Hopeful Thoughts

The front of out first place!

It’s official! As of noon on Friday June 4th, 2010, we are HOMEOWNERS!!! We were hoping to be official a week earlier, but getting documents from a seller all the way in Hawaii caused us to push closing a week. No big deal, though. It just means our first payment won’t be due for another month!

Home ownership is pretty cool. We’ve already been living in the house since September, since we started out as renters, but now we can really start making this place our home. It’s got a few quirks, but we’ve also found some cool surprises. The furnace is about 50 years old, all three bathrooms will need updating, the apartment needs foundation work, none of the electrical is grounded, and the yard is a MESS, but we discovered that the front yard has a fully functional sprinkler system!

We’ve also discovered that my husband is pretty handy. The hall sink hasn’t worked properly since we moved in. There was a plumber out right after we moved in back in September who managed to get the leak to stop, but we’ve been living without any hot water since that time. The seller paid for us to have the valve replaced, but the faucet knob was so stripped that you still couldn’t turn the water on, so we weren’t much better off. Ryan decided that this was going to be his first big home improvement project. We went to Lowe’s, bought a new faucet and some tools, and two days later, our sink is fully functional!!!

The original faucet.

Ryan begins to take out the old faucet by removing the drain pipe.

Notice there is no water spilling out. He's doing great!

No more knobs! The faucet itself was a bit of an issue to get off. Ryan ended up sawing off the drain mechanism in order to get the final parts out. I guess it was too old and rusty to get out any other way. Good thing we planned to trash it from the beginning!

The naked sink.

Shiny new faucet that runs both hot and cold water! Complete with a working drain. All we had before was a hole! It's been almost a full day since it went in, and no problems to report. Way to go Ryan!

So one project down of many more to come. We’re going to hire someone to paint the outside of the house once we get our tax credit, but we plan to tackle many of the other projects on our own or with help from friends. On our “To Do” list: landscaping, interior painting and drywall repairs, new tile floors in both bathrooms, new counter in the master bath, new grout and caulk for the tubs in the master bath and the apartment bath, moving two interior door ways to create a true galley style kitchen with more counter space, a new roof, new locks on all the doors, … there’s more, but I can’t think of it all right now.

We are really excited to own this house and are grateful for God’s provision in being able to do so. We never would have found this place without Taylor and Allison who clued us in last spring that it was coming open to rent. We’re thankful to Charlie, our landlord, for letting us know he was going to sell it instead of just putting it on the market. We’re grateful to Ryan’s dad for helping with the downpayment. And were grateful to our incoming renters. God used each of these pieces to provide, and now our baby will be born into a house!!

I really need to stay on top of this! SO much has been happening in the last few weeks that I want to share, but it can’t all fit in one post! So, for today, we just have a shot of my new hair cut.

This will likely be my last visit with my favorite stylist at Salon La Page until after the little one make his grand arrival. So, when she suggested highlights, I decided it was now or never! The belly is 3 days shy of 31 weeks!

Yes, we DO still have a wreath hanging in June. I’m not taking it down until I have something else to hang there. That space looks horrible if it’s left blank.

The highlights are subtle; just enough to look like I've been out in the sun. Good thing, too, because I do NOT want to be out in the sun this summer!

We’re in the third trimester home stretch!

The last few weeks have seen lots of milestones in the pregnancy.

On May 11th, Ryan and I started out birthing classes through the Inanna Birth Center. We meet once a week for 6 weeks. So far we have covered various pain coping techniques as well as the different stages of labor. Tomorrow is movie night. Oh, yeah…you know what I’m talking about!!! Overall, this has been a great experience. It’s taught by the midwives from the birthing center, so it’s been a great chance to get to know them better before our big day.

On May 14th, while I was at my reunion, my dear college friends threw me a little shower for Grayson. This was his first shower so far. We met at a restaurant near campus for a casual celebration. Thanks so much to all my college girls for your time and thoughtful gifts!

So cute! I can't wait to see Grayson in this! Thanks Susan and Erin~

These will be fun in the tub when Grayson gets a little older.

This week we were able to have a sonogram to see how the baby is growing. He’s much bigger than the 16 week shots, weighing in at over 3 pounds! Our little guy is a wiggle worm, and he’s changing position on a regular basis. When the sonogram first started, there was some concern about the baby being breech. However, he rotated to being completely transverse within a matter of minutes, so he’s still got plenty of room and time to get into the right position!

