Shop Update

I'm taking a timeout from other posts for a little shameless self promotion.  I've been working on getting some items into the Etsy shop that I have left over from show last weekend.  I've gotten several items in there and more are on their way, but here's a peek at what's available:

Baby Blocks w/Tote:

Burp Cloth Sets (2 per set):

And several dresses made by my mom:

If you get a chance, check it out!  http://www.etsy.com/shop/thebluebaycottage

Happy Rainy, Stormy Monday.

~Stacy

What Progress Looks Like

The landscaping project is coming along a little bit ahead of schedule, despite being out of commission for a few days due to a nasty cold and some other work projects.  Thanks to some nice weather and an even nicer Dad who went to the lawn supply store and picked up 13 bags of mulch and drove them to my house for me, I have accomplished more than I expected at this point.  As of this evening, everything is weeded and ready for mulch and one area is completely done.  After using 5 bags of mulch on just one relatively small area, I can tell that I grossly underestimated how much I would need.  Dad, if you're reading this, we may need to talk about an extra shipment.  Aside from that, I haven't really run into any problems.  Even the weed extravaganza that is growing next to the garage hasn't been the horrible project I thought it would be.  Weather and time permitting, I'm hoping that all of the mulching and garden bed outlining/cleaning up will be done by the end of next week.  After that is the fun part--planting flowers in pots and baskets and adding color.  I refuse to buy any flowers until the rest of the work is done; that will be my reward for finishing everything else. 

Today was busy.  This was my setup while I finished weeding the backyard flower bed:

This lasted all of about 15 or 20 minutes, until she decided that being in Pack 'N Play jail was torture.  She would have much rather played on a blanket in the grass, but I didn't want to worry about her rolling away (that's her preferred method of transportation: rolling.  And she's fast.)  Thankfully naptime came soon after so I could finish this section:

This is the area that took 5 bags of mulch, somehow.  I also trimmed everything like crazy, dug up an old tree stump that was in the middle, and tore out 3 other bushes that no longer fit and/or were not healthy.  I plan to put a big flower pot with bright white and red flowers in the middle of this to finish it completely.

Also done today:  more tearing out of weeds, ugly/dying/ill fitting bushes along the side of the house, clearing out the flower bed in the back of the house, trimming bushes, and cutting down and clearing out those mini maple tree/weeds along the side of garage.  Phew.

Thankfully the ice cream stand at the beach opened just in time.  I think I earned this today:

Mitchell's Ice Cream, how I love you so.  And it seems like I'm not the only one--a certain little girl sampled some today.  Here she is waiting for Daddy to give her a taste:

YUM.

"More?"

 After ice cream we went for a drive, but not all of us could stay awake that long.

 I hear you, girlfriend. 

 

All of my yard tools and lawn bags are still outside.  It's not supposed to rain, so they're staying there until tomorrow; I'm beat.  Time to lay on the couch and watch Waiting for Guffman.  If you're not familiar with it or other Christopher Guest movies, you should look into it--Best in Show is a good starting point, and my personal favorite :)

Good night.

~Stacy

11 Months

Charlotte is 11 months old today!  We started the day by trying to take her picture on her white blanket, like we do every month.  These usually are fun and I can distract her long enough to lay on her blanket and smile for the camera.  Today, however, was a different story.  Maybe it's because she had far more interesting things to do, maybe it's because she had just woken up, maybe it's because I have a cold/sinus thing happening that was making my head feel like it was trapped in a vise, but the photo shoot did not go well.  I'm making her a book for her 1st birthday using Shutterfly that captures all the highlights of her first year.  Shutterfly is having a 50% off sale on photo books that, naturally, ends today.  I wanted to order it now so I could A) get the sale price and B) have it in time for her actual birthday.  I ordered it with a few blank pages at the end that I'll fill in with some more May photos, but I wanted to at least get in her 11 month photos before placing the order.  Had it not been for this, I would have postponed the picture taking until later in the week.  I ended up with a lot of photos, but about 99% of them were like this:

Charlotte pulling the blanket into bunches:

Charlotte trying to get into stuff under her bed:

This sort of decent photo, except she looks kind of grumpy and the sun was shining in the window and made the lighting look weird:

Charlotte pointing at the toys she wanted to be playing with instead of posing for pictures:

And, finally, Charlotte blowing raspberries at the camera to let it (and me) know exactly what she thought of this photo session:

Thankfully Howard stepped in to help out.  Phew, I don't know what I would have done without him.

