To my patient and faithful five:

I’ve been snowed in, painting, and worst of all, our computer needs attention. So I fired up our old one last night, and low and behold we have a connection again. That, however, is the reason for my week-long absence. I think it’s been a week. It feels like a week.

So what have I been doing with my time off-line you ask? Painting. Yes, painting. And don’t scold. I’ve done it before while pregnant and it’s fine. I am careful about fumes (we bought the lowest VOC we could), and Greg helped with the highest parts. So far we have the bathroom done, and Ellie’s room. The bathroom needs another coat, and then white wainscotting. The complicating factor for that is that we have no power tools, so I have to figure out what to do about getting the pieces cut. The color in the bathroom is called Aquamarine Blue from Color Your World. We love it. We bought a pretty new white shower curtain, and dug out an old curtain from our house at Riverside Drive; it looks like waves, and has a fringe of white pom-poms. A whimsical touch for the refreshing look we are going for. The fun thing: I discovered I don’t so much dislike the light fixtures in there after all. They are brushed steel with frosted, swirled shades. I didn’t like them with the standard off-white that was through the whole house. But they look so nice against the blue! So of course now, I’m insisting that we have to get some new nobs and hinges, and maybe even a faucet in brushed steel. ‘Cause, you know, it has to all match!

For Eliana’s room, we did Shy Blossom, also from Color Your World. It’s a not-to-dark-or-light shade of green. She has pine trim around her door, closets, and the perimeter of the room. The window is new, and is all white, included trim. So I will be painting out the rest of the trim. This green looks gorgeous with the bright white. I finished painting her dresser at Rachel’s a couple of weeks ago. I found some really sweet blossom pulls in a distressed bronze look at the Buck or Two. This dresser won’t be hers for good, as it’s old, and the drawers don’t slide well, but for now it’s a very sweet effect.

So next we have either our bedroom, or the boys’. Cole chose the color for their room. He wanted green. Initially he was indicating a “St.Patrick’s Day” green, so I chose a couple, and then let him choose from those. It’s quite interesting - like an army green. We’ll be putting pine wainscotting in their room on the bottom half or so. They are so rough on the walls. The majority of the finished basement has this pine wainscotting from floor to ceiling, so we thought we’d carry it through for a neat look to their room, and protect the walls at the same time. Again, the complicated part is the cutting.

Greg had a long weekend over Easter, which was made even longer by an unexpected Spring snowstorm. That lasted two days! It was fun. We were so excited to have five days off. We got the painting done, and also had time to relax, and NAP!

I’m cleaning out our room, getting it ready to paint, as well as getting the boys walls patched where I can. I bought some of the those clothes organizers that have six cubbies and hang from the closet rod. I’ve decided to make laundry easier and less complicated all around by limiting the boys wardrobes to one outfit per day, plus a couple of loungey type outfits, and something “dressy”. We are very casual at our church, so there’s not much dressiness to any of our wardrobes. That makes it a lot easier when storing clothes. Not worrying about wrinkling suits works for me!

We have a business in Fredericton called “Happy Harry’s”. They carry seconds in building supplies. I checked with them and they carry various sizes of closet doors, for half or less than half of the price than a place like Kent’s or Home Depot would price them. This makes me smile! We have NO doors on any closets in this house. Because it’s already small and lacking in storage, I find it just adds to the cluttered look.

In pregnancy news, I’m 34 & 1/2 wks today. I just had an appointment this morning, and whoa. I nearly cried when they weighed me. I’m not kidding. I’ve never really paid much attention to the scale in previous pregnancies. I’ve already gained 32 lbs., and I still have about six weeks to go. Which is another four or five pounds minimum. It never bothered me before, but this is the biggest weight gain I’ve ever had. I’m currently 22 lbs. heavier than at the end of my pregnancy with Cole, when I had quite a lot of water retention. I don’t this time. I do, however, have polyhydramnios, as the dr. confirmed today. At 34 & 1/2 wks, my fundal height is measuring 42 cm!!! That’s a measurement of nearly 8 weeks ahead! YIKES! At least now I KNOW I have a valid reason for finding bending over, and carrying loads of laundry, and standing at the sink having to lean way over to do dishes, so tiring and sometimes painful. Dr. Kerr was kind enough to *try* to reassure me that several of those pounds were indeed amniotic fluid. Thanks, Doc. Anyhow, I thought I was good for a couple weeks, when I have an appointment with my obgyn. But my GP wants to see me again next week. Then weekly visits with the obgyn. Time’s ticking away!

It seems like a long way off yet, til the middle to end of May, but I have a fairly extensive to-do list to cross off, so that should keep me occupied. Besides the painting and organizing, my top priorities this week are choosing and purchasing a new car seat, and also getting supplies for my hospital bag, including a coming-home outfit for Baby. Oh yeah, and CHOOSING A NAME!!! It sure would be nice to know if we’re having a boy or a girl.

Any suggestions?