Decorating the Library We Don't Yet Have

If you are here frequently enough to know that I have bought a banana hook and various other items for our new-but-not-yet house (including a dining room hutch, which is residing at a friend's house because as my mother in law says, you couldn't fit another toothpick into this house with our family of five, Joel's parents, Joel's sister, and Joel's sister's accumulation of furniture and things for HER upcoming move), you may not be surprised to find out that I've also undertaken a few small decorating projects. Yes, we don't live there yet, but I have things to hang on the walls. That patience thing is just not taking for some reason.

I came across a quote that I liked in the kids' new Precious Moments bedtime book (a baptism gift for Oliver, but if you think the big kids will allow it to sit unused til he's old enough, you haven't met my kids.). Searching for a way to use it in a project, I came across this idea on Pinterest (of course), which linked to an item for sale on Etsy (naturally). Ten dollars for the wrong quote is not my idea of a deal. So I took a good, hard look at the photo and engineered my own!

First, new frames for 50% and 40% off at Michael's, thanks to my mother-in-law's couponing prowess. Then, transparency sheets for the quotes themselves, free from my sister-in-law's fourth grade classroom. But what for the page of literature in the background? What book could I deface in order to make something cool for the walls of my own home library? (I can sense my husband's indignance as he reads this. Joel, I concede, it is really your home library. Online catalog, shelf markers, and all.)

This is where it comes in really handy to be married to a librarian. I asked him if Lafayette had a collection where they collect "weeded" volumes, those to be taken out of circulation. He asked what kind of book I wanted. Shooting for the moon, I requested some classic work of literature, or even a dictionary or other reference work. No math textbooks, I stipulated. He warned me that they weren't likely to have much good literature lying around in the donation pile, but he'd check. And do you know what book Joel brought home for me that very day?

The freaking Odyssey of Homer. I love that man.

So I have the sweetest pages, with numbered stanzas and everything, to mount behind my quotes. I wish I had some "in progress" photos, but the process was pretty simple: Rip out pages from the Odyssey, say a brief prayer of repentance for defacing classic literature, and then crop slightly to fit my frames the way I wanted. For the larger frame, I took two facing pages from the book, cropped, and taped them in an aesthetically-pleasing overlapping manner. Next, I played with the quotes in Microsoft Word to get them to the right size, alignment, font combinations, etc. and printed on the transparencies. I cut the transparencies to size using the glass from inside the frames as a template.

That part took some doing, because I found that the ink smudged just a little even after I let them dry awhile. I printed several times and came up with some creative ways to cut them to the right size so that the ink would remain undisturbed. Because as a mother of three children under four years old, I like to seek out extra tasks that try my patience and perfectionism.

Into the frame went the glass, transparency, book page, and backing, in that order.

But in the end, I turned out a couple of pretty cool-looking pieces for our future home library walls:

(No "before" or "in process" pictures, sorry, but imagine empty frames and an intact Odyssey, I guess?)

Also, any suggestions for a paint color that might look nice with these? We have a dark teal recliner and mostly oak-ish-looking furniture for the library. I'm just undecided what direction to go with the wall color. I want it to feel warm and sophisticated, so maybe something in the brown family? I don't know, I've never had to make these decisions since we have been renting forever.

If you enjoyed this little project, or have done something similar, leave me some love in the comments. I'm also eager for more decorating ideas I could undertake before we move. Do you have a Pinterest board I should be following?

Coming Soon: New Digs!

Hi, me again! So as I doorknob-confessed at the end of my last blog post, we bought a house. Are buying a house. When does it officially become past-tense? Our closing date is in September. (Do you like to lift heavy things and possibly excel at visuo-spatial tasks such as Tetris? I may have a truck for you to help load in a month and a half.)

Do you have any ideas or suggestions for what I can do while staying at my in-laws' house, with fewer than 10% of my belongings, to organize and prepare for moving into our new house at the end of September? I already bought a banana hook and created wall art for the library. The banana hook is for the kitchen, not the library. That might have been unclear. The point is that I'm going stir-crazy and the anticipation is killing me and blah blah blah, it helps me feel better to do things for the house. Other than drive past it a rather creepy number of times throughout the week to monitor progress on the new septic system and, you know, just be with it. Kum ba ya.

Joel should be thankful I am not doing the same with my piano, because that is 45 minutes away. But oh how I look forward to its warmth and beauty greeting me each morning as I descend the stairs in my new home. I might hire a babysitter just to sit in my own home and play, and play, and play, and play. Or install a complicated baby gate at the top of the stairs and confine the kids upstairs with all their toys and a box of Goldfish. I'm pretty sure it would be worth it, even if I later discover my bed completely torn apart and possibly peed in.

Here is just a teensy sneak peek of the new place that isn't perfect, but is perfect for us. It is so cute. That little porch will be home to the glider bench and table that my parents gave us in their recent downsize, and I am just itching to sit out there with a cup of tea watching my first rain storm in our new house. And pull my car into that big, beautiful garage so that I can vacuum it out (maybe there is even a central vac hookup in the garage? Too much to ask?) and stay warm and dry while strapping my brood into their many and various car seats.

This post may have been a huge mistake, because I basically just shot myself in the patootie with regard to patience and contentment and the Lord's timing. Blarg. Hopefully a child will start crying somewhere and break me from this reverie. (At my house, this is neither an unreasonable request nor a long shot in any sense.)

Ok but seriously. I only have side dish and dessert recipes left to organize into my recipe binder (which I have owned for probably two years and am just now sorting out. I must be getting desperate.). After that, it's curtains for my sanity unless I come up with something more to add to my little box of "for the house" stuff. New cutting boards and a banana hook will only sustain me for so long. Ooooh I know, a trip to Lowes for paint colors! Because it makes total sense to select colors for rooms when I haven't even seen my rugs and curtains and furniture in three months. This won't be a crapshoot in the least!

As I go to select tags for this post, it doesn't really fit anywhere but I'm going to label it under "Homemaking" because what is more relevant to the category than actually having a home, right? Suffice it to say, God is so much more generous with us than we deserve. Guaranteed. In no way have I earned the right to find a beautiful home in our price range, in exactly the time frame we were hoping for, to exactly accommodate us and our belongings. It is just the balance between comfortable and modest. I love it. Eight years of marriage, six (about to be seven) places of residence, and three children testify to the Lord's continuous provision. The lines have fallen for us in pleasant places [Psalm 16:6].

Oliver at Two Months

So, my babies grow fast. Oliver had his two-month check-up this morning, and Dr. Chi was thoroughly impressed at his advanced development. He weighed in at 13 lb 4 oz, which is in the 75-90th %ile range and according to Dr. Chi, the size of a four month old baby. His length was 24 1/2 inches, which remains up around the 97th %ile and comparable to a six month old baby. Growth projections remain the same as at his one-month check-up; Oliver is likely to be 6'2 and 180-200 lbs. Yup. Now accepting donations toward groceries.

Relatedly, I saw another mom at the pediatrician's office with her son, who must have been 16ish years old, six feet tall and with hairy legs. So then I stood there holding my infant son, trying to picture him and his big brother at that size and oh my heart. I just can't even. I debated asking her grocery budget but who am I to be able to handle that kind of truth this early in the morning.

Oliver is advanced in other ways, too, not just his hearty size. He sleeps an average (starting in the last week) of 9-10 hours overnight. Bedtime has been around 8pm, and he makes it to at least 5am, with his record standing at 6:30am. THAT is my boy. He's either a great sleeper, or I am (his bed is right next to mine, so surely I wouldn't snooze through him wanting to be fed?). The big turning point was when we moved him from his Rock n Play, where he slept on his back and at a slight incline, into a travel-size Pack n Play where he sleeps on his belly. That kid LOVES his new bed, and even during the day when he feels sleepy, he tends not to sleep well until we put him in there (as opposed to his swing, car seat, or even being held).

He has half-rolled over a couple of times, from his back up on to his side. Once he made it over onto his belly (that was at least a week ago now, around 7 weeks of age) but more often he makes it up to his side and hangs out there. He's able to push and hold himself up on his arms and holds his head up high as he looks around. We get numerous smiles and coos from our social little guy.

[Edit: He just rolled again, right in front of me, as soon as I turned my camera on! Sometimes the stars just align.]

I might add that all of this is tremendously encouraging because there are times when I seriously question whether Oliver will survive infancy, due to the trauma he regularly experiences at the hands of his big brother. It started early. Most notably, the other day I was making breakfast while Oliver lounged in his swing. He was just across the room, safe and sound. Or so I thought. Suddenly I heard a crash, and then my two boys wailing like someone had died. Never have I made it from kitchen to living room with such speed and agility. The swing was lying on its side, Oliver facedown on the floor screaming, and Isaac weeping dramatically - whether out of fear or pain, I'm still not sure. I felt simultaneous impulses arise in me to snatch my baby from the floor to be sure he was ok, and to snatch my older son and let him know how NOT OK this was. Oliver won the internal coin flip, and turned out to be just fine; Isaac, well, I guess time will tell whether he's learned the lesson I imprinted upon him. Firmly. I will now be watching Oliver for all of the minutes of all the days until he is old enough to learn self-defense.

And I'm sharing this with you all because I'm 99% sure that my Mother of the Year nomination has already been revoked. Something about seven episodes of Daniel Tiger back to back while I fell asleep nursing the baby. I can't help it that Netflix auto-queues one episode into the next.

There are so many moments that I would love to share with you. I mentally bookmark them all the time - oh, that was so funny! So precious! So brilliant! So mind-blowingly chaotic that nobody will believe me unless I detail it on the internets! But then all of my mental bookmarks go the way of my abdominal muscles, never to be seen again. Le sigh. Perhaps during nap time today (which just started rather smoothly, knock on wood and throw salt over your shoulder and don't jinx it by talking about it) I will wrack my brain for all of the blog-worthy things I've been forgetting over the past few months.

Mental bookmark to take a two-month photo of Oliver with The Teddy Bear and post it along with comparison photos of the big kids. Think I'll remember? (Hint: we have no such one-month photos of Oliver. Third child syndrome. Oops. Hopefully he'll understand and be grateful that I was too busy keeping him alive and out of the clutches of his older siblings and making sure everyone was fed edible things at somewhat regular times of the day.)

Also? We bought a house. I know. Would I just drop that on you all right at the end of a blog post and peace out? Yes, yes I would. BOOM. Oh and Joel and I just celebrated our eight year anniversary. No gifts, figuring that between me birthing him a son and him buying me a house all within two months of our anniversary, we were probably good to go. Although, I feel like it is probably all downhill from there in terms of future anniversary gifts.