22 Weeks Pregnant With #3

Well, Blake and my mom said a few times this week that I seem to be feeing better. I keep pondering this through. And I’m not sure what exactly to say.
     I guess my nausea and exhaustion have become a bit more tolerable. But I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m getting so used to it all that I’m functioning better, or if I am starting to feel slightly less gross.

     I guess there is marked improvement from actual first trimester days where I literally couldn’t function. So maybe I am a bit better.
     But there are some very clear memories of nausea this week. And there has definitely been extremely tired days.

I am nauseous as I type this (Monday Morning). The way I feel it this week is like usual, in my stomach, but also to feel it in my throat, like a tightness, or like it’s full of something I can’t swallow away.
But maybe that’s a good sign, because that’s actually how my nausea started out this pregnancy. I didn’t feel it in my stomach, just my throat felt like that before it really set in. So maybe it’s going in reverse now?

I don’t know how to think about it. I’m totally over the idea of positive thinking this away. Because I did that through my whole first trimester, saying “If I just make it till Christmas I will be fine, I will feel great again.” When I didn’t it was really hard not to get depressed. I don’t feel like going through that again. So I’m just not assuming anything. Not assuming I’m better. Not assuming I’m worse. Just assuming I can make it either way.

I do feel like my brain is clearer. That’s a good sign.
(By Monday afternoon {and Tuesday morning, which really counts as next week} I’m starting to feel emotional stamina, and I’m starting to recognize myself again. I can hear thoughts turning into plans, which is how I normally am, but the endless sickness had started to kill that off, which had started to kill off hope. But hearing those thoughts make real plans again is a big boost to my hope.)

But for most the rest of the week I didn’t feel any real emotional gains. In fact I cried twice this week (at least) just because of the emotional exhaustion I’ve been inside.

I don’t have a very clear memory of this week.
My mom came to visit. That helped me get our wall done in the family room.
Well, I think it actually needs two more things hung up on the left side -- but those pictures aren't ready yet.

Enjoy this very professionally done photo.  :p

I worry the left side is too tight together, and the right side is too lose apart. I may have to tweak something. (The lighter stuff is hung up with 3M velcro stuff -- so those are easier to move, but the mirrors are on screws in the wall -- So I don’t really want to move those and make all the holes crazy.)

Saturday some of our relatives came to town to visit us. We took the kids to the children’s museum here in town. That was the first time I had been there. The kids had a great time. I was was really only impressed by the water table -- which Blake and I decided we would not mind having one in our back yard. :) But the rest seemed kinda not as great as other small kid’s museums I’ve been to for the money.
The experience was definitely more than my pregnant body really wanted to do. But to be honest, kid-places in general are not my speed -- so much sound, so much visual overload, so much making sure I don’t lose my kids.

Blake let me run out to the stores on Sunday. And I was trying to find a couple more cozy clothes that I also thought were cute-ish. (Was looking for something pregnant-akin to this from themomedit.) But it was futile. This is that crazy time of year where the stores start bringing out all the cute spring stuff, but the world is covered in snow and ice and freezingness, and you just don’t know what makes sense to buy. How long with the snow stay? How much wear will I get out of sweat-pants-like things?
And I was over-thinking every time I tried something on, because I know these clothes aren’t gonna last me. Even if they are cozy clothes -- I don’t think they will fit right in a year.  (Why I say this is because my pre-this-pregnancy relaxed-loungey-who-cares clothes are almost all too tight -- so it stands to reason there won’t be a good cross over.) So I don’t feel like any amount of money is a right amount to spend on them. Even if I day dream of feeling cute in loungewear -- that’s actually never gonna happen anyway -- loungewear just means “blah” no matter what. 

So I didn’t buy any clothes. I just tried on a bunch of stuff, straining my pregnant body, and tempting myself to get scared of my new fat supplies.

I guess I just keep wearing my pair only pair of yoga pants every day -- the ones that I accidentally got some paint on the bottom of -- guess the paint means it won’t matter if I malform them over time with these hips that don’t lie.

(Can I just say I’m so into wearing all black. All black makes even pj-like-stuff look kinda like clothes.)

     Thankfully, as much as clothes shopping is a blow to my ego, I’ve been through this before and I can handle it much better than before. So this is one area I’m doing pretty good with on the positive thinking -- I look at smaller-than-me-right-now-clothes while I’m at the store and have no doubt in my mind I will fit them later. (Not like size zero, just like size healthy-for-me.) Because I know I’ve done it twice already. Which is a peaceful thought. (I like peaceful thoughts right about now -- so I cling to those, regardless of their vanity.)

Anyway: I feel the baby a lot now. I can see my belly jump here and there throughout the day. I love that. But sadly I’ve yet to get Blake to feel any of them because the timing is just never right. It drives me nuts. I just want to have him feel it!
I’ve started to try and figure out which way baby is facing. (Not in a crazy obsessed way like last pregnancy -- just for fun.) But so far I have no clue. Everything feels like everything to me. I figure with as big as my belly is now, and how not-so-big baby is supposed to be right now, baby is probably doing massive acrobatic flips and flops and everything probably really is everything still. I probably do feel kicks at the top and the bottom.

As far as gender guesses…I’m pretty settled on just saying “I don’t know” and really just being surprised no matter what. But I can’t help but lean most the time towards boy, just because this pregnancy is nothing like the last two -- I feel like that’s the only good explanation. So a lot of times I end up saying “he” when talking about the baby. But then one day this week I got just suddenly set on the idea that “she” really is a girl and couldn’t say anything but she for a couple days. So it all boils down to being super surprised either way. Which I am getting more and more endeared by as time goes on and I think about meeting the baby. (Which, once again is weird to me -- since I’d never wanted to be surprised before.)

While I was out shopping on Sunday I stopped and stared at baby clothes for a while. I was going to buy some gender neutral new-baby-needs-to-wear-SOMETHING-right-off-the-bat-clothes. And after picking up something and holding it while looking at more, I would put it back. And then I would pick up another something, hold it for a while and put it back. Over and over. Till I finally just told myself, “This is too early to worry about it anyway.” And put it all back. I’ll shop again when I’m closer.


I’ve had a lot of thoughts this week. Some pretty deep ones. I’m not ready to put them all on here.

But one of the less-super-deep one I’ve been stuck on this week is how I want to commit to judging less. Which in my case boils down to admitting I don’t know most things.
This pregnancy has put the smack down on me as far as "things I know.”
The difference in this pregnancy has challenged me physically for sure. But it also has challenged me to rethink almost all the things I knew before, and reframe them as "things I have experienced.”
I think that is very interesting because, as far as I can see, Mommy-wars seem to be based in assumptions that one mommy-experience is every mommy-experience. And that is sweepingly untrue.

But perhaps more important than applying it to mommy wars contexts is just applying it to all social interaction.
So often I’ve watched people respond to my pregnancy inside the context of their pregnancy (or perhaps their spouse’s.) By the way: This is not a lecture to anyone. Only a written out thing I have learned for my own use.  When people do this, that means that only women who’ve experienced a hard pregnancy can respond appropriately to me (but even then it’s still through their experience’s lens -- it’s not often that we match up exactly.) The rest of the people who try to talk to me about pregnancy, are left fumbling for words, often alienating us from each other. I’ve even watched women throw some pretty hard insults out in the process, probably totally on accident (not always to me, but other mommas too --- it’s especially easy to see online) based on the fact that they assume their pregnancy is equivalent to another momma’s.
     What I think I’ve figured out through observing this is: If I learn to not “know things” based on my experience, but teach myself that my experience is just my experience….I can open up to people in a new and better way. Because all that is left to do is ask and to listen about their experience.
     I’ve had perhaps a handful of times where I have met people who do this in their day to day conversations, and I have never been more drawn in by a person than those times. I didn’t really understand how they did it. But now I get it.
     Clearly there are times when we need to do more than just listen. But being listened to is so rare, its like magic when it happens. And so this pregnancy is teaching me I want to make that kind of magic. I think it’s gonna take practice. But I’m gonna practice it.
But to be honest, I’m gonna find it supremely hard to do in cases where people are very adamant about their experience being the only right way to do thing….that’s gonna take me some time to wrap my mind around that and what to do with it, seeing as how it’s kinda opposite of what I’m coming to. This probably applies most to internet talking, but I do find strong internet talking to change my opinion of people in person. Anyway... This is not the point.
The point is I’m gonna work on trying not to judge and recognizing my experience is not every experience. And I’m going to work on active listening.

