got distracted by something and I went back outside and mowed the lawn. Poor caterpillar has been M.I.A. ever since. I've been telling myself that he turned into a butterfly and flew away. It's been helping with the guilt. :(

A Boring Story About Choosing a Duvet Cover

Here is the longest, most boring story ever on how I finally chose our duvet cover. Sometimes I think it's weird that I write posts about my bed linens. You do too? Oh good, I'm glad that awkwardness is out of the way. ;)

 

So, a few months ago Alex and I splurged and bought a king-sized bed and new headboard. It was, and still is, glorious.

 

The only glitch was that not too long before the aforementioned-glorious-event I had purchased a new quilt, duvet cover, and sheet set for our queen-sized bed. Doh.

 

Old queen-sized bed linens.

 

Old queen-sized bed linens.

 

Not wanting to spend more money, I decided that we could make do with the old (but still kind of new) queen-sized duvet, duvet cover, and quilt on our king-sized bed.

 

Yeaaaaaaaaaah. We fought about who was hogging the too-small covers for seven months before we bit the bullet and picked up a king-sized duvet at Homesense a few weeks ago. Obviously the old bedding was too small. Way too small. And looked.....  how do I put this.... stupid.

 

We bought a duvet but needed a duvet cover. Oh, decisions.

 

I had had a crush on this set from Pottery Barn for over two years:

 

Image: Pottery Barn

 

 

Image: Pottery Barn

 

I'm pretty sure that it's the dreamiest of all duvet covers. 'Cept I just couldn't justify the price tag:

 

Vintage Ticking Stripe Duvet Cover & Two Standard Shams - Pottery Barn

Items Subtotal: CAD 297.57
Shipping: CAD 25.26
Duties & Taxes: CAD 37.73
Order Total: CAD 360.56

            

So. I started looking around and thought that this duvet cover from West Elm was really pretty as well:

 

Image: West Elm

 

 But again, I just couldn't justify the cost:

 

Organic Braided Matelasse Duvet Cover & Shams - West Elm

Items Subtotal: CAD 257.77
Shipping: CAD 26.83
Duties & Taxes: CAD 39.55
Order Total: CAD 324.15

 

Then........ just when I was in the depths of no-duvet-cover despair I wandered into a very expensive (yikes) home décor store and spied a soft blue and white striped quilt, just like the duvet cover from Pottery Barn. The price tag was still pretty hefty ($270) but it was $100 cheaper than the Pottery Barn duvet cover set.

{I didn't buy the quilt. But, as I mentioned in my last post I've been saving up my photo session money for a few little home décor splurges. A little voice in my head is telling me to go for it!}

So, with the intention of hopefully getting the blue and white striped quilt, I picked up an inexpensive, white, textured duvet cover set from Ikea for $49.99.

$49.99!!!!!!!!!!

Ofelia Vass Duvet Cover Set - Ikea

I am super pumped that I actually sort of finally made a decision and that soon we may finally have bed linens that actually fit the bed!

;)

It's a good day.

P.S. We went to Ikea and our truck was jam-packed. Tetris-style. Obviously I'll share more about what else we got a little later.

P.S.S. I didn't put the new Ikea duvet cover on the bed yet because that would require me having to make the bed. I made dinner tonight. You didn't think that I could make the bed and cook dinner in the same day did you?

P.S.S.S. Is $270 for a king-sized quilt outrageous or reasonable? I dunno. All I know is that it has stripes and I want it. Bad.

P.S.S.S.S. Alex went to the movies without me (boy movie with a friend) so I decided to eat ten chocolate chip cookies whilst adding fabric swatches to my cart on fabric.com. Good times!

P.S.S.S.S.S. When I say ten chocolate chip cookies, I really mean six.