I count 5 toes!!! His foot is up right by his head!

Such cute little feet!

Glad to see that he's using his time wisely!

I think that I am falling in love.

And if all goes well, our Roly Poly bundle will come home to a house all his very own. We are set to close on our house this Friday, provided all falls into place. We think we’ve overcome all the obstacles at this point, but the deal is not done until all the papers are signed.

Recently I was able to go back to North Carolina for my 10 year College Reunion. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I graduated from Meredith! The weekend was very much a trip back into times long forgotten. Looking at my girlfriends from 10 years ago, it was easy to think that no time had passed. We drifted into easy conversation just like old times. It was only the content that disclosed the fact that we are all years older. Most of us married, years into careers or even career changes, many with children, some of us with kids on the way. At the end, we decided that we are too old for the dorm beds and we’ll plan to stay in a hotel at the next reunion!

The girls from my Senior Suite back in 2000.

The girls from my Senior Year Suite now . No change, right?

Me and Meredith. We were room mates Sophomore and Junior years.

Leigh Anna and are are Preggo Twins. We got pregnant about the same time. She's having a girl, and I'm having a boy. Here we are both about 28 weeks.

Ever since we moved into our little rental house, we tossed around the question of “What if the landlord were to sell this place? We’d dream about whether or not we could afford it, and what we would change if the place were actually ours. We knew they were just dreams, but we talked about it a lot.

Well, back in January, while we were hanging out with our neighbors from the adjoining apartment, stuck inside due to a giant snow storm, the landlord called. Much to our surprise, he announced that he wanted to sell the house.

Seems great, huh? But we felt we were in NO position to buy. Since Ryan was laid off back in June and I quit my job, we’d only just gotten back to the point where our savings was building up instead of depleting. Where would we get a down payment from? Not to mention, how could we afford such a place?

After going around and around with a new series of “what ifs”, Ryan started to do some research. We contacted a mortgage broker just to see if we could even qualify for a loan. Turned out that, due to amazing credit, we did qualify for enough to buy a house. We decided to pursue the possibility. It turns out that our next door neighbors are realtors. We hooked up with them and went looking to see what else was on the market in our price range.

After looking at houses all weekend, it became more and more clear that the rental house would be a great deal. It costs a bit more than we’re comfortable paying on our own, but we’d ben getting the rent from the apartment, which makes it more affordable on a monthly basis than a lot of cheaper houses. In fact, since nearly half the mortgage would be paid by the rental unit, we would save nearly $100 a month compared to what we are renting for! Not to mention the location is great. We are close to the university, which means any improvements we make will only add to the value over time.

So, the decision was made, we just had to figure out what we were going to do about a down payment. Sometimes all you have to do is ask, and Ryan’s Dad came through for us. He has provided the entire down payment. Praise God!

At present, we are under contract for the house, just in time to qualify for the $8000 tax credit. Inspection happened over the weekend, and we’re in the process of final negotiations. We’re hoping to see several professionals in the next day or so to assess some of the problems found on the inspection. There wasn’t anything unusual, but we do want to make sure we can come up with the time and the resources to make some needed repairs.

Hopefully, if all goes well, we will be home owners by the end of the month. And we don’t even have to move!!!

1) Weight gain? I’ve gained 12 pounds since I started counting at week 5. My midwife wants me to stay as close to 20 as possible and not go over 25, but with 5 pounds gained in the last 3 weeks alone, I’m not quite sure I’ll make this goal. Thank goodness Ryan and I were both under 7 pounds at birth!

2) Cravings or aversions? I haven’t really had any experiences where I have to have one thing in particular or I’m going to go crazy. I was talking to my friend about rubber bands the other day and said “watermelon” instead. I have enjoyed watermelon recently, but may fruits have been favorites. Grapefruit was a desire in the first trimester. I like sweet tea from Chicken Express (it would be Bojangles if I was home!) Early this morning I dreamed about the Pancake Combo with New York Style Cheesecake pancakes at IHOP, but I ate a bowl of cereal instead!

Coffee hasn’t tasted right to me in months, although I did have quite a nice cup yesterday. I’ve drunk it off and on, but yesterday was the first time it tasted like I expected since I got pregnant.

This wasn’t due to a craving so much as the great 50% off after Easter sale, but here’s what I cam out of the drug store with on Tuesday!