Belly Comparisons:

 

21 Weeks Pregnant

Still nauseous.

I wrote a really whiney blog post yesterday, but today I’m gonna attempt to write a more palatable one to actually publish. (But to be truthful, it’s still involves whiney sounding things -- this pregnancy is rough, there’s no way around it.)

It was super hard to feel real taking pictures -- my face didn’t want to smile

But I guess that’s just the short of it: I’m unpalatable. I’m getting to the point where this is just too long to feel sick - like clearly for me, yes, this is too long -- I’d love to be over it. But I’m also getting to the point where, if we aren’t really on friendship level, it’s just annoying to talk about. Acquaintances, when they ask if I am feeling any better, have started giving me a look of such confusion, they seem to be weighing out if I could be lying about all this.  It’s getting to the point where there’s not much left to say about it in passing conversation. It’s starting to feel like I should avoid conversation.

It’s hard to not feel alone lately. I don’t bother leaving the house, pretty much ever, because when you combine how bad I feel, with how freakishly cold it is outside, I just don’t see it being worth it. When I do get to church, I end up feeling lame because I keep getting invited to things that would “un-alone” me. Only problem is, I can’t physically make it to these things. Most of them are at night -- which is when I am incapacitated. And I get motion sickness in the car with this pregnancy, so I can’t add that to the mix and hope to be functional when I arrive. It helps my motion sickness if I drive, but if something is further than 20 mins away,  it’s too far from me to make it. Church is 20 mins away from us, and that’s just about as long as I can stand being in the car before I really make myself sick, and that’s during the day. I can’t do it at night.
But people keep trying to cheer me up and invite us to things, and I have started to feel as if I sound like a liar as I continually excuse myself from everything. But I seriously just can’t do it. So it’s starting to feel burdensome to be around people, because I don’t know how to sound sane anymore.

The alone thing is weird too. Because I don’t like feeling so alone. But normally I don’t like spending time with anyone when I am sick -- like with the flu, ya know? So it feels “right” to be alone. But it feels lonely when you do this for this long.

Anyway, suffice to say I get really sad lately and it’s hard to figure out anything to cheer up. I ponder the line in “The Princess Bride” : “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”

Speaking of health.
Working out has not been happening, because elevating my heart rate somehow increases my nausea. But I have been really worried that I won’t be up to the task of labor this time if I just atrophy through this pregnancy. So I remembered this DVD from the library I’d seen a long time ago. And grabbed it and gave it a whirl. And it turned out to be just right.
It doesn’t elevate your heart rate much at all. But it does feel like it will keep my muscles up-to-labor demands. Which at this point is all I can ask for. If anyone else is having a hard pregnancy, but still wants to try and do some sort of workout, I’d very much recommend this one. (You can find it on ebay or used on Amazon for cheap,  -- I went ahead and bought my own copy for $4.00 + free shipping, so I wouldn’t have to keep renewing it from the library.) If you want a “good” workout, don’t bother with this. (This wouldn’t have cut it for me during my second pregnancy.) But if you are in my current boat, I’d say it’s not a bad idea. I even noticed that my body aches went down after it -- from the stretching involved. And that’s a great thing since I already ache like I’m over-due. (This pregnancy is 80 levels of hard.)
So I’m gonna try and do that workout often -- but I honestly am not sure if I’ll do that. I want to.
I want to do so much in my head. My brain feels like doing all the things. My body feels like decomposing.

This is how I look most of the time. Like a hot mess.

So yeah, one thing I am getting out of all this is a DEEP appreciation of my health. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to take it for granted anymore. And I know that I am very much looking forward to the days when I can work out again, and can eat (or even look at) good-for-me food again (without the sensation of death afterwards.) I know it’s gonna be hard to juggle three kids and looking after my body -- but I’m really looking forward to it. I am so tired of feeling sick.
I am fairly sure I’m going to gain a lot of weight with this pregnancy -- so I’m just looking forward to my triumphant return afterwards. I’m fairly sure hard work will feel like a vacation after this. At least I hope. I mean this sensation has to go away after pregnancy right? (I mean, after the initial “Woah just had a baby” part.)


