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This is my punishment…
Let me rewind. For anyone who doesn’t know, Kyle is a born and bred Gator fan. I on the other hand, am a hardcore Seminole who bleeds garnet and gold, except on Sundays when I bleed teal and gold. When we found out that we were having a baby, we made a deal that we would not buy anything UF or FSU for Carter. If other people bought him things, that was okay, but we couldn’t. And until tonight, we have both stuck by that rule.
Fast forward to the present.
I broke the rule.
I had to run into Joann’s to pick up a cutting mat that they had sitting aside for me. I have to stop my story and brag for a minute. This is a high quality cutting mat that’s 36″ X 59″. I’ve wanted one for several months now, but it was always too pricey for me to justify buying it. Until tonight. This week, the normally priced 69.99 mat was on sale for 39.99. You would think $30 off would be enough to tempt me, but I was waiting for the perfect steal. This week I went to Joann’s to pick up some thread for a project, and they had 25% off entire purchase coupons sitting at the registers for this weekend’s sale. My mat that on a normal day would have cost me $70 was now 29.99. When we went to the store at the St. Johns Town Center, they were out. Fortunately, a very helpful sales associate called the Orange Park store and they set aside the last mat for me.
Which is where I got into trouble. I’m completely addicted to the remnants bin at Joann’s. If you don’t know what that is, they take leftover ends of fabric bolts and wrap them up and mark them 50% off of the current price. They have a little paper that goes around it that says what it is, how many inches, what the normal price is, and how much it would cost at normal price. I’ve been stalking the remnants bin to try out new fabrics for a while now, and tonight is the first time I realized that they are 50% off the current price! More about that later. When I popped into the store to grab my mat, it was back at the cutting counter. Which of course, the remnants bin is right beside. Obviously I had to look. What did I find? FSU fleece. Did I grab it? Of course I did! I had to show Kyle what I got, (come on, it was like 3 bucks!) and he decided that my punishment was that I had to write a blog post. Obligation satisfied.
Now back to the remnants bin. At the first Joann’s we went to, I found this adorable fleece pattern. I’ve been on a fleece kick lately because I’ve been making fleece cloth diaper covers (also referred to as soakers; pattern found here) for Carter. The tag on the remnant said that the total regular price would be $8.88, making the remnant $4.44. Remember that I said remnants are 50% off of the current price? Fleece just happens to be 50% off right now. So instead of paying $4.44, I got it for $2.22. Not too shabby for almost a yard of fleece! Unfortunately, the 25% off coupon doesn’t apply to remnants because they’re already on sale. From now on, I’m going to shop for fleece out of the remnants bin only when fleece is on sale!
Carter Talking
Sorry it’s flipped sideways… I thought my phone/youtube would have flipped it the right way.
Christmas Trees, Ironing, Homemade All-Purpose Cleaner and Meryl Steep
Long post title? Check.
Random post title? Check.
Make a checklist? Check.
First post in a long time? Checkaroo.
And now begins a long-winded explanation of an obscure title. Earlier tonight, we decided to go pick up our Christmas tree. (Post Title Item #1) It’s beautiful, and everything a Christmas Tree should be. Emiley suggested that we wait until tomorrow night to start decorating it. That’s fine by me, I was wanting to get some cleaning done anyways.
You see, I figure Christmas time is a great time to clean. You’re gonna re-decorate the house, so you’re gonna need to do a little cleaning anyways. However, “a little cleaning” is NOT what was in store for me tonight. No, no, no. This was “We just had a baby and barely have time to eat” cleaning. Before Carter was born, I had the house spotless, SPOTLESS! And since then, well… yeah, about that…
So, I started by cleaning the area by the front door where the Christmas Tree goes. It goes by the front door because it says in the Bible that the Christmas Tree MUST be placed by the front window. It’s even in red letters I think… or so my wife says. Anyways, this task was really quite simple. Move a few things over, vacuum and POOF! an empty area for a Christmas tree.
I proceeded to carry in the Christmas Tree from the truck. I got it in the stand and stood back to find out that it was perfectly straight! Woohoo! Victory!
However, as I stood back and looked at the Christmas Tree there was now a stain on the carpet that had become MUCH more visible due to the shifting arrangement of the room. I always knew the stain was there, and it certainly wasn’t isn’t the only stain on our carpets.* I remembered an article I saw on Lifehacker about cleaning carpet stains using an iron (Post Title Item #2) and some mixture which included vinegar. After re-reading the article I discovered that I had recently made almost the EXACT cleaning concoction to use as an (amazing!) all purpose cleaner! (Post Title Item #3) It’s 1/2 water, 1/2 vinegar and a little bit of alcohol in case you’re wondering… I know, that technically equals more than 100%… you’ll get over it! What you do is, you spray this vinegar solution on the stain, put a damp cloth over it and then iron over the cloth. It sucks the stains out! Well, that’s the idea anyways. It worked great on the newer and less colorful stains. The strawberry Koolaid is MUCH less visible, but definitely still there.
So, with the spot by the front door done and 2 of the spots by the couch done it was time to start cleaning. As I was throwing away countless amounts of black friday ads (and many MUCH older ads) I realized I needed something to watch. While flipping through the Netflix movies on our Wii I decided to watch Julie and Julia (Post Title Item #4) because I needed to be inspired to write a blog post (note to bloggers out there… WATCH THIS MOVIE!). It didn’t hit me until half way through the movie (and half way through cleaning) that this will be what I’ll blog about (for now)… me making our house look like we didn’t just have a newborn! Well… other than all of the baby stuff everywhere!
So here I sit in my nice, clean looking (and smelling) living room typing this post. Oh, and speaking of smelling good! I’m trying something that I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone doing (and there may be a reason NOT to do it… but I don’t see it). I shoved some dryer sheets into the couch/chair cushions! I’m hoping this helps get rid of the dog smell freshens the living room up a bit.
Where does Emiley fit in in all of this mess? (pun intended) She’s busy toiling away at her new hobby. She started an Etsy store selling cloth baby accessories. I’ll leave it to her to write a blog post about that though, if I can ever get her to do it!!!
So, as I embark on this cleaning expedition, what advice do you have? What movies should I watch while cleaning? Know any other good cheap home cleaning remedies?
*Most of said stains are found near the couch. They’ve been there since the first trimester of Emiley’s pregnancy. You see, she spent a LOT of time passed out laying on the couch because she felt incredibly bad for the first few months. She also had a problem drinking water so I always had some Koolaid or Sweet Tea made for her to drink. She would put her glasses of these wonderfully colorful liquids on the coffee table and without fail one of the dogs would manage to knock over the glass(es) with their tail(s) almost daily.
Baby’s May Be Fun, But Newborns Are Boring!
Remember all those “Carter Posts” I was talking about? Wondering where they’ve been? It’s got nothing to do with being to busy (although that doesn’t help) but dad’gum… newborns are boring! Eat, Sleep, Poop, Sleep, Eat, Sleep, Poop…
I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as he does something blog-worthy!
I has a babby!
See video for title reference, or for a good laugh.
Well, it’s finally time to kick off the soon-to-come posts about our new bundle of joy, Carter. What better way to start it off than to tell my story about his story.
On Tuesday September 7th we called the hospital at 4:30 am to see if they had enough rooms available to take us in at 5:30 (this was what we were told to do). Lucky for me they needed some extra time due to a few extra drop-ins they didn’t expect. So we were told to come in an hour later. Yay! Extra sleep!
Zzz…zzz…zzz…
So we arrived at the hospital and were quickly ushered into our room with all of our luggage in hand. Em suggested leaving some in the van and me going down to puck it up later, but I’m too lazy stubborn smart for that.
The rest is a bunch of details I can’t really recall. Basically she went from 1cm dilated to 8cm dilated from 8am to 9pm.
From that point on it was like watching a Medical TV Drama. Suddenly nurses and doctors appeared from doors I didn’t know existed. Emiley was perfectly calm, but she had meds pumping into her! Where was my medicine!?!?! I kept hearing talk of me needing to wear a “suit” but I wasn’t told whether I needed to get it (perhaps it was behind one of those hidden doors?) or if someone was bringing it to me. Finally a nurse walks in and hands me my hazmat jumper and breathing mask. So I step into the bathroom and then contemplate, “I put this on OVER my clothes right? I don’t get undressed and then…” (at that point I realized that I was an idiot and that the jumper was VERY see through).
So, moving on…
They take us to the surgery room and they tell me to sit in a chair outside the room and wait until they’re ready for me. This whole time 2 things are going through my head. 1. “This wasn’t supposed to happen. Is this really happening?” and 2. “THIS IS JUST LIKE IN THE TV SHOWS!!!”. Seriously… the way the surgeons washed their hands at that HUGE sink, shake them off, and then back into the room holding their arms up and away from their bodies… just like a TV show.
Anyways…
So at this point I’m a nervous wreck. The whole “TV Show” comparison subsided and I realized that it WAS really happening! I tried to tell myself that women have C-Sections all the time, but that didn’t really help. This was the same feeling I had before our wedding started, I just wanted to know if Em was ok. (The wedding was easier though, I just asked Jared how she was right before we walked out… I didn’t have anyone with me this time!). But all of the sudden, amongst the countless number of nurses and doctors talking in the room I make out one discernible conversation.
“Are you okay sweetie?”
“Yeah” (Emiley said in a super cute, positive voice)
Finally! My nerves went away! The problem now was that my nose started running and I couldn’t do anything about it because of the stupid mask!
So they finally call me into the room. Once again my mind went right back to “It’s like a TV Show!!!” and then I saw Emiley laying on the table with her arms stretched out (it actually made me chuckle… it was like she was being crucified… not that that’s something to chuckle at, it was just funny at the time). So they showed me to my chair right next to Emiley who immediately hears me sniffling and reassures me that it’s going to be okay. So I sat next to her as she shook like crazy! (both from the amount of meds she was on and the fact that it was FREEZING in there!) and in no time we had a baby!
He didn’t come out crying so they immediately took him to the little table and started cleaning him up and in a matter of seconds we heard our little boy cry for the first time. Once they got him mostly cleaned up they called me over to take pictures.
Once I got a few good shots I took the camera back over to Emiley so she could see him (her vision was blocked by the sheet in front of her face).
Then they weighed him, wrapped him up and brought him over to me to hold for the remainder of the surgery. He was so quiet and still. Eyes wide open looking around at everything. It was amazing.
Olly Olly Oxen Free!!!
That’s what we say to Carter… because we’re SO ready for him to get here! When we narrate him he says it though it say, “Lolli Lolli Pops ‘n Free!”. He doesn’t quite understand it. Come to think of it… neither do I.
[pardon me as I preform a Google search]
Not only do I know now the correct spelling of it, I know where it comes from and all of it’s variants. I’ll have to add “Lolli Lolli Pops ‘n Free” to it one day.
Any ways… I told my wife the other day, “This whole ‘you being pregnant’ thing isn’t cute anymore. I’m ready for my boy to be here!”. Lucky for me she took it how I meant it and didn’t send a fist flying. We have 17 days until his due date (according to the countdown I have on my phone’s home screen) and he can’t come soon enough! That’s 17 (or less… PLEASE not more) days until I have LOTS of stuff to blog about! I’m so excited that I get to blog about play with him!
Lane Ln. 