There were some purple Peeps when I left the store, but they didn’t make it into the photo. Let it be known that I did NOT eat the whole box by myself. Diane helped!

3) Boy or Girl? Name? Most people already know that we are having a boy. I joke that I’ll believe it when I see it in August! However, we are indeed planning on a baby boy. Our current plan for a name is Grayson (or Greyson) Parker. We maintain that we reserve the right to change this at any time, but at the moment we are pretty set on this. The only point of discussion is whether to use the “a” or the “e”.

4) Is he kicking? YES! I started noticing it shortly after my 16 week appointment, but it was just the little flutters that are often confused with gas. It reminded me of the sensation you get when you run your tongue along the inside of your cheek. Around 20 weeks I started to notice patterns. He seems to be more active beginning around 5:00 PM and responds to food, especially sweet things. About 2 weeks ago he kicked hard enough that Ryan could feel it with his hand on my stomach. That sort of behavior wasn’t consistent until a couple of days ago. This morning he was squirming enough that I could actually see my stomach moving!!

5) Maternity Clothes? I’ve been in them since early February. I was only able to make it about two months with unbuttoned pants. Pretty much the only thing I wear from my regular wardrobe now are t-shirts and PJ pants.

6) Belly button? I still have one, but it’s getting more and more shallow by the week.

7) How am I feeling? I had what felt like motion sickness for the entire first trimester. It was really bad in the car. However, I only actually threw up 3 times during the first 13 weeks. I came pretty close a few weeks later after eating at a favorite chicken sandwich restaurant, but I think my body was not reacting well to peanut oil. A different location almost made me sick a week later, and it’s a place a eat at almost weekly with no problems. So, I’ll just avoid it until delivery.

I felt really good from week 14 or so until about 3 weeks ago. With the faster weight gain, I’ve had abdominal pain off and on as I stretch. It gets worse if I walk too fast. That seems to have subsided some this week, but I’ve moved on to back pain. This is especially bad if I have to sit for a long time, which I do twice a week.

8) What are you doing with the baby’s room? Nothing! Well, at least nothing any time soon. Grayson will stay in our room for a while since I’ll be nursing, and we’ll set up a crib in the second room if we need to. Really, we’re just not sure how long we are going to be in this house. It could be anywhere from 5 months when our lease run out to years if things work out just so. There’s just too many unknowns to move forward at the moment.

9) How are you sleeping? The more pillows I have, the better! I really only sleep badly if I have to be up early in the morning, and that’s simply because I’m not used to getting up early anymore. I think I worry too much that I will oversleep.

So, there you have it!

This is my car.

Almost exactly 9 years ago, I bought this 1996 Toyota Camry. It was my first big purchase as a “real” person after I started my first teaching job. I was so proud of it! Even at 5 years old, it was still gleaming white and ran like a dream. I was so proud to have a “new” car. It was the nicest car I had ever driven, and nicer than anything else my family had at the time. I was living in North Carolina back then, only about a mile from my parents house. I would pick them up for choir practice on Wednesday and church on Sunday just to enjoy driving my new car. I remember the sense of accomplishment I felt a few years later when I mailed the last check to the bank and received the title.

Now my baby is 14 years old and showing signs of it’s age. The paint is chipping, the front end is dinged, the dash lights don’t work, the brakes are bad, the CV joints creak, the timing belt is wearing down, there’s a crack in the wind shield … I could go on and on.

We’re at the point now where it’s going to cost us money to keep it. I finally broke down and took it in to the repair shop today because the brakes are so bad that it’s no longer safe for me to drive. (Not cool since I’m pregnant). It’s going to set us back almost $300 to fix them. That’s a car payment! While they had it in the shop, they ran into several other issues, all of which I was already aware. They told me that we could get them all fixed for around $1500!! Ouch! (Boy do I miss living 1 mile from my daddy!!)

At this point, the brakes are the safety issue, so that’s what we had fixed. The rest we are just going to have to live with for awhile longer until we decide what to do next. It’s just a struggle to know when it’s best to “fish or cut bait”. If we spent the money, the car would probably last us a few more years. If we have to spend $300 a month on a car anyway, we might as well have a new one. Neither choice is a bad one, but it’s a choice that we have to make for our family.

Have you ever been in this situation? I’d love to hear what influenced your decision.

With the successful completion of my sock project, I decided I was ready to take on something else knit. My sister recently decided she wanted to try wool soaker diaper covers with her 3 month old son, and it occurred to me that this might make a good next project. It’s a piece of clothing stitched in the round, but not nearly as daunting as a sweater might be. So, I went on a web search for a good free pattern. I sent a couple of links to my sister for approval, and we wound up choosing this one. You can see my finished product in this picture.

There were points where I worried I may have bitten off more than I could chew with this project. I’m fairly certain that the pattern writer did not have quite such a newbie in mind when she wrote her directions. Fortunately, their are sites like knittinghelp.com with great video tutorials. This got me through most of the difficult areas I ran into. I really only hit two snags that I couldn’t figure out how to get around. The first was in the area of short rows.

Short rows are created when you turn around mid-way through a row of knitting to create some extra height in the middle of a piece. In this case, it causes the back of the soaker to have a bit more room than the front, which is good for chunky baby bottoms! It’s a pretty easy technique if you are just knitting a flat piece or in the round, but it’s quite common to wind up with holes on one end of the short row. I found solutions to this problem for the common situations, but I was knitting in the round with ribbing. I have been searching Google for a solution, and all I’ve been able to find are other people complaining of the same problem. I’m hoping to work it out for future projects. Here is a photo of this part of the work. You can see two small holes just to the right of the middle line of the picture. They are not obvious unless you know to look for them, but I wish they weren’t there!

My other issue will be easily resolved the next time around. The short rows are supposed to be in the back of the diaper cover. For the majority of the pattern, there is no distinction between the front and back. The hip markers are evenly spaced around the piece. So, when the pattern said to create short rows from one hip marker to the next, I assumed that it meant to start at the first one and go to the second. This ended up putting them where the front was supposed to be, as the “start of round” should have been the back. This meant that when it came time to shape the leg openings, I had to snip the yarn and move to the other side, when I should have been able to keep working around from where I was. In the process, I didn’t get something pulled tightly enough, and I ended up with a pretty big hole smack in the middle of the back of the soaker. I didn’t get a picture of the hole, but the next picture shows the repaired spot. Next time I will start my short rows at the second marker and I think this will be avoided!

I’m sure some of you are wondering about wool diaper soakers. This is not a route Ryan and I intend to take with our baby, but I can see why many people would choose to use them. You can check out the benefits at Green Mountain Diapers.

I’ve just finished week 21 of my pregnancy, and I can’t really focus this post on all one thing. So, we’ll consider it a summary of the week!

Spring has sprung in Denton, TX and you can see the proof all over the ground and feel it in the air. The weather has been beautiful for most of the last couple of weeks. (We don’t need to mention the freak snow storm that blew threw last Sunday morning when Ryan and I were out of town at my mother-in-law’s house. That make the second snow we’ve missed this season.) On the pretty days, my neighbor, Allison, and I have enjoyed walks around our neighborhood with her dog. We didn’t have to venture any further than our front yard to see these beautiful Texas Blue Bonnets. I’ll never consider myself a Texan. I’m a Carolina girl forever, but I do love the Texas state flower.

When I haven’t been basking in the sunshine, I’ve been working to finish up some craft projects. This week saw the completion of the giant stack of baby wipes and my first real knitting project.

The wipes are simple squares of flannel that I cut and stitched around using the zig-zag function on my basic sewing machine. It should have been an easy project, but sewing machines and I do not get along well. It took me many days of sitting for just a bit at a time to get through my pile of squares. My machine constantly jams up. The thread pops out of the bobbin feeder, breaks off from above the needle, or a myriad of other issues that cause me to stop mid seam to set things back up correctly. I was SO READY to be finished.

Knitting is now one of my new favorite past times. I learned the basics several years ago and managed to make a scarf that I wore when my husband and I traveled to Russia back in 2005. I was happy to have that project done and decided I was pretty much done with knitting because it had been so difficult, and even painful. However, something was tugging at me recently to just try one more time to create socks. You may have noticed that I never posted a picture of the blue crochet socks from months ago. That’s because they didn’t shape up right and I finally pulled them out altogether. Well, today I can show you finished socks at last, but they are KNIT and not crochet! It turns out that I never really learned my basic stitches correctly, and this project allowed me to figure this out and now knitting is almost as easy as crochet. I’m looking forward to all the new types of projects this will allow me to do.

And finally, here’s the belly shot for the week. This was taken Friday, the end of week 21.

As most of my dearest friends already know, we are choosing cloth diapers for Baby Inselmann. It’s been amazing to me to hear all of the opinions that people seem to have about cloth. My goal here is to help people understand my reasons. Feel free to make your own opinions, but here are mine!

Reason #1) The Environment

Cloth diapers reduce the amount of waste that I will be adding to the landfills. I’m choosing organic cotton, so their production is even more friendly to the environment, and since they are cotton, they should degrade more easily when the few dozen diapers that I have do wind up too worn for use.

I’ve also taken the contamination of the water by detergent into account. By the time I begin cloth diapering, I will have switched to a natural detergent that is low in cost, safe for sensitive babies, AND BIODEGRADABLE. It’s even certified safe for SMALL bodies of water. Too cool! Check out Charlie’s Soap for yourself! It’s amazing! (A clean rinsing detergent is really important, as most detergents cause build up in fabrics over time, which can decrease absorbency of your diapers).

Reason #2) COST

My needs for cloth diapering will include the following (which I will be ordering from this site): 4 newborn covers at $11 each;1 dozen newborn size organic cotton pre-folds for $25;1 Dozen small covers and 3 dozen pre-folds, FREE from my awesome sister; 8-12 Bummis Medium covers at $12.25 each, $98-$147; 3 dozen Medium size organic cotton pre-folds at $35 per dozen, $105; and flannel cloth wipes that I made, cost is for materials, about $8. The newborn size diapers will also serve as doublers to increase absorbency for night time use, so that will be one less thing to buy. The cost per load to run my washer and dryer is about $0.75, plus a bit for detergent, so we’ll say $0.90 per load. This means I’ll spend about $94 on the extra two loads of laundry I’ll do each week for a full year. That gives a total cost for diapering of about $423 for a whole year. Assuming I diaper for the second year, too, I’m only adding the cost of another year of laundry, so we’re talking just over $500 for two full years of diapering. If we have another kid, we only add the cost of the laundry since the diapers can be used again and again.

Disposable diapers seem to sell for about $0.40 each, depending on the size. I did an average cost of the smallest and largest per diaper cost to get this number. I got my information from a bulk package that was on sale at diapers.com, just to be fair to those who shop cheap. Estimating a use of about 8 diapers a day, this would cost $1168 per year. Not to mention what will be paid for the wipes, which run about $0.03 each. Using 1-3 per diaper change would work out to about 16 per day, adding another $175 to your diapering total for the year. We’re at $1343 by now. Over the course of two years, we’ve spent close to $2700 on diapers!

Looks to me like I’m saving over $2000 by choosing to cloth diaper my one kiddo! If we have a second, it’s even more! What could I do with $2000????

Reason #3) Better for Baby

There are always exceptions to this sort of reason. I know plenty of kids who’ve worn disposable diapers and haven’t had any diaper rash problems. However, overall, babies in cloth diapers experience less skin irritation than those in disposables. In addition, many sources show that kids in cloth tend to potty train sooner than those in disposables.

Reason #4) They are EASY to use

Cloth diapers have come a long way since my mom used them on me. You can still use pins and plastic pants if you like, but I’m not! I will have an extra step when compared with disposables in actually putting on the diapers, but it’s really not that big of a deal to lay a cotton pre-fold into a cover before closing up the diaper. We’re getting covers with hook and loop tabs, so they will be just as easy as disposables to put on.

As for washing, that’s easy, too! Since I’m choosing to nurse, we’ll be able to throw all of our diapers right into the pail without any rinsing. Nursing poop washes out just like yogurt! We’ll be lining our pail with a waterproof, washable PUL bag. On washing day, I’ll simply turn the bag inside out into the washer, leave it in the washer, too, and I never have to touch the dirty diapers. I’ll run a cold pre-rinse, a hot wash, and an extra rinse at the end, then toss them all in the dryer. You really don’t have to fold them, either.

Once Baby starts on solids, we will have to swish the solid waste out in the toilet. Provided you do this ASAP after taking the diaper off the munchkin and BEFORE tossing it in the pail, this is really not a big deal. It’s waiting that causes the big stink! Personally, It’s worth it to me to swish poop if I get to keep my $2000!!

I hope that this blog has been helpful. I’m excited about our decision and can’t wait for the little guy to get here!