Walking with Dancers: 29 Weeks Pregnant with #3

I’ve had to answer the question “How do you feel?/How are you?” so many times, I have no idea how to answer anymore.

This week, I do not feel like my normal self. And I do not feel third-trimestery. I'd still say this feels first-trimester-y, BUT I don’t feel like death. (Which is how I felt for, oh the majority of 28 weeks.) So in a way my answer to “How are you?” could be “good” -- because not like death is good, or maybe more accurate would be “ok” but that’s so vague. And neither really convey where I am, because compared to my old pregnancies (and definitely not compared to my un-pregnant-self) I’m not really up to those descriptions. If I say “good” people tend to take that as me saying “all better -- normal pregnancy now” -- but that’s not it. But I am clearly improved. Which is good.
(See what I mean, too confusing for words.)

I have some nausea still. Just not all the time. And maybe with a day off, or most of a day off, here and there. But I have a new thing often that’s sort of nausea-heartburn. I don’t think it’s really either of those, but it feels like... if they had a baby, and that baby came to live right above my baby. I’ve tried heartburn medicine, I notice zero change at all from it. So I’m inclined to skip it since I already feel like I’m taking too many pills this time around.

I am of course, very third trimester sore, tired and achey -- but that’s not new --- since for some reason I have felt that way since like two months in. So in a weird way I don’t care. In another way it’s super annoying. I just know I REALLY hope it goes away after baby comes out. I mean, I want to be able to get up off the couch without my hips feeling dislocated. (With the goal of some day doing a work out again!)

But with all that in mind, this week I’ve been trying to think happier thoughts. (I’m really ready to move out of my funk. And I want to at least attempt to prepare my mind for postpartum, so I am able to move on once this is all over.) Thinking better thoughts works sometimes, until I realize I still don’t feel too great and still have tons of obstacles…. and have a cry vent fest to Blake on Saturday. But after said fest, I am able to try and at least attempt to have some happier thoughts again. And if not happy -- at least strong.

Sunday, Blake’s friend (a guy, no less) came over after church and helped Blake clean our house for us. That was soo nice of him. To be honest, I had a hard time accepting the niceness -- I was embarrassed of the state the house was in. But they sent me upstairs to rest while they cleaned, mopped and vacuumed! I had just been thinking how epicly bad our eating area floor needed to be mopped! (It feels like a decade since I’ve done it.) It was really sweet.

In other news,

This week I’ve been focused on smells. I guess I figured that smelling good-smelling-things can’t hurt... and just maybe it could help.

This whole week I’ve been wearing this necklace that I’ve had since junior high which I’ve turned into an essential oil necklace.

It’s this necklace, where you find a pearl inside an oyster and then set it inside this pendant. (Which I found to be oh so amazing in jr high.) And now what I’ve done is set the pearl aside, and placed the top of a q-tip inside the pendant and dripped lavender essential oil* onto it. I also tried peppermint since that’s supposed to help nausea, but that kinda grossed me out, defeating the point. I thought about getting ginger oil for nausea reasons, but will need to smell it to decide -- there’s no point if it smells bad to me. But I’m very into the lavender. I think it’s helping. So maybe I don’t need to mess.
So if you’ve seen me in person this week, you might have noted lavender. My kids keep asking “what’s that smell?” when I’m by them, and I don’t think they are a huge fan. But I just keep telling them it helps me not feel so sick.
I make sure to re-load it if I am leaving the house. It really helps me not freak out if I smell gross smells, and if anything is really gross to me, I can lift it up my necklace to my nose and override it. I feel kinda dorky -- but whatever.
( You can actually buy necklaces with this essential oil use intention. Some are made of clay which you just drip the oil onto, and some are basically what I have where you have a cotton ball kinda thing inside a pretty-ish holder. Google essential oil necklace. I just wanted to use what I have around.)

*In case you are wondering, I do not have a brand of essential oils I believe in. So far I’ve just used Aura Cacia because it’s easy for me to buy in person at stores. I’ve gotten curious this week and have been looking into essential oils and I found these two blog posts helpful when shifting through the essential oil brand hype. Helpful post 1. (More succinct.) Helpful post 2. (More in depth.) By the way, of those who look into these things, no one seems to have a problem with Aura Cacia brand, they just might not find them quite as high of quality -- but not bad quality either. (And you might be surprised to hear the “big brands” you’ve very likely seen on Facebook/Social Media, might not be what you wind up wanting. Not that they are bad for you, but they might not be worth the cost for what they are. Not to mention, if you are like me, the sales pitches/presence/pressure get annoying.)

