Redo To Do's

Today has been a very productive day. Possibly too productive if my aching feet are any judge, but oh it hurts so good.

This morning I did a 50-minute Prenatal Pilates DVD. My original plan was to eat healthy all weekend, but when I realized I could buy JP a big cookie cake for Father's Day (and eat half), I ditched that plan and decided to exercise instead. It felt great and I really hope I can do something like that every few days for this pregnancy. I've said things like that in previous pregnancies and never end up working out, but I've never had a semi-private room with a wood floor and my own yoga mat before, so maybe this time I can make it happen. While I'm unconcerned about the weight gain factor, I would like to keep some of the toning in my arms and legs that I at one time worked hard to achieve. After the kids and I finished my DVD (JP was at the pool), we headed to the park, grocery store, and then our own pool. JP got home from lessons about 1 (yay!) and we all headed to the U-Haul store so we could get a hitch installed on JP's car and run a few errands while we waited. The main errand was to Academy so we could buy Bear's first big girl bike with her birthday money from my grandparents. She was SO excited.

So excited that she fell asleep on the 2 minute drive between U-Haul and Academy. They were literally 2 parking lots apart.

 

Luckily she woke up easily, picked out a bike most decisively, and then INSISTED on pushing it to the front of the store.

 

One of the best things about shopping with Claire is that everyone smiles at you as she walks by. I think it's mostly the constant sunglasses, with a little hint of essence of Bear.

When we got home I got the crazy idea that we should reorganize the whole house in the 45 minutes between right then and when we needed to start dinner. As always happens in these things, I got 33% the way through and deeply regretted my initiative.

 

But I persevered. As I've mentioned a few times in previous posts, I've been planning a big switch in the set-up of our main rooms. I planned to turn the playroom into the dining room it's supposed to be; make the living room more of a functional living room (adding rug, maybe additional seating, end tables, etc.); create a new playroom space in the sun room; move JP's desk area over to previous the eating area in the sun room; and move the old eating area to the dining room where it's supposed to be. I've been perusing rugs and toy storage and dining room furniture on the web for MONTHS and finally made a few purchases in the last few weeks. My rugs and other boxes have been sitting in the entryway for days and clearly, this afternoon at 5:00 after a day of errands and exercise was the time to DO ALL THE THINGS.

JP, who knows me so well and loves me anyway, just sighed and looked to me for directions. Directions which paused only for dinner and the bedtime routine of the children, and then continued long into the night even though I knew he had work to do (or, maybe even actual relaxing for the first time since lessons started). But we're done and I am so happy! I LOVE this new playroom space. Just looking at it makes me smile.

 

I love love love the rug I lusted over on the Land of Nod website for the last 15 months. I'm so thankful for JP's swim lessons and the 10% off + free shipping code that finally made me order it. It is thick and soft and vibrant and everything I wanted to define the space and give the kids (all three of them!) a comfortable place to sit on the floor and play.

 

Everything from the previous play space has been reused and I added some new bins (also from LON) for big toys that were always piling up in corners. The kids are going to freak out when the see it all in the morning.

 

As part of the move, JP is now in the area where the casual eating table used to be. Here he is responding to client emails, oh so thankful there's nothing left for me to possibly ask him to do. He's sitting on a new chair I bought him for Father's Day. Despite his dislike of money spent on himself, he did admit that this cushy new chair was less likely to cause him permanent back problems than my terrible old broken one. 

 

The living room has its first rug- a sturdy, inexpensive indoor/outdoor rug that we can hose off, and that I think adds a perfect amount of color and fun the space. I ordered it online which made me very nervous, but I'm quite happy with the finished product.

 

My parents brought me the wicker chair from the lake house (they didn't need it anymore), so I added a new cushion and now I have seating for four in a room we now might actually use! I hope to add end tables and a few throw pillows one of these days, but those are on the longer-term wish list.

 

And now moving to the new dining space. Another inexpensive indoor/outdoor rug that I'm sure we'll have to hose off now that we'll have a baby eating over it. We moved around the hutch that was previously in the living room and relocated the casual table that used to be in the sun room. My parents are gifting us with a big, beautiful dining table and chairs they purchased with their new lake house, but we don't have them yet (which is why we were getting the hitch installed on the Highlander, so we can rent a trailer and go get them). I love the dark wood table we bought from the previous owners of this house, but I can't wait to seat more than four people at once for dinner.

 

The only things left to do in this room is knock down that long blue wall and create and open kitchen (2018? who knows) and buy this beautiful long dark wood sideboard I picked out at Crate and Barrel over a year ago for the wall under my tree painting. Maybe I can do that one in 2016.

 

And finally, we were able to relocate the second bookcase from the former playroom to house all of JP's extra swim school shirts so they can get off my couch! Yay! Everyone wins in room switch renovations!

 

And now I'm going to take a nice hot bath and think about all the time I'm going to spend sitting in and admiring my "new" rooms while I let JP relax tomorrow. I really can't wait for the kids to see the play area, it's going to be just like Christmas! Except without any new toys. And no cookies for breakfast. But storage bins! And a reading nook! And a very excited mommy who is probably going to start planning her (maybe/hopefully/pretty unlikely) 5-years-away-kitchen remodel right now on houzz.