Anyway,
Good things to say:

The baby is moving more and more. And that makes me happy. That’s really the only nice sensation my body has. I am kinda always hoping the baby will move. It takes my mind off the sick-feeling for a tiny bit. So I’m happy this baby seems to like to move on and off through the day and evening (I have no idea about at night -- I’m out cold.)

I remember Jasmine would move a ton for one day, and then sleep pretty much through the whole next day. Repeat.
Ruby seemed to have wild times, but way more quite times. (And I think she moved the most at night while I was asleep.)
I love thinking about how that shows their personalities -- so cool.


My family has been great.

My girls have been really patient with me, despite them being 2 and 4. And they are learning how to be creative on their own, and they are playing more and more with each other, and they are getting more and more independent.

They love to play make believe with each other now -- it’s really cute. Their newest game is turning into mermaids via magic sparkles.

Blake has been amazing. He feels so bad for me that I am so sick. I think he feels like it’s his fault. But this isn’t anyone’s fault -- it’s just some weird part of life. And he’s been the only thing that has kept me going through this. He has picked up all my slack. He is amazing. I am constantly impressed with his ability to selflessly do so much around the house, and with the girls, as soon as he gets home from a long day of work, and up until the last minute before he leaves. He bought 99% of our groceries since I got pregnant this time. He feeds the girls at night when I can’t function anymore. He puts them to bed. He makes them breakfast. I don’t know how to tell him how much that all means to me. I don’t think I’m good at that kind of expressing. But I hope he knows it’s the best thing in the world to me.

For Valentines he got me a heart shaped cookie sandwich with a sea of frosting inside it. That took me two days to eat because it was SO MUCH SUGAR! But it was awesome.

And he also got me this adorable huge cookie because he said I’m strong. :) This guy knows the way to my heart -- who needs flowers or jewelry when you can have adorable delicious cookies?... Perfection. (This cookie has still yet to be fully consumed by both of us.) 

I know, these are great for my health -- but whatever. Love is love, ya know. :)

And my mom has come to help me throughout this pregnancy and she always picks up so much mess we let grow around here. And makes the girls so happy.



Outside of pregnancy…

 I don’t think I’ve gotten anything done at all this week. At a snails pace I am working on the family room. I took like two days to cut out these paper shapes to plan the family room walls.

And I don’t know when I will get the real things on the wall. I’m still revising the layout. But even still, I’m just so glued to the couch.

I will say I like the walls more with paper shapes on them than bare. So that must mean we are going in the right direction.

P.S. Having hit 22 weeks, I now say I’m half way -- as my first two hung out till 42 weeks.
In some ways I can’t believe I’ve already been pregnant this long-- but honestly I’m having a hard time imagining staying pregnant that much longer. Please pray my body starts to feel better soon. This is very very hard.

See the fake strain of a smile?

Comparisons:

Last week to this -- hoping I’m gonna hang out around this size for a while, since I already feel huge.

  

This time to last times:

 

20 Weeks Pregnant

Still nauseous.

I guess my energy level is coming up. I wonder if that’s to do with upping my iron?
     I’m really trying to eat more iron rich foods, but honestly, that’s hard when so many foods sound gross. I have become quite the label checker for iron though, and give it my best. So I’m also taking an iron supplement -- iron bisglycinate was the kind recommended to me because it’s digestible and doesn’t cause constipation like some iron supplements do. And I’m taking liquid chlorophyl which is supposed to help your body with hemoglobin and therefore blood health. I got this kind, which has mint in it for flavor. And it’s actually surprisingly not bad tasting. I don’t know what I was expecting, but when I opened it up I was like “Oh yeah -- I guess this stuff should be DARK GREEN! It’s made of plants.” So it was slightly intimidating to glup down. But it basically tastes like green tea.
   So that may all contribute to me feeling a bit more energy.

However being queasy doesn’t motivate me to do much with my energy.



 I guess the most I’ve been up to is trying to decorate my family room some more.
I sewed some pillow covers.
I got a different coffee table off varagesale.com.
     (Have you heard of that? It’s kinda another craigslist. A friend of mine introduced me to it. Honestly I’m still more of a craigslist gal. I find varagesale to generally have higher prices on stuff I’m looking for. But I have found a couple of good things on there. It’s also a little safer feeling because it’s linked to facebook accounts and you can see the person you are buy from/selling to and users can leave feedback on the people on how the transactions went. It’s worth checking out if you love used bargains.)
 And I’m working on decorating said coffee table and walls of family room.
     The only problem is I’m just having another existential crisis over what look exactly I want to pull off. (Why do I choose to annoy myself so, just in order to make myself happy? This seriously makes so little sense.) I’m close to figuring it out -- but I’m just not quite there. It’s just the age old, “How traditional or how modern do I want to go” debate I seem to really wrestle with, since I REALLY like both styles, and haven’t quite learned where that magical sweet spot is for me.

I’m really excited about my coffee table and coffee table decor -- because I think it’s very pretty, AND I also planned it out to be kid/baby friendly. I feel like I pulled off a major secret football play for the win here or something. (I’m sure I said that wrong -- I don’t know anything about sports.) So I think I will give that it’s own post.

I’ve also been selling some stuff on craigslist this week.

Back in Iowa we bought this loveseat thing from the university’s overstock store,

 It worked out great for our tiny space. It gave us the chance to fit a “love seat” in the small room.

We got the room’s act together better, once we built our toy cabinets:

And we also bought some green chairs there too, for around our table.

I loved them. 

I thought they gave us a quaint sorta industrial mid-century vibe. (Not that I was trying super hard to pull off any certain look. I knew we were just renting a “for now” place.) 

Anyway, I can’t remember now, but I think we either spent $12 for the couch and chairs. Or the couch thing was $12. But I do remember one of the chairs cost $0.75 and I was thrilled because I’d spent more on gum!

But they don’t work in this house. So after really making sure I couldn’t get them to work here, I put them on craigslist.
(Now we did haul them from Iowa to Illinois -- so that costs money, which I should probably somehow add to what we paid for them in general -- but I’m not really gonna count that since we had to move all our stuff no matter what.)

Anyway. I listed the couch on craigslist for $30, thinking someone would talk me down. And actually thinking no one would want it -- because I like weird stuff. But someone actually offered us $75 for it if we would deliver it. “Um Yes please.” I paid $12 for this thing! I made $63 off of it! Not bad!

(Can anyone else sense my urge to become a picker (a la: "American Pickers” the TV show) growing a bit out of control at the moment?)

Same with the chairs. I’ve sold 2 so far for $20, and have inquiries about the third. (I ruined the fourth one with paint.)
So far I’ve made something like $80 off these things. NOT BAD.

(New career here I come? I was just telling Blake I want to be someone who knows stuff on Antiques Road show -- and I would ATTACK the thrift stores and make millions!)

As far as the pregnancy:

Baby is getting surprisingly strong. He or she’s been getting good at kicks that show through my belly -- like a pond ripple kind show. (Not like you can see a foot.)

Some days I feel optimistic through my nausea. Some days I feel sad.
I’m really hoping I will start to feel better. But I honestly don’t hold out hope. I want to brace myself for the “maybe it will stick till the end” and if it doesn’t just be happily surprised. I want to be strong enough to make it through to the end if it doesn’t go away.


Belly:
My belly literally seemed to grow before my eyes this week. For real. Like I would get up, walk around, catch a glimpse of my belly from above and think “Umm are you seriously like two inches bigger than last time I got up and walked around, like two hours ago?” And that was not a one time occurrence. I feel like my belly did round 2 (or round one million?) of “I popped” this week.

 

I’m just waiting for the grocery store strangers to start asking me if I am due tomorrow. Because I’m really pretty sure I look like some people’s full term already. So if they do ask: I plan to just start lying and say, “Yes, my due date was yesterday.” (I’m actually quite good at “past my due date” conversations -- I’ll be really convincing.) Like they actually care or will ever see me again. Answering them with what they want to hear makes more sense than arguing. We’ll both have more fun this way. I’ll probably just agree with their gender guesses and pretty much anything else they throw at me. Third pregnancy man, I don’t care.

I did just have a friend tell me a reassuring tid-bit: that a friend of hers is expecting her third baby, and her belly got huge around 20 weeks but then didn’t seem to change much from then to 30 weeks. I’m really glad she told me that. AND I really hope that’s true for me -- because I seriously had begun to fear that I wouldn’t be able to walk come June if I keep growing at this rate.

Random clothes thought: I’ve decided this shirt is a good one, I feel like it makes me seem less “very-pregnant” :)

      Recently I’ve been trying to come to terms, like in a real and deep way, with my size. It’s been emotionally hard for me this pregnancy because I haven’t been able to eat well or exercise like last time. So a lot of times I want to blame myself for being bigger this time than last time. 

     I’m having to come to terms with the reality of my situation and stop blaming myself for it. I didn’t do anything to cause my body to feel very sick this time. And I can’t find a way to change it. So I will be strong in a new way this time. I will be strong just by getting through the hardness, the best I can. Which won’t look like last time, because it’s different this time.

     I’m starting to relent to myself that I might just be bigger this time, because this is the third time my belly has held a baby inside -- it’s been stretched out before, it’s prone to growth.

     And I’m starting to remember what’s important. Not my waistline. Not my figure. My health. And even if I can’t do what I’m used to do for health. I can be mentally healthy about this bodily change.

     I have begun to remind myself that I lost my pregnancy weight after both my first two pregnancies (despite the way I ate, and despite the different amounts of weight I gained) in the same exact amount of time. And that even after I lost that weight, I still had to give my body time to reshape away from pregnancy. 

    I’ve decided I don’t mind if it takes me longer this time to lose the weight. I’m gaining more than weight, I’m gaining more family. 

    And I’ve also decided to stop fearing that I won’t lose the weight. I’ve decided I will be healthy post-baby because I enjoy it, not for any other reason. 

     So I’m going to try and enjoy my “hugeness” from here on out.

19 Weeks

Ok quick summary of pregnancy this week.

I’m having to get used to feeling a baby kick me this week. Which is kinda awesome. And kinda surprising. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I am basically in denial that I am pregnant. I feel very, very pregnant. But I think I’m surprised anyway to actually BE pregnant. I guess I just keep assuming I’m undergoing some sort of medical trial of existence. It’s very hard to remember I have a child inside me. So I like getting noticeably kicked by that child as a reminder. But often after a good kick, I tilt my head to the side in questioning confusion before I remember what’s going on.

Then on the other hand, I do that mom thing, where if I haven’t felt a kick in a while (I mean baby’s still small, so I doubt I feel all baby’s moves) I sorta start to worry till I feel another one, which may be a while.

The mental tight rope that is motherhood.

You guys, I’m worried I’m going to be enormous by this summer.

I feel VERY pregnant already. Like death waddle pregnant.

I don’t even bother trying not to waddle like a pregnant penguin (good thing penguins lay eggs! They’d be in trouble otherwise!) I just embrace the full fledged arm on lower back, legs WIDE apart, WADDLE.

I really don’t know what to expect in June -- or (Baby PLEASE pick a June Birthday, PLEASE!) July.

That evening-out-belly-thing I had going last week... I’m kissing that goodbye.

I feel full term already.

"Embrace the huge, Lydia.

Come to the dark side, huge side."

The nausea is not gone. I believe I cried a couple times this week due to the emotional exhaustion of that.

My Birthday was Monday (Yesterday). I tried really hard to think of something I’d like for, or to do on, my birthday with all the endless sickness feeling. I couldn’t come up with any ideas.

Thankfully, Saturday I felt ok. And so Blake let me go out to the stores all morning and I feel I hit the jackpot on my shopping adventures. So I called that my birthday celebrating for this year. Some decent-feeling, grown up alone time, good shopping, works for me!

Let me tell you about my shopping adventure.

Recently, I had to steal some stuff off my family room mantel for other spaces.

Which wasn’t a big deal, since all that stuff was just random anythings I stuck up there.

But now I needed stuff to replace it!

Emily Henderson taught me this stuff about styling a mantel. (Believe me, her ideas are great, and well…pinterest, if you search mantel ideas/decor/etc, you get a TON of tutorials, but most are not your best bet aesthetically speaking.)

Side Note: My pregnancy dreams now involve me hanging out with design bloggers and just talking shop. Like every night. I may be losing it. Or reading too many design blogs. (Wait, no, there are never enough. I’m still on the look out for more favs. Got any?)

So with her tips in mind I headed off to our thrift stores.

I actually had in mind a full family room stylization -- Pillows for couch and anything decorate-y whatsoever. I’m ready for some of my rooms to have the finishing polish put on them.

Since it was “my birthday celebrating day” I’d say it went over fantastically. 

For one thing, I think I got checked out and hit on three times while shopping. I say “think” because I seriously do not understand the male-female-dynamic while pregnant. AND I was waddling unabashedly. So I don’t really know what happened. One guy talked to me for like 15 mins, but I couldn’t tell what his point was, nor could I tell if he was gay or straight. Maybe he just likes chatting it up with everyone.  I don’t know.

But I also got told I was beautiful, by a sorta overzealous grandpa. I don’t know. It wasn’t in a sweet old grandpa way, more like nice guy, who just can’t help being a creepy old man kinda way. And creepily checked out by another guy, who darted away when I made eye contact. I don’t know. lol. I literally have no idea. I was WADDLING like a duck. I mean, maybe the single ladies should take note. WADDLING -- the key to picking up men?

But on a shopping note. I found tons of great stuff. It was a jackpot day.

All sorts of great looking art and mantel decor at the thrifts.

And then some great pillows at TJMaxx one for only $15 and the other $18, which I thought were great prices since the fabric is high quality and the inside is down.

Then at another thrift store I found three nice quality down pillows, so I bought those for $2 a piece. One (from Create and Barrel) will work as is. And two will be great re-covered. I washed them on hot and they are good as new. Who can beat down throw pillows for $2 a pop?

I found a really pretty shower curtain there too, for $3 which I will be using to recover them. I mean I was just scoring left and right. (Happy Birthday to me.)

I’ll have to show you my couches later once I get the pillows recovered. (And I clean the 700 toys off of them and around them.)

But for now I will show you what I have up on my Mantel. It still need a bit of tweaking. But I’m really liking it.

Everything up there, except the ampersand, and the (sorta hard to see) silver tree on top of the books on the right, were from the thrift stores. 

The tree was a gift years ago from my sister in law.

And the ampersand came from Hobby Lobby.

I love Emily Henderson’s ponies in a vase, but I don’t have the time or funds for fresh peonies every however many days. So I tried some fake ones in the blue vase, but they looked LAME, so I’ll be returning them. And I think I’m gonna try and make some fake ones out of either coffee filters or cut of book pages. Because if they are gonna be fake, at least they should look stylized fake.

I’m also trying to decide if the vase and paintings need a paint job or not. And the ampersand needs to have something done to it too. I’ve been pinning lots of ideas here. But I have to make up my mind which way I wanna go. I can’t tell quite how traditional or how “fun/funky” I wanna go with this room yet. I don’t have the full vision. So I’m not sure which way I’m leaning.

After my huge day of shopping, which was mostly nausea free, Sunday I felt the recoil of very awful nausea. That seems to be this pregnancy’s way. If I can escape it for a while, I have to pay it back in full soon after.

Sunday all I did was lay on the couch and feel sorry for myself. The super bowl happened during that.

And you wanna know how awesome my husband is? He let me change the channel to PBS and watch Downton Abby WHILE the super bowl was on. He’s the best ever. I turned the Super Bowl back on ASAP for him when it was over. What a keeper, I tell ya. I love that guy!

And in other room news:

We got the bamboo blinds hung up last night. (I’m counting it as my bday present.)

We used the same blinds and the same exact hanging method as Young House Love once did.

I can’t tell you how pumped I am to have this room painted and blinds up. The room feels so…like it should.

(Well clearly it should be cleaner. But clearly I don’t care enough to clean before I blog.)

(I’m not sure what the girls are doing, but I don’t think it’s the fact that they mind having their photos taken.)

Flash Back for good measure:

 And over the sink. Sorry this photo is pitiful. 

ha.

Like I said, someday I’ll photograph like a “real” blogger.

For now, I’ll waddle my pregnancy photos just like I waddle my pregnancy butt. 

lol.

With Pride, embarrassment and apathy all at once.

Hope you enjoy.