Besides essential oil smells, I’ve also become obsessed with soaps -- good, fresh smelling soaps. (By the way, none of these links earn me money -- I just like sharing.)

Method soaps are a big winner for me right now. Their scents seem so genuine (not like a faux perfume version of said smell) and last a long time on your skin.

In our bathrooms we have foaming pink grapefruit.

Buying this soap has turned out to be a very happy accident. I just liked the smell. But I’ve had a hard time getting the kids to wash their hands. However since this is foamy, smells good, and is PINK, no less -- they volunteer to wash their hands now, they can’t resist it. (Umm major mom-win right there. I had no idea that would be an added benefit! I just wanted good smelling soap.)
Another cool thing I figured out is that I can refill it cheaper with a smidgen of magic. I bought the dispenser at Target. And they don’t sell the foamy refill package in this scent, but they do sell the regular hand soap pink grapefruit refill. So after some googling, I learned you can just put mostly water --- like 9/10ths (ish) in the dispenser (hot water is a good idea), and top it off with the regular soap and shake up. Now you have foamy ready soap. It’s that easy. {Since we are slightly obsessed with the fact that it’s pink, and that’s a big reason the girls like to use it, I added one drop of red food coloring, since it was very,very light pink with all that water mixed in. (Next time I’ll try just a half drop because it’s almost too dark, venturing towards red -- it still passes inspection, but I could improve my technique.)}

I have no idea how many refills we are gonna get out of that refilling packet -- but it’s gonna be a TON. Quite the money saver (on a small scale of the world -- but hey I kinda find it fun too.)

In our kitchen I have this kitchen lemongrass handwash. (Also found at Target.) It’s supposed to be good for cutting cooking smells off your hands (like garlic and onion) which I find the concept of AMAZING. (I say the concept of, because I rarely touch said items right now, so I don’t have much to say about that for the time being. I did touch them briefly this week and the soap did seem to take it off nicely.) But I just find the smell amazing, and use it every time I change a diaper, or just randomly need to wash my hands. The method soap smells stick to your hands, which I am seriously loving right now.

In the shower/bath I’ve been using their olive leaf body wash. It’s kinda citrusy and herby. I love it.

And for dishes, I just picked up Earth Friendly Dishmate Natural Lavender dish soap. (Which I found at Walmart, on the bottom shelf. It’s not really any more expensive than the others. But it smells just like lavender essential oil -- not a fake weird smell. And that’s important to my crazy nose right now.) I haven’t completely run out of the old dish soap we have, so I’ve yet to use it. But I’m excited to bust it out. Hope it works nicely. (We mostly use the dishwasher anyway -- so I’m really just in it for the occasional smell to quick wash sometime randomly.)

In baby news,

Baby seems just fine. But he or she seems to be trying to flip around in there lately. Some days I can feel him or her try to rearrange, and they are getting big enough that some times that really hurts. When they do that I wind up doing “hands and knees” for a long time -- hoping to give them enough room to be happy in a less painful place.

Sunday night I was positive baby had flipped breech for a while -- feet at the bottom has a pretty intense sensation. Plus I stared feeling around with my hands on my belly and found their head on the top. That was actually fairly amusing to me, because I was rubbing my baby’s head through my body -- the craziness-coolness of that really can’t get old. So I did some forward leaning inversions off my couch for a while. And while I didn’t feel a flip happen, I knew I was feeling feet in my ribs again afterwards. Much better.

Not sure if baby will stay put yet -- overall I’m not too hung up on it now, it’s still too early to really matter a ton. But of course it’d be nice if they do. (Especially since I DO NOT like feet at the bottom kicks -- it’s crazy.)

In House News,
I kinda hit an emotional breaking point this week. (This was the day I cried.) Because I am JUST SO READY to get this house done. It doesn’t have to be full-on detailed out, every dream project done. But I just want my house to feel like a house, not a “project” anymore.
I know once baby is here I’m not gonna be painting for a while. Not unless grandma wants to come over and live here. ;) But even still I’d have to take breaks every two hours to nurse -- and paint doesn’t really like that idea.

So I’ve become outright angry-determined (for lack of a better word) to get this house at least painted before June. Like no matter how I feel --- no matter if I puke on the walls, or take 300 naps or am just in total pain the entire time --- I will be making myself finish the painting in this house. Because when you mix 6 months of stir-crazy with nesting -- you get me NEEDING this house to be painted…..And ….. it will be painted! My body no longer has a say in the matter.

So with that in mind this Saturday I painted the trim in the hallway upstairs,

I CANNOT understand the cream/almond/off-white of the past. It breaks my brain.

as well as the trim in the main bathroom upstairs.

The doors still need more coats, but still much better than primer and old trim before:

I didn’t feel great. But I was gonna do it. Blake hung out with the girls, and I painted all afternoon. I just got one coat on the hallway. Two coats in the bathroom (there’s way less in there.) So I need to get at least one more coat on in the hallway. (Not sure if it will take 3 -- I hope not -- but semi-gloss is just kinda a pain and can be see through, even when you are doing nice-white, over ugly-white.)

One end with trim UN-painted:

The other end with trim painted:

But just that one coat really does up the classy feel of the hallway. I may never get over my deep love for “Swiss Coffee” white on the trim and ceilings of this house. They are a match made in design heaven. (Not every house loves every white. This house LOVES Swiss Coffee by Valspar.)

So in order to accomplish my nesting goals, I need to:

Get that trim done.
Paint the hallway walls (Potter’s Clay by Martha Stewart color matched to Valspar.)
Sand a big patch of drywall mud on my living room walls. (The paint of olden day peeled up in one spot so we had to cure it -- actually my mom did that for me.)
Paint the living room. (I finally came up with a plan for that room, so new paint is a mental must for me.)
Paint the cooking part of the kitchen to match the eating part of the kitchen.

Need to say goodbye to this green-gray … and that brass light switch.

(Dogwood Blossom by Olympic, color matched into Valspar.) (I was kinda nervous about this color accident when I first did it. But since then it has grown on me to the point where I just think “nailed it” every time I walk in there. I’m REALLY happy with it. Accidents can be good.)

So that’s not really TONS of painting left to do. Especially looking back on how many things I have painted. And taking into account how these rooms are already prepped and the trim is pretty much already done -- so it’s just the walls I need to worry about. So I know I can get this done before baby. It’s just mind over matter.

The other thing I’d like to do. But isn’t as “MUST DO OR I WILL LOSE MY MIND” -- I’d like to repaint our stairs and our banister.

In the long run of our house, we want to reconfigure our stairs at the bottom. And change the spindles. They aren’t really to code (they aren’t as bad as I saw in lots of other houses we walked through, but) kids heads can still fit through (don’t ask how I know) -- which is not great. (Code is essentially that you can’t fit a quart of paint through the spindles. And ours are just wider than that.) SO eventually the stairs and spindles are gonna go. But I know life is gonna make that take a WHILE. So for the time being, I’d like to make them look a bit better.

I think I wanna just paint it all white (Swiss Coffee of course.) I did the stair treads black when we first got here -- and I don’t like it. It looks decent in the pictures, but they are hard to see at night. And the stairs are weird anyway, they are flat, with no bullnose, just 60’s old construction plank.

So they will look odd and unfinished no matter what (till we finish them!) -- but I think in all white they might stand a better chance of looking like something. (For now.) They will get dirty, but whatever. They aren’t permanent. And for the railing. I’ve gone back and forth on if some black, or all black, would work. But since I hate the stair treads black, I am really not sure I wanna try. I’m thinking white will be better. (?) I don’t know maybe it’s just the whole entryway that’s crazy till we fix the walls, and I’m just grasping at straws?

Anyway, if I get that wall stuff done. Our house is essentially a real, done, house.
Well All except our haunted-looking 2 story, half-un-wallpapered entryway.

But I have some kinda killer plans for that area (both in terms of how awesome it will look, yet also in terms of how much work it will be.) (But two stories and wallpaper removal meets stairs sucks no matter what, so…) But I can TRY to ignore that till we tackle it, because it’s not something I can accomplish with mind over matter. It’s not something I will likely have much physical part of -- Blake and some help much more likely, than me.

The one other thing I REALLY want to accomplish befor baby gets here is the furniture in the living room. Right now that room is basically “thrift-store-threw-up-chic”(minus the chic.) And It’s basically the first thing you see when you come into the house. And right now it’s so ugly and random we still don’t use the room.

So all around not great. Since I have finally decided on how I want to furnish the space, I want to go get the furniture and make it happen. I would feel so happy to have that "be a room" in time for all the baby-visiting and the girls birthday days party(ies).

The problem is -- I want furniture from ikea…. and that’s about 2.5 hours from my house. And so far I’ve not allowed myself to drive further than 20 mins from my house due to epic motion sickness. But I’m telling you, something just snapped inside me this week and I’ve decided I will figure out a way to get there. I’m working on my plans now. We shall see if I can accomplish or not. But let it be known, I am feeling rather determined. (Who knows if that’s a good thing or not?)

This post is pretty long, so maybe I’ll cut this one here, and put together another where I actually show you my plans for the living room. (Yep! I went ahead and wrote it! Check it out here!!)

Belly Pics: