Potpourri

As a kid, my favorite category on Jeopardy was always Potpourri.  It was the stick-all-the-random-questions-here category, the junk drawer of Jeopardy, and it was inevitably the hardest category because the questions could range from cookies to cowboys to chemistry.  It was fun.  It was random.  It was a general collection of useless information.  And for someone who generally collects useless information, it was always my favorite. 

Think of this blog post as the potpourri of the last few days.  We're gonna go through some random stuff...

1) Today I have been pregnant for six months.  I am not as huge as I thought I could be at this point.  But my pants are getting uncomfortable and my shirts need to be longer.  So not quite tiny, but not quite huge.  Pretty good, size wise. 
2) Baby R is a KICKER!!!  If my waistband is too tight: kickkickkick.  If I'm leaning forward for too long: kickkickkick.  If I roll over to a different position at night: kickkickkick.  If I balance ANYTHING on my tummy: KICKKICKKICK. And ESPECIALLY when I have a full bladder and am on the phone at work and there's no possible way I'm getting to the bathroom anytime soon, kickkickkickkickkickkickkickkick.  If I don't see soccer scholarships in about 18 years, there will be retribution, is all I'm sayin'.
3) I realized that, because the baby is growing, I needed to increase my calcium intake and should probably be getting more fruit and vegetables in my diet.  I didn't help that Kroger had strawberries on sale 2 packs for $4.  Bright fresh sweet summer fruit in the middle of gloomy rainy windy February/March?  Yes and please
4) Thanks to Goldberry's Seven Day Smoothie Challenge Blog Post Series, I started drinking smoothies with lunch at work.  I did this instead of at breakfast for two reasons: 1) I need my morning coffee and having two drinks for breakfast would just not work and 2) it keeps me fuller longer if I have a smoothie in the middle of the day. 
5) Strawberry Banana Smoothies are delicious.  If pink could have a flavor, it would be strawberrybanana.  Yum.
6) I now own a green tumbler from the WalMarts.  Isn't it pretty?

7) I also bought a small electric heating pad for my back because six-month-old Baby R is giving me back pain and sciatica.  The little dear.
8) Sciatica is NO FUN and I really am empathizing with all the people who have to suffer with it daily, rather than it being brought on and limited to the duration of a pregnancy.
9)  I ordered some fabric from Fabric.com and am super pleased with how quick and easy it was to order from them. And their prices are fabu!  So so so so much cheaper than Jo-Anns (even with coupons) and by combining orders for three different projects, I got free shipping.  Awesomesauce
10) Those projects are:

This Maxi Skirt

Some form of this A-Line Skirt

A cover for our entry way bench modeled after the above (just no bunnies)
11) I have no idea when I'm going to find time to do these projects, but hopefully long before the baby arrives because I really want to wear those skirts and they would be soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo comfy as maternity skirts.
12) J and I are going to plant blueberry bushes this weekend. 
13) We are also celebrating my Grandma Dot's 87th Birthday.

Isn't she the cutest grandma ever?
Happy Birthday Grandma!
And on that note, we shall end Potpourri. 

Closets and Organizing and Piles Oh My!

Tuesday, I took the day off for a super long 20 week check up.  The afternoon I spent tackling a project that had been messing me up for a while: the closets.  Our little house has one master closet, two bedroom closets, a linen closet, a hall closet, and a utility closet.  J took the closet in the office and reorganized it into bins of my crafting supplies and his paperwork.  The hall closet is being used for long-term food storage (ie: the Hurricane/Ice Storm/Zombie Apocalypse of DOOM is upon us food storage) and is packed to the gills.  The Master closet I cleaned out and organized back over Christmas Break when I was no longer feeling icky-sicky.  And the utility closet will be perfectly organized once my beloved husband moves his mountain of hand tools off the floor.  Which he promises to do.  Any day now.  ............................. any.......day........now...................
This leaves the Linen closet and the closet in the Nursery.
Now, the Nursery has been also the Guest room, the Staging room, the Dumping room, the Guests-are-arriving-in-5-minutes-just-put-it-there-! Room, and its closet completely reflects this sorry state of affairs.  There are boxes that I threw in there from when we moved in. Three years ago.  I know, sad, right? But I didn't have the wherewithal to tackle that closet just yet so I went after the linen closet.
8 pillows, 16 bath towels, 3 bath sheets, 6 hand towels, 10 washcloths, 3 queen sized sheet sets, 1 twin sized sheet set, 8 pillowcases, two duvet covers, 6 shams, 4 curtains, a bin of rags, 5 tubes of wrapping paper, one bag of throw pillows, and one sleeping bag later, we have this:

And I have a closet with room in it.  Yay!
It didn't take so much space as I thought and actually went a lot faster than I was expecting.  Really, the longest part was deciding which shelf to put towels on and which shelf the sheets should go on.  I think I even have room for my box of yarn at the bottom.
Which leads me to the Nursery closet.  This contained Pyrex baking ware, yarn, cloth, picture frames, leftover flooring, curtain rods, the empty boxes my vases and other breakable moved here in, old notebooks from high school and college, some smaller art supplies, and a fondue set.  I would like to know how all this accumulates in one closet.  Is there a random-things-in-closets fairy that runs around mucking up organized domesticity? Or is it my penchant for I'll-deal-with-it-later-itis that leads me to start projects and not finish them.  Speaking of, I did get all that stuff out of the Nursery closet, but finding a home for it all is proving a bit of a challenge.  I kinda lost the urge to find homes for what's left.  So here's the nice empty closet:

And here's what's left:

I think a lot can go in the attic or out in the storage shed.  And I do know what to do with my teacups. And that box of baby decor is going to go up once I 1) clean up this mess and 2) get the furniture moved in here.  So I guess I do know what to do with it all.  It's just getting myself to do it.  Maybe Saturday.
Until then, I will revel in my cleaned linen closet and dream of a tidy little nursery.