This is why we can't have nice things....

"Good morning, Mom!"

Meet my stealthy-Ninja climber, 3 year-old Lily.  Sadly, this isn't the first time she has scaled her changing table.  However this is the last time.  After I maneuvered the table to where she couldn't access the shelving on the side to use as a ladder and then locked the wheels in place (all without Lily's knowledge) she still managed to move it to where she could climb it yet again.  See how proud she is?  She should be very proud.  She managed to do this without my knowledge.  Despite still using a baby monitor in her room I had no idea she was awake until I heard the tell-tale crinkling sound of her getting into the wipes.  Note the massive mess on the floor.   Ya know, I might not really be *that* concerned about the mountain climbing if she could figure out a way to get down.  This girl can climb UP with the best of them, but getting DOWN is the problem. I've tried everything from helping her get down, having another kid show her how to get down, and finally just tough love: if I ignore her surely she'll figure it out. No dice. One day she'll figure it out, right?  The diaper changing table stopped being the diaper spot long ago A. because she out-grew it about a year ago and B. we only do diapers at night and nap time.  However it has a ton of storage space, and the table was a safe place for her humidifier, wipes, and baby monitor.  So after 3.3 faithful years of use the diaper changing table must be removed from her room. One problem: I'm cheap and don't want to buy a new set of dresser drawers to replace the drawers from the table, and what extra furniture we have available is mismatched and less than pretty.  What am I to do with the loss of all that storage space? PAINT ALL THE THINGS!

Meet subject #1:

This lovely guy has been hidden away in closets for years.  Perfectly adequate in providing a space for sweaters, PT gear, and the like.  But not something one wants to look at for extended periods of time.  Ugly handles, chips and gouges, and a loverly faux oak stain. I'm sure it came from Goodwill at some point, but he's been with us through each PCS so I truly have no recollection of how he was acquired. His main upside: It's real wood and has mega potential.

Meet subject #2

Now this secretary isn't that bad looking, and has actually been in Lily's room here in Portsmouth from day one.  It's white and matched her white crib. I put a pretty drawer pull on her and called it a day 3ish years ago.  This is another piece of furniture I've had for-ever.  I'm pretty sure I had it in my first apartment in Stillwater.... um.... *doing the math* 12 years ago.  The inside is full of cubby holes and the door is still sturdy enough to use as a desk, if needed.  I've basically just changed the pull to match whatever room she was living in.  She's had a black pull, red pull, green pull, and now this pretty purple bloom pull. 

Once it was decided I'd paint everything we headed to Lowe's. The only design requirement I had was that they had to match Lily's super PINK room.  I was overwhelmed by the bajillion paint choices.  Thankfully Cayce saved the day and picked up two purple cards and said how about we go two-tone?  Done. We settled on Byzantine Purple (dark) and Grape Arbor (light) in Satin. We gathered up the rest of our tools and a new set of knobs for the dresser then headed home. 

This is why I have no free-time.  I was so excited for school to be over in June.  I was thinking to myself "think of all the time you'll have to do whatever you want!" Right. What that translates into is free-time to do all the things I've been neglecting for 3 months.  And THEN only have 3ish months to do it all before I go back into school-hibernation mode.  So instead of just making due with what we have I chose to spend my entire 4 day July 4th weekend working on these lovelies.  In the end I'm in love with them, but it was a chore for sure.  Anywho.  Here's the final results.

Subject #1 redux:

Subject #2 redux:    I swear they are the same colors. I just suck at taking pictures.

 

Together:

Note: The Grape Arbor color (light purple) is what I originally wanted as Lily's wall colors before I went insane and had an attack of extreme PINK.

And because I was truly in the "PAINT ALL THE THINGS!" mode I also painted the footstool she uses in the bathroom:

Oh. What did I do with the changing table?  

This: 

I spray painted the purple knobs with some green I had left over from another project and then moved it into the dining room to use as a pseudo-buffet.  I couldn't get rid of it.  Even though I have finally started letting go of a lot of Lily's baby stuff (mainly going through the totes and totes of her clothes and the cheaper items) I'm still holding onto her crib in the hopes there will be a baby #2 in the future.  But that's not a reality until we get settled in Colorado next year.  So until then I re-purpose!

Two Week Wait, Maybekindasorta

Yeah, I dunno.

So today was my cycle day 12 check-up. 

Now let me recap the previous cycles.

Each cycle has been the same.  I go in on CD12 get my lovely ultrasound, and the RE looks around, goes, oh there's a couple follicles (follicles become eggs).  Not quite big enough yet, but growing nicely.  Come back in a couple days and we'll check it again.  I go back in on CD14 for another ultrasound, and oh, look, perfect sized follicles ready to go. Then I get a shot of HCG ("trigger") and ovulation follows within a couple days. 

So when looking at the calendar for this cycle Cayce and I were kind of fretting because (historically) CD15ish has been go day.  Well, this month CD15 fell on a duty day.  Duty meaning Cayce is unable to leave the ship for an entire 24 hours.  Well that's inconvenient when one is trying to get pregnant. Cayce thought there was a 37% chance he could do a duty swap or maybe a 12% chance he could actually take leave for the day.  He's one of only a handful of people in his duty section with a specific qualification, and there is little wiggle room when time off is needed.  Oh and guess when that little qualification snafu will get fixed, um never, thanks to Sequestration (drink!).  So the past several days have been kind of worrisome. I've been praying for an earlier timing schedule. Maybe today I'll go in, the follicles will be ready to go, and we won't even have to worry about duty.  Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Cue today: I went to the appointment alone.  Which has only happened once before, but there was no getting out of work early this afternoon.  No biggie.  Lily will go to daycare, and it's just the CD12 scan so nothing too important will happen.  We start the ultrasound. The right ovary has its normal gathering of baby follicles. Perfectly routine. Then things start looking wonky.  Hmmmm what is all that excess fluid? Oh look at the stripe there. Hmmmmm.... shift over to the left ovary.... click, click - measure a follicle... just over 18mm, but shaped funny (not spherical).  Do some more looking, pushing, moving around.  And we're over.  So the RE says here's what I think has happened.  I think you've already ovulated.  Like just ovulated.  Since we didn't do a base line scan this month (like we have previously) I can't be certain.  The biggest indicator is the excess fluid, but then we see this stripe (points to fuzzy black and white picture) and that's a sign of progesterone in your system.  Then we see the big follicle that looks to be collapsing (what happens after ovulation).  She says she has to go by what my uterus is showing her, and my uterus is saying I've ovulated. 

Well boo.  What the crap ovaries, you couldn't wait two freaking days? Usually you go late in the month, and now you're just so ready to get on with it you release that egg early? Geez. She says we could bring me back in a few days, but most likely the scan would still look similar.  So we're not going to do an IUI this month.  Thanks to some fortuitous timing this cycle isn't a complete waste, but it's definitely not looking so hot.  I was a bit sad at first.  Well, really sad.  I was that crazy lady in the parking garage crying silently in my car.  BUT after a while I focused my thoughts and I found a silver lining!! Yay for silver linings!

As I said in a previous post this would be the last month because the timing of the cycle next month and our vacation.  Well if I did indeed ovulate early that means my cycle will now start earlier next month, leaving us plenty of time to continue monitoring.  We may even be able to have an IUI.  At the very least we could get the follicles to the right size, and then the RE could send us to Walt Disney World with the trigger shot leaving us to take full advantage of our vacation. ;)  We could even be 2 for 2 of bringing a baby back from a trip to WDW. :D See, silver linings.  Actually lots of silver linings.  Now we don't have to worry about figuring out duty. I don't have to spend two weeks this month with false pregnancy symptoms (from the HCG shot). I won't have to decide whether or not to take a pregnancy test daily. These little things make me happy.  It's easy to say I give up, but to actually do it, well not so much.  This cycle and the sequestration combine to give me some hope that we're not yet giving up on our dream of another baby.

Confession Time

Over the course of my adult life I would categorize myself as a below average housekeeper.  I just suck at it.  I'm unorganized.  I get overwhelmed. I get tired of doing the same things over and over again and over and over again and repeat.  Pre-Lily this really wasn't such a problem.  I was working.  Cayce was working. So generally speaking we were able to keep the house at a non-emergent level of clean.  I think my main problem is that we have too much crap.  Just too much.  Good grief. I don't understand where it all comes from.  I assume at night while we're sleeping tiny trolls are scavenging dumpsters and thrift store drop-offs and then quietly and delicately placing the new items in a casual "bomb explosion-fragment" display.  That's the only logical explanation for the amount of stuff we have and its constant state of disorganization.  Now, don't get me wrong, we're not destined for an episode of Hoarders, we do keep things somewhat "clean." There's just a bunch of piles, stacks, and cleverly hidden stashes.  Ugh.  It's overwhelming.  You would think since I'm now at home full time with Lily I would have this under control.  You would be wrong.  Before Lily when I was gone at work there was no one in the home each day for about 9 hours.  Now there's someone at home all. the. time. And that someone is a crafty 3ish year-old who can make a monumental mess in about as long as it takes me to pour a cup of milk.  So basically I've just played catch-up for 3 years.  There hasn't been time for deep cleaning, de-cluttering, or organizing.  Ew. Then factor in my return to grad school last year, and wow, yah housework is like #762 on my list of priorities, right behind end world hunger. I know millions (probably billions, I don't know, I'm not a statistician) of other moms have the innate ability to hold it all together and Pinterest their way to fabulousity.  I however, came into this mothering thing with a major handicap, my strong aversion to cleaning.  So I suck at cleaning. I know it, and I ignore it.

This lengthy airing of my dirty laundry - ha, pun intended - and my major SAHM suckiness is build-up to today's big project.   My resolution for 2013 is to de-clutter and organize our home.  Part of this may or may not  have to do with the fact that in less than a year strangers will come into my house and tenderly (not) pack all our belongings and crate them to a yet to be determined destination.  Last PCS, 2 years ago, we had less crap.  Lily was only 9 months old and had significantly less junk.  I don't know how she keeps getting stuff.  She must have a job that I'm unaware of and routinely shops 'til she drops.  So now we have all this stuff.  Oh and did I forget to mention that while the Navy will kindly (not) move us free of charge, they will however weigh our junk and if we're over our weight allowance we then get to pay Uncle Sam for all our extra lbs?  That's definitely some motivation to get rid of stuff.  I have actually been doing a pretty good job since January routinely going through totes, boxes, and piles donating and trashing things.  Lily's closet became a nightmare over the past month because someone (I dare you to guess who) discovered what a fun place a closet can be and slowly, daily, destroyed the organization I DID have in there.  I really did have it organized. I promise.  So this week I went to Kmart (yah, Kmart) and bought a shelving unit, put it together during naptime, and then re-ogranized the closet.  Then to top it all off.  I put a hook-and-eye latch on the door so someone (did you figure it out who yet?) can no longer pilfer when she's supposed to be napping.  I wish I had taken a before picture because it literally looked like a 38inch tornado had landed squarely in its midst.  But now it's bea-u-ti-ful.  So today I tackled our closet.

The master bedroom of our house is the converted attic.  It's spacious, but has some awkward angles.  One end of the attic is the bathroom and the other end is our closet.  It's nice sized.  It does triple duty as closet, reading nook, and sewing room.  Without further ado - my biggest secret.

For the closet I needed an actual workspace for my sewing and crafts as well as a spot for our shoes.  Our lab enjoys carrying shoes around the house.  She doesn't chew on them, just transports them from one place to another. Since there isn't a door on the closet we can't shut up the shoes to keep her away from them. Today at Bed Bath and Beyond I found a large shoe rack.  At Lowe's we purchased a solid piece of 2ft X 4ft birch for a table top, and found a couple cheap steralite drawers at Walmart.

$16.00

Free Fabric

I had 2 yards of fabric left over from a craft project gone wrong.  I simply stapled the fabric to the wood to create a splinter free work surface.

$24.00 total for the drawers.

$35.00 (holds 30 pairs of my shoes)

$35.00 (holds 30 pairs of Cayce's shoes)

The shoe racks are actually one tall shoe rack that I kept separated.  This way Cayce and I would each have our own rack and I could place them to take up the least amount of room.  Plus, if I had actually put it together I would have had to put the shoes in the bathroom because there wouldn't have been enough room height-wise to keep it in the closet.

$110.00 grand total plus a few hours of work for some much needed organization.

I know what you're asking yourself.  How in the world did she live like that? I didn't.  I ignored it.  I haven't spent more than 2 minutes in that closet since December when I was finishing up my Christmas crafts.  The sight of it made me anxious, and I knew it had to be tackled. But it was going to be such a time and energy consuming task that it really became a mind over matter kind of thing.  It's soooooo much better in there.  We still need to go through in weed out some more clothes, and yes the sweater stack is still there.  I can live with that.  I still have my sweatshop footstool seat, and at some point I'll bring up a folding chair.  It's not a deal breaker though.  I'm kind of used to the ease of my little swivel stool. :)

So one massive undertaking complete.  My next chore is the office.  What? I have an office, yet I'm using my closet as a craft room? Yeah.  That's a whole 'nother story.