 Hi Mom.  I understand this isn't going well.  Here, I'll pose.  Do you like this pose?

Here's a profile view.  How's that?

Excuse me, Charlotte?

She just needs one picture.  All you have to do is lie down on this blanket, see?

 Just like this.

He gets points for trying, but this was about as good as it got.

I'm excited that it's May!  This month really signifies the start of summer to me.  I wasn't able to fully enjoy last May, because by the time it rolled around I was 17 months pregnant and had feet that looked like small loaves of bread (or so it seemed).  I'm looking forward to a summer of feeling good and having my little Junebug by my side :)

All 11 months of her.

If you get a chance, please check out my Etsy shop--it's been updated with a few items leftover from the Avant-Garde show.  I'll be photographing more items later this week and adding them to the shop, so keep checking back!

~Stacy

Weekend Update

I know you are all on the edge of your seats wondering about Gilbert the groundhog (for those of you scratching your heads and wondering what I'm talking about, I talked all about him here).  The last Gilbert sighting was about a week ago when I saw him, once again, chilling out in the long jump sand pit at the high school.  When he ran off, it was in the direction opposite my house.  I obsessively check all of his entrances every day and haven't seen so much as a single moth ball out of place.  Side note: there is at least one moth ball missing, and I know exactly where it went:  Howard's belly.  And, subsequently, my living room floor.  Lovely, and I think it's safe to say he learned his lesson.  I'm still applying the rodent repellent stuff every few days, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life or until I am convinced that Gilbert is gone for good.  I'm done with moth balls though--the smell is just too much.

Not all my time this week has been spent on Gilbert control, thankfully.  I've made more progress on the landscaping and now have 75% of my garden beds ready for mulch.  I still need to buy the mulch (details, details...) and plan to do so next week.  It's nice to finally notice some progress, albeit very little.  It gets discouraging to work for hours and have sore muscles but have very little to show for it besides a million tissues and an empty box of Claritin.  Is it just me, or is the pollen out of control this year??

I haven't taken any more landscaping progress pics (don't plan to until the mulch is in), but this little tree just started flowering and I thought it was so pretty:

Not sure what it is, and I don't remember it being there last year (at least not with those beautiful flowers on it).  Chad brought home this little beauty a few days ago.  I send that boy to Trader Joe's for sandwiches and he always comes home with something extra.  I'm not complaining :)

So far I've been able to keep it alive with very little effort so I'm quite proud.  I'm hoping to plant it in a outdoor pot in a few weeks, but that might be pushing it.  If I can keep from accidentally murdering it, I will be very happy (and so, I imagine, will the flower).

The cherry quilt is 100% finished and packed up to be taken to the Avant-Garde show on Sunday.  I can't believe it's here already!  If you can make it, please come: Wagner's Country Inn at 30855 Center Ridge Rd. in Westlake, 44145 from 10-5 on Sunday, 4/29.  Admission is free :)  I hope to see you there!  My table is in the South Ballroom.

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Stacy

Just for Today

Time flies.  Enjoy every second.  It goes by so fast.  Blink and you missed it.  Before you know it...

We've all heard and said all of the above.  I've heard some variation almost every day since getting pregnant up until now.  I have complicated feelings about these statements, and have noticed that oftentimes when I hear them I get a little annoyed.  And lately I've noticed that I'm getting a lot annoyed and needed to figure out why.

I've been thinking a lot about time lately.  My baby girl is turning one in less than two months and in the same week that she does, I'll be marking the 10th anniversary of graduating high school.  Chad and I have been together for 11 years and married almost 7 (we married young!).  I've been finished with college for 6 years and have lived in this house for almost as long.  How is this possible?  I feel like just yesterday I was standing in the lobby of Berea High School in my navy blue cap and gown, lining up to make the walk across the street to the college rec center to graduate.  I can still remember a conversation I was having with a boy in my class.  He had joked about whether we'd see each other again after that day and said "well I'll at least see you at our 10th reunion."  At the time, I quickly did the math in my head and realized we'd be 28 years old.  It sounded both exciting and ancient.  When you're 18, anyone over the age of 21 seems much older than you. 

It feels like I blinked, and now here I am at that magical, mythical age of 28, just a stone's throw from my 10th reunion.  Some of you may be reading this and laughing to yourselves, thinking that I'm still so young.  Others may be reading and shuddering at the thought of being almost 30.  It's not about feeling young or old, it's the realization that time really does march on, and quickly, and that no one is immune.  Each passing year seems like it goes faster than the last and gone are the days where 5 (or even 10) years feels like an eternity.  When you're a kid, you want time to speed up so you can go to high school, drive, go to college, move out, whatever.  Then all of a sudden that shifts and you want time to slow down a little, you want to linger at your current age or life stage a bit longer.  We all hear this when we're teenagers, but we don't believe it until it happens to us. 

Just yesterday I was swinging my little cousin by the feet and swishing his head across the floor after he begged to "play mop!"  Now that sweet little boy with the cherub cheeks and adorable ears is a few weeks away from finishing boot camp and starting college.  Wasn't it just last week I went to listen to my high school boyfriend play his guitar in a coffee shop?  He wrote a song for me and it was so sweet; it made me blush.  Now that boy is upstairs, playing that same song for our little girl.  He's still just as cute, and he still makes me blush.

I'm much more aware of how quickly time passes now that I have a child.  I get it--time truly does fly.  She changes, sometimes literally, overnight.  I look at pictures that were taken just 10 short months ago and I see a tiny newborn that barely resembles the bouncing baby I have now.  When I was pregnant, well wishers would tell me to enjoy that time because it goes by so quickly and before you know it the baby's there and life gets hard.  Just recently a friend announced her pregnancy on Facebook.  There were dozens of congratulatory messages but I kept noticing a bunch that were to the tune of "Enjoy every second, before you know it they'll be going to college! Oh, congrats!!".  These rubbed me the wrong way when people said them to me but at the time I just brushed it off.  I have strangers routinely say things like "before you know it she'll be running around!" to "Pretty soon you'll be sending her off to kindergarten!" and even "start saving now for her wedding!".  I've finally figured out why comments like these irk me so much:  by telling me how fast time goes, it makes it harder to actually appreciate the moment.

Everyone means well, and we have most likely all said things like this at some point or another.  People are trying to make conversation and remind me to stop and enjoy the little things.  I get that.  But to frame a childhood in terms of events that tick by at the speed of light makes it a challenge to live for those little moments that fill in all the gaps in between those milestones.  I know that in 5 years I will be sending Charlotte off to kindergarten and I will cry.  In 13 years she will start high school and in 17 she will graduate.  Months later I will probably drop her off at college.  And I will cry.  But right now, she's not quite a year old.  I know that in just a year's time she will be running around, talking up a storm, and doing a million more new things.  One year isn't a long time, nor is 5, 10, or 15 for that matter.  I know this.  I want to enjoy today, and maybe think about next week. 

I am guilty of spending too much time thinking and living in the future.  "Live for the moment" is much easier said than done.  I am trying really, really hard to do it as much as I can though.  There was a period of time, not so long ago, where I had started to believe I couldn't have a child.  Anyone who has ever dealt with infertility and/or miscarriage (in my case, I've tasted both) understands that feeling of desperation and watching a vision of your life that you thought you'd have start to fade away.  My situation was difficult, certainly not as difficult as many, seeing as my story has a happy ending.  My health was fine (unexplained infertility, possibly the most frustrating "diagnosis" ever.  Also one everyone around you will happily diagnose as "just stress!" when you finally do get pregnant).  My point in revealing all this is that when you believe that having the family you dreamed about is not going to happen, it's like walking around alive and being expected to function as though you're fine when a very significant part of you is dying inside.  Except no one can see it, and no one talks about it.  In my situation, since my dream finally came true, I want to savor it because sometimes I still don't believe it.  It's not that I'm in denial about time marching on and Charlotte growing up--I'm not.  I get that, and it is exciting to think about.  It's that I want to enjoy this stage, right now, along with all the ones that follow, because it's amazing.  To do this reminds me that it actually happened, I actually do have a child of my own, and every moment counts.

There will be a day, in the not so distant future, when my little girl is wearing a brand new backpack and running away from me with her lunchbox in hand.  I promise you I will be nothing short of a hot mess when this day comes.  As for right now, I will enjoy the time I get to spend with her while she lays in my arms drinking her bottle while she twirls my hair in her fingers.  I will enjoy saying "good girl!" enthusiastically when she drinks from a sippy cup by herself or stands alone for a few seconds.  I will ask her 100 times a day to pat her belly, hug her baby, and "what does the doggy say?" just to hear her little baby voice reply "ooof oof!".  I will enjoy the fact that I can strap her in a stroller and we can walk for hours, just looking at stuff, because the world as it is is just so fascinating.  I will also enjoy that she will stay put in said stroller, and will not try to run off because, for right now, she can't :)

I hope you all are able to stop, take a breath, and enjoy, even if just for a moment.  It really does fly.

~Stacy

*I recently learned that this week is National Infertility Awareness Week.  While I wanted to write this post anyway, I decided to share the more personal aspects of my story in honor of NIAW.

What's Old(ish) is New

This post has been a long time in the making, literally.  For my second Christmas, my grandparents gave me a child's sized wooden rocking chair.  While I don't remember getting it, I do remember using it years later in my room.  I loaded it up with my dolls and stuffed animals and can remember rocking them in it.  When I outgrew it, my dad put it in the attic along with a few other special toys and items from my and brother's childhood.  I had forgotten it was up there, until just about a year ago at my baby shower when it appeared, spiffed up and re-covered to match Charlotte's bedroom.  My mom had gotten it down and recovered it with fabric that we had used for the crib bumpers (which were on the crib for about a month, until the baby was born and I learned crib bumpers are kind of a no-no...oh well, they were cute while they lasted).  The chair sits in the corner of Charlotte's room and last month we brought it out and let her sit in it for the first time.  She thought she was pretty cool sitting in such a sweet chair, rocking it back and forth all by herself.  It's still a little big for her, but I think it's so special to have something that was once mine now become hers. 

Here is the chair's debut on Christmas of 1985.  This is me and my grandpa, who passed away in 2001.  I wish he were here to see the little lady sitting in that chair now.

Christmas 1985, Stacy & Grandpa

Christmas 1985

 It is worth noting that there is not just one, but actually three different dolls in these pictures (not to mention the cradle, bike, and other various items).  At the time there were four grandchildren and I was both the youngest (by 4 years) and the only girl.  My grandpa took note of this and gifted accordingly, haha.  He loved to surprise us and one of his favorite things was Christmas and shopping for toys.  I think he enjoyed picking things out as much as we enjoyed opening them up. 

Here's the chair last April:

And now:

 I think it looks even better now than it did 26 years ago, and not just because of the cute little jelly bean sitting in it :)

~Stacy

Busy Week

This week has been busy with a little bit of everything.  I know I said I was done making things for the Avant-Garde show, but I changed my mind.  I had all the materials to make more fabric bead necklaces so I went a little crazy and made a bunch yesterday:

Some are duplicates so I'm listing those ones in my Etsy shop; they should be available sometime later this evening. 

When I wasn't obsessively sewing necklaces during Charlotte's naps, I was working as much as I could on the landscaping project.  So far I've succeeded in getting about half of the weeding done.  It's not much, but it's a good start.

The majority of my time spent outside should have been to make more progress on the landscaping/gardening but instead it was devoted to Gilbert control.  Let me back up a bit.  We have a groundhog living under our front porch who has dug an extensive tunnel and generally made a mess of things.  Chad named him Gilbert, despite my urging not to name him because then he'll get attached and feel badly if something bad happens to it.  Gilbert is actually really cute, but he's also enormous in both size and in how much of a nuisance he is.  I'm not kidding when I say he's bigger than Howard (I was worried "he" was pregnant but it's been months and months and no babies, and Gilbert's the same size: huge).  I got advice on how to get groundhogs to vacate and tried that--soaking rags in ammonia and laying them near his entrances and placing moth balls around the areas he frequents.  I falsely believed he was gone when I hadn't seen him for a few days and noticed him running under someone else's porch several doors down.  Then, earlier in the week, I was pulling into the driveway and he came bolting across and dashed underneath the porch.  That groundhog can really move, considering the weight he has to haul.  On Tuesday I had another Gilbert sighting at his second favorite spot--the high school track & football field.  I've caught him out there in the past, sunning himself on the high jump mat.  On Tuesday he was hanging out in the long-jump sand pit, leaning over the side and snacking on grass.  I tried to get his picture, but as soon as he heard me he ran off.  Howard, who typically hates just about everything, has zero interest in Gilbert.  He's seen him, but he turns the other way, as if he and Gilbert have some sort of agreement not to get into the others business. 

I contacted Orkin--they said they would take care of him, but that means setting a trap and then euthanizing.  Our city no longer has an Animal Control department, so no help there.  I'd like him to just move away peacefully, so I'm giving him one more chance to do so before getting Orkin involved.  I could buy my own trap and catch him, but I have no idea what to do with a freaked out rodent the size of a small cow thrashing around in a cage.  I went to the store and picked up these rodent repellent pellets and an economy size box of moth bolls.  I applied the entire contents of both to every possible place he could get into, and then I stuffed bricks down the tunnel opening.  In the match between me and Gilbert, I will win.  Gilbert, you've been warned.

One thing I didn't consider when placing approximately 4,000 moth balls around the foundation of my house: the smell.  That evening the heat came on and we almost fell over from the scent of moth balls.  If you walked in my house you'd expect to find residents who were at least 103 years old with  50 year old shag carpeting at at least two dozen cats.  It's bad.  It's faded a lot by now, but I'm still worried that I'm just used to it and it actually still smells just as awful.  On the plus side, no sign of Gilbert anywhere since Tuesday evening.  I am cautiously optimistic.

I have to include this video...granted, it's a beaver and not a groundhog, but I found it fitting.  This video made me laugh until I cried the first time I saw it (ok, the first dozen times).  

Ok, enough about my unwelcome houseguest.  While I was gardening I found these flowers along the side of my house.  We've lived here 6 years and this is the first I've seen them:

Any idea what these are?  They kind of look like hydrangeas, but it seems too early for those and the shape is a little different.  There's a big bunch of them and they are so pretty.  I hope they keep coming back!

Aside from sewing and yardwork, I've started to plan and get things together for Charlotte's 1st birthday party.  I found these invitations:

I thought they were cute, and I love the banner and cupcakes on the front (both of which I'm planning on making for her party).  I can't believe she's turning one in 6 weeks...

See that little doll next to her?  That's Stella, her new favorite toy.  If you tell her to give her baby a kiss, she stuffs the doll's closest body part into her mouth and then wraps her chubby little arms around and squeezes it as tight as she can.  It's incredibly cute, but we'll need to tweak her system a little before she practices on real humans :)  Also new this week is the "where's your belly?" game, where you ask and she'll drop whatever she's doing to enthusiastically pat her belly with both hands.  She's also taken an intense interest in a collage frame we have in the hallway upstairs.  Every time we pass it we have to smile, wave, and she asks who everyone is by pointing and saying "oos ssat?".  Every time.  At night, even if she's exhausted and crabby, she will pause long enough to lean over to the picture and wave goodbye as we pass.  Love her.

If you're interested in bead necklaces, check the Etsy shop later tonight or tomorrow!  Also, if you can please come to the Avant-Garde Art & Craft show next Sunday, 4/29, at Wagner's in Westlake from 10-5.  Admission is free, and you'll get to see my lovely face along with 135 other vendors.  It'll be a good time.

Have a great weekend,